Interview with Stephen Paternite by Jeanie M.,
Published in "One Inch Off The Pavement" issue #2, 1994

Jeanie M

When Did you first get interested in Road Kill/Dead Animals?

Stephen Paternite:

As far back as I can remember, I always had an incredible interest in animals. My very first encounter with a road-kill was at the age of 7 or 8 years old. Ginger, our family dog, was hit and killed by a car at the end of our street. I remember our next door neighbor, an elderly woman, coming to our house one afternoon to inform my mother that she had seen our dog get hit. I immediately ran up to the end of the street, crying uncontrollably at the horrible sight I encountered. My best buddy, my pal, sprawled out in a lifeless lump on the side of the road. Not really knowing what to do, I went back home to wait for the arrival of my father from work. Upon his arrival, Ginger was retrieved from the street and buried in our back yard in a make-shift grave.

Many years after the "Ginger" experience, I remember riding in the car with my father in a rural area just outside of Akron. We passed by a beautiful hen pheasant that had been hit by a car along the side of the road. As we zoomed by, I remember pleading with my father to pull over. To my amazement, he did and I retrieved the pheasant. Using my hard-earned allowance money, I had it mounted at a local taxidermy shop. My first trip to that taxidermy shop changed the direction of my life. I remember being absolutely speechless upon entering the shop. I had never seen such a vast array of mounted creatures in my life, from small birds to big game heads and everything in between. I knew at that point, taxidermy was something for which I had a keen interest and strong desire to learn.

Not too many years later, I enrolled in a correspondence course in taxidermy from the Northwestern School of Taxidermy in Omaha, Nebraska. The premise was simple. The school would send out instruction booklets on specific areas of study, such as bird mounting. The student was to read the manual, find a bird and if it wasn't dead already, kill it, mount it, take a snapshot of it and mail the photo back to the school for evaluation. They would then send out the next instruction book for another area of study. I remember having had a lot of difficulty in the beginning, especially with the birds, so small and delicate. Most of my bird mounts looked really strange, many physical deformities, but they did get better as time wore on. I trudged through the courses as well as numerous bird and animal carcasses and eventually received a diploma from the school through the mail.

As my teenage years weirded on, I found less time to devote to taxidermy and eventually stopped altogether. It wasn't until my second year in art school in Cleveland, Ohio that I realized the possibilities of incorporating mounted animals in three-dimensional design sculptures.

Jeanie M

You have been showing your road-kill art since 1975. What have you been doing with your art since that time and what kind of reaction have you gotten to your work over the years?

Stephen Paternite

Actually, the very first time I exhibited a road-kill sculpture was in 1972. It was displayed in a juried student show at Cooper School of Art in Cleveland, Ohio. The piece consisted of a rectangular wooden base approximately 2 feet by 3 feet that was painted to resemble a high-gloss auto finish. On the top surface of the rectangular base was an opening approximately 20 inches square, which was filled with white silica sand. At the four corners of the square opening, I attached large eye screws. I mounted a road-kill opossum on its stomach in a spread-eagle position and placed the animal in the center of the square sand opening. Leather straps were attached to each paw and pulled to each respective corner eye screw and tied off. It was a very strange and thought-provoking piece. I remember opening night of the show, receiving very strong reactions to the piece from near orgasmic to absolute nausea. The piece was definitely the talk of the exhibition and the beginning of a whole new avenue of thought for me.

After graduating from art school in 1973, 1 moved back to Akron. During the summer months of that year, I began working on a series of road-kill animal sculptures, which depicted the confrontation between animals and massive industrialization. Three dimensional, industrial looking shapes were constructed and mounted animals were incorporated within the confines of these sculptural scenarios. Most of my spare time was devoted to cruising the highways in search of suitable road-kill specimens to utilize within the sculptures. I began taking my 35mm camera along with me on these road-kill excursions, documenting what animals I picked up as well as those I left behind. By the end of 1973, 1 had completed what I considered to be an incredibly strong series of sculptures. During that same period of time, I had become aware of a government grants program being offered by the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. After writing to the Endowment and receiving more information on the many grants and fellowships available, I decided to apply for a sculpture grant from the NEA. This decision to apply for federal funding of my animal sculptures was viewed by many of my art-related friends as completely outrageous and absolutely pointless. After all, the prospects of the federal government ever funding such strange activity by a twenty-one year old, fresh out of art school, with a two-line resume, seemed an impossibility. I was cautioned by my well-intentioned friends to prepare for the biggest rejection of my life. Despite all the warnings and the prospect of my ultimate rejection, I mailed off my NEA grant proposal to Washington, D.C. in February of 1974, maintaining a low-key optimism regarding the whole situation. As the summer months of 1974 wore on, with no word from the NEA, the previous warnings of my friends would occasionally echo through my frame. By September of that year, with no word from the NEA, I was convinced my proposal had been rejected. One month later, much to my surprise, I received a letter from the NEA, which changed the complexion of my very short artistic career. I was informed I had been awarded an "Artists Fellowship Award" to continue and expand my work with animals in three-dimensional sculpture. I was stunned - my friends were speechless! I had landed my first major art fellowship at the ripe age of twenty-two. Government funded "road-kill" art had arrived!

1975 was an incredibly busy and productive year for me. By the end of that year, I had completed four large-scale animal sculptures. I was invited by Cooper School of Art in Cleveland to exhibit the grant sculptures along with a series of hand-tinted road-kill photographs. The show opened in November of 1975 and received excellent reviews in the newspapers, which in turn drew an enormous amount of people to the gallery to view my work. I don't remember receiving any negative responses to my work. If there were any, I wasn't made aware of them. I think at the time, the attitude of the general viewing public was, if my work was good enough for the NEA, it was good enough for them and therefore was viewed with an odd sort of respect. The show closed in mid-December but was talked about for many months thereafter.

In mid-1976 I was invited by the Akron Art Museum to exhibit my grant sculptures in a show the museum was organizing entitled "Nine Sculptors". Opening night of the exhibition was fantastic, with well over 1,000 people in attendance. Although I was the most "offbeat" sculptor of the bunch, I was the only sculptor with NEA credentials. I received excellent comments and very good press throughout the duration of the exhibition. After the close of the Akron Art Museum exhibit, things seemed to settle down a bit.

In the years that followed, I continued making an occasional animal sculpture and photographing road-kills. I applied for both federal and state art grants every year they were available, but met with continued rejection year after year. It wasn't until around 1985 1 started working in a different direction with my animal sculptures. Over the years, I had accumulated an incredibly large selection of
taxidermy related objects; artificial forms, horns, hides, claws and tails, as well as numerous mounted animals and birds. I began incorporating bits and pieces of one animal or bird with characteristics of other animals and birds, resulting in new hybrid creations. After working on this series for a year and a half, I had completed ten very strange, but convincing hybrid creatures. I entitled the series "Creature-Nites of Ohio" and applied for a grant from the Ohio Arts Council in January 1987. By August, I received notice from the OAC I had been awarded an "Aid To Individual Artists Fellowship" in sculpture for my "Creature-Nites of Ohio" series.

During the OAC grant period, I created eleven new hybrid creatures, bringing the total number of fantasy creatures to twenty-one. I approached the Canton Art Institute in Ohio with the possibilities of exhibiting the entire series. They agreed, and the "Creature-Nites of Ohio" exhibition was scheduled for September 1989.

Three days prior to the public opening of the show, as I was installing the exhibition, a group of elderly women began filtering into my exhibition area. They apparently were there at the Institute attending a luncheon in another part of the facility. I remember some of the women who approached me, looked to be in complete shock. They demanded to know what "this" was all about. Enthusiastically as always, I began explaining my work and the fact the Ohio Arts Council (taxpayers money) had funded the entire project. The more I explained, the more angry and more disgusted these women became. They immediately stormed out of the exhibition area and converged on the director's office of the Institute, protesting my work and the fact the Institute would have ever considered showing this type of "so-called art." They didn't stop there. After leaving the Institute, they contacted all the local newspapers and radio stations voicing their complaints. Immediately, reporters were dispatched to the Institute, as well as my home, to investigate. By the next morning, newspaper articles started appearing and morning radio talk show hosts were calling my home and business trying to get me on-the-air to respond to these complaints. The Associated Press picked up the local articles and within 24 hours, news of the "weird," government-funded "Creature-Nites of Ohio" exhibition started appearing all over the country. CNN picked up the story and it aired for seven days during their "Prime News" segments.

Keep in mind, this was around the time the Robert Mapplethorpe/NEA controversy was erupting. The NEA and its State Art Agencies were under incredible scrutiny for funding what many people believed was very controversial and inappropriate art. The main gripes some people had with my work was my usage of dead animal parts in general, especially with my use of two freeze-dried cats and the fact the government had funded this type of work at all.

Three of my sculptures that erupted the most controversy were, Robocat, Kiddie-Kat and Kiddie-Kat II. In Robocat, I utilized the head and tail of a small white freeze-dried kitten. I attached these parts to a rubber dragon body I had sprayed with a silver metallic paint. It was poised on a black marble base. In Kiddie-Kat, I utilized the full body of a freeze-dried Siamese Cat. I sawed off the head of the cat and replaced it with a baby doll head. I popped out the baby doll eyes and replaced them with artificial brown coyote eyes. A red collar, with a bell, was put around the base of the dolls neck which completely concealed the seam between the doll head and the cat body. It was placed on a red velvet cushion. Kiddie-Kat II evolved from spare parts left over from Kiddie-Kat.

After the public opening, the newspaper articles and radio shows began referring to the exhibition as the "Dead-Cat" show. I began receiving many threatening calls and letters at both my home and business. My guess is, most of these vocal protesters had not even viewed my work but were responding to very slanted news and radio reports about my work. "Letters to the Editor" began pouring in to the local newspapers labeling me a "demented wacko" and a "freak." The Animal Protective League and other similar organizations began writing to me demanding "full disclosure" on how I obtained all the animals used in the exhibit. I was informed that hundreds of letters and calls had been received by these organizations protesting my art. I also became aware of the fact a petition drive had been started by a group of people in Akron and was submitted to the Ohio Arts Council protesting my work and demanding I would never again receive funding by the agency.

Many months after the close of the "Creature-Nites of Ohio" show in Canton, I was contacted by the Ohio Arts Council. They informed me they had, in fact, received a petition protesting the funding of my work, however, they felt it would have little effect on my fundability if I were to be recommended for a fellowship in the future. This fact remains to be seen, as I have, for the first time since the "CreatureNites of Ohio" controversy erupted, applied to the Ohio Arts Council for funding of a new series of work entitled "Road-Kill Radials." It will be interesting to see what "little-effect" this controversy has really had on my fundability as an artist by this government agency.