I have a sort of Love/Hate relationship with Etsy. On one hand, it’s filled with a lot of randomness and not so quality items some days and on the other hand if you spend some time there you’re always bound to find some really magnificant finds. That’s how I came across Madame Talbot’s Victorian Lowbrow. When I first came across her work it was at her Etsy site where she sells mostly t-shirts and posters. I ordered her “Undertaker’s Cabinet” poster for my office wall and when it arrived I was blown away by the detail and it quickly has earned much praise from all my visitors. Now these aren’t your typical mass printed cutesy graphic posters. These are art. They’re all hand drawn in pen and ink to create one of a kind wonders and then she uses a traditional offset printing press create the posters. And they’re printed on a good quality, strong stock paper so they won’t crinkle and tear like the thinner, cheaper posters you see elsewhere.
But she’s so much more than posters! Originally I was just going to gush about her Etsy shop but if you travel to her main website you can find so much more! This woman is an artist, collector and serious conisour of the dark and macabre. You have to see her website to beleive all the amazing things she makes and collects. She has everything from Framed Mummy Bones, Antique Freak Show Curio to Apothocary Parephenalia, Hand Made Mourning Dolls and Vintage Books of all kinds! If you’re looking for something truly dark and unique for a gift or for your home you’re bound to find something wonderful at Madame Talbot’s Victorian Lowbrow.
1. Your shop is filled with such wonderful things, how on earth do you come across such magnificent pieces?
I am always looking for interesting things, and I have what I call “Scout Hunters” who look for things I might like.
I also have a Wanted Page on my web site for folks to email us if they have any interesting items they might want to identify or sell. We are always on the lookout.
2. What would you say is the most unique or most interesting piece that has ever come through your collections or your website?
Real human shrunken heads, I think we have probably owned and then sold about five.
We still have one for sale that is up on the web site.
We brought them back here to the edge of the North Coast and at sundown, opened the back of the van and hauled them inside the house. Thankfully they came with their own coffin type containers with glass tops for easy viewing. They were both parked in our living room for about a month.
Also, a very good friend of mine who owns the Niagara Falls Museum (he is the one who discovered Ramses I tucked away inside the museum had a nice cache of loose mummy parts which he gave to me for my framed curio exhibits: mummy bitumen, bones, teeth, and even fragments of mummy shroud.
The most recent strange pieces I have acquired is a real human heart embedded in Lucite:
And a real human brain slice, also embedded in Lucite:
These are incredibly rare and very strange paperweights, both of which be utilized in making my framed curios.
3. Where do you pull your inspiration from? What drives you?
My love of history, particularly anything before 1901.
What drives me? Death. I cannot stand to waste a single moment doing stupid frivolous things when I could be researching for my book, sewing dolls, looking for stuff for framed curios, painting tombstone paintings or illustrating my posters. Life is just too short and I would much rather spend time working, creating. That is when I am my most happiest, working on my own stuff. And especially at night, I sleep all day and get up around 6 pm and work until the sun comes up, then read one of my many books I am reading until I finally get to sleep around 10 am.
4. Your bio on your website says you’re a self-taught artist.
I actually went to art school, the Burnley School of Professional Art, which I absolutely loved. They taught mostly graphic design rather than fine art, which was fine with me since most of my jobs were based in graphic design i.e. Printing press operator, stat camera operator, everything done by hand long before computers.
The great thing about Burnley, was it was haunted by a ghost which of course made it that much more cooler
(Great photos of Burnley at the bottom of the page):
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=pf_output.cfm&file_id=2023
I quit Burmley when the school got sold. But as far as my own artwork, I am self-taught in everything else I create.
Where did your passion for art come from? Who or what got you started on this path?
I think it might have come from being an only child and having been a sickly child and in and out of the hospital from major operations, I was alone in my room most of the time and had to think of things to do or I would die of boredom. Hence my obsession with strange medical devices and medicine – to embrace the things that once terrified me.
5. How much research do you do for each of your pieces?
I am obsessed with doing research as I want my pieces to be authentic pieces, to the point of even using real Victorian materials, dip pens and even buying old ink. In my spare time, I am sometimes hired to research odd items and decipher Victorian hand-writing. Nowadays, a lot of folks cannot read cursive writing!
I have an extensive book collection which I refer to constantly, and if I have a bit of money to spend, it will usually be on a book.
6. I can understand the fascination with Victorian death rituals, they’re amazingly complex. You seem to have managed to make a career and lifestyle for you out such things, is this what you had imagined when you were a child?
Yes, I had a rather healthy obsession with death and skeletons and graveyards even when I was a little kidlet. One place that really resonated with me and formed the foundation of my creative spark was the Jones Fantastic Museum in Seattle. An odd place filled with taxidermied animals, player pianos and other strange old coin-operated machines, an entire wall of black and white photos of sideshow freaks, things in jars, it was as if my little 7-year-old-self had died and gone to heaven. I believe that was the beginning of the end for me as far as a door opening into the past.
While I was living, working and playing at SCUD (Subterranean Cooperative of Urban Dreamers) along with 12 other like-minded souls for nearly ten years, it was only then that I discovered the Victorian era by way of the notorious Jim Hogshire and poppy tea.
7.Would you say you’re living your dream now?
Absolutely. I cannot imagine living any other way, I always believed that if you work hard enough with mind, body and soul, dreams do come true. But with anything, it requires huge sacrifice, that if you want anything bad enough it will come true.
8.What “label” would you give your art?
“Victorian Lowbrow” and “Gothic Lowbrow”
9.What wonderful new things are in the future for Madame Talbot?
I’ve been working on a bunch of new framed curios and I will continue through August until they’re finished. I have gathered so much stuff: medical skulls, two human skeleton hands (left and right) a bunch of long bones, a human heart, a human brain slice, 5 (model) fetal skeletons, 7 (model) fetal skulls (three of which are for dolls), a very large leech, tapeworms, a baby snake from the 1930s, two taxidermied bats and a whole slew of other items I have tucked away in cabinets.
In September, I have four new posters to draw, my posters are my pride and joy. If you look on the website you will see I’ve created a lot of them but I have many more to do. Then I’ll begin working on dolls. I will be doing more Fetal Skull dolls, and I already have 17 to 20 dolls already DONE, all I need to do is make clothes for them. I will probably make more Plague Doctors early next year.
In October and November, we do a huge web update with all the stuff I accumulate over the summer, like all that weird medical stuff I bought a few months ago.
In December, I try to take a breather and just try to work on my book, all while having tried to squeeze book time in on the weekends over the summer and autumn months.
In January, I hit the ground running with new projects.
10.Why dolls? What special meaning or expression do they hold for you?
My grandmother (who is 86 and still going strong – she still goes to work everyday!) taught me to sew when I was a child. I like making them, though I have decided to just stick with the Plague Doctor dolls, Fetal Skull Dolls and Stump Skull Dolls. Those are my very favorite dolls, but I only make them once a year. I find it relaxing.
11.Your house is reputed to be haunted, have you experienced anything supernatural in your home? Do you get along with whatever haunts your home?
With the recent renovations that are going on (we are in the process of sanding, painting and making minor repairs to the front porch and windows), all the hammering seems to have woken something up. One night I kept hearing thumps and voices downstairs. The house used to be a boarding house, and the dining room was where breakfast, lunch and dinner was served during the 1920s-1940s. So oftentimes, I have heard happy voices, the clink of silverware against plates and always go downstairs to investigate, and always, the noise stops right when I get to the bottom of the stairs.
When we first moved here, the house was most definitely checking us out and I could feel a sort of standoff. After a year, everything sort of mellowed out. If you read my blog, there are many stories about the hauntings that occured in this house.
12.What would you find to be the most bizarre or unique fact or story you’ve come across in your research or adventures?
That would be the mummy story, but we also found a real gas chamber chair which has since found a home at a museum.
13.Describe yourself in five words or less.
“Victorian Lowbrow” and “Gothic Lowbrow”
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