Nate Hill describes himself as a rogue taxidermist. He rummages through trash looking for dead animals: fish, dogs, cats, etc. Whatever he finds, he stitches together to form a bizarre new creature. From a recent
AP article about him:
"I'm totally self-taught," he said. "To put it simply, what I do is cut up the animals, I sew them together in a different way, and then I submerge them in rubbing alcohol to preserve them."
He considers himself a member of a loosely defined group of "rogue taxidermists" who sidestep the traditional craft of taxidermy that aims to make lifelike replicas by preserving and stuffing animal skins. Along with the garbage cans of Chinatown, he said gets most of his animals from hunters, roadkill and taxidermists...
Hill said he felt more like a "folk" artist, given his lack of formal training in the arts. His intent, he said, is similar to "the guy who sits in his basement and has his train set, and he has all the people and he makes mountains ... that's the kind of thing that I want, but I want to make it with real flesh."
Nate is a star member of the
Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, which describes itself as: "a veritable rout dedicated to a shared mandate to advocate the showmanship of oddities; espouse the belief in natural adaptation and mutation; and encourage the desire to create displays of curiosity."
They have some interesting items for sale in their
gift shop, such as a 2-headed chick, a skinned squirrel head fridge magnet, and a frog eating human toes.
Comments
Hill saws dead animals' body parts together and pickles them in a bottle and call it artwork. His website is creepy but interesting. It seems what he doing (China Town tour and his youtube videos are good examples) is more like performance art. (http://www.stoproadkill.org/) I had a pretty good time at his tour last month.
Yamada creates extremely realistic specimen models (he prefers using the term "sideshow gaffs") of mainly mythic creatures and extinct animals by using natural (dead animals' body parts) & man-made materials and show them at museums (including American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan), art galleries, universities, libraries, nature centers, etc. He seems very active guy.
(http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html) I had a good time at Yamada's lecture on the rogue taxidermy at the American Museum of Natural History last year. I was especially impressed by his rogue taxidermies of mummified Fiji mermaid (6 feet), the giant sea serpent (35 feet) and Japanese warrior's mask painted on the horseshoe crab among his many artworks on display there.
I am looking forward to meeting more crazy taxidermy artists and vampires at the next taxidermy contest.