Taxidermy is one of the few crafting skills that you can actually make a living with. Unlike virtually every other craft, people will actually pay decent money for taxidermy skills. And make no mistake, taxidermy is definitely a skilled craft with as much art to it as science. It's a lot more than just pulling the skin off an animal and sticking it on a form.
The literal art of taxidermy is a perfectly valid craft, although not something you are likely to find at your local Joann's Fabrics store. It takes a lot of skill and experience to do it right, as many would-be amateur taxidermists have discovered.
You can also find the more whimsical side of taxidermy in works that combine various animal parts, or which pose the subjects in, shall we say, less than realistic ways.
But aside from being gross, and probably not the kind of craft you would want to pursue at your kitchen table, taxidermy has a lot of potential for artistic riffing. Deftly side-stepping the Damien Hirst situation, Oregon artist Rachel Denny has a collection of work titled "Domestic Trophies," in which she uses standard taxidermy forms as the basis for sculpture and knit works that explore our relationship between art and dead animals. Her piece "Zipper Buck" features an exquisitely designed cable knit cover for a deer head form that is as perfectly constructed as it is compelling.
The image of the taxidermy deer head is such a powerful trope that it has been interpreted in a million different ways. Some gruesome; many hilarious, like this mounted My Little Pony head, or these fabric-covered resin deer heads. (Although I think some of the artist's solid-colored deer head are really beautiful.) It is surprising to me how much time I can spend browsing listings for deer heads on Etsy and eBay.
Image courtesy Flickr/Ryan Harvey
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