Kitty Murks grew up in West Point and went to school at Mississippi State with the idea of being a social worker.

While she did work in that field in Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida, it was another line of work that captured her attention, the origins of which date back to an old childhood photo.

“When I was a little girl, I loved dolls,” Murks said. “I would get dolls for my birthday, for Christmas. My aunts would bring me dolls when they visited. There’s a photo of me in West Point when I’m 6 years old, sitting on a sofa with my dolls. I’ve loved them forever.”

Murks has been a doll-maker for 35 years now, first as a hobby, later as a way to supplement the family income, a craft that led to a 26-year career with the Doll Artisan Guild, which represents thousands of doll-makers all over the world.

Kitty and her husband, Wayne, a retired retail executive, moved to Columbus last year to enjoy their retirement, but Kitty’s work as an ambassador for doll-making hasn’t ended.

“I retired in 2021, but I still go to women’s groups and clubs to talk about doll-making,” she said. “It is such a fascinating thing to me, something that I’ve really enjoyed. I want to share that with other people. Just about everywhere I go, I find doll-makers. Since we moved here, I’ve met only one, but she just happens to be my next-door neighbor, Emily Stephens. It’s a small world, huh?”

As much as she loved dolls, Murks would likely have never taken up the craft were it not for her husband, whose career carried them all across the South.

“We started out in Jackson and I worked for the Mississippi Department of Welfare as a social worker,” she said. “That was my first job.”

A job transfer to Louisiana introduced Murks to doll-making through a class she took.

“It was a pastime at first,” she said. “I was new in town and didn’t know anybody. It was a way to meet people. I was part of a group that got together once or twice a month. It was a social thing.”

After another relocation, this time to Florida, Murks began to consider her options: continue as a social worker in a new state or get serious about doll-making.

“I saw I could make money selling my dolls and then I applied to be an instructor,” Murks said. “I started traveling and teaching at doll-making seminars. I traveled all over the country, then when I came home I would go to doll shows and sell my dolls. I realized this was work I could do no matter where we wound up moving to.”

Murks said the craft of doll-making is a blend of arts and skills — from firing the porcelain dolls in a kiln to painting to face and feature to designing and sewing clothes. Murks specialty is in recreating European dolls from the 1800s, something that requires research into period clothing and materials.

“The first stage is really like working with ceramics,” she said. “You are using molds and then firing them in a kiln. I have had several kilns of various sizes. I started out making large dolls, around three-feet tall because you can use baby clothes for them. But over the years, the dolls I make have gotten smaller, which requires a lot more skill and work. Try painting eyelashes on a five-inch doll, and you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

The clothing for those dolls is all homemade because of the small scale.

“You want to be as authentic as possible, so just collecting the material you need — the fine silks, fabrics and leather for shoes — is a major step. You have to research the clothing, too. There’s a lot to do in the process.”

In 1995, Murks was hired by the Doll Artisan Guild as director of education. She later became feature editor of the guild’s “Dolls Beautiful” magazine and event planner.

The guild’s events, held all over the world, are places where doll-makers can compete to earn certifications that start with Certified Doll Artisan and advance to Master, Grand Master and Triple Crown.

Murks, who has a Triple Crown certification, helped the guild create a new certification for the best of the best called the Award of Excellence.

Over the past 35 years, Murks has lost count of how many dolls she has made, but her favorite is an all-porcelain doll she calls Francine.

“Back when I got started, it was a hobby,” Murks said. “It would have been hard to imagine all the places I would go and people I would meet through doll-making. But even if it had only been a hobby, that would have been fine. I just love dolls and doll-making.”

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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