TAXIDERMA
with JENNY MORSE from WASSAIC LANTERN
JENNY MORSE has her hands in a lot of projects, constantly. Whether it be behind the the bar at The Wassaic Lantern, organizing events at the arts venue compound at 5 Harts Rd. in Dover Plains, or stick-and-poke tattooing her friends. She’s also spent time turning the pragmatic dead fauna along Route 22 into more artistic endeavors.
“Just like tattooing, the thought of ‘practice’ is painful. You’re honoring a life, it’s not something you can easily fuck up and forgive yourself for. So when I messed that squirrel up, I had a hard time coming back. But I came around. Where we live, roadkill abounds. And it was always my goal to taxidermy ethically, not to kill anything or taxidermy anything that hadn’t died of natural causes. So I started collecting things and keeping them in a chest freezer in our barn, eventually working up the nerve to try again.”
