Still Life by Melissa Milgrom (best ebook reader TXT) 📕

inside [each] mount to put into the scientific collections, and the rest of the mount—its stuffing or whatever it was—all of that was disposed of as hazardous waste," explained Gordon. "We sacrificed the skins for the skeletal material. It was a shame that we had to destroy them."

On several occasions, Catharine Hawks observed museum workers taking apart the animal specimens. "It was horrifying," she said. Sometimes Hawks would bring in Amandine Péquignot, a conservation scientist at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, who was doing postdoctoral work at the MSC. One day she described those trips for me: "I was shocked. I saw [them cut up] a wild pig—a boar—also a big deer, a chimpanzee. I went there three times with Cathy, and every time I was very sad and upset. It was an opportunity to study.

"I was a little bit shocked at first because the condition of the specimen[s] was perfect. To see a whole specimen trashed, I imagined the taxidermists and the technique they used," she said, pausing to collect her thoughts. "You know they are dead, but it's like second death when you see them destroyed."

I asked her about something I had learned from Gordon—namely, that the specimens were loaded with arsenic and asbestos and the museum would be liable if someone got sick from them. "I don't think they did a mercury or lead or arsenic test on them," she said. "But even if they have arsenic, mercury, or lead, that's no reason to destroy [them]. There are different techniques to remove arsenic and also store [a specimen] in good condition ... In the United States, if [something is] considered important, everything will be done to save it."

In September 2004, John Matthews's contract expired. He had hoped that someone—Secretary Small, perhaps, who had put a few final stitches in the fifteen-foot reticulated giraffe—might find another job for him. Gordon, for one, could have used his help with the scientific skin collection. But nothing happened, and so, after seven years at the Smithsonian, he left.

A year or so after the opening, I called Matthews, Paul Rhymer, and Ken Walker to see what they were up to. Matthews had been out of a job for two months when I reached him at home. He had joined the elevator union and was looking for work as a mechanic. "There's just no money in taxidermy," he said, setting down the receiver to calm his two-year-old son, who was crying in the background. "I'm burned-out on taxidermy," he said with resignation. "My interest has waned. I've had enough for now."

When I asked Rhymer about the mammal hall, he said, "In those speeches [at the opening], we were mentioned a couple of times. That's unfathomable. I've never seen a production person get the type of credit we did throughout the whole process. It will never happen again. They put us in front of newspapers and magazines. The secretary came by. He loved that place." His voice radiated enthusiasm; the opening could have been the night before. "I really feel we were part of history," he continued. "Not in that same Hornaday sense. We were really more production people than experts. I know Hornaday was highly respected; only the secretary was paid more. He was a heavy hitter. That's not happening for me and John. I'm making labels for bison mummies. I'm not bitching and moaning, but it's just not going to happen."

Of the three, only Walker was doing any real taxidermy work. He was back in Alberta, negotiating with Canadian customs to get them to release a walrus that he had hired Inuit hunters to kill for a client: Kenneth E. Behring. Alberta has comparatively relaxed laws regarding endangered species, but Walker needed money fast to cover importation costs. If it didn't arrive soon, the walrus would rot, and he'd lose face with the Inuit. "Millionaires never pay you!" he said.

I told him that I had spoken to Matthews. "I talked to John last week, and he said, 'I'm going broke slowly,'" Walker told me. "I would have liked to see him stay there, because he liked the security it offered his family. He had a pension and a little bit of prestige. But I wouldn't wish that job on anyone. As much as I have to fight for every dime, it was so nice to be home after that. I'm so glad it's over. It's so politically motivated ... Politics change with fashion, but the laws of nature do not."

5. THE CHAIRBITCH

AT THE 2003 World Taxidermy Championships, the English bird judge Jack Fishwick told me about a sculptor who was arguably the best taxidermist in the United Kingdom—this, even though she became disillusioned with taxidermy years ago and now calls herself an "anti-taxidermist." Her name is Emily Mayer, and she lives with her husband, John Loker (an abstract painter), and any number of Jack Russell terriers in the Norfolk countryside, surrounded by dairy farms. With her spiky black hair, deep voice, and BITCH T-shirts, the village locals used to call her "that strange lesbian dog owner." Now they know her as a taxidermist who is vaguely associated with the arts. "Vaguely," of course, isn't quite accurate, yet it's not entirely wrong either. Mayer is at the very center of the art world and also on its fringes. It seems like a curious place for a taxidermist to be.

At least Fishwick thought so, and he is a savage critic. But when he described Mayer's erosion-molded rats, he practically fogged up his binoculars. "The realism is uncanny," he gushed. "I mean the deathism." I shrugged. Racing off to England to see rats—even exceptional ones—wasn't on my agenda. Then Fishwick leaned in and whispered that Mayer was Damien Hirst's taxidermist: the woman who repairs the sharks, preserves the grizzlies, assembles the skeletons, and casts the cow heads for his multimillion-dollar artworks. I asked for her phone number.

Mayer also happens to be an artist in her own right, with a degree from the Norwich