1. Anatomy
  2. "Lover’s Eyes" Lecture and Show

"Lover’s Eyes" Lecture and Show and Tell! Taxidermy, Hair Art and Bat Skeleton in Dome Workshops! Bartitsu Victorian Self Defense System Demonstration! Rest in Pieces Book Party! This Week and Beyond at Morbid Anatomy Presents

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"Lover's Eye" (see above) illustrated lecture and show and tell! Taxidermy, hair art, anthropomorphic insect shadow box and bat skeleton dome workshops! Bartitsu Victorian self-defense system demonstration! Rest in Pieces book party! This Week and Beyond at Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory.
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Classic (Naturalistic) Mouse Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman: Offsite at Acme Studio
Date: Saturday, March 30
Time: 1-5 PM
Admission: $110
***Please note: This class will be held offsite at Acme Studio : 63 N. 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Advance Tickets Required; Click here to purchase.
Class limit: 10
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
The natural world has long captivated human kind, and taxidermy has played a large role in our understanding and study of animals; the painstaking creation of life-like mounts take much attention and research, and requires and builds a deep appreciation of nature.
In this class, Divya Anantharaman--who learned her craft under the tutelage of famed Observatory instructor Sue Jeiven--will lead students in an investigation into the humble mouse. Students will create a fully finished classic mount of a mouse, on a base and in the natural setting of their choice. Students will learn everything involved in producing a finished mount, from initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, fleshing, tail stripping, and dry preservation. The use of anatomical study, reference photos, and detailed observation will also be reviewed as important tools in recreating the nuanced poses and expressions that magically reanimate a specimen. Students are welcome to bring their own bases and accessories if something specific is desired. All other supplies will be provided for use in class.
Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.
Divya Anantharaman is a Brooklyn based artist whose taxidermy practice was sparked by a lifelong fascination with natural mythology and everyday oddities. After a journey filled with trial and error, numerous books, and an inspiring class (Sue Jeiven's popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class at Observatory!), she has found her calling in creating sickly sweet and sparkly critters. Beginning with mice and sparrows, her menagerie grew to include domestic cats, woodchucks, and deer. Recently profiled on Vice Fringes, the New York Observer, and other publications, she will also be appearing in the upcoming season of Oddities-and is definitely up to no good shenanigans. You can find out more at http://www.d-i-v-y-a.com
Also, some technical notes:
  • We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
  • Everyone will be provided with gloves.
  • All animals are disease free.
  • Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
  • All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
  • Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.
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Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Divya AnantharamanDate: Saturday, April 6
Time: 1-5 PM
Admission: $110
***Please note: This class will be held offsite at Acme Studio : 63 N. 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Advance Tickets Required; Click here to purchase
Email divya.does.taxidermy at gmail dot com with questions or to be put on wait list
Class limit: 10
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Anthropomorphic taxidermy--in which taxidermied animals are posed into human attitudes and poses--was an artform made famous by Victorian taxidermist and museologist Walter Potter. In this class, students will learn to create--from start to finish--anthropomorphic mice inspired by the charming and imaginative work of Mr. Potter and his ilk. With the creative use of props and some artful styling, you will find that your mouse can take nearly whatever form you desire, from a bespectacled, whiskey swilling, top hat tipping mouse to a rodent mermaid queen of the burlesque world.
In this class, Divya Anantharaman--who learned her craft under the tutelage of famed Observatory instructor Sue Jeiven--will teach students everything involved in the production of a fully finished mount, including initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, fleshing, tail stripping, and dry preservation. Once properly preserved, the mice will be posed and outfitted as the student desires. Although a broad selection of props and accessories will be provided by the instructor, students are also strongly encouraged to bring their own accessories and bases; all other materials will supplied. Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.
Divya Anantharaman is a Brooklyn based artist whose taxidermy practice was sparked by a lifelong fascination with natural mythology and everyday oddities. After a journey filled with trial and error, numerous books, and an inspiring class (Sue Jeiven's popular Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class at Observatory!), she has found her calling in creating sickly sweet and sparkly critters. Beginning with mice and sparrows, her menagerie grew to include domestic cats, woodchucks, and deer. Recently profiled on
Vice Fringes, the New York Observer, and other publications, she will also be appearing in the upcoming season of Oddities-and is definitely up to no good shenanigans. You can find out more at http://www.d-i-v-y-a.com
Also, some technical notes:
  • We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
  • Everyone will be provided with gloves.
  • All animals are disease free.
  • Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
  • All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
  • Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.
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Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewelry with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Date: Sunday, April 7
Time: 1-5 PM
Admission: $75
***Must RSVP to Laetitia [at] atlasobscura.com to be added to class list; 15 person limit
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Hair jewelry was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockets or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.
The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner.
Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.
Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled Hairy Secrets:... In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock.
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Bartitsu-The Victorian Self Defense System: A lecture and Demonstration by The Bartitsu Club of New York and Ghoul A Go Go’s Vlad Tsepis
Date: Sunday April 7th
Time: 8.00
Admission: $10
Bartitsu was a Victorian system of self defense. Taught in the late 1890s, it is regarded by some as the first mixed martial arts system. Originally learned by gentlemen, and gentle women, as a way to fend off footpads and other thugs of the day, Bartitsu is now seeing a revival.
The Bartitsu Club of New York is gearing up for a Spring seminar and invites you to Observatory for a preview. Introduced by Vlad Tsepis of Ghoul A Go-Go, the Bartitsu Club will present a basic introduction to Bartitsu and its founder, as well as the historical background of self defense in Victorian England. Some techniques will be demonstrated as a prelude to what you can learn more in depth. You will leave knowing "an excellent method of forcing an undesirable person out of your room."
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Love’s Unknowable Eye: The Curious History and Mysterious Allure of 18th century “Lovers Eyes” Illustrated lecture and Genuine "Lover's Eye" Show and Tell with Artist Lauren Levato
Date: Thursday, April 11th
Time: 8.00
Admission: $8
Presented by Morbid Anatomy
Tonight at Observatory, we invite you to join us for a highly illustrated talk on what were historically called "eye miniatures," now called “lover’s eyes.” These beautiful portrait miniatures, featuring only the eye of the sitter, enjoyed a brief stint of outrageous popularity in the 18th century after a scandal involving the Prince of Wales, an illicit love affair, and a dramatic suicide attempt over the rejected love of a forbidden woman. Often created as tokens of memory for unsanctioned love, these gorgeous paintings—intensely intimate yet mysteriously anonymous—were lushly rendered on such media as ivory or copper. More than just treasures or statements of wealth, they were symbols of devotion, marriage, death, infidelity, memory, and promise. Nearly all of these enigmatic eyes are from lovers unknown, fictions that lure us with a fixed gaze, unyielding in its mystery and desire. Although the feverish mania for these objects ended nearly as quickly as it began, they continue to inspire, serving as muse to contemporary artists, photographers, painters and tattooists who explore the concept in thoroughly contemporary manners.
Tonight, Chicago based artist Lauren Levato--who curates a private collection containing thousands of objects of erotic affection, including several lover’s eyes set in brooches, rings, pill boxes, and bracelets--will trace the history and phenomenon of Lover’s Eyes, of which only an estimated 1,000 are known to still exist.
Lauren will also bring some authentic 18th century Lover’s Eyes for your delectation.
Lauren Levato is a visual artist and writer.  She is working on her exhibition for the International Museum of Surgical Science, opening in December, and has begun her own collection of lover’s eyes in tattoo form, as a type of signature of some of today’s best working tattooers.
Image: Unknown "Lover's Eye" on braided hair bracelet, Georgian period; Private collection
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Raccoon Head Taxidermy Class with Rogue Taxidermist Katie Innamorato
Date: Sunday, April 14
Time: 12 – 6 PM
Admission: $350
***Class Limited to 5; Must RSVP to katie.innamorato [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
This course will introduce students to basic and fundamental taxidermy techniques and procedures. Students will be working with donated raccoon skins and will be going through the steps to do a head mount. The class is only available to 5 students, allowing for more one on one interaction and assistance. Students will be working with tanned and lightly prepped skin; there will be no skinning of the animals in class. This is a great opportunity to learn the basic steps to small and large mammal taxidermy. All materials will be supplied by the instructor, and you will leave class with your own raccoon head mount.
Rogue taxidermist Katie Innamorato has a BFA in sculpture from SUNY New Paltz, has been featured on the hit TV show "Oddities," and has had her work featured at La Luz de Jesus gallery in Los Angeles, California. She is self and professionally taught, and has won multiple first place ribbons and awards at the Garden State Taxidermy Association Competition. Her work is focussed on displaying the cyclical connection between life and death and growth and decomposition. Katie is a member of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, and with all M.A.R.T. members she adheres to strict ethical guidelines when acquiring specimens and uses roadkill, scrap, and donated skins to create mounts.
Her website and blogs-
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop
Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series: With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Shop, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
Date: Sunday, April 21
Time: 1 – 6 PM
Admission: $200
*** MUST RSVP to Laetitia [at] atlasobscura.com 
In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking, fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine collection of curiosities!
This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display. More on the series can be found here.
Wilder Duncan is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects, tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human. Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.
Laetitia Barbier is the head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library. She is working on a master's thesis for the Paris Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman. She writes for Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy.
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A Fate Worse Than Death: The Perils of Being a Famous Corpse with Bess Lovejoy, Author of Rest in Pieces
With Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces
Date: Friday, April 26th
Time: 8pm
Admission: $10
Most of us know what our afterlives are going to be like: eternity in the ground, or resting in an urn on some relative’s mantelpiece. If we’re lucky, our children might occasionally bring us flowers or a potted plant, and that’s about as interesting as things are going to get.
Not so the famous deceased. For millennia, they’ve been bought and sold, worshipped and reviled, studied, collected, stolen, and dissected. They’ve been the star attractions at museums and churches, and used to found cemeteries, cities, even empires. Pieces of them have languished in libraries and universities, in coolers inside closets, and in suitcases underneath beds. For them, eternity has been anything but easy.
The more notable or notorious the body, the more likely it is that someone’s tried to disturb it. Consider the near-snatching of Abraham Lincoln, or the attempt on Elvis’s tomb. Then there’s Descartes, who is missing his head, and Galileo, who is spending eternity without his middle finger. Napoleon’s missing something a bit lower, as is the Russian mystic Rasputin, at least if the rumors are true. Meanwhile, Jesse James has had three graves, and may not have been in any of them, while it took a court case and an exhumation to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was in his.
In this illustrated lecture, Bess Lovejoy will draw on her new book, Rest in Pieces, to discuss the many threats faced by famous corpses--from furta sacra ("holy theft" of saintly relics), to skull-stealing phrenologists, "Resurrection Men" digging up cadavers for medical schools, modern organ harvesters, the depredations of crazed fans, and much more.
Rest in Pieces will also be available for sale, and wine will be served in celebration of its release.

Bess Lovejoy is a writer, researcher, and editor based in Seattle. She writes about dead people, forgotten history, and sometimes art, literature, and science. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, The Boston Globe, The Stranger, and other publications. She worked on the Schott’s Almanac series for five years. Visit her at BessLovejoy.com.

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Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop with Former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy TaintonWith Daisy Tainton, Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History
Date: Saturday, May 11th
Time: 1 – 4 PM
Admission: $75
***Tickets MUST be pre-ordered by clicking here
You can also pre-pay in person at the Observatory during open hours.
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Today, join former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy Tainton for Observatory’s popular Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop. In this class, students will work with Rhinoceros beetles: nature’s tiny giants. Each student will learn to make–and leave with their own!–shadowbox dioramas featuring carefully positioned beetles doing nearly anything you can imagine. Beetles and shadowboxes are provided, and an assortment of miniature furniture, foods, and other props will be available to decorate your habitat. Students need bring nothing, though are encouraged to bring along dollhouse props if they have a particular vision for their final piece; 1:12 scale work best.

BEETLES WILL BE PROVIDED. Each student receives one beetle approximately 2-3 inches tall when posed vertically.

Daisy Tainton was formerly Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natural History, and has been working with insects professionally for several years. Eventually her fascination with insects and  love of Japanese miniature food items naturally came together, resulting in cute and ridiculous museum-inspired yet utterly unrealistic dioramas. Beetles at the dentist? Beetles eating pie and knitting sweaters? Even beetles on the toilet? Why not?


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Date: Sunday, June 2
Time: 12-4 PM
Admission: $75
***Must pre-order tickets here: http://victorianmourningjewelry.bpt.me
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy
Hair jewelry was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockets or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.
The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner.
Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.

Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled Hairy Secrets:... In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock. 
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You can find out more on all events here

Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2013/03/lovers-eyes-lecture-and-show-and-tell.html

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  1. Anatomy
  2. "Lover’s Eyes" Lecture and Show