So there's this show:

I've tweeted, I've facebooked, I've instagrammed, and basically had the time of my life promoting this project. It's been such a long time in the making that it almost feels surreal having already happened. I filmed both my episodes back in November, one of which has yet to air so I still can't say much but it feels like giving birth. I mean, if I had any idea what that felt like I suppose I could rightfully compare the two, but since I've chosen to pursue a different sort of labor and consequent "baby" in my life I feel justified in using the term "birthing".    I'm so honored to have taken part in this show and also that the producers took such a shine to me in the casting stage. The last couple years have been very eye opening to me as far as how much time, psychic energy and work goes into just a few minutes of television. It reminds me of my stylist days, when working on a shoot I would step back and mentally take note of all the wages being paid that day, the catering, the wardrobe, the location rental, equipment, insurance, etc. Then there's post production and the negotiations between the client and advert company...all for one page in a magazine that most folks will flip by absent mindedly in line at the supermarket while they kill time in line. The mind reels.
So I went into this having some sense of how things get boiled down, so to speak. Being on the more glamorous side, however, of getting primped and performing while maintaining my identity as a fashion taxidermist was earth shatteringly novel to me. I just melted into every second of it and relish it to this moment. I might just start wearing stilettos to skin chickens just to get a little rush when I miss that experience.   I hope you'll watch the entire series.   I believe in this program and think deeper exploration of taxidermy, its history and how the craft itself ties into our consumption and interaction with nature's creatures will yield nothing short of mind opening experiences for all involved.

When Rabbits Fly

Techinically this little guy did not take to the air.  He was ground shipped to one of my favorite clients recently but he probably could've flown if he wanted to.







Meet Regasus, or Jayne, the flying Lionhead rabbit.  All animal parts for this piece were sourced from my friends up on the (now new!) farm at The Farmer's Husband.







 



This was my first experience with a Lionhead rabbit; it's still unbelievable to me that nature makes these creatures; just knowing they exist is like a year round birthday present.  Look at that face!







 



 



In my mind this rabbit was a sweet dandy; the type who wouldn't be caught dead in public without a pocket square.  Or a gem and pearl encrusted neck piece.







 



 



 



 



 



 



 



I threw in the Monroe piercing just for fun.    Wouldn't yo love to hang out with this little dude?  I'm sure he knows where to get eh best Manhattans in town.







 



 



He's also punctual.  Here he will perch eternally, on this antique clock house minding the time....







 



Many thanks to my beloved and loyal client who dreamed up this commission in the first place!



 

Cool Hunting: "Other Nature Show at Bahdeebahdu"

by Tisha Leung, 06/14/10

"Taxidermy mixes with jewelry in "Nascita Typica" by Beth Beverly, a registered taxidermist." Read the entire article here: Other Nature Show at Bahdeebahdu

My, what large...3D printed antlers you have!

Another fun Christmas commission I can now write about (recipient is pleased, no spoilers, etc) involved a collaboration between myself and another very accomplished jeweler named Doug Bucci.  Mr. Bucci's first role in my life was that of teacher: he taught my stone-setting class in college.  Being as Philadelphia is a small city and the artistic community a tightly woven one, Doug and I have loosely kept tabs on one another throughout the years, along with most of my other jewelry school survivors.   It felt like a war, sometimes, and we have the PTSD to prove it.



BUT.  I digress. Doug and several others in my jewelry clique have moved onto the art of 3D printing. An example of Doug's outstanding work in the CAD arena:







 



Despite the fact that my studio-mate owns and operates one of these crazy newfangled things in the space we share together (I have seen it work with my own eyes), I cannot wrap my mind around this phenomenon.  I don't quite care to.  I'll let my hands do the talking and leave the techno stuff to the experts.  However, I am quite happy to endorse, receive and benefit from the articles produced by these machines.  (Have you seen me sporting my Loop Hoop earrings by the amazing Maria Eife?)



 







 



Imagine my excitement then, when Doug approached me about making a jackalope using antlers designed & printed from this technology.  This piece was to be a gift for his daughter and I was instantly smitten with the idea of not only a dad commissioning such a cool piece but also contributing his own talents.    He designed, printed and cleaned up the antlers, brought them to me and I got smurfin'.







These days I always seem to have at least one rabbit head (and feet, skin, etc for that matter) in my freezer, compliments of my boys at the Farmer's Husband.  I thawed one out, cleaned his skull and built a form around it with clay.  The antlers were deliberately large; we thought an exaggerated look would be fun.  After all, this creature doesn't exist naturally so why not make it as fantastical as possible?  This thought process is Rogue Taxidermy at its best, in my opinion.







I was nervous about supporting the weight of these bad boys on my rabbit's head but I drilled holes through the skull and wired it up.  Success.



 







I got swept up in a Victorian theme, leather & lacing the shit out of this thing.  Much to my delight, I might add.







I used grey fox eyes instead of the anatomically correct hollow black glass ones to give him more personality.



I'm a terrible photographer and this piece, due to its dimensions, was difficult to capture.  These photos are disappointing to me but I suppose they get the point across.







He's snarling.  Those are the rabbit's actual teeth.







And that's Jackelope.

Tryin' to get a nut to move your butt.

Here's some photos of a fun piece I was commissioned to do for a friend this Christmas.  Apparently his lady friend has a disdain for squirrels (I'm hearing of this more and more; are squirrels taking over the city?  Do you all have any idea how tasty they are?  No kidding...) and seeing a stuffed one under her tree channeling some devil vibes seemed to be the ultimate gift.



 



 







So here's the little scamp mounted on a piece of garland, stealing a glass ornament.  Devil horns and all.







I took some liberty with the eyes; obviously in nature squirrels do not look like this.  But when touched with the evil stick, some artistic interpretation is welcome, I'm sure.  Also, these peepers are antique hand-crafted glass eyes that I've been looking to use for ages.







 



Man, he looks pissed.



 







Merry Christmas!

Raccoon mojo

Penis bones.  Baculum.  Texas Toothpicks.  Mojo Moneymakers.  Amazing little things, except when you factor in the size of a raccoon they may not seem so little, measuring in at about 5".  Plenty of animals have bones in their penises, although this was news to me two years ago when I stumbled upon the lore of the Racoon Baculum in Melissa Milgrom's book Still Life in which she mentions passing one onto a friend who was trying to conceive (It worked).  Apparently this bone, when worn as an amulet, is believed to bring baby mojo.  It also just helps folks get laid in general apparently.  I think this may be true of all penis bones but the raccoons have a good deal of lore about them which is actually quite fun to, er, bone up on.  AHHHHHH I couldn't resist sorry. Seriously though, dig this video I found called "Magical Testicle Montage



For more background on the myth of a raccoon's unparalleled reproductive organs, check out this blog post on The Palmetto Bug blog:



RACCOONTANG AND THE TEXAS TOOTHPICK



 



Aside from hyper-sensitive paw pads and the penchant for oral sex, raccoons are notable for their beautiful penis bones.  They're elegantly shaped with a slight barb at the end, which I have covered in filigree and topped with a genuine swarovski-set Amethyst.







This particular piece is already sold but I have more bones coming.  If you're familiar with me or my writing, you know I dig on the magic vibes so this new line of baculum art is way fun for me.  I'll let you know if the recipient to this item gets preggo too, in case that's something you're interested in.  According to that Palmetto article, they're good for gambling luck when wrapped in a ten-dollar bill. I'll try that with a fox boner and report back to you.

Every critter has enough brains to tan its own hide.

Or so my friend of American Indian descent used to say.  It sounds cool but once the image of a giraffe pushes ts way to the front of your mind you start to wonder.



But I'm not tanning giraffes, so for all intents and purposes this adage sticks.  Here is the story of my dip into the practice of tanning hides with a paste made from the brain of whatever specimen I HAVE skinned.  I used rabbit, raccoon and possum, to varying degrees of success.  There are plenty of references available online; I used this one from Lifesong Adventures.



The first step is extracting the brain from the skull, which isn't for the well-manicured or easy-to-queasy set.  If you've ever blown your nose, and tried to coax out that mammoth yet elusive mucus orb hiding in your nasal passages, then you have a decent idea of what it's like to charm the brains out of a dead rabbit.







The brain matter is then mixed with water (preferably rain water according to experts which was funny because back when I was embarking on this journey I had rain water tricking into my studio on a daily basis through the roof and walls.  I just used spring water though), heated to a near boil and then cooled.  The resulting paste is what will be brushed on the raw hides of whatever it so be tanned.







It is recommended to brush any excess onto a towel, which is then laid onto the hide and rolled up within it for maximum soakage.  The little bundles are then stashed somewhere cool and safe overnight while the tan penetrates.







Here's mine the next day.  The smell was surprisingly light. Perhaps this is because it was October and there was a cold snap in Philadelphia- but actually, as I look closely at this photo above  I can see my two of my five little piggies that weren't cropped out of this shot meaning I was wearing sandals on this day.  So....I'm full of shit.  Brain tanning just isn't as odorous as one might think.



But I digress.  Once the skin is unrolled, the staking begins.  This means gripping the hide and rubbing it over a hard, blunt surface until it is completely dry.  This stretches and breaks down the fibers in the epidermis.







 



Behold a staked rabbit skin. It starts to have that store-bought garment-leather look, and feels just as luxurious.



Home brain tanners, however, be warned: staking is no joke.  I consider myself a rather fit human being and this activity left my arms and abs sore for two days.  It took me almost five hours to do three small pelt (as a beginner I maybe ought to have started with just one, but if should'ves and buts were candy and nuts...).  The thing about staking is, you can't stop once you start or else the hide dries hard and the entire process must be started all over again.







There are machines that do this nowadays for tanning at an industrial level, (I believe Mike Rowe attempted to use one in one of his Dirty Jobs episodes) and other brain tanners use frames and various tools to make the process easier but being as I was just working with such small specimen I didn't think it necessary.



My work chair is a lovely old trash picked work of art with a back just riddled with nooks and crannies.  I found this to be an ideal surface for staking. As you can see I rubbed the stain right off the darned thing. But just look at those yummy pelts!







After the hide is completely dry, it is smoked.  Again, there are various ways to do this but I opted for the super low maintenance method of laying them out over a screen strategically placed outside a wood burning stove.  The important thing is to use punky, wet wood- this will produce maximum smoke and that's what's needed to bond the oils of the tan into the skin and seal it up.  This makes the tan permanent in that should the hide get wet in the future, it will stay soft and not revert back to its original hard, rawhide state.



I left these on for an hour, rotating every ten minutes.







Now for the sewing!  I was commissioned by a contractor friend to create a fur jacket liner that would keep him warm and toasty during his cold weather work.  Side note: we wound up trading and I was treated to some MUCH NEEDED plumbing work in my bathroom.  I am now a convert of the barter system; it feels like I'm really sticking it to the man when I've momentarily suspended the need for stupid dollars while providing goods and receiving services.



I made a pattern from his denim jacket and used it to machine  sew a shell out of high-end padded wool.















The fur, since it was in scrappy unusual shapes and I didn't want to waste any, was all completely hand sewn onto the shell.  Thankfiully my friend enjoys the little imperfections that make life interesting and doesn't mind the spots where my stitching is evident or the three little patches where I rubbed the hair off the pelts.  I took the liberty, ha, of covering one such spot with a patch.







 







The process took much longer than anticipated and left my fingers raw, but I actually love the meditative nature of hand-stitching.  I think spending quality time with my hands on a piece really transfers good vibrations into it and ensures that I'm passing along a product saturated in positive energy.



Case in point: look how toasty and pleased this guy is with his new vest!  (he opted to wear it inside out for this shot I took with my very state of the art heat-sensory camera; I suppose it is reversible).







So that was my first experience braining.  I am excited to employ this method more in the coming months; I have mittens, scarves and hats to produce!