Artistry!

Boyce taught me that Taxidermy is an art, and as all art, it should be viewed from 8-10 feet. With that said, I have always focused on the artistic side of it. Stay away from my work with your flashlight! The expression, the movement, the balance, the flow, the design and composition.. The attention grabbing wow factor.. That is the art of it. A simple cookie cutter mount will never be talked about on the other side of a SCI show.. The wow pieces are what bring people with money to you.. of course there are the simple customers that just want a clean mount for a reasonable price and quick turnaround.. There are plenty of taxidermist in our industry for those customers. I will never be that taxidermist. I want the guy that wants something that no one else has. I love the artistry in Taxidermy. I would never make it as a cookie cutter production taxidermist. The mundaneness of it would kill me and suck my soul out..

 

Like!! Great reply and very well said Michael

 

I think Rick's mount on the Home page is a work of art. Nice!

 

Artistic talent has everything to do with doing great work,..and yep this stuff is art. Are the days of passing off junk coming to an end?? lololol,...nope and ain't never gonna be. Not as long as they are cheaper and close to home. Period.

 

No Rick. Sadly they actually believe that. Not only do THEY believe it, some of their customers believe it as well. I had a guy invite me into his shop much like the one you visited. His customer came in to pick up his American bison. Now most of us know you REALLY have to dedicate yourself to screw up a buffalo. All that hair and mane cover many mistakes, even stitches 2 inches apart. But when I saw it, I guess my mouth dropped and the customer saw me. He said, "MAN, I thought I was the only one who would be impressed with that thing. He's an artist, ain't he?". "Yep, he sure is," I replied. I didn't have the heart to tell him that the damned horns had been put on backwards and that was why my mouth opened.

 

I also believe that artistic ability in in you genetic profile and has to be nurtured to express itself over time. My son is a prime example of that. Look at his website. www.killerpaint.com and see what you think.

 

Wow your son is talented, just WOW.

 

Your son is very talented and one of the best flame air brush artists I've ever seen JL. However, I think your son always had it. A graduate of Boston's Butera Art School in 1979 proves that he had it in HIS genetic profile. He just evolved from an artist into a greater artist and discovered his medium over time. I don't believe that everybody has the gene. Certainly anybody can learn this to a certain degree, but to create at his level your son was born with it... JMO...

 

Here's a book that just came to my attention from JJ - titled Speculative Taxidermy. I googled Amazon and read the reviews. I found the third review especially apropos to your post, Rick. It's a little pricey even in paperback, but this is one book I will order. When you read the credentials of the author, you'll be as impressed as I that he knows what of he writes. Here are the reviews:

Editorial Reviews
Review
How did taxidermy become cool again? The recent and rapid rise of taxidermy in contemporary art reflects a broader shift in philosophical understandings of animals as embodiments of our shared physical vulnerability. Reading key examples through art and natural history, Speculative Taxidermy makes the case that aesthetic innovation follows from a sense of materiality as imposing a heightened register of realism, and with sweeping consequences for human-animal relations. (Susan McHugh, author of Animal Stories and Dog)

Speculative Taxidermy makes a fascinating contribution to the nonhuman turn and invites us to find new ways to envisage the relationships between human and nonhuman animals. It will be a significant text for ethical and political debates in animal studies and the environmental humanities. (Hannah Stark, University of Tasmania)

In Speculative Taxidermy, Aloi gives us a contact zone between humans and animality, art and the nonhuman. While there are a number of recent works on taxidermy, this is the book many of us have been waiting for―broad ranging, keen-eyed, insightful, and informed by animal studies as well as art history. (Ron Broglio, Arizona State University)

About the Author
Giovanni Aloi is a lecturer in art history, theory, and criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Sotheby’s Institute of Art New York and London, and Tate Galleries. He is the author of Art and Animals (2011) and the founder and editor-in-chief of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture.