Whimsical children’s toys become life’s work for a Sausalito artist

Make no mistake about it. That clock has been laser-cut for precision and the whole thing constructed over an 18-month period, using the expertise its creator gained as an engineering-physics major at Brandeis University.

What seems like child's play to others is Tobin's life work.

He began carving wooden toys as a kid and graduated to heading up his own company after serving an apprenticeship with another toy firm. Tobin Toys, which specialized in innovative kinetic playthings, has had its products exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Sony Metreon. Not to mention on an episode of "Friends."

The artistic interest in his creations gave rise to Tobin's present career path. After selling his company in 1999, thereby gaining the means to do without a 9-to-5 job, the 32-year-old Marin resident began making art full time. He will debut at the Sausalito Art Fair during Labor Day weekend, Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.

"This is a dream for me," said Tobin from his Sausalito studio. "I've spent the last 2-1/2 years doing nothing but developing these pieces. I just hope it works out."

The toymaker-turned-artist is the son of Gary Tobin, director of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, an independent nonprofit think tank devoted to the study of contemporary American Jewish life. The elder Tobin is well-known in the Bay Area Jewish community and beyond.

"I don't think his choice of career affected me as much as how he is as a person," said the son. "In a sense, he created a niche for himself. He pursues something he believes in passionately and some of that has rubbed off on me."

The younger Tobin said he had a strong sense of Jewish identity growing up, but his religious interest and practice has waxed and waned over the years. The Jewish religion has become a large part of his father's life, he said. For himself, however, "it is present but not necessarily in the forefront of my day-to-day life."

There is no Jewish content in his work -- whimsical mechanical creations that function both as machines and art. "Except that being Jewish is a part of me and I am a part of my work," he offered.

In addition to that clock, which Tobin describes as the centerpiece of his display, his work includes a 4-foot tower made of exotic woods which transports marbles up and down by means of a tiny elevator and an ingenious open box-tower that moves marbles down a ramp.

"These things are highly engineered," he explained, "but they're also fun. People are fascinated by motion. These objects are almost anthropomorphic; things that dance and twirl and spin."

No, Adam Tobin hasn't lost his marbles. He's just moving them around.