Dollhouses are the ultimate pint-size pandemic hobby Bookmark Please log in to listen to this story. Also available in French and Mandarin. Log In Create Free Account
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Allison + Cam /The Globe and Mail
When Maria Fowler purchased the Little Dollhouse Company more than 20 years ago, she thought she was getting into a niche business popular with children and hobbyists. She had no idea she would soon have a clientele that includes a rock star, two Oscar-winners and a diminutive sex therapist.
“I honestly never know who will walk through the door,” Fowler says, whose whimsical store in Toronto is filled to the brim with every tiny stick of furniture and itty-bitty accessory a person could want to create the dollhouse of their dreams. “Dr. Ruth [Westheimer] came in one day. She’s an avid collector and, basically, a miniature herself.”
In a year of working through the pandemic, Dr. Hetvi Joshi, whose work is focused on caring for people in hospitals, said she has witnessed the immense agony, anxiety and pain experienced by patients. “The suffering we have seen with COVID-19 is [a] thousand times worse than any other illness, ever in my lifetime,” said Joshi, who lives
in Tennessee.
To cope, Joshi painted hundreds of canvases in the past year, an important way to stay sane through the challenging times. “I don’t think I would have been able to carry on working without the escape to art,” she said.
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