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Imagine a world where animals are personified and utilize humans as clothing and accoutrements. A fairytale land where a deer carries a human hand purse and a bear lounges on a lady-skinned rug. Perhaps a startling image, but Amanda Miller’s delicate drawings on dress patterns are too whimsical to be startling and invoke a sense of serenity within the irony of the subject. Her new works will be shown in a dual show with Alina Josan at Topstitch for the month of October.

I interviewed Amanda in the warehouse where she has been living for over 5 years. Her walls are covered with the dress patterns on which she draws.

1. Tell me about the dress patterns.

I moved in here about a year after I finished college, and I went to school for furniture making. I was dabbling in sculpture and taxidermy as well, but I wasn’t really drawing at the time. This used to be a uniform and clothing factory, and when we moved in, before we started building the apartment, all the patterns were left here on a rack. I thought they were really beautiful so I kept them, and when I started drawing again, I just started drawing on the patterns.

2. So do you think that the patterns inspired you to draw what you are drawing?

No the inspiration was the taxidermy. When I started drawing again I just started thinking about how I could relate it to the taxidermy. So I started thinking about what it would be like animals and humans reversed roles. So much of fashion and what we wear is based on animal products and it’s just totally accepted, but then you reverse the roles and have an animal parading about in a pelt made of human skin, it looks absolutely absurd. I just continued drawing on the patterns because I was aesthetically drawn to them.

3. Is there anyplace in Philadelphia that inspires your artwork?

I really like the Franklin Institute. I used to go there a lot to draw. I also really like the Wagner Institute. Both of them have really good taxidermy exhibits. I think I like them so much because they are not new exhibits. The newer taxidermy exhibits I’m not as impressed with because they’ve almost gotten too technically good at it, I find it boring…

4. Do you intend on incorporating taxidermy into your work in the future?

I would like to but I’ve made a conscious effort to keep my focus on drawing right now. To be honest, I would like to have an apprenticeship with a taxidermist. I suppose I’m a little more timid with it than I would like to be, but I did incorporate it a little in my last show. I used gun rack hooks to hang some of the pieces and I also had a plaster cast hand that I made a faux sock puppet with pipe cleaner deer antlers for and the way I did the eyes was borrowing from what I learned for the bird taxidermy. So eventually I hope it will come back around together.

5. Your work obviously deals with the relationship between animals and humans. Has there been any reaction to this?

Once I had someone come up to me and ask if I was a member of PETA, but when I told him I was a novice taxidermist the conversation ended right away. In most of the things that I make, I like giving the impression of things that are startling or violent. I like to focus on the inactive moments, for example I’m never going to draw any images of bears killing people or the process that it took to get there. I’m much more focused on how strange it is that people don’t really think about the process. Nobody wants to think about it which is funny to me. I wouldn’t call myself an activist, just that I observe people’s actions, which are often hypocritical, but I wouldn’t change them.

Eyelashes in a Haystack: Artwork by Amanda Miller & Alina Josan
Opening reception October 5th 6-9pm

Topstitch
311 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19106
http://topstitchboutique.com/

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