Dead Animal Art

Last Sunday, on our way home to Fargo from Wisconsin, we stopped at Georgine's and I got a pheasant. Not a live one, but a dead one. A taxedermied, mounted pheasant.

Now I'm fascinated with taxidermy.

I know, I know, after being so anti-anthorpomorphized animals how can I love taxidermy? I don't know 'how' I do; I just do.

Especially these Victorian taxidermy tableaus by Walter Potter.




But I do. Heaven help me, I do.

Note that the postcards are similar to the vintage animal cuteness. (Which means I may start collecting the postcards first for space -- and money -- reasons.)



While I may never be able to afford a Walter Potter taxidermy tableau, or even a fancifully grotesque anthropomorphic work by Tia Resleure (below), I am utterly smitten.



Since Destiny is in a black 'Gothic' phase (God, please let it be a phase!) -- and she just dissected her first frog yesterday (she waited all school year long for this monumental event) -- I figured she'd be all over this idea. Especially the creepy plush dolls with taxidermy innards (Tia's reliquaries). But Des didn't like them.

Maybe it's just because I like them. If I had wrinkled my nose or been repelled away from the monitor, I bet she would have loved them.

But I love them and I can't not let it show.

I'm sure my nose would wrinkle if I was involved in the process of taxidermy. I was the one who in biology did all the drawing while my lab partner did the actual dissection of our frog and the sheep's eyeball. :shudder: And I have thrown out entire chickens because while making dinner I couldn't get that bag of organs out easily and ended up with that organ meat under my fingernails.

I'd like to say that I'd get over it. But I might just be one of those who buys and doesn't create. The world needs this too, right? After all, someone needs to support the arts.

And then Destiny would likely fall in love with taxidermy. *wink*