'It's like having pets but they're dead': Sudbury woman transforms dead rodents into art

Carla Gagne admits her hobby is a little weird.

"I call it the dark arts," said the Sudbury accountant. "This is not anything a boring accountant would do, but I'm not a regular accountant."

When she opens her basement fridge freezer, that quickly becomes clear.

It's stuffed with clear plastic bags containing dead rodents: rats, gerbils, squirrels even a groundhog she found as roadkill.

Gagne's hobby is anthropomorphic taxidermy. In other words she takes dead animals, skins them, mounts them and dresses them up in doll clothes.

"There's weird and then there's odd," said Gagne. She thinks she's somewhere in between.

She was raised in a hunting family. Her father makes his own bullets, her brother does competitive archery.

Gagne and her brother often talked about taking a taxidermy class, and after searching online she found a course in Toronto that offered anthropomorphic taxidermy. Gagne said she didn't know what to expect.

"It was so fun because it was six other people in this class and they all brought Barbie clothes."

Gagne had to wait until she got home before she sewed a tiny orange apron for her rat to look like her husband who works at Home Depot.

"Then it became like a family joke because it was just hilarious."

Gagne went on to create an accountant rat complete with pocket protector and glasses, a lawyer rat in robes, and her favourite, "Giovanni."

"He's my squirrel pimp," said Gagne.

The stuffed squirrel is laid out on a tiny fur carpet wearing a chain necklace, cigar dangling from its mouth with a bottle and glass of wine nearby and holding a squirrel Playboy magazine. Gagne printed the tiny magazine herself, which contains erotic images of squirrels.

"It's amazing to see what you can create," said Gagne, who gets as much joy in the detail work as the taxidermy.

"My children love to play with my artwork," she said.  "It's like having pets, but they're dead."

Gagne now hopes to share her passion by offering a course in anthropomorphic taxidermy.

For $325 she's willing to teach people how to transform a dead rat into what she considers a work of art.  All supplies are provided, including the dead rat.