Tim Schloss - Taxidermist

One of the country’s finest taxidermists resides right here in Erie. Tim Schloss, a pressman at Printing Concepts, avid hunter, decoy collector and Erie native, has been doing taxidermy for the last 40 years. “I got started when I was 12 by learning from an old man in the neighborhood and I’ve been working at it ever since,” reported Schloss with a wide smile. Schloss says the craft has become much easier, and safer, with new technology. “When I was a kid I had to stuff with excelsior and cast my own bills. The guy who taught me used arsenic! Now I can buy a foam body and shave it a little here and there and it works great.” Schloss has earned a national reputation for his ducks and shore birds, earning a coveted Best of Show award about a decade ago. Now he is also sought after as a judge. “Tim’s birds are just beautiful,” states Hermitage area decoy carver Vince Pagliaroli, “Other taxidermied birds’ feathers lie kind of flat—not Tim’s, they look absolutely life-like.”

Tim admits quickly that his technique is nothing special, it is simply having the patience to thoroughly clean the bird. “It really is more of a craft than an art form,” Schloss says. “You just got to go through each step real methodically with a lot of patience. When people get creative, like when they mount squirrels playing cards, that just seems a little creepy to me!” Schloss does admit there is an art to showing the bird in a particular pose. Some people favor birds in diving or flying positions. Schloss also said that you can tell great craft by how well the beak and feet are painted. “It shouldn’t look like paint.”

Taxidermy started as a way to memorialize the skill of the hunter, or to remember a particularly significant hunting trip, but now many decoy carvers find taxidermied ducks useful as models. In these cases Schloss uses a special decoy mount. Designed to be hand held, the carver can scrutinize the bird from every angle.

Although most of Schloss’s customers are not local (he is currently working on birds from Michigan and Maine) you can find his work at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center. He has preserved the local birds (that died of natural causes) that are now on display.

Contact Museum Folk Art Coordinator, Kelly Armor for more information.