Barbie is so often viewed as an ideal model of perfection -- beauty, career, wardrobe, style, affluence -- that it's easy to see how she might crack under the pressure.

To explore an unusual extreme, artist Carrie M. Becker of St. Louis created Barbie-sized scenes that look amazingly life-sized. Her hypothesis: What if Barbie was a hoarder.

It's not so far-fetched. The doll's had more careers than you could list on paper if we gave you a 10-minute deadline. She's been an astronaut, airline stewardess and later a pilot, Lifeguard, Spanish language teacher, pediatrician, Canadian mountie, cowgirl, Starfleet officer ... OK, you get the idea.

So how does a girl decide what momentos to keep or purge? You can imagine that the items for such diverse careers would fill up an urban development of dream houses.

Becker writes in a statement on her website that she was inspired by watching "Hoarders" and "How clean is your house?" but she says the images "reflect their inspiration as a mirror and not a judgment."

She writes: "For me, this series is about creating a small, but perfect world where the viewer cannot distinguish between what is reality and what is fiction."

Whether, she's purposefully making a judgement or not, the images speak volumes. And the bathroom shot is a visual single syllable: "Yuck!"

All in all, it's not such a bad thing to consider as we start another year. More is not more.

Becker is an adjunct faculty member of the photography department at St. Louis Community College, Forest Park. See all of her work and links to buy her works to support the printing costs of an upcoming gallery exhibit by clicking here.