SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — August 13, 2013 — The only thing about Sandy Margret’s taxidermy business that’s not all about fish is the name itself: Kingfisher Taxidermy.
The kingfisher, of course, is a bird — one with a powerful affinity for fish. On that score, Margret, whose studio and gallery are located at the Sea Ranch Marina, and the kingfisher see eye to eye.
When the native of upstate New York learned traditional taxidermy in Wisconsin at one of the nation’s top schools, she focused exclusively on fish to complement another art form she had already mastered: Gyotaku, an ancient Japanese technique that involves printing an image of the fish on linen or rice paper using the fish itself.
The earliest Gyotaku prints were black and white, though colored inks eventually came into use as the technique evolved into an art form. It’s thought that Japanese fishermen created Gyotaku as a way of recording their catches.
Margret learned the technique while earning her master’s degree in art at New York University in the early 1990s, then began doing Gyotaku on weekends as a sideline while working as an art teacher in Southold, Long Island, a big fishing community. Many times customers would ask for a traditional taxidermy mount of their fish in addition to the Gyotaku print, she said.
Read the full story at the Valley Morning Star