Bizarre ‘dead mice into humans’ hobby is a rage in Brooklyn
By ANIMonday, February 14, 2011
NEW YORK - A bizarre hobby of converting dead mice into miniature ‘humans’ is taking hold in Brooklyn and fast turning into a very popular trend.
A Gowanus gallery offering a 45-dollar class in “anthropomorphic taxidermy” today sold out in four hours.
“It looks less like an animal and more like a weird art project,” the New York Post quoted Susan Jeiven, 39, a tattoo artist and taxidermist, as saying.
The three-hour stuffing session requires those with iron stomachs.
Jeiven buys the frozen vermin from snake-feed stores, then thaws them out and sucks out their blood with a syringe.
Then, students will clean out the mice’s innards with razors and remove their bones. Borox and strong chemicals are applied to preserve their coats.
After that, students shape molds out of clay, sewing on the preserved skins, and using wires to set the mice into odd poses.
“I don’t like rogue taxidermy. I want them to look classy,” she said.
The Big Apple’s first public museum, Scudder’s American Museum, featured exhibits on it, and British practitioners created entire weddings and banquets with dozens of stuffed squirrels, cats and mice.
“There is definitely a revival. Our lectures that touch on taxidermy are standing-room only,” said Joanna Ebenstein, an Observatory curator.
“It just exploded. As soon as the hip people like it, everyone seems to like it,” Jeiven added. (ANI)
