This weekend's Thumb Festival is a chance to see his work
SANDUSKY, MI -- Traveling Mid-Michigan in Sandusky. Sanilac county seems like a great place for a taxidermist, but this isn't any ordinary taxidermist. Downtown Sandusky's "Artistry of Wildlife" owner Dennis Harris is a state and world champion and specializes in mounts of African-hunted animals. Hard to believe you can find that right here in Mid-Michigan. But he does traditional mounts of local animals too. Why all this right in downtown Sandusky? "It's a rural community, everybody hunts here," says Dennis, "where else you gonna get close to a bongo? Where else in Sanilac county are you going to get close to a leopard?"
The world championships did not come easy. "I started doing state shows, regional shows, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and started winning awards for my work," he says. As he refined his technique through judges critique he was able to win more awards. He says you're competing against the pictures of the actual animal, and not so much the other contestants. "They'll look at the wrinkles and the rolls, they'll look at the muscle structure," he says.
Very often you can come in and actually see the work being done. The leopard mount we saw takes two actual days to complete and begins with a sculptors rendering of the animal that the animal skin is added to. It's a longand intricate process that is truly art and it's on display here in Downtown Sandusky.
Dennis says the Thumb Festival this weekend is a great time to stop by and see the studio. They're opened all weekend long.
