When Pigs Fly

Here's the little guy I stuffed at my class with Katie Innamorato in January.  Next class will be anthropomorphic moles with Diyva.  I'm sad that I'll be missing out on the other classes Katie is teaching at the end of the month, but sadly, and happily, I will be in the woods with some of my closest friends.  

I give you Clarence...

Crash

So, I am back online.  Not too soon after my last post, my beloved, tiny, red, laptop, just died.  There was no saving anything at all on it, it was 100% gone.  I mourned the loss, and figured I could live without a laptop, as there is a desktop in the house that I can use.  No biggie.  I have discovered that I am no longer accustomed to using a normal sized keyboard and it made me grumpy just looking at it.  I also was not going to attempt to type out an entire blog post on my phone.  Just completely unreasonable.  So, I took a hiatus, saved some money and now I am typing on a new laptop, with a weird touch screen and windows 8.   What that all means, I have no idea, I would love to just hand write these entries and pass a book around to share my thoughts with all of you, and chain letters are completely passe.  So here I am.  Pale, rested and ready.

Whats going on?  Hmmm...  Well, I took my very first taxidermy class this year with the lovely Katie Innamorato, at Bazaar in Baltimore.  I'm getting ready to take another next Sunday with Divya, and I am completely stoked!  My back yard maceration bins are full of deer part.  My best friend's ferret is so close to being finished that the excitement of returning her to her momma is completely overwhelming.  I've got a few small projects in the works, one of which being a small shadowbox piece and the other is some rat taxidermy that I've been putting off.

Things are exciting.  I'm looking forward to filling my etsy shop with lovely creations and hopefully hoping on a holiday craft show or two this year.  I am still taking mummification commissions and if you would like to be put on the wait list for an original ornament I am doing preorders for those as well.

Hopefully. I'll have more project photos to share with you soon.  I haven't forsaken you, my adoring public.  I just needed a rest.

And we begin again...

In an effort to better care for myself and the fact that my computer died late last year, I have been making an effort to spend more time off line actually doing things that I enjoy.  Refreshing facebook is such a time suck, and I've completely been absorbed by what you all write from moment to moment that I've been neglecting my craft and things that I love to do.

I hadn't worked on a taxidermy project in some time.  My friend's ferret had been sitting in my freezer for an insane amount of time, so I finally thawed her out and worked on her.  Her mummification process should be done in late January.  I also figured that I had to do something with the string of vertebrae I had laying around the house so I had an idea, broke out the dremmel and made 20 Christmas ornaments with bells, antique glass, beads and the bones.  They were wildly successful, and for that I am grateful.  It's always a thrill when something you love, your art, a craft you've been cultivating and working on is supported by people.  It's such a thrill.  I sold 19 of the 20 ornaments in two weeks time.  Now I have a mess of bones coming to me from friends that hunt for food, and with the animals I have in my freezer I have projects piling on again.  I am super excited, as my only promise to myself this year is to nurture my craft fully.  My first step towards doing that this year is taking an actual taxidermy class late this month.  I am thrilled at the possibilities, as I have been reluctant to dive head first into stuffing the creatures I have only for them to look derpy in the end.

So here's so a prosperous, craft nurturing year.  My art is going to be huge.

Penumbra

My friend Lorien posted this today and it just resonated so very deeply...

At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language-door
and open the love window.
The moon won't use the door,
only the window.

-Rumi

Good night, Moon.

Less is more...

I know you all hear me professing my love for Dr. Hauschka, most times on a daily basis.  As a skincare professional, I have worked with several product lines, all of which have their merit.  However, no skincare line has nurtured, nourished and returned my skin to its natural glory than Dr. Hauschka.

First a little background.  The Dr. Hauschka skincare line is a German line developed by Dr. Rudolf Hauschka and Elizabeth Sigmund.  Most of the plants that go into the product are grown on WALA's bio dynamic farm, and are hand harvested and hand processed, with the exception of the roses and Shea Butter, which are grown on fair trade bio dynamic farms in warmer climates.  The idea, is that the product and ritual will return your skin to it's natural function.  No use for exfoliaters, or heavy night creams.

So, how does it work?  In the morning, you cleanse, tone and moisturize.  It's simple, and it works.  The cleansing cream is a gentle, deep cleanser that gently lifts out impurities and gently exfoliates the skin.  This is not a scrub, even though it may feel like one.  The idea is that with wet hands, you press, and roll your hands over your skin, listening for a squishing sound.  After three passes over your skin, you rinse, tone and moisturize, pressing each product into your skin, not rubbing.  Your skin will be rosier, clearer, and more balanced.  After a month, your skin will have gotten back to its natural rhythm.  It will be producing and healing and functioning at its highest level.

The facials are an other worldly experience.  Focus is on quality of touch and lymph stimulation.  They range from an hour to two hours, the Classic Treatment being the two hour treatment that is recommended four times a year with the change of the seasons.

I've struggled with my skin, adult acne, hyper pigmentation, texture issues, rosacea, psoriasis, and I've been through all of the treatments ranging from retin-a to cetephil to peels.  Nothing has healed my skin so easily and without all of the miserable side effects.  

Are you ready to leave your old skincare behind and begin a voyage towards your healthiest skin?

Let my skin speak to you...

Trying to help...

Eight years ago, one of my most beloved friends committed suicide.  It broke my heart.  I was inconsolable.  Still today, I am heart broken over the loss of such an amazing, sensitive, soul.  This September, I am walking to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  I, have personally struggled with and survived years of depression and a two suicide attempts.  Please, dig deep, any amount helps...

Click to Donate here

I hope you've found peace my dear friend...

Arlen Barr

Happy Fourth of July!

A Mirror with no Reflection

Most people don't know that I am a twin, was a twin.  My sister died in utero, during the 2nd trimester. Her death caused all sorts of complications for my mother, in the end resulting with my birth via cesarean section.

Lately, I've been really wondering how and if her death effected me in even the slightest way, and if a lot of the strange phantom emptiness is caused by that.

Starting early, I was a weird kid.  Off, slightly gregarious, slightly shy.  Very easily picked on, and always felt a little like something was missing.  I embraced my darkness, and it drive my mother insane.    I loved ghosts, monsters, death was so interesting to me.  I would hide in my closet or under my bed hoping that the monsters that other kids talked about would come out and play with me.  I wasn't afraid of them, I just assumed they were different like me, and just needed a friend that understood them.  I was picked on mercilessly all through elementary school and high school.  By the time college rolled around I just had accepted my solitude and while I had friends, they were from the land of misfit toys as well.

My mother didn't confess to me that I had been a twin until my 20's.  She didn't want me to feel I had lost something, yet, I already felt like that.  I had been feeling like that since I could remember.  I thought I was kind of crazy in thinking that a loss that happened so long ago and in utero could effect my personality and soul so much.

So I have decided to learn more about what it all means.  Did that loss make me a little more left of center than I normally would have been?  Has it effected me so deeply that I'm feeling all sorts of strange feelings and emptiness that I never would have felt if she had been born?

I'm on a quest...

Chasing Nostalgia

This past week has been full of amazing connections.  Not new connections, but just old friends who have delved deeper into friendship.  It's amazing.

 It's also been a crazy weird week where in, I had to go get a snake from my in laws.  It was a three foot corn snake.  Beautiful.  In an effort to try to find him a new home and not release him into the wild, I kept him in the house and he did escape.  It was an interesting 48 hours while he was missing.  I was more afraid of him getting hurt by one of the dogs, but he showed up last night, safe and sound, perhaps a little pissed off.  I scooted him into his container and bungee'd the lid down and decided that it was time for me to take him somewhere to be released.

This brings me to last night.  It was after nine, I had gotten dressed and put the snake in the car, and headed east.  I drove for a while, the cool breeze blowing through the window, the night, so very dark. I had forgotten a flashlight, so there I was, in the dark woods with a Tupperware container full of snake, tromping through the woods in flip flops, tripping through the brush.  I got him far enough away from the road and let him go.  I assume he slithered away, before I heard crashing in the woods and my brain freaked out.  On  the drive home I took the long way through the back roads of Dundalk and through Essex.  It brought back a flood of memories, of crazy late night times.  Driving though eastern Baltimore County in any of my Gilman boyfriends fancy cars.  Silly, whimsical, goth girl in love with jocks.  I would sit in the front seat of the car, my Dr. Martens propped up and hanging out the passenger window.  Billows of smoke from my Camel Lights drifting on the breeze.  I would roll my eyes as the current trust fund boyfriend and his friends tried to figure out ways to steal the Essex Cube or jump out of the car to pick up traffic cones for no good reason.  I would sit there, watch, smoke, and pick holes in my fishnets.  I still remember what it felt like to have each individual thread slide under my purple fingernail and pop.

Does this mean anything?  Nope.  I had just forgotten how much I love sense memory and how amazing, smells, sounds, and temperature can really make us recall certain moments in time.

A Family Undertaking

Most of you know that I find the aspect of modern funeral practices to be barbaric, and disturbing.  When I lost my grandfather, who died at home, in the care of my family, I vowed to myself, that a funeral director and home would be minimally involved in my after death care.  The feeling of handing my loved one over at such a time of pain and relief (particularly after a long illness) was hard.  Even though our funeral director was very kind and considerate of us being able to sit with my grandfather for some time after he had passed, I still felt this void when he was whisked away not to be seen until the grand unveiling at the funeral home in a few days.  While Charlie did an absolutely beautiful job making my grandfather look like a healthier version of himself.  He still looked like a manikin and was hard, and clay like, not at all what he felt like after death.  It deeply disturbed me, it always have when I've had to go to viewings.

A blogger and mortician from LA, Caitlin Doughty (www.orderofthegooddeath.com) mentioned a PBS documentary entitled, "A Family Undertaking".  I put it in my netflix queue and it arrived this weekend.  I watched it this morning.  What a beautiful, eye opening film.  I highly recommend it to anyone interested in caring for their own dead.  It was moving and very informative.  It tells several stories of families caring for their dead and one elderly man's involvement with planning his funeral and the gentle, kind way that his family cared for him after death.  Watching people take on the process of death and dying on their own terms is beautiful and very emotional.  I will admit that I was so very moved by the amount of personal care these families put into giving their loved ones exactly what they wanted after death.

I know this spring/summer, I will be undertaking the building of my own coffin for use when I finally leave this world.  I look forward to it, contemplating my mortality and accepting where we all end up.

a little hiatus

I've taken a break from things.  But life, aside from the last week or so has been pretty good, albeit a little stressful.  I've taken on more responsibility at work and got a promotion.  I love where I work, it was truly kismet that I found Apothecary when I did.

This past week has been a little crazy making.  My FIL has been in the hospital since last Wednesday and hasn't been doing well.  We thought we had lost him for good several times.  It's been an insanely emotional week.  I hesitate to get overly optimistic, but the progress that's been made in the last 24 hours is positive.  I hope it continues in the upward swing.

Since, I've been on hospital grounds, I've seen a lot of shoots and buds coming out of the soil.  This makes my heart happy, because that means that sunshine and warmer weather is on the horizon, which means, open windows and animal disembowling!  MY goal is to completely clean out my freezer this Spring/Summer, which means lots of maceration and mounting of skins.  I may have duplicates of bones if anyone is interested in doing some trading along the way.

I am going to get down to the ferret project finally in a couple of weeks.  That is the least crazy making of projects, at least initially.  Just a little update to keep y'all in the loop...

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day be filled with wonderful times with loving family and friends.  May it be filled with gratitude for life experiences, good or bad.

Mummification experimentation part one complete.

So, lovely readers, as you know your fearless heroine has been hard at work figuring out the logistics of ancient mummification to honor a dear friends pet in it's journey into the afterlife.  (Run on sentence much?)

Yesterday, after much stupidity in Howard County, I finally came away with unbleached cotton muslin, and a sad excuse for gold leaf.  Apparently, Joann can't be bothered to keep actual gold leaf in stock because the binding agent in carcinogenic.  No need to worry about the fact that I've been elbow deep in some mildly toxic resins and the stuff that they're selling in place of gold leaf contains Hexane which is a neurotoxin *eye roll*.  Anyway, I digress.  I got home and set to work...

"gold leafed"

wrapped

All Done.

So it's done.  I'm quite pleased with it.  I'm going to work on a larger rat next before starting on Pip.  But D, saw the finished project last night and was pretty pleased.  I think everyone on my Christmas gift list this year will be getting one.

Thanatos, by Henry Kirk White

I visited with my doctor today, and he told me to  look up this poem, it's beautiful, and I thought I would share it with you.  xoxox

Thanatos

Oh! who would cherish life,
And cling unto this heavy clog of clay,
Love this rude world of strife,
Where glooms and tempests cloud the fairest day;
And where, 'neath outward smiles,
Conceal'd the snake lies feeding on its prey,
Where pitfalls lie in every flowery way,
And sirens lure the wanderer to their wiles!
Hateful it is to me,
Its riotous railings and revengeful strife;
I'm tired with all its screams and brutal shouts
Dinning the ear;--away--away with life!
And welcome, oh! thou silent maid,
Who in some foggy vault art laid,

Where never daylight's dazzling ray
Comes to disturb thy dismal sway;
And there amid unwholesome damps dost sleep,
In such forgetful slumbers deep,
That all thy senses stupefied
Are to marble petrified.
Sleepy Death, I welcome thee!
Sweet are thy calms to misery.
Poppies I will ask no more,
Nor the fatal hellebore;
Death is the best, the only cure,
His are slumbers ever sure.
Lay me in the Gothic tomb,
In whose solemn fretted gloom
I may lie in mouldering state,
With all the grandeur of the great:
Over me, magnificent,
Carve a stately monument;
Then thereon my statue lay,
With hands in attitude to pray,
And angels serve to hold my head,
Weeping o'er the father dead.
Duly too at close of day,
Let the pealing organ play;
And while the harmonious thunders roll,
Chant a vesper to my soul:
Thus how sweet my sleep will be,
Shut out from thoughtful misery!

October, the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

I love autumn, all of it's crisp sweatery goodness.  The leaves changing, the taste of mulled cider, pumpkin everything!  However, it is the artists worst nightmare; especially, if you need to go to the craft store for supplies.  The trip started innocently, just some cotton muslin and gold leaf.  I went on by break from work because I had gobs of time.  Apparently, not enough.  I had forgotten what a mad house fabric and craft stores are come October.  So wrapping the mummy will have to wait a couple of weeks.

The mouse has come alone quite well.  I am pleased with how it dried.  I am sure that I have a better understanding of keeping parts of the body which will be kept exposed and preserved via resin.  I light a stick of incense next to it every morning, and I'm a little bummed that I got rid of my Egyptian Book of the Dead.  Who knew I would  be adding mummification to the laundry list of talents.

Today, I'm headed to Gettysburg to poke around antique shops, and stand in cold spots with my best friend and husband.  Maybe walk through a cemetery or two.  In two Wednesdays I'll be strolling into the doors of The Mourning Museum in Drexel Hill, PA.  How sad is it that I am probably more stoked about that than ever going to Disney World.  This is his anniversary gift to me.  Maybe we can pop over to the Mutter Museum for a quick visit with the wall of skulls, and perhaps a new 2013 Calender just in case we make it past December 21st.  ;)

Absent

I've been on a whirl wind fun time having vacation for the past couple of days or so.  I've needed it.  It's been super fun.  I feel more centered and focused, which is NOT where I've been lately.  I've been staring at projects and books that I should be reading, looking at my calender at appointments I should be making.  I have been a bit more absent minded than usual.  I am a very detailed oriented person, but lately, little things have just been slipping through my fingers.

I started reconstruction on Wilfred's leg, which is a pile of foam mauled by the sweetest of pit bulls, Fletch.  Thank God I have a pile of pins.  I feel like a surgeon piecing together some one's shattered hip socket.  It's not the end of the world.  It just calls for a bright light, Bondo, and straight pins.  Once, I have it temporarily reconstructed, I will number the bits, take it apart and begin putting it back together with said Bondo.

It's also the first day of October, which normally means that I begin 31 days of horror at my house.  I think I may skip it this year in favour of classics instead of the gore fests which have lead me to become increasingly depressed during my favourite time of year.  I think tonight I'll start with The Omen, or Rosemary's Baby.  Both favourites.

The mummification project is going well.  I may pop out to a fabric store today to see if I can get some muslin.  The one mistake I made was drying the mouse face up.  There was seepage from his face (because of the detailed work involving removing his brain and eyes <see not being detail oriented while doing taxidermy IS a problem>).  This will be less of a problem with the ferret.  Cavities are larger, so I will be able to get into the skull to take care of both of those things.  Otherwise, Now that I know to dry them face down, I think the process will go super smooth.  Clearly, Pip will have to dry for a much longer time, but I think all in all the experiment was a success, and the resins that I chose not only did a beautiful job preserving, but it's the loveliest smelling piece of taxidermy I've ever created.  I hope to get started on Pip this week.  Hopefully, Diana will have him back by December 21 (end of the world stuffs).  That's my goal, at least.  I'll see her today to discuss specifics on decoration and whatnot.  I'm very excited about it.

Another weekend filled with friend therapy on the horizon.  That's good stuff!

Next post I promise will be image heavy.

Just a quote that I happened on today...

We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. - Charles Bukowski

Convalescing a Strange Fox

This has been in the works for some time now.  Co-owner of the spa that I work at asked me if I would take a look at her sister in law's fox, that her dog had gotten a hold of during a fit of anxiety.  I agreed and today I finally met him.

Meet Wilfred...

So super handsome!

Wilfred was maimed by Fletch, R's dog.

A bit more than a flesh wound, he will be like the bionic man when I'm finished.

It is my job to restore Wilfred to his old glory.  I'm not going to lie, the condition of the pelt has me a little concerned.  It's very dry.  I will need to rebuild the leg form and then reattach the pelt and pelt pieces to the form.  This is going to be very detail oriented and time consuming.  But who doesn't like a challenge?

I am so happy that these opportunities are coming into my life!!!

Wilfred also enjoys car rides....

And meeting new friends...

Linus says a typical canine, "Hello".

Beamish is a little more confrontational...

who am i?

What makes a girl thrust herself into a world of death and reanimation?  I have always been a fairly dark person (on the inside)...

Clearly a little sassy on the outside.

My parents (mostly my mother) constantly wondered why I would bring home drawings of coffins and want to snuggle and throw funerals for my goldfish and other pets (complete with little painted boxes, with handles, handmade gravestones, and funeral rights, grave side.  Nothing got flushed in our house.  These little rituals, with full processions always lead me to think about death in not only an end to life, but the beginning of a fantastic new journey.  As I got older and gained access to books on the funeral industry, and Victorian mourning (OH THE FASHION!), I became even more obsessed.  So I decided on my 30th birthday I would try to learn something new, that new thing, taxidermy.

Much to my mother's chagrin, the first taste of dismantling that fox and mounting it on a foam mount has been a fire that's burned very brightly in my heart ever since.  Yes, these creatures are dead, but it's a privilege for me to have the experience of recreating life with them, or in different circumstances, creating a loving monument to the treasured beasties they were in live.

By day, I work with the living as an aesthetician, beautifying and working on sometimes complex skin conditions.  During my free time I hang out with my dogs, watch obscure documentaries on puppetry, collect bones and bugs, go to drag shows, read fashion mags, practice yoga and try to have as much of a creative outlet as I possibly can.  I also have a shameful weakness for the Jersey Shore.

The first few posts will detail my quest to make a lasting memento of my dear friend D's long lost ferret, who passed away due to adrenal disease.  We originally had thought of getting the bones nice and clean, and then I would painstakingly put them back together as a mount for her.  But I've only worked with Maceration before...

Single point buck skull with lower mandible and vertebrae.

And a Ferrets bones are so small I was afraid that I would lose some in the process.

So it came to me last night during a dream, why not try mummification.  Thus the process has begun.  I hope to have her beloved Pip back to her by spring.  It's been too long already.

Walking that really thin line, or tight rope...

So many of you know me as your fun loving aesthetician or makeup artist.  But since my 30th year, I've been studying and practicing the art of taxidermy.  I spent my 30th birthday elbow deep in a fox that some kind gentleman on the internet was kind enough to send me as my first mount.

Tonight, I am embarking on the beginning of a project for a friend.  My dearest friend Diana had to put her ferret down two years ago, and brought him straight to me for preservation.  My original idea was to clean the bones and reassemble the skeleton for her.  Sadly, I'm afraid to loose any of the bones, so in an inspiration I decided to try mummification.   So meet Fritz.... (guitar pick for scale)

Fritz is a feeder mouse rescued from the pet store freezer, in order to fuel my desire to study small anatomy and do some work that's not huge.  I thought that anatomy might be similar only in a smaller scale.

So I made an abdominal incision and separated the fascia from the skin working from the edge of the incision around back making sure not to disturb any of the organs.

Once I had gotten everything separated I had to snip off at the leg joints and at the base of the skull.  I'll spare you all the pile of gore next to the skin.  I did manage to get the intestines, liver, kidneys and heart all in nice little piles, but everything was so small it seemed silly to preserve them.  Thus, the next picture a hollow little mousy.

Clean and freshly washed.

Scraped clean and coated with the first coat of resin and preservation powder.

Resined ears, these will not be wrapped in the finished product.

Second coat of resins and cotton soaked in preservation resins and essential oils.

All sewn up.  Coat of resin on the face, ears and tail.  Feet tied together for drying and resined as well.

Buried in preservation salts.

I've read 60 days for a full grown human and a dry place, but since this critter is so small I'm going to keep an eye on it for a week or so and see how things start looking.  So far, this is the nicest smelling piece of taxidermy I've ever done.  I look forward to seeing how this turns out.  The next step will include wrapping it and resining it again.    More when the drying process is complete.