A humorous look at what happens when taxidermy goes very wrong, by the founder of crappytaxidermy.com.
Taxidermy is a multidisciplinary artform. A competent taxidermist has an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy, the laser-like precision of a world-class surgeon and an artistic sensitivity to the physical world that rivals God Himself.
The chances of a mere mortal mastering any of these traits is very slim, and the likelihoodof becoming proficient in all three is virtually non-existent.
In the summer of 2009, I moved into an apartment in Brooklyn, New York, and aspired to give my sad living situation a touch of class by incorporating some dead animals into the decor. After scouring eBay and Etsy for taxidermy (a deer head to be precise), I quickly realized that the taxidermy available on the
Internet could be classified into four categories: 1) Good taxidermy. 2) Bad taxidermy. 3) Weird-as-hell good taxidermy. 4) Weird-as-hell bad taxidermy.
Consequently, I launched the Crappy Taxidermy Tumblr to document the latter three categories. Since the site's creation, I have obsessively kept track of every bug-eyed, misshapen, awkward, or just-plainwrong piece of taxidermy that I was able to find online. As the site grew, readers started submitting photographs of their own taxidermy, and sightings of crappy taxidermy that they had found in museums, roadside attractions, stores, art galleries or people's homes.
Considering all the weird, creepy taxidermy pictures I have accumulated on my hard drive since working on the Crappy Taxidermy blog, I had always speculated that I would be in jail by now for crimes against good taste.
However, I'm thrilled that the exact opposite has happened. This book is a celebration of crappy taxidermy and the eccentric and amazing people who create it. Regular taxidermy endeavours to give the illusion of life to the non-living, but crappy taxidermy highlights the subject's state of death due to the animal being contextualized in a completely surreal or absurd way.
