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An Eye for Precision

Award-winning carver Bruce Taylor makes wood come alive

By Craig Springer

Found in: | Inside | Art |

Bruce Taylor

Bruce Taylor can be reached at (505) 823-2883 or via his Web site: taylorsfish.com

If you've wanted to mount a big fish in New Mexico, Bruce Taylor has usually been the one to do it. Taylor, who lives in Albuquerque, is synonymous with fish taxidermy in northern New Mexico. He's been doing it for more than 40 years and has a reputation well deserved. The ribbons and plaques and other awards stand as a testament to his talent. Taylor is an artist, a craftsman who can make a block of wood or lump of fiberglass look more alive than a live fish.
Taylor took to taxidermy as a nine-year-old growing up in Colorado. His first mount was a big ringneck pheasant.
"We lived near a railroad track - habitat for pheasant," said Taylor. "I killed a ringneck with a long-bow, something I probably couldn't do again today. I mounted that bird, and soon started working with all kinds of animals, but mostly birds."
Taylor, like virtually all other taxidermists of his time, started his study through the single source: The Northwest School of Taxidermy, based in Nebraska. That correspondence school was the only way to get to be a taxidermist in the U.S. Taylor practiced and got better; when he was 14, he started a job at a gun shop, where he promoted his taxidermy.
He's stayed the course since then, with taxidermy paralleling a long career as a mechanic. In 1988, he and a partner started Desert Taxidermy in Albuquerque, but the partnership went south.
But from adversity comes opportunity. In 1990, Taylor had a chance to go after what he called his life-long passion. He hung up the wrenches, and started working only on fish mounts out of his home-based shop. His work is considered by many the best around. Professionals judging his work in art shows have agreed.
At the 2001 World Taxidermy and Fish Carving Championships in Illinois, Taylor took second and third place with two kokanee salmon, both caught from Heron Lake near Chama, N.M. His work scored only slightly behind the first-place winner, a taxidermist from the Netherlands. At the National Taxidermy Association's 2000 show in Lubbock, Texas, Taylor took a first-place award - Judge's Best of Show - with a hand-carved brook trout. He owned second place, too, with a tree stump that he turned into three rainbow trout. The award-winning wood-turned-into-fish creations were a harbinger of what was to come.
Taylor carries on an old profession. The word taxidermy literally means "moving skin." The earliest taxidermists used animal skins for decoys or disguise when hunting. In Europe, hunters took animals to tanneries or upholsters for stuffing. The skins were literally stuffed with bunting or cotton or rags. In 1700's England, taxidermy took a turn toward refinement when skins were mounted onto artistically crafted bodies intended to replicate an animal's living form. And that leads to where Taylor does most of his work today - carving wood.
While Taylor will still mount a real fish skin to a hand-carved foam body, he does more wood carving than anything. It's carving that has moved taxidermy into a fine art. He spends hours on a single carving, with specialized tools paying attention to every detail. Even the scale margins are etched with an artist's eye for precision. Once the carving is complete, paint brings the form true to life. Former President Gerald Ford owned a piece of his art. A Taylor largemouth bass carving makes a "cameo" in the Costner film, "Swing Vote."
"I still do fish," says Taylor, "but I'm doing a lot more birds these days. The birds are mostly raptors, but I'm finishing up a woodpecker scene. And next, I've got a commission for the Rio Grande Zoo to carve all 17 penguin species." Other birds in the works range from tiny hummingbirds to a life-size action scene of a bald eagle, wings spread, digging its talons into prey.
Between carvings, Taylor attends art shows, most recently the Weems Art Fest in Albuquerque in November 2009, where he took his 10th consecutive blue ribbon, this one for Best of Show. Two months earlier in Colorado, he took Best of Show at the Castlerock Art Fest. Come Memorial Day weekend, Taylor will be at the prestigious Phippen Museum's Western Art Show, where Taylor and his likes will literally surround the historic courthouse in Prescott, Ariz. The summer will take him to art shows in Breckenridge and Aspen. You can see his work anytime at the Weems Gallery or at his home in Albuquerque.
If you land that big one - you don't have to kill the fish to have a mount made. From a photo, Taylor can replicate by wood the one that you let get away. Taylor has some tips: for catch-and-release fishing, take a close-up photograph and measure the fish's length from the tip of the lip to the tip of the tail. Also, measure its widest girth, usually near the dorsal fin. Taylor recommends taking notes about the fish you release, noting color and sheen and spotting. Costs depend on size, and how elaborate a scene you may want. Big birds and big fish take big pieces of wood, and the more elaborate the action, the more it takes. But if you live fish and birds and art, you'll appreciate Taylor's talents laid into wood.

CRAIG SPRINGER writes from Santa Fe County, N.M.