We recently connected with Brittany Zick and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I taught myself much of what i know from mistakes and experiments. Self-learning how to preserve deceased animal remains was not an easy process, and I’d be remiss to day I’m anything of an expert, I consider myself to be a skilled amateur at best.

I wish I had the resources available today back then. Trying to get someone to describe spreading a dried butterfly for display in text can be a bit tricky, but a YouTube video is perfect for instruction.

Learning patience and not to undervalue my time have been the hardest but most important skills in this field, and it applies to everyone really. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, devalue your time and efforts.

One of the hardest things about the work I do is that it’s such a niche market, and yet it’s over-saturated with people who are looking to make a quick buck, or worse stealing concepts. Finding a place to fit in is a ongoing struggle.

Brittany, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I got into collecting insects and other deceased specimens as a child. Like most children I was obsessed with rocks, bones and bugs, however with maturity that fascination with the macabre did not wane, in fact it became a full blown obsession.

In my teen years the Internet was extremely useful for locating specimens, in fact I still use one of my original suppliers now. Of course back then I was buying single specimens which are really expensive to do individually, but I was young and couldn’t buy in bulk.

Buying those specimens allowed me a way to study insect anatomy without having to dispatch the insects myself. There were a lot of mistakes and disastrous rehydration attempts, but eventually I got the hang of it. The smell of accidental scorpion soup still haunts me.

Fast forward 10 years later and now I’m buying in bulk and doing things I had only dreamed of being able to do in my young adulthood. For instance now I have access to large amounts of morpho butterflies which are my absolute favorite with their iridescent blues, like flying jewels made of rice paper.

The thing I enjoy most has got to be making custom work for my clients, I often find that they have ideas that wouldn’t occur to me and I’m in love bringing those to life for them. Designing a display to complement a room or convey a feeling is such a privilege.

Something I am currently working on is making kits for other people that include all the supplies for them to rehydrate, spread and display a specimen from start to finish. I think it’s important for people to know that they are capable of creating things that may seem complicated and tedious if they’re just given they’re just given the right tools and instruction.

One of the reasons this field is so hard to get into it’s because resources are kept guarded and a lot of creators are not open to sharing their techniques which which can be very off-putting when you’re trying to figure things out.

It makes me happy knowing that I’m helping other artists get ahold of these things that was so hard for me to do when I first started out.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The main goal of my work is to preserve the beauty in death, and to show others that insects and other specimens are not creepy or gross.

As young children we have such a fascination with nature, and as we grow older a lot of us are subjected to media that says bugs, death, bones and decay are gross and something to be feared. I want to dispel those myths and maybe bring a new appreciation for our creepy crawly friends to people who previously may have been afraid.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about this is definitely seeing someone’s face light up when they find the piece that speaks to them. Knowing that I provided that joy is such a fulfilling thing for me and it’s what drives me forward.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.deadstuffclub.com
• Instagram: @deadstuffclub
• Twitter: @deadstuffclub
• Other: Tiktok: @deadstuffclub