Vegan Taxidermy - Aimée Baldwin

Aimée Baldwin is a self-taught sculptor and artist with diverse creative experience that spans manufactured Halloween costume prototyping to monument and park sculpture. Concerns about the environmental impact of the mass production of disposable items led her to the art she makes today. Aimée constructs incredibly realistic bird and plant sculptures from very simple materials: art-quality crepe paper, florist wire, white glue, and acrylic paint. She describes her artistic process as repetitive cutting and gluing with a lot of patient attention.

Miner's LettuceAimée Baldwin 2011
Photo by Tue Nam Ton

Aimée gathers plant knowledge by studying live specimens collected during local hikes and says the only way she can depict a plant accurately "is to copy a fully dimensional real plant, and sometimes this includes taking it apart to understand all of its little bits. I use my work as an excuse to go on excursions to see wildlife and plants. I would go out hiking anyway, but hikes are more fun without the guilt that I would have if I were avoiding work." Sounds like a plan to me!

Miner's Lettuce, a San Francisco Bay area native plant, is exhibited in Aimée's current show, which runs through June 15th at Castle in the Air in Berkeley, California.

See more examples of Aimée's plants and birds on her Instagram feed, vegan.taxidermy.

 
Reminder: The Fabulous Flowers Klutz book giveaway ends at the end of Saturday. Winners will be announced on that post on Sunday.