Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/403006
158 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 11.14 amon Kustes pokes death. He fuffs the feathers on a hooded merganser duck with some tweezers, fddles with foppy wing. Kustes, 61, is the owner of Sportsman's Taxidermy in Fern Creek. He's owned this shop since 2006 and has been in the taxidermy business since 1978, when he simply needed extra money. Self-taught, he's mounted everything from a tropical fsh to a Cape buffalo. The storefront is flled with animals: bobcat balancing on fake log, a dozen ducks frozen in fight, a Canadian black bear Kustes shot soon after being rife-length from it in a tree. STUDIO SHOT Damon Kustes By Arielle Christian Photo by Aaron Kingsbury His taxidermied "pets" don't make noise — or messes. D Scissors, hammers, paper clips and boxes of glass eyes line the work table placed mid-room. Fuzzy antlers, fnished deer mounts — prizes from hunts at $475 a pop — and skinless-for- now foam mannequins line the walls. Kustes uses the traditional taxidermy process, laying fur pelt over a rigid form, sewing and sculpting skin to muscle-detailed mannequin. He doesn't mess with "soft taxidermy" (flling bodies with polyester stuffng till they're teddy-bear squishy) like most of the "kids" do nowadays. Kustes mounted 360 animals for customers in 2013. Magazine cutouts of geese cover the fridge. On top of a freezer full of fresh-skinned skulls and wrapped fsh ready for mounting: stacks of turkey tails spread wide, pinned to cardboard. Turkeys are the most diffcult to mount. Hard to get the gobbler right, all those wrinkles and folds. Turkeys are most common in spring. Fish in summer. Ducks and other waterfowl, fall. Deer, winter. Kustes' friend Bruce Saylor likes to drop in on Friday afternoons. He's an avid hunter, and his house looks like a very still Noah's Ark (Kustes having done most of the mounts), but he's new to this trade. In front of him: an antelope from Africa. He digs at its nostrils with a scalpel.