Amber Maykut is part of a resurgence of taxidermists committed to never killing for the sake of art – using animals that have already been killed for other purposes
“If you have a limb fall off, don’t worry, just keep it and we will reattach it later,” Amber Maykut announces to the class. I am in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at a Sunday afternoon introductory taxidermy class. The eight assembled students, all dressed in black, are focused on peeling the skin off their still slightly frozen rodents.
The mice, in a small mercy for me if not the mice, arrive already dead and come from a pet shop that sells them as snake food. After the students remove the mouse carcasses, Maykut carefully collects them in the Dollar Tree plastic bag she uses to transport them. The carcasses will be fed to her friend’s pet snake, ensuring no part is wasted.
Before I did taxidermy I was pinning butterflies, that was the gateway drug for taxidermy for me
Continue reading...