Detail is important when working in a museum and no one knows better than WA Museum preparator and taxidermist Kirsten Tullis.
Kirsten has worked at the WA Museum since 1981 in a job that combines creativity and scientific rigour. Her job includes making models, taxidermied specimens and dioramas that are displayed in many of the Museum’s permanent and travelling exhibitions.
A key part of her work is to figure out what materials to use and how to make things look as close as possible to the plants and animals you see in nature.
Her work contributes to the vibrant and interesting exhibitions in the galleries and brings to life displays where often the real specimens can’t be displayed.
In the lead up to the opening of Boola Bardip, Kirsten worked with a team of aquatic zoology scientists, researchers and other preparators, to create the incredible sponge garden display in the Wild Life Gallery. This showcases the amazing animal life of the Leeuwin Current that runs along the Western Australian coast.
The display features a dozen types of aquatic animals in the mini dioramas including sponges, sea urchins, sea snails, sea slugs, hard and soft corals, crustaceans, fish and sea fans. It includes a mix of real specimens collected in the Dampier Archipelago and ones made by hand by Kirsten.
In the case of some of the sponges, they were coloured with artist acrylic paint, to mimic what one in the ocean might have originally looked like. It is intricate work - one took seven hours to paint!
An old, now freshly painted, fibreglass model of an olive-headed sea snake is featured in the new display and Kirsten made some little fish which hide amongst the sponges.
Over the years, Kirsten has made hundreds of objects using a stable of materials which range from clay and plaster to silicone and plastic resins.
“I make models, using a combination of art, science and technology,” says Kirsten. “I work with the curators and conservators on the technical aspects of an animal or object. It can be any size, from a tiny honeypot ant to a large cycad tree.”
Sometimes how to make an object stumps her and Kirsten goes online to see if someone has solved the problem.
At other times, it’s a mix of traditional and new technology. In the case of a sea slug, which took her four days to model, the final model was 3D printed by a local company and was delivered quickly and with incredible detail.
Fungi are some of Kirsten’s favourite things to make and she has enjoyed the journey of discovering what materials and techniques work best to create the most realistic looking ones. Staff at the Museum delight in watching Kirsten create the silicone molds and produce mushrooms in all their shapes, colour and detail.
Kirsten prefers working on small objects and strives to get the details exactly right.
“I love it because it’s different from day-to-day. It’s a job of discovery trying to work out how to make something and coming up with techniques that other people might not have tried before. My work is highly creative and practical, but you also can’t go off on a tangent because it has to be scientifically correct too.”
