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Jonelyn Barr, or Joni (pronounced “Johnny”), is one of our more specialized repair coaches—she is a doll repairer. Joni got involved with the repair cafe movement only last year when she saw an ad for the newly established Saugerties Repair Cafe. She reached out to organizer Linda Armour to see if the cafe could use her skills. The answer was a resounding yes!
For those, like me, who aren’t 100% clear on what a doll repairer does, she kindly explained. Joni works on dolls made before and up to 1960. The only modern dolls she works on, due to how they’re made, are American Girl dolls. Because of the time constraints of a cafe, she is only able to do doll restringing on site, which means replacing the strings inside a floppy-limbed doll or one with very loose or even unattached limbs which had originally been connected by an internal string system. And as dramatic as that sounds, it doesn’t take that long to do. Her perspective on restoring these types of dolls, which can have a lot of sentimental value for their owners, fits beautifully with the repair cafe ethos. “Every doll is worth restringing. It only takes me a few minutes to re-string a doll with removable clothes.” She cautions it may take somewhat longer to restring one that has sewn-on clothing, as that makes it a bit more complicated. And the reason she can’t fix modern dolls other than the American Girl brand is that other modern dolls aren’t strung. Instead, they tend to have "flanged" joints which means they’re put together with a "friction fit" system rather than with string.
Joni has a long history of restoring and collecting vintage items. Before retirement, she bought and sold antiques as well as managed the High Falls Flea Market and she also has restored very old homes with her life partner. Before that, she worked for many years for New York State as a habilitation specialist, which is someone who helps teach children and adults with disabilities the skills they need to live independently.
Now she owns and runs Celestial Dolls, a doll hospital, doll gallery and gift shop located on Partition Street in Saugerties. Her shop, which is only open by appointment, specializes in restoring 1930s composition dolls and 1950s hard plastic dolls. Joni also sells dolls she’s restored and performs restringing as well as doll cleaning and more thorough vintage doll restoration. However, she warns that she can’t repair porcelain dolls--also known as bisque or China head dolls--beyond re-gluing them. “In order to repair porcelain, you need to re-fire it in a kiln and I don't have a kiln. But I do total restorations of all kinds of composition dolls, hard plastic dolls and early vinyl dolls.”
Joni will be doing doll restringing at the upcoming Saugerties Repair Cafe on Saturday, February 1. If you have any questions for her, you can contact her through her website.
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