Doll Hospital
By Roger Mamer
9 Feb 2008
The other day my wife was talking about some of her old dolls that needed repair. Some with missing or broken limbs, others had faded colors on their faces. She looked up in the good old yellow pages and found that there were a number of local places that did just that.
She called one in Petaluma, CA., called the Doll Mercantile for an appointment. When it came time for the appointment, I decided to tag along, with my always present camera. I half expected to find bins of limbs and heads, etc. But what I found was a huge selection of vintage dolls, some creepier than a bin full of doll heads would have been.
The "Back" room was brightly lit, but jam packed with stuff, and accept for the huge rack of doll clothing, you would not have figured it was a doll repair facility. But it is just like a regular hospital, they actually have specialists on staff for things like broken limbs (Orthopedics), repainting (Dermatology), fabricating limbs (Prosthetics), just to name a few.
So while my wife was busy, talking to the "doctor" about here little patients, I wandered off to take some pictures. I went back 3 times before I felt that I had the right shots.
I tried to get shots that were not creepy, but I found that on some level someone viewing the images almost always said "creepy" or "spooky". One of the last shots I took was of a teddy bear hugging a small doll. I thought great I definitely got a shot that wasn't creepy. Then my wife looked over my shoulder and said "That's not right that poor doll is going to get eaten by the bear after it squeeze it to death". And she says I have a wild imagination.
