Shot, stuffed and mounted ... part 2 of 3 (or 4)
Oh my. I just got through transcribing more than two hours of interviews from my visit to the World Taxidermy Championships. There is so much to tell, dear reader. I want you to be able to absorb every facinating detail, so I'll split it up into two posts. I wouldn't want anyone to lose sleep, toss and turn in bed tonight, tortured by the effort to envision my entire day after one reading. I'm always looking out for you.
So, yeah. The World Taxidermy Championships. Listening to the interviews really took me back to that smelly hotel in Springfield, rekindled fond memories of fur and putty and the skin artists who mold them.
Artists? You betcha. The trade show at the Championships had the same vibe as your local art supply store: high-minded artisans obsessed with their craft who never fear societal backlash from lording their superiority over lowly customers. Ever try to buy a tube of paint there and not know exactly which brand flows best, or (god forbid) not know what makes good paint good? But I digress. The skewering of ArtMart shall have to wait. And besides, the taxidermists were much friendlier than that.
But really, the trade show at the Crowne Hotel was huge. Entire tables of turkey heads (some mysteriously branded - yes, with fire - "John 3:16"), glass eyes, handpainted acrylic eyes, paints, glues, putties, textured fur, faux lily pads and grass, deep-frozen whole bobcats to take home and mount on your own, colorful pelts of thousands of animals, and the aptly named deer capes (if you put the skin of the deer head on your head, the body skin falls just like a cape flowing over your shoulders as if you were Conan the Barbarian or Highlander or some random Celt from 70s television).
And then there are the forms. Forms are what the tanned skins get stretched over to mount the dead animals, and they feature bone structure and musculature of the animal to be mounted. What I thought was a skinned head stuffed with sawdust is actually a skin stretched over a foam polyurethane mold, or form. Some taxidermists become sculptors and get paid to sculpt skinless animals; the sculptures are then cast and used to make hundreds and hundreds of replicas to be sold at trade shows for around $30. Folks can mount anything as long as they have the right form. And boy, do they ever.
What you see below is a raccoon form, hanging as it would from a tree. Cute, right? This photo is one of several that my favorite photo-maker, Jay Fram, may be exhibiting in his upcoming gallery opening at Mad Art Gallery on June 3rd. Come see it if you can. If you think what you've read here is interesting, imagine a room full of images like the one of the nude coon below. Crazy, right?
So, yeah. The World Taxidermy Championships. Listening to the interviews really took me back to that smelly hotel in Springfield, rekindled fond memories of fur and putty and the skin artists who mold them.
Artists? You betcha. The trade show at the Championships had the same vibe as your local art supply store: high-minded artisans obsessed with their craft who never fear societal backlash from lording their superiority over lowly customers. Ever try to buy a tube of paint there and not know exactly which brand flows best, or (god forbid) not know what makes good paint good? But I digress. The skewering of ArtMart shall have to wait. And besides, the taxidermists were much friendlier than that.
But really, the trade show at the Crowne Hotel was huge. Entire tables of turkey heads (some mysteriously branded - yes, with fire - "John 3:16"), glass eyes, handpainted acrylic eyes, paints, glues, putties, textured fur, faux lily pads and grass, deep-frozen whole bobcats to take home and mount on your own, colorful pelts of thousands of animals, and the aptly named deer capes (if you put the skin of the deer head on your head, the body skin falls just like a cape flowing over your shoulders as if you were Conan the Barbarian or Highlander or some random Celt from 70s television).
And then there are the forms. Forms are what the tanned skins get stretched over to mount the dead animals, and they feature bone structure and musculature of the animal to be mounted. What I thought was a skinned head stuffed with sawdust is actually a skin stretched over a foam polyurethane mold, or form. Some taxidermists become sculptors and get paid to sculpt skinless animals; the sculptures are then cast and used to make hundreds and hundreds of replicas to be sold at trade shows for around $30. Folks can mount anything as long as they have the right form. And boy, do they ever.
What you see below is a raccoon form, hanging as it would from a tree. Cute, right? This photo is one of several that my favorite photo-maker, Jay Fram, may be exhibiting in his upcoming gallery opening at Mad Art Gallery on June 3rd. Come see it if you can. If you think what you've read here is interesting, imagine a room full of images like the one of the nude coon below. Crazy, right?
posted by Jackie at 9:50 PM
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