Does the American Museum of Natural History have
every living thing represented in it? Our second day of drawing Chris and I were resolved to draw bats. We asked the guards and volunteers and docents and were sent from floor to floor until we came upon a case in, strangely but not surprisingly, an out of the way pass-through space, where several American mammals were displayed in a rather undignified manner, their faces to the wall like they were being punished.
The taxidermy arts are practiced at such an incredibly high level at the museum that it's a good reminder that at its most basic level these are dead animals preserved and mounted. The bats we found were old and so obviously dead, their membranous wings dried, hard and translucent. We stood and drew them attentively, while groups of school kids were herded by, temporarily confused into silence by the small, dark, unimportant-looking hallway.
The delicacy of the tiny limbs, the lower legs poking out at a right angle from the torso, the mean little claws at the tops of the wings - what amazing little creatures. A skull was attached to the wall, pointedly noted as being genuine, that would easily fit inside a peanut shell.
Seeking light and openness we went to the primate hall and drew the aye-aye, trying not to lose its sleek form while drawing those long thin bones (like its awesome middle finger, which I hope it uses expressively).
