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# The Unsettling Art of Making Hyperrealistic Baby Dolls
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/the-unsettling-art-of-making-hyperrealistic-baby-dolls/
- Published: 2016-11-03T23:50:21.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:28:30.000Z
- Description: A new short documentary shows Kate Charles, a sculptor who crafts elaborate and hyperrealistic babies known as "Reborn Dolls," at work.
- Author: Carey Dunne
- Tags: Art, Review, short films, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-03-at-12-18.jpg)

Terri Timely, still from “Dollhouse” (2016) (all screenshots by the author for Hyperallergic)

“Nothing worse than a rattly head,” says artist Kate Charles, shaking a disembodied baby doll head by its ear. As the owner of [Cutie Pie Productions](https://www.facebook.com/Cutie-Pie-Productions-by-Kate-Charles-130822617020366/), Charles makes “[Reborn Dolls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reborn%5Fdoll?ref=hyperallergic.com),” uncannily realistic artificial infants crafted from vinyl, glass, doe suede, and up to 80 layers of paint. In the [Reborning subculture](http://fusion.net/story/330804/reborn-babies-mommies-realistic-dolls/?ref=hyperallergic.com), people “adopt” these dolls, which can cost up to $3,000, and often treat them like living babies, building nurseries and pushing them around in strollers.

“Dollhouse,” a short film by LA-based director duo [Terri Timely](http://territimely.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com), follows Charles’s practice of “Reborning,” as hyper-realistic doll-making is known. Like most Reborners, Charles considers herself an artist, not a craftsperson. The labor-intensive process of making a Reborn doll can sometimes take weeks. In the seven-minute film, we see it unfold step-by-step: Charles stabs tiny hair-holes into the scalp of a doll head with an awl; removes painted doll limbs from a toaster oven and places them on sticks to dry; and swaddles a Reborn baby in bubble wrap before shipping it off in a cardboard box.

If you find all this a little creepy, it’s not just you. “It is creepy,” Charles says. “There’s no other word for it.” She’s aware of the uncanny valley effect at play here: “When you’re trying to emulate real life, and you get pretty darn close, it’s gonna be creepy. But when you get past the initial \[creepiness\] and you know it’s a doll, you can go into the appreciation of what this person is trying to achieve.” More than sensationalizing documentaries like [*My Fake Baby*](http://jezebel.com/339653/lifelike-baby-dolls-the-new-trend-for-childless-british-women?ref=hyperallergic.com), which profiled British “mommies” of Reborns, “Dollhouse” approaches its subject with compassion, showcasing the technical skill and emotional energy that go into this practice.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-03-at-12-17.jpg)

Terri Timely, still from “Dollhouse” (2016)

Regardless of what you think of her dolls, aspects of Charles’s creative process might seem familiar to any artist — to say nothing of the formal resonances between her work and that of hyperrealist sculptors like [Ron Mueck](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron%5FMueck?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [Duane Hanson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane%5FHanson?ref=hyperallergic.com). She describes the rarity of making work that she really loves, the satisfaction of getting into a zone that feels like “soul expression,” and the constant striving to make her “masterpiece.” “Doing this, I can totally understand, like, what happened to Michael Jackson,” she says. “He had *Thriller*, *Thriller* came out, it was lightning in a bottle, and then he spent the rest of his career trying to recreate that magic. And that’s what I’m constantly working for. That lightning in a bottle.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-03-at-11-52.jpg)

Terri Timely, still from “Dollhouse” (2016)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/11/screen-shot-2016-11-03-at-12-13.jpg)

Terri Timely, still from “Dollhouse” (2016)