Oct 10 | Introduction to Specimen Preservation with Mickey Alice Kwapis: Morpho Butterflies

Learn how to spread and dry your own blue morpho butterfly specimen! Using a rehydrated specimen ready to spread, each student will be guided through the process of flexing, posing, pinning, and drying their own butterfly specimen. In this workshop, you’ll learn how this incredible butterfly, native to Panama, has structural colors rather than pigments. You will leave with your finished pinned specimen ready to dry at home as well as a spreading board and tool set to keep for use with future projects. The week following the workshop, students will receive an email containing a digital guide to the entire spreading process, going from a dried or freshly deceased specimen to completion 

No experience necessary. Ages 12 and younger must be accompanied by a calm adult who can assist where needed. One specimen and tool set are provided per ticket purchased, so if the adult wishes to participate with their own specimen set, an additional ticket should be purchased. 

Class registration fees include admission to the Whatcom Museum, one specimen and tool kit, and supplementary reading materials to learn how to repeat the process with more specimens at home. 

Mickey will also be teaching Sunset Moth and Five-Horned Rhinoceros Beetle preservation workshops on October 10. 

About the Instructor 

Mickey is a Chicago-based artist whose work explores death, grief, and the natural world. Her studio practice primarily includes taxidermy, jewelry, stained glass, and cyanotypes, which naturally interlace with each other across projects. She has taught insect pinning and taxidermy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Learn more about Mickey from this profile of her work featured on PBS. 

Workshop registrations are final and non-refundable. If you’re unable to attend, you’re welcome to transfer your spot to someone else as long as you notify us 24 hours in advance. Please plan to arrive within 15 minutes of the start time. Late arrivals will not be admitted or refunded.