I love taxidermy, those strange tableaux’s of animals and nature encased in glass. It’s dark and weird and (much of it) Victorian, an era I would love to go back to for a time. That said, I don’t think ye olde streets of London would be that good to me. The dream is to be ‘Lady’ of a house overlooking Regents Park with two perfect poppets and a nanny. The reality however is more likely to see me end up as a toothless gin lover lifting her petticoats behind The Ten bells. What can I say? I don’t take well to being domesticated and ‘proper’, so the strict rules of Victorian society would surely be a slippery slope into the gutters for me. Best stay put in the 21st century me thinks.
This week I went book researching in North Yorkshire. Book one (due out in October) is set in a fictional Northern town called Gristhorpe, but ends in the (very real) city of Whitby. My current work in progress is set on the Yorkshire Moors, so it’s a part of the country I am very drawn to having grown up in a rural village near Sheffield (South Yorkshire). Whenever I go to these places I am looking for the spookiness and darkness, but I have to tell you, in summer the Yorkshire moors are beautiful. The drive into Whitby as you go over the hill and see the sea and the Abbey in the distance, was breath taking. I did, however, manage to find some great creepy stuff that caught my eye.
Ryedale Folk Museum in Hutton le Hole is lovely. An outside area of six acres, with complete thatched cottages, shops from the 1940’s, a witch’s hovel and a wooden spell book (also a bit of dodgy stuffed cat, apt for this newsletter!).
There is also a funeral parlour with a beautiful black, glass cased horse carriage in which I would hope to be carried one day, but given my comment in paragraph one, a donkey and trap might be a more likely reality.
Anyway, I digress. While there I spotted many exhibits of taxidermy, something I have always been drawn to. Not, I should add the monstrous ‘trophies’ of hunters that adorn the walls of stately homes and ranches, but the victorian art of bell jars and glass cases.
A couple of years ago I took my son to a film making class in London (the last time I could force him to do something that I actually wanted to do myself). While there I had time to kill, so when I saw an advert for ‘vegan taxidermy’ I was intrigued.
Eh?
I had been a little naive in my love of taxidermy, believing that all (bar aforementioned hunted animals) had just expired in the grass and been picked up by a passing taxidermy enthusiast…not so much. Ignorance is bliss and all that. Much of it was killed to order and in Victorian times. The lure of showing off exotic animals from afar int he drawing room, top trumping any thoughts of said animal having its life taken.
The vegan taxidermist in London uses animals that would otherwise be discarded. Roadkill, pest control etc. After a lot of dithering, I decided to go for it and see what really was involved to get those animals to a state of immortality (sort of).
Taxidermy, I discovered, is not for the faint hearted. You have to skin the animal (a mole in my case) take the insides out, scrape the bones of excess ‘insides,’ treat the skin so it doesn’t degrade, stuff it with a kind of straw and then restitch, blow dry (that fur won’t style itself!) then add beady eyes and some greenery / decorations and hey presto! I have ever so slightly brushed over the complexity of what’s involved, but you get my drift. It isn’t just cute little animals and pretty decorations, there’s a lot of gore and work first.
There was one spectacular moment when a Chinese speaking tourist who was late, burst through the back door of the house, ran excitedly down the path to the outside studio and stopped in horror when she saw our tutor wielding and mouse skin in front of her eyes. She had thought she was coming to make cute little felt mice. Credit to her, she stuck it out and went home with her own expired ‘skinned and stuffed’ mouse.
I left with my mole and very proud of my attempt. I think i’ll revisit Suzette’s studio again one day, but for now it’s just me and ‘Mrs Malcolm’.
The Vegan Taxidermist.
Suzette Field is a brilliant and very patient teacher, if it’s something you’re interested in I’d highly recommend her. A great experience and vegetarian lunch included. For more details click here.
Crap Taxidermy.
From the excellent to the…not so excellent.
The internet is awash with very bad examples of stuffed animals, visit @CrapTaxidermy on Twitter for many examples of animals that dearly wish they’d just been left by the roadside or buried.
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