I managed to catch the tail end of a documentary, What Do Artists Do All Day, shown on BBC4 last night. It’s not on iplayer yet, but look out for it. The focus of last night’s episode was taxidermy artist Polly Morgan, who seems to live and work quietly from a vast warehouse somewhere in London. This, apparently, at slight odds with her reputation as a posh party girl.

Those stills are taken from a different profile on the artist over at The Huffington Post, which talks in greater depth about audience perceptions of her.

The film also questions the relationship between art and celebrity, but mainly shows a day-in-the-life snapshot of Polly working, interrupted by deliveries of stiff and frozen budgies, squirrels and former pets (none killed for the cause). The artist stores her dead in a massive walk-in freezer (kitchen magazine feature idea!). But, after one long day, she popped a bird in with the food in her studio freezer, because she was too lazy to walk to the big one. I can just imagine doing that after hours spent pouring over a tiny dead thing under an anglepoise lamp. Wish there was more of this kind of thing on at 8pm on a week night.

Coincidentally, I had been planning to post images of Icelander Svana Lovisa’s work this week. It’s more object than art and less obviously the animal it once was.

I wonder how big her freezer is.