A BIG PASSION FOR SMALL THINGS

Meet metro Denver’s active miniaturist community

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Several years ago, someone walking into Barbara Pontarelli’s home for the rst time may have gotten the feeling that they’d become a giant.

Hanging on the walls of her kitchen, small scenes exhibited the culinary décor of di erent eras. In one display box, tiny countertops of a retro 1950s kitchen popped with color. In another, little stainless steel appliances lled the space.

Miniature tables and chairs were laid out in parlor scenes in the house’s living room, and Pontarelli’s bathrooms were dentist-themed. Since her husband was a dentist, she honored his career with small recliners and minuscule toothbrushes on display.

“When I didn’t have enough space to display stu , I would empty closets,” said the Wheat Ridge resident, who now lives part-time in California.

Of the countless miniature scenes on display in her home, Pontarelli collected about a quarter of them.

e rest, she made herself.

“It’s, you know, how I express my artistic side,” she said. “I can’t explain the draw, but it’s de nitely a passion … I just nd this so satisfying — to produce something small to be as close as it can be to its full-size counterpart.”

Pontarelli is part of a passionate community of miniaturists, or people who enjoy the art, hobby or collection of miniature objects.

In the metro Denver area, it doesn’t take a magnifying glass to see that the miniaturist community is thriving — from meetup groups to classes, to a museum, the love of tiny things is big in the hearts of many.

A museum of tiny things e museum recently moved to 830 Kipling St. in Lakewood after spending almost 40 years in Denver’s City Park West neighborhood.

Pontarelli is a board member at the institution at the epicenter of the Denver metro miniaturist community: the Denver Museum of Miniatures, Dolls and Toys. In addition to its miniature collection, the museum displays and teaches visitors about antique toys and special dolls from over the decades.

In its new location, Executive Director Wendy Littlepage said the museum welcomes about 5,000 visitors per year,

“( e museum) is so many di erent things to di erent people,” she said. “We have people that come in that love just the exactitude of the small scale, and then we have people that love the