Projects 2014 > Curpanion > Journal

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When I was small, the taxidermy of my local museum filled me with a mortal dread, the glassy eyes of long-dead predators and prey looking down from their mounts seemed to be glaring, likely to suck me into their cages if I dwelled for too long. It was the same feeling I got from those creepy fish on the ice-shelf in Sainsbury's.

Luckily the morbid curiosity of the knee-high had me daring myself and my siblings to repeatedly run through the taxidermy section, perhaps giving it more of our patronage than any other exhibit.

As a fearless and fully grown human these days, I'm a big fan of a yester-mal, in fact some of my favourite recent giggles have come from here: http://badlystuffedanimals.com/ and I am currently coveting a rather handsome tawny owl for my living room.

In reading your blogs I am excited by the potential for curpanion objects to make the likes of early-me more brave in approaching these fearsome beasties, getting to know more about them and showing them who was boss. Having said that, I wouldn't want to entirely smooth away that fearful exhilaration I had when encountering the dead and I wonder if it is possible to have both. A pocket beastie that is calm at home and yet twitches and writhes in my pocket in the presence of its exhibited kin might well do the trick! I can't wait to see where you take this next.