Artist-Designed Toys Become Playful Advocates for Anti-Bullying

-Courtesy Photo

Perfect Reject creator Nina Salerno Presents Workshop at Pasadena Library to Heighten Awareness

Lovingly made from recycled toys, artist Nina Salerno’s Perfect Reject® line of uniquely sculptural plush animals has found success in museums like MOCA as well as in collectors’ homes. A new campaign has begun at Pasadena Library Hasting Branch with a display of soft sculptures to raise awareness of anti-bullying while engaging the audience in a dialogue of embracing our difference. A workshop for children through role play and drawing will address these issues. Perfect Reject® will make it easy and fun to educate children and adults on this topical and important cause. The campaign goes to the end of June.

The Perfect Reject® message of acceptance and empathy makes Nina’s retail project a natural fit with promoting causes that strive to educate and promote empathy. For its inaugural efforts, donations collected from the sale of Wonder will benefit W.O.L.F.’s efforts to educate a wide audience about wolves as well as provide a home for wolf dogs that might otherwise be destroyed. Success with Wonder will lead to other delightful characters, each designed to spread awareness about specific social issues and causes.

Perfect Reject was invented by artist Nina Salerno when she rescued an abandoned toy and recreated it to reveal a surprisingly poignant vulnerability. From that unexpected insight came the understanding that what we think of as imperfection can actually be a source of strength and joy. This vision, which aligns with Nina’s artistic study of impermanence, has propelled her efforts to create unique sculptural pieces that blur the distinction between art and toy. Since launching Perfect Reject®, she has gained recognition through sales to private collectors as well as outlets such as the MOCA Store, l.a. Eyeworks, and Fallen Fruit. www.perfectreject.com.

More from Arts