Artist Talk: Melissa Milgrom

I attended an artist talk in the Nevada Museum of Art by Melissa Milgrom.  She lectured the audience with a power point on the topic of Still Life, more specifically, Adventures in Taxidermy.  She immediately stated the point that, for many, this is a very controversial issue and that taxidermy has no place in art.  However, throughout the lecture, she seemed to change just about everyone's mind on the controversial topic.  The idea behind this is that many people see taxidermist as animal killers and individuals who don't care that much about wildlife in general.  However, she quickly clarified, from person experience and more, that that idea is completely wrong.  Most taxidermists are very careful and meticulous people who care about animals very much.  In order to master being a taxidermist, one has to study and learn every single aspect of said animal in order to get the animal just right.  If anything with the animal is off, even by a little bit, it's considered basically an abomination and abstract art.  But the main focus on how taxidermy is art, and taxidermists are artists, is that they have a strong belief behind trying to capture life in the state which it should be, and so that even if that animal were to go extinct, one could view the true beauty of the creature as though it were still alive.