How many Barbies can.....

from Infiknit

.....dance on the head of a pin or dress a shop window.  This article in the Toronto Star fascinated me - it's about the "Abandoned Barbie Project" an undertaking by Dr. Sheldon Wagner, a 67 year-old psychotherapist who owns a store - gallery - at 100 Ossington Ave in TO.  The gallery is never or rarely open; but it is filled with Barbie dolls that have been rescued and re-dressed or not as the case may be and posed in "artistic" settings worthy of the likes of Andy Warhol!

Over the years Wagner has rescued abandoned Barbies from garage sales, flea markets, trash bins etc and housed them in his shop/gallery and then turned, what he could, into art vignettes. I have somehow bonded with this artist/doctor.  Most would consider him "a little weird", but I understand his need to preserve childhood and to turn the power of "play" into an art form.

I have knit dolls clothes - too many, too often and I have a store of the most exquisite knitted dolls' clothes patterns - many in period costume, which I have re-sized for Barbie. I am waiting for someone to share my passion - most look at me, as though I too am a little weird. Except Penny, who buys my dolls' clothes patterns and, I presume, knits them.


I understand from the article that Dr Wagner's gallery will be open on Sundays in the new year. I feel an "outing" in the making - Penny are you available one Sunday....? Now apparently we will have to make our way through stacks of other toys and un-positioned Barbies to view the whole collection - but it will be something unforgettable, I'm sure.

Dinner?  Well, what would Barbie eat? Hamburgers? Now, I haven't had a hamburger since the first snowflake fell and really we are heading into Spring - I usually bypass winter - but I am going to acknowledge it for one day to go skating at the Brickworks - So lets do hamburgers. This is billed as the definitive source for hamburgers - I love authorities - so enjoy!