Any visitor this weekend to the Hirabayashi coffee shop opposite Yokosuka's Shioiri Station in Kanagawa Prefecture might be excused for thinking they had wandered onto another planet. They would be right. Until Monday, it is Clara Birnbaum's world: her World of the Gorgles.
Gorgles are soft stuffed creatures created from Clara's vivid imagination. "For as long as I can remember, I've loved making things. I taught myself to bind books and decorate them. Design and make clothes. Make this and that."
One day she sewed a small stuffed animal that resembled a mouse. "It was probably a gift for a friend. I can't remember now." Intrigued, she tried to make other animals. What emerged, however, were animals and vegetable blends with what she calls "unreasonable appendages and body parts -- prehysterical beasts."