動物標本制作，懷一顆慈悲的心

A Kinder, Gentler Taxidermy

動物標本制作，懷一顆慈悲的心

If you visit Alison Raleigh at home, in Hoboken, N.J., one of the first things you’re likely to notice is all the taxidermy: There’s a deer head in the bathroom, a stuffed pheasant and crow on the mantel, a ram’s head in the study. She bought a lot of it on eBay. But some of it she made herself.

你要是去艾莉森·羅利(Alison Raleigh)在新澤西州霍波肯(Hoboken)的家里做客，首先會注意到的一件事，可能就是滿屋子的標本：浴室里有一顆鹿頭，壁爐架上擺著一只雉雞和烏鴉的標本，書房里放著一顆公羊頭。其中很多是她在eBay上買的，但有些則是她自己做的。

“I was collecting all this taxidermy,” said Ms. Raleigh, 40, a stay-at-home mother of two. “Then I thought, why can’t I just do it? I’m not squeamish.”

“我本來是在收藏標本，”羅利說，她今年40歲，全職在家?guī)蓚€孩子，“后來我想，為什么不自己做呢?反正我也不是有潔癖的人。”

There are those who may say that do-it-yourself taxidermy is taking D.I.Y. just a little too far. But not Ms. Raleigh, and many others like her, who are learning this time-honored tradition in classes offered at a variety of venues across the country, including natural history museums, nature centers and even restaurants.

有些人可能會說，自己做標本，是把DIY的精神發(fā)揚得有點過火了。但是羅利和許多同道中人并不這么認為。他們正在參加培訓班，學習這種經久不衰的傳統(tǒng)手藝。全國各地、各式各樣的場館都在開設標本剝制培訓班，包括自然歷史博物館、自然中心，甚至是餐館。

And doing your own taxidermy, Ms. Raleigh was quick to add, is the only way you can make sure the animals are ethically sourced.

而且，羅利很快補充說，只有自己制作標本，才能確保制作標本的動物是通過人道方式取得的。

That’s right: For those who want to make sure the moose and deer mounted on their walls have been treated at least as humanely as the free-range cows slaughtered for their burgers, there is now ethical taxidermy.

沒有錯：對于自制標本的人而言，人道的標本剝制術是存在的。他們希望裝飾在自家墻上的駝鹿和鹿，至少能夠像漢堡供貨商放養(yǎng)的牛一樣，在生前得到人道的對待。

Mickey Alice Kwapis, 23, a self-taught taxidermy instructor in Cleveland, Ohio, is one of its proponents. The animals she uses — rabbits, squirrels, mice, guinea pigs — were not killed for art’s sake, she said. They were raised and painlessly euthanized to serve as food for reptiles and large cats. Ms. Kwapis gets them from a company called Rodent Pro, which supplies animals to pet stores and zoos.

23歲的米琪·愛麗絲·夸皮斯(Mickey Alice Kwapis)是一名自學成材的標本制作老師，住在俄亥俄州的克利夫蘭(Cleveland)。她就是上述理念的支持者之一。她說自己所使用的動物——兔子、松鼠、老鼠、豚鼠，都不是以藝術的名義殺死的。它們是那種被飼養(yǎng)長大后安樂死，作為爬行動物和大型貓科動物食物的小動物?？淦に褂糜谥谱鳂吮镜膭游?，來自一家為寵物店和動物園供應動物的公司Rodent Pro。

Ms. Kwapis holds her classes in unlikely places like tattoo parlors and restaurants. “As long as you clean up afterward, there’s nothing to say you can’t hold a taxidermy class anywhere,” she said. “After all, a rabbit has less bacteria than a chicken.”

夸皮斯的開課地點，都在一些令人意想不到的場所，比如刺青店和餐館。“只要你在事后搞好衛(wèi)生，就沒什么地方是不能開標本剝制課的，”她說，“畢竟，兔子體內的細菌還沒有肉雞多。”

In addition to teaching her students how to stuff the animals, Ms. Kwapis instructs them on how to prepare the meat for eating, although, she added, “I actually have a lot of vegans in my classes.”

除了教學生怎么剝制標本外，夸皮斯還會教他們怎樣將剩余不用的肉做成菜，只不過，她補充道，“我其實有很多素食主義的學員。”

She also shows them how to preserve the organs in jars (if that aesthetic appeals to them) and how to clean the bones to make jewelry or grind them up for fertilizer. “Nothing goes to waste,” she said.

她還會跟他們展示，如何將器官保存在罐子里(前提是他們能夠接受這樣的美學);如何將骨頭清潔干凈，做成飾品，或者磨成骨粉，用作肥料。“沒有一樣東西會被浪費。”她說。

Ms. Raleigh, who learned taxidermy earlier this year in classes held at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn, takes a similar approach. Like Ms. Kwapis, she gets her animals from reptile feed companies. And she makes use of the entire animal, feeing the innards of the mice she uses in her mounts to her dog.

羅利也采用了類似的方法。今年早些時候，她在布魯克林病理解剖博物館(Morbid Anatomy Museum)學會了標本剝制術。和夸皮斯一樣，她也是從爬行動物飼料公司那里獲得用于制作標本的動物的。而且，她會將動物的全身加以利用，她將制作老鼠標本剩下的內臟喂給了自己家的狗。

“My dog is on a raw-food diet,” she said.

“我家的狗現(xiàn)在吃生食了。”她說。

What exactly constitutes ethics when it comes to taxidermy, however, depends on whom you consult. Allis Markham, 31, sees it a little differently.

然而，就制作標本而言，究竟怎樣做才稱得上是道德的，不同的人有不同看法。31歲的愛麗絲·馬克漢姆(Allis Markham)在這個問題上和別人稍有分歧。

“Using animals killed for pet food is the same to me as factory farming,” said Ms. Markham, an assistant in the taxidermy department at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and owner of Prey Taxidermy, which creates mounts for Hollywood productions and offers how-to courses. “Just like the meat I eat, the animals I use for my taxidermy can’t have been raised in an industrial way.”

“對我來說，把作為寵物飼料殺死的動物拿來做標本，跟工廠化飼養(yǎng)是一回事。”馬克漢姆說。她在洛杉磯自然歷史博物館(Natural History Museum)的動物標本部做助理，也是“標本”(Prey Taxidermy)的所有者。這家工作室為好萊塢影片提供剝制標本，并開設培訓課程。“就跟我吃的肉一樣，我用來做標本的動物也不能是通過工業(yè)化方式飼養(yǎng)出來的。”

Ms. Markham gets animals for her classes — typically starlings, quails, squirrels, ducklings and raccoons — from pest control operators who would otherwise have disposed of them in a landfill or from game breeders after the animals have died a natural death. The larger animals she uses in her film work, like deer and peacocks, were either killed by hunters for food or died of natural causes in captivity.

馬克漢姆教課所用的動物，通常是已經自然死亡的椋鳥、鵪鶉、松鼠、小鴨和浣熊，其來源有兩個：一是病蟲害防治工作者那里的死動物。若不被馬克漢姆收走，它們也會被丟棄到垃圾場;二是野生動物飼養(yǎng)者。而她在影視作品中使用的體型較大的動物——比如鹿和孔雀，要么是被獵人獵殺的，要么是在圈養(yǎng)過程中自然死亡的。

“There’s no shortage of invasive species killed for abatement or animals that died naturally,” Ms. Markham said.

“為了生態(tài)平衡而被獵殺的入侵物種以及自然死亡的動物，是源源不斷的。”馬克漢姆說。

But she draws the line at stuffing people’s departed pets. “I’m not going to be able to put life back in its eyes the way the owner knew and loved it,” she said.

但是，將別人過世的寵物做成標本，就超越了她的底限。“要讓這些寵物的眼神回復它們主人曾經熟悉和愛憐的生動模樣，對此我無能為力。”她說。

Ms. Markham has decorated her own home with some 30 mounts, including a black bear, impala, antelope and jackal buzzard. Her husband, David Iserson, a writer who has worked on “Mad Men” and “Saturday Night Live,” has been “incredibly supportive of my work,” she said. “And incredibly grossed out.”

馬克漢姆已經在家里裝飾了30多個標本，包括一頭黑熊、一只黑斑羚、一只羚羊、一只暗棕鵟。她的丈夫戴維·伊澤森(David Iserson)曾參與《廣告狂人》(Mad Men)和《周六夜現(xiàn)場》(Saturday Night Live)的創(chuàng)作，他一直“對我的工作表現(xiàn)出難以置信的支持，”她說，“以及難以置信的厭惡。”

While ethical codes may vary, most taxidermy classes are popular enough to have waiting lists. Students and instructors tend to be women in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Men take the classes as well, instructors say, but usually with a girlfriend or spouse.

雖然秉承的人道準則可能有所不同，但大多數標本制作培訓課都很有人氣，還有人在排隊候補。學生和老師往往都是二十幾到四十幾歲的女性。培訓者說，也有男性學員報名，但通常都是和女友或伴侶一起來。

“I get a lot of lawyers,” Ms. Kwapis said. “I don’t know what that means.”

“我的學員當中有很多律師，”夸皮斯說，“我也不知道這意味著什么。”

Courses can cost $100 to $500 (including supplies) and take several hours, which may be spread over a couple of days. Lessons on skinning, disemboweling, wiring the animal and making a mold are followed by lots of grooming and preening using tweezers and blow dryers, to get the animal looking as fresh and lifelike as possible.

課程培訓費可達100至500美元(約合人民幣612至3062元)(包括材料費)，學時要持續(xù)好幾個小時，可能會分幾天進行。課程涉及剝皮、去除內臟、為動物支架和制模，此后，就需要學員用鑷子和吹風機在整形上花費大量功夫了，以使標本盡可能顯得栩栩如生。

“It’s kind of like sculpture, kind of like painting, almost like hairdressing, almost like sewing,” said Nina Masuda, 36, a graphic designer in Los Angeles who has taken three classes with Ms. Markham, in which she stuffed a starling, a quail and a squirrel. “I thought it would be all science-y, and I’m, like, fluffing up this bird’s hair, trying to give it some volume.”

“這有點像雕塑，又有點像作畫，幾乎接近美發(fā)，又十分接近縫紉。”36歲的妮娜·增田(Nina Masuda)說。她是洛杉磯的一名平面設計師，在馬克漢姆那里上過三堂課，課上制作過三個標本——一只椋鳥、一只鵪鶉和一只松鼠。“我本以為它會帶有很強的科學色彩，結果我所做的卻像是，一直在蓬松這只鳥頭上的羽毛，試圖讓它的毛量顯得多一些。”

Ms. Masuda’s mounts have been naturalistic, but students in other taxidermy classes often create anthropomorphic pieces: mice sipping tea from tiny cups, say, or a rabbit strumming a tiny guitar. And then there are the so-called rogue creations, like “Game of Thrones"-inspired three-eyed ravens, or bunnies with squid tentacles.

增田的標本走的是自然主義路線;而其他培訓課學員往往會創(chuàng)作出擬人化的作品：比如，用小巧的杯子喝茶的老鼠，或是彈著小吉他的兔子。還有一些所謂的惡作劇作品，比如受《權力的游戲》(Game of Thrones)啟發(fā)而做出的三眼烏鴉，或是長著烏賊觸手的兔子。

Ms. Raleigh, in Hoboken, has made one mouse with quail wings and another wearing little clogs and drinking a glass of wine; she has also created a tableau of two mice embracing on a heart-shaped pedestal, as a present for her husband.

霍波肯的羅利給一只老鼠配上了鵪鶉翅膀，給另一只穿上了小木屐，讓它做出喝葡萄酒的樣子;她還為兩只老鼠做了一個舞臺造型，讓它們在一個心形基座上擁抱，然后將這件作品作為禮物送給了丈夫。

“He said it was the most romantic gift he’d ever gotten,” she said.

“他說，那是他收到的最浪漫的禮物。”她說。

Her friends’ reactions, however, have been mixed.

然而，她朋友的反應就各不相同了。

“Half of them say: ‘Oh, that is so disgusting. How can you do that?’ And the other half say: ‘Neat! Can do you make one for me?’ ”

“有半數的人說：‘噢，那好惡心啊。你怎么能做這個?’還有一半人說：‘酷斃了!你能不能給我做一個?’”

But Ms. Raleigh’s new hobby is not as odd or macabre as some of her friends might think. In fact, there’s a historical precedent, said Brian Schmidt, a taxidermist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

但是羅利的新愛好并不像她有些朋友所想的那么怪異，或者恐怖。事實上，據就職于華盛頓史密森學會(Smithsonian Institution)的標本制作師布萊恩·施密特(Brian Schmidt)說，這在歷史上是有先例的。

“Back in Victorian times, people, especially women, used to do a lot of taxidermy, putting it under glass domes or in quilts,” Mr. Schmidt said. “So I guess we’ve come full circle.”

“早在維多利亞時代，人們(尤其是女人)就曾制作過大量標本，把它們放進鐘形玻璃罩，或收藏在被單下面。”施密特說，“所以我猜，我們又回到了原點。”

Then and now, part of the appeal may be the illusion of cheating death, said Margot Magpie, an instructor at an ethical taxidermy studio in London called Of Corpse!, who sometimes teaches at the Morbid Anatomy Museum.

無論在當時還是現(xiàn)在，標本的魅力或許部分在于，它給人一種雖死猶生的錯覺。倫敦一家人道標本剝制工作室Of Corpse!的培訓師瑪格·“喜鵲”(Margot Magpie)如是說。她偶爾也會在病理解剖博物館里授課。

“Making something that’s dead look alive again helps some people come to terms with death,” said Ms. Magpie, 31.

“讓死去的動物看起來就像重獲新生，這樣做能夠幫助一些人接受死亡。”31歲的“喜鵲”說。