Putting animals to work

A reasonable person might presume that the Director would be happy with news of the overwhelming success of the previously mentioned Anatomy of Monsters.

Obviously reasonable people are in short supply around the museum in these dark days.

As an obviously unreasonable person, I expect nothing.

And luckily, as not a word have I received regarding the triumph of the new exhibit. Not a syllable! Not a solitary alphanumeric character!

Instead, we* are simply swamped with a superfluity of animal corpses in various states of dismemberment originating from various parts of the world. Not a word about what the Director might want done with the various animal parts she has dumped on us. Not an inkling as to why she might have acquired them in the first place. I can't even store the bits and bobs and wait until she returns -- the Oubliette is already brimfull to overflowing.

With my usual genius for organisation, I have, naturally, found a solution. I will have the animal corpses built into useful objects. I have already received the first shipments of commissions back. I was surprised at just how willing these young people are to do what it takes to get a chance in the world. They have transformed our unwanted carnage into useful objects that would grace any home or museum.

Miss Pokeno, (a fellow once-New Zealander and 80s pop star, so uncannily like myself that I had to doublecheck that she isn't just me moonlighting...) for instance, has transformed a useless limp dead bird into a very comfortable chaise lounge. I await her set of fox-stuffed armchairs with great anticipation.


I'm thinking of matching them with the sets of both fox and coyote pillows . Idiots have also looked at the bird/furniture combo -- This Seat is Taken indeed!


Atlason have transformed an annoying flock of sheep into useful stools...
Sarah Garzoni's chesterfield pig will make a great addition to the Boudoir:
But she gets extra points for the very fine swiss army knife (Homo Faber) she slipped into my hand on her way out.
Smaller furnishing items have not been overlooked either: Moooi have ponied up with a Horse Lamp:
Sebastian Errazuriz with a Duck lamp (Now if someone could just make a spider lamp, I'd be REALLY excited)
Carlee Fernandez's clothes basket Lola Isern will come in very handy

This is, of course, just the beginning! I'll keep you posted about new pieces of furniture as they arrive -- although I'll be rather busy for the next while researching Victorian taxidermy furniture...

Consultants on this element of the Museum's activities include:
Quigley's Cabinet's article on taxidermy furniture >
Crappy Taxidermy has an endless parade of stuffed goodness >

* And when I say 'we' I mean, of course, 'me' The rest of MoD's staff seem to have evaporated about the time that we stopped receiving any kind of regular paychecks. I haven't seen anyone from Janitorial for months and even that vicious little sneak Inky-Blinky has been very quiet. I have to admit that, as long as he spins his webs and organises his own collections well out of my way, I'd be happy to never see him again.

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New Educational Exhibit! getting inside Godzilla

Well Well Well!

It looks as though the Director has finally decided to get her hands dirty!

Here was I thinking that she would be searching the arid inlands of Mesopotamia, given that that's what she TOLD us, in the memo she left in my wastepaper bin, whilst all the time she has actually been big-game hunting in Japan.

And then she has the temerity to send her trophies back to me in a state of partial... partialness. Not that I'm pointing fingers, but it looks to me like someone got a little peckish.

Perhaps had a little midnight snack?

Gamera schnitzel, that I understand... but Mothera steaks!?

Anyway, as always, I struggle on, making the best of what I'm given. The museum must come first. Etc. etc.

However, in this instance, I think that you will agree with me when I say I made this particular sow's ear into silk pyjamas.

Taking the mutilated corpses, I have presented them as an educational exhibit. This exhibit will afford young visitors a thrilling learning experience.

A proper understanding of the anatomy of monsters has been too often overlooked in the past. But this ignorance is putting our young people into deadly peril.

This new exhibit An Anatomical Guide to Monsters, is appropriately supported by an especially commissioned publication of the same name (An Anatomical Guide to Monsters, 1967. Text: Shoji Otomo. Illustrator: Shogo Endo.) Each individual exhibit displays a full range of useful and educational signage and wall-labels. This isstate of the art new museology I'm making here!

My exhibit is bound to be a tremendous success, attracting that lucrative school audience to the Museum. Director de Plume will HAVE to give me a payrise now!

I expecting such huge interest, that I've commissioned a special structure for the exhibit. The Hunting Lodge will both commemorate the Director's prowess and provide a safe buffer for the more fragile exhibits in the rest of the museum.



Please view the rest of the exhibition An Anatomical Guide to Monsters at The Hunting Lodge



The historically inclined amongst the audience may also find this specimen A Hairy Monster, prepared by anatomist Tom Gauld, of more than passing interest.

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Dust to Dust

It has been several months since the Director left on an extended exhibit-finding trip (or, at least, that's what she said she was doing). We haven't heard a word from her although, from time to time, something turns up addressed in what seems to be her hand.

Now, I'm not one to complain and I pride myself on my consummate professionalism, but it has been very hard to maintain standards around the museum with no direction or resources. It's all very well for Ms de Plume to send back the occasional box of fragments... but would it kill her to label them? Provide some documentation? Even just tell me what the hell they are? Or what she wants done with them?

But I struggle on.

Don't get me started on the quality of "staff" she left me saddled with either... a brace of mangy and uncontrollable spongecats and their supposed keeper and Minister of Defense, Inky-Blinky who, if truth be told, I haven't seen hair nor legs of in the last year. I have to do EVERYTHING! It's as much as I can do to keep up with feeding the spongecats and keeping the place open -- although I have to admit that she was right about the marketing and promotions. Not doing any has really seen visitations drop off... which is just as well, because if I was running the ticket office, I simply wouldn't be able to get anything else done.

Of course I was beginning to worry slightly about the dust... Dust in exhibits is all very well and proper, but the drifts have been piling up in the corners and under the furniture. It was beginning to be difficult to tell the human skin fragments apart from the diatoms or the butterfly scales. Luckily, I have found a solution that should provide a win-win solution all round.

I've invited a young fellow called Paul Hazelton to pop-over. He is a dust fiend. A particulate fanatic. Better (or worse, depending on your perspective), he's an artist. He makes sculptures from dust using a secret and patented method. Hazelton transforms piles of dust into... shaped piles of dust.

His themes are appropriate to the Museum... and appropriately meta-textual. Here's some examples.

Being and Nothingness

Vacancy

See what I mean?!

Dust mask

In return for his entire creative output I have agreed to allow him access to selected piles of our dust*. He seems to be appropriately pathetically grateful for the opportunity.

By the time that Director de Plume returns we should have a fine collection. I'm thinking of turning over a wing of the museum to it -- and, in recognition of my sheer genius, calling it the 'Administrative Dust Show'.

What happens if the Director disagrees? I hear you say. Of course I've got a fallback plan -- I've acquired one of Hazelton's earlier works (below) and already have it packed and ready to go. I can be out of here in under a minute.

Carrier

More about David Hazelton's art here >
His Saatchi art site -- with many more egs here >

*Obviously NOT the diatoms or the insect scales! Imagine... The Director would have my guts for garters!

PS Mr Hazelton just dropped in with his first contribution to the new exhibit. I don't know that the Director is going to like it much, but I think that it is just fine. And that damned arachnid slacker can think what he likes....

A spider

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