Mid-May Update

My Dear Memorials,

May is coming to a close and so will my books for incoming new clients for the time being. The next few months, I plan on prioritizing my current clients from 2021 who have been waiting for their memorials. There are 24 clients on that list - which means clients who arrived in 2022 will be next. It does weigh on me to be at such a long wait… a number of factors from memorial work being a long process to begin with, delays outside of anyone's control over the past few years, and my desire to reach a high level of perfection in each and every memorial (to deliver beyond what you may have been expecting and to honor your loved ones as best as I possibly can) all of this keeps my schedule full as I complete each memorial in the order they were received. I hope my extra time and attention to detail feels worth the wait to you as well - these memorials ALL mean the world to me, no matter how small.

Being Mental Health Awareness Month, I think it’s just a good check-in to remember we are all human… Being honest with myself and transparent so that maybe you don’t feel so alone as well. Every memorial taxidermist sometimes has a hard time separating from the grief of their clients and working on that with my own therapist helps. It has been a learning curve for me to figure out what’s my best balance. And my process just takes time to complete the kind of work to meet my own standards as well as provide what you are hoping for in your memorial. Always learning and growing, right?

Here’s some positive news and accomplishments from the month: Beautiful domed memorials going home, release of my educational bug-pinning zine, helping teach a student how to process their own tarantula (video coming soon), finalized unarticulated memorials and many new memorials prepped for dermestids, and last but not least, got to meet some of you beautiful people in Chicago (which meant the world to me)!

Take a moment to check in with your besties and always say ‘I love you’

xo, A