American Stuffers, Xtreme Taxidermy and pet preservation

I was alerted to the spectacularly entertaining American Stuffers, A Show About Pet Preservation (Animal Planet) by @BelgianWaffling and @Randallwrites, both of whom tweeted about it this week. It’s a show about taxidermy, well to be truthful it’s a show about freeze drying pets, but the end results would be described as taxidermy. As with all taxidermy, it’s weird and wonderful all at the same time. Knowing how many pictures of dogs and cats are posted on our twitter and Instagram feeds. we know how much everyone loves their pets, it’s only a small step to crying like the bikers over Tou Tou’s return (‘That’s a good looking chiuaua’ ). You might enjoy browsing some of the entertaining videos, like this one, (the adverts are annoying but stick with it).

Being something of a taxidermy fan, when researching the post I couldn’t help checking out some of the other references, and was bowled over by the wonderful Ravishing Beasts blog, written by taxidermy expert Rachel Piliquin. She pointed out that taxidermy must be cool right now because Martha Stewert recently did a magazine spread where she got playful with her collection…

And has pictures of Cai Gui-Qing’s Head On exhibition that I sadly missed (twice)…

Rachel also lists some wonderfully bizarre taxidermy artists, such as the compelling work of Esther Verschoor’s Skull Dolls

She has a book coming out this year, The Breathless Zoo, Taxidermy and the Culture of Longing, which might be worth seeking out if you’re interested in the subject, otherwise look at what some of her readers do with their own taxidermy collections here

 

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