Taxidermist
fig.1 Jazmine Miles-Long. Ethical Taxidermist, Artist, Educator and Natural History Restorer based in Hastings, UK.
“Taxidermy can weird people out that maybe someone’s killed and touched the animal, which also happens in a butcher’s or supermarket. It’s bizarre. They are often interested and surprised by the process when I talk about it.”
What is your educational background, and how did that lead you to Taxidermy?
Jazmine. At school, one of the things I thought I’d like to be when I grew up was a vet. I love animals and have always been interested in looking at dead animals. My parents would let me take photographs or get close to them. I grew up a vegetarian by choice, so when I was about nine, I didn’t want to eat animals.
I’m dyslexic, so I struggled with the academic side. I write papers now and present them at Museum conferences, which is insane considering I was the kid that wouldn’t do any reading or writing. But it’s because I want to now. I only properly read a book when I was about 12 and had after-school lessons.
Even though I wanted to do science, I struggled with the academic side of it. So I did my GCSEs and then started my A level. I was doing science and other things, but by the end of the first year, I was only doing Photography, Art and Drama. Then straight into an art foundation at 17. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone because it meant I couldn’t go out to pubs because I looked so young, so I didn’t integrate much with the rest of the group.
I went onto a Sculpture Degree at Brighton and realised it would lead to little income; Art Degrees don’t teach you how to get funding or a job. In my Degree work, I was doing things with found dead animals, but I needed to figure out how to preserve them. So after the Sculpture Degree, I volunteered at the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton in 2007 with the intention of going on to study Museum conservation.
At first, I went into the Museum to ask if I could volunteer. And the curator at the time, Jeremy Adams, told me ‘No’. But then I went back and asked again; I then realised he thought I was about 16. So he eventually said, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘21’, he was shocked, and then he let me volunteer.
I told Jeremy I wanted to become a Taxidermist, and he replied with his classic sense of humour, ‘You can’t; you’re not an old man’, and ‘You don’t have a beard’. But he showed me the ropes, and I loved it.
Having grown up as a vegetarian, it wasn’t necessarily something I thought I would ever do. I had never handled meat, but I’ve always been interested in dead animals and the plight of animals.
Alongside volunteering at the Booth Museum, I was teaching myself at home. There was a BBC documentary called Taxidermy: Stuff the World around 2005. It was like the worst thing that’s ever happened to modern Taxidermy. It was horrendous sensationalist television. I remember seeing that documentary and thinking, what a horrible career; I could never do anything like that.
All of the literature at the time was hunting books. There were no videos like there are today on YouTube about how to do Taxidermy from roadkill, for instance.
Everything I have worked with for my career has died from natural causes. I decided if I would do this job, I could only do it that way. Using birds that have flown into windows or been hit by cars. That is when I coined the term Ethical Taxidermy, which I hadn’t seen a reference to before. But now it’s a buzz term in the field. But it doesn’t always mean the same for everybody.
When I work with rare animals for a Museum, they want to preserve the skin for education and science. The skin holds the DNA of that animal still. So you can still collect data from that animal in death for years.
How did you learn and develop the skills to become a Taxidermist?
Jazmine. The first thing I did, Jeremy gave me a Mole out of the freezer, a blunt scalpel and asked me to remove the skull. Then he showed me how to clean it; that was the first time I’d cut an animal. After that, he left me on my own in the lab at the Museum, and I instantly loved it. So I went home and remembered feeling so excited about the day, exploring the animal’s anatomy and being close to it; stroking a Mole is insane; it’s so soft. It feels like a real privilege when you are with the animal.
After that, I worked on an Egret, a long-legged wading bird, and from that time, I’ve been hooked. The first thing I did outside of the Museum I worked on at my parent’s place. My dad had found a roadkill Badger; it was the worst thing to start on, so tricky and big.
Then I joined the Guild of Taxidermists, a UK group, in 2008. I went to conferences and watched seminars, and I did a few short courses with a Taxidermist called Mike Gadd. After about three years, my work was getting better. Things were standing up, and I felt confident in my Taxidermy. So I started getting jobs and doing commissions for people. I became the editor of the Guild of Taxidermists magazine, connecting me with certain Museums and People. And my career grew from there. It’s not an easy industry to get into because Taxidermy is hard to do well.
“In the early days, some people approached me with things they had shot, so I had to say no to at least 50% of the work I was asked to do. I still have that a bit today, not as many, but people now understand why I’m saying no."
“My son, who’s just five, knows everything about my job. He’s really sweet if you ask him what Taxidermy means. He says that we look after animals when they’re dead.”
I want to create work where the viewer can empathise with the animal. Through Taxidermy, you can get close to the animal and see its beauty. So in all my work, even before I was doing Taxidermy, I tried to highlight the beauty of that animal in the most respectful way possible. I would never dress up my animals or do bits of different animals. My Taxidermy is Classic and Natural, so the focus is on the animal.
“I did a bird called a Sora Rail for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. It was one of only two that had ever been seen in Devon, and sadly it was dead. So then I had to mount that up without it breaking. It can be so stressful. But people don’t see that.”
Volunteering in a Museum where there was Taxidermy, especially historic collections, made sense; but most of the animals there were killed. So Taxidermy collections are complicated in how we feel about them because they are linked with colonialism, hunting and a feeling of something we’ve done wrong. So now I write many essays, present papers at conferences, and talk at Museums. I’m trying to change Taxidermy from a kitsch thing that people laugh at because it is poorly done or just presented as decoration or pure science. Instead, I want it to be seen within Museums, galleries and homes as art and a skilled craft. Taxidermy can only exist when there is a maker, but historically we forget the maker’s name (apart from a few famous Taxidermists) because we see it as a dead animal.
“In my work, I tie in the background of the Taxidermy, for example, how they got there, how they were made, what’s inside them, why are they still here, and why are they important.”
When I attended my first conference at the Guild of Taxidermists, I was one of around five women. And they even took a photo of us for their magazine because we were so rare. But now the UK conference is organised by women, and it’s the other way around.
Martha Maxwell was a pioneering Taxidermist, but her name is often written underneath Carl Akeley, who came after her. He’s a famous American Taxidermist who created 3D forms to go under the skin of Taxidermy, as Martha Maxwell had previously done. Before this, Taxidermy used to be stuffed, packing out the animal’s skin with Wood Wool, Sawdust and Horse Hair.
Creating 3D forms and using different packing materials sounds like Taxidermy is a craft.
Jazmine. I specialise in Mammals and Birds. However, Taxidermists are often a ‘jack-of-all-trades’ in some way. I make all my cases, the groundwork and the flowers from wax or ceramic. Generally speaking, Taxidermists specialise in one area, Birds, Mammals or Fish, because each species group requires a different process.
Removing the skin is a delicate and fragile process because bird feathers lay through the skin, for example. And the skin itself, if it’s a Tiny Bird, I compare it to wet cigarette paper so it can rip easily. It took me years to learn to create small birds, and now I can do the tiniest of tiny, like Firecrests and Wrens. When you are working on birds, your mindset needs to be meditative. You must be calm, peaceful and clean because you can break the skin. You don’t want to make the feathers oily or stain them because you can’t necessarily get that out. So, you are skinning the bird and cleaning all the fat off the skin. And with birds, you leave some of the bones inside the skin. The wing bones, skull and leg bones all stay attached, and it’s about thoroughly preparing and cleaning the skin. There are lots of different ways that people make Taxidermy forms today. I’m very traditional in my materials and methods because it often goes into Museums and needs to last for a long time.
In 2021, I got a DYCP Arts Council Grant to do a study looking at the materials that Taxidermists use. For example, a lot of plastic is used now for animal bodies. Polyurethane foams and, styrofoams, plastic never disappears, but it does degrade and gives off gases and chemicals, which can damage organic fibres like skin. So when you’re putting plastics inside Taxidermy, it can damage the skin of that Taxidermy over time and the other object alongside it in the Museum. We don’t know what these plastics are doing long-term to our collections. I keep my materials to the ones I know they used a hundred years ago, such as Wood and Wax. The eyes I use are acrylic plastic because it’s been shown to be very stable. But the eyes could be glass, materials that we know might still be here long past we are.
My bird bodies are Balsa Wood because I’ve removed the Muscular Structure of the animal; I need to replace that with something. Many people assume Taxidermy is a dead animal that’s been injected, and then it’s just posed. In a way, the process is more like upholstery because you create your furniture for the skin. So I’m carving my body out of wood, and then I’m using clay and wire, and I’m sculpting the skin on top and putting all of the feathers into the correct position. Then after the bird has been mounted up, all of the exposed skin, the beak, around the eyes and the legs, all the pigment will go. So that’s why that needs to be painted back in to make it look realistic and alive.
Your work is viewed as Educational within a Museum and Art in a Gallery.
Jazmine. Well, some people are amazed there is a market for it. Much of my work is for Museums and Educational displays, but I also create artworks. So I had a show, Memorial a Tribute to Taxidermy, at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill in 2016. I created sculptures inspired by objects from their collection. I made sculptures of white porcelain of the flowers and plants within the cases. They looked like gravestones with the animal inside.
I also work with galleries; for example, I worked with the Wellcome Trust for a show called Making Nature. It was about our relationship with nature. An artist wanted to have dead animals around the gallery. So I created those animals for the artist as a facilitator to make their vision.
I get commissions from individuals; for example, a Kingfisher flew into their window, so I do one-off projects like that. And I have my own practice. I create colourful box framed cases with birds. Making those is my interpretation of the traditional. I’m still making wooden box cases taped with paper and then painted, a traditional Taxidermic case method. But I’m doing it in a way that does not put anything else inside the case apart from the bird. I make a lot of those for exhibitions or people’s homes. Over the last two years, I started using colours that Pop, Little Greene or Farrow & Ball colours mostly.
In a way, these pieces are Taxidermy decor which is modern and beautiful; you can look at this animal and see how much space you’re giving it. If these pieces are displayed in a gallery, I’ll explain how this bird died and discuss the bird’s life alongside the case frame.
I also make sculptural pieces, like the work I did at the Horniman Museum, looking at the Memorial of the Animal. I recently did a piece which was a badger that had died in a pond. I cast some of the nasturtiums that the Badger walked past and then placed the badger so she was trying to get out of the case; the piece was called Surface. So I’m trying to make pieces to challenge how people empathise with the animal. It can make them feel quite sad when they look at this baby Badger and read its story. It’s woken up in this Diorama, and now we’re all looking at it. So I have all these different aspects to the work that I’m doing.
Through my artistic practice, I want to make these pieces of Very Minimalistic Sculpture which are also Taxidermy. I want to highlight that it is an Art; let’s look at it closer. Obviously, it is a dead animal, but what does that mean, should we be more Considerate of Nature in Life? I get my work in as many shows and galleries as possible. I am also part of Babes in Arms. It is a group of artists who are also mothers working in Hastings and St Leonard’s. In the last two years we have had shows at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill, Big Yin Gallery in St. Leonards and an exhibition at Hastings Contemporary. It’s such a strong group of artists. It gets me in different gallery situations that aren’t necessarily just about nature.
Jazmine Miles-Long
Ethical Taxidermist, Artist, Educator and Natural History Restorer
www.jazminemileslong.com
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