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More of this Feature • Who is Susan Wakeen? • At home and at work • Happiness in dolls

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Related Resources • Baby Dolls • Cassie by Susan Wakeen • Artist Dolls

Elsewhere on the Web • Susan Wakeen, Inc. • Eve Collection by Susan Wakeen

The next day, Wakeen was up at four in the morning, sculpting faces. And she did the same for the next six months. (Even today, Wakeen works seven days a week.) She was serious. One year, Wakeen was in the throes of the mad rush on the eve of the International Toy Fair held in New York City. She was setting a wig on a doll. The glue doll makers use to adhere the wig to the doll's head is extremely hot and can sear the skin. Wakeen inadvertently ran some of the glue on her thumb and fingers. But the wig was delicately situated, just about right. Should she react and very likely wreck the wig? It was either her hand or the doll. She let her fingers blister and perfected the doll in time for the show.

Wallace and Wakeen's house, a picturesque, classic white New England structure from the 19th century, stands in the old town area of Litchfield, Connecticut. One evening, late in May, as they gave an informal tour of the town and headed toward their house, they passed the buildings that once composed the first law school in America (founded in 1775 by Tapping Revue and James Gould and operated until 1833). The buildings, only about three doors down from their house, are now a museum and open to the public. And what treasures reside inside the old law school?

Wallace and Wakeen looked at each other and Wakeen shamefacedly said, "Well, we've never been in it. Isn't that terrible?" She laughed softly, and guilty as charged, offered an excuse. "We've been busy."

Collectors are grateful that they have been very busy. Doll maker Susan Wakeen, co-proprietor, with her husband, of the doll company that bears her name, is known-and one might say, revered-throughout the doll and collecting world.

She has won a wall full of awards, including at least a handful of DOTYs and has been nominated for about twice as many.

Surveying the dolls of all the manufacturers and doll artists across the country, many collectors and doll enthusiasts contend that Susan Wakeen sculpts and produces the most beautiful baby doll faces in the business. Surely a subjective determination, yet, face to face with one of Wakeen's dolls, it's hard to argue.

"What I like best about making dolls is that I'm able to do it," she says. "I'm just very happy to be able to do what I do. That's all."

"She was working and working on one face and I thought it was perfect, but she continued to work on it and I said, 'Enough is enough. At some point, you have to call it complete and move on'," recalls Wallace. His wife quietly stands next to him and listens as if he were relating an anecdote about someone else. Wallace continued, "And Susan then said, 'It isn't finished until I'm ready to give it a kiss.' That says a lot."

Wakeen doesn't. She characterizes her dolls-the Susan Wakeen look as only "simple and sweet." And then she smiles.

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This article was written by Scott Wood and originally published in Doll Reader magazine in September, 1996.

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