The Gallery

Medium: Preserved dermis, red winter coat, grandmother's locket

Acquired: June 2005

Location: Gallery One - Fairy Tale Wing

My first. Clumsy work, if I'm honest. I hadn't perfected the preservation technique yet and the carving was rushed. But she was perfect for the role. Seventeen, still had that wide-eyed trust that made the approach so easy. Visiting her grandmother in a hospice facility two towns over. Wrong road, broken-down car, man offering help.

She wore a red coat. I didn't plan that. The universe provides, and she sparked the idea for everything else.

The wolf pattern I carved across her shoulder blades, crude angular lines forming a howling profile, never did cure properly. The tissue cracked during the drying process. Still, you have to start somewhere. The teeth were supposed to drip down her spine. They just look like scratches now.

As performed by Ashton Phillips

• Ashton was seventeen years old and wanted to be a veterinarian.
• She was the youngest of four kids, and the only girl.
• She drove an hour each way twice a month to sit with her grandmother, who was dying slowly and badly, but never complained about the drive.
• Her grandmother gave her a locket with both their photos in it.
• Her red coat made her feel like somebody in an “old-timey” movie.
• Her Honda broke down on a rural road in and a man pulled over to help.
• She was the kind of girl who believed people were mostly good, and she was right about that, except once.

Medium: Preserved dermis, makeup compact, mirror shard

Acquired: April 2019

Location: Gallery One - Fairy Tale Wing

Cosmetics sales. Beautiful woman, spent her whole life being valued for her appearance. Older at the time of acquisition, late forties, fighting the mirror's truth with creams and procedures.

The poisoned apple design across her back, a perfect apple with one bite taken, each tooth mark visible, seeds embedded in the preserved tissue as experimental technique, worked beautifully. The bite shows teeth marks, individual ridges. Inside the apple, I carved worms. They're crawling out through the bite. Decay hidden beneath beauty. She saw it when I showed her the mirror near the end.

She asked me if she was still pretty. I told her yes. It seemed kind.

As performed by Jessica Adams

• Jessica sold high-end skincare at Nordstrom and could match your foundation shade from across the counter.
• She was forty-seven and had been beautiful her whole life and was tired of people acting like that was the only interesting thing about her.
• She kept a journal since she was sixteen and never let anyone read it.
• She did the crossword in pen every morning and was furious when she couldn't finish.
• She had two grown sons who still called her before every job interview to ask what they should wear

Medium: Preserved dermis, 34 inches of braided hair, hairbrush

Acquired: September 2013

Location: Gallery One - Fairy Tale Wing

Hair past her waist. Beautiful, thick, the kind women pay fortunes to achieve. She was vain about it. Spent the first two days worried I'd cut it off.

I didn't. I waited until after, then braided it carefully before I took it. The tower pattern I carved into her back, stone blocks rising from her lower spine to her shoulders, a single window at the top between her shoulder blades, took five sessions to complete. Each stone was individually outlined. The window shows a tiny figure reaching out. Her, forever trapped.

The preservation on this piece is nearly perfect. I was getting better. It's displayed with her hair coiled beside it, still braided.

As performed by Breanna Watson

• Breanna had hair past her waist and she knew exactly what it looked like when she walked into a room.
• She was secretly terrified that without her hair she would not be considered beautiful.
• She was twenty-six and managed a salon in Chattanooga and every client who sat in her chair left feeling like they had a new best friend.
• She donated time to Locks of Love and helped women going through cancer treatment find comfortable wigs.
• She had a cat named Dolly and a five-year plan taped to her refrigerator.

Medium: Preserved dermis, hospital ID badge, engagement ring

Acquired: March 2014

She spent her entire career waking people up. Ironic, really, that her final role required the opposite. The needle marks on her arms told their own story. A nurse who understood exactly what I was using, who knew precisely how each sedative would make her feel. That knowledge didn't save her. If anything, it made the performance more exquisite. She knew what was coming and couldn't stop it anyway.

The rose pattern on her shoulder blade, a single bloom in full detail, thorns trailing down her arm, each thorn sharp enough that you can almost feel them, took four sessions to complete. Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on a spinning wheel. This one got pricked by something else entirely. The rose is perfect. My technique was finally refined.

As performed by Kaya Glover, RN

• She worked the night shift in the ICU and was the nurse patients asked for by name when they came back.
• Kaya kept a stash of snacks in her locker for the families who forgot to eat.
• She was thirty-one and engaged to a paramedic she met on a call that went sideways. They argued about whose job was harder at least once a week.
• She had a TikTok where she told nursing stories that made strangers laugh until they cried, and a scrub cap collection that took up an entire drawer.
• Every shift, she took off her engagement ring and put it back on in the parking lot.

Medium: Preserved dermis, driver's license, vocal cord diagram

Acquired: July 2015

Location: Gallery One - Fairy Tale Wing

Speech therapist. Helped children find their voices. The irony was too perfect to resist.

I didn't actually remove her vocal cords. That's barbaric and unnecessary. But I did gag her for the entire performance. Three weeks of silence. Three weeks of having so much to say and no way to say it. The little mermaid gave up her voice for love. My performer gave up hers for me.

The wave pattern along her back, rolling ocean swells that wrap around to her waist, each crest and trough precisely rendered, foam detailed in white scarring, is some of my finest detail work. The waves look like they're moving. Beneath them, carved into her spine, tiny bubbles rise in a scream that never reached the surface.

As performed by Lillyanna Molino

• Lillyanna Molino was a speech therapist who spent her days teaching children how to say the words that were stuck inside them.
• She kept a jar of candy on her desk because she believed every hard thing a kid did deserved a reward.
• She was thirty-one and had just gotten engaged to a man who left her funny voice messages every morning.
• She was learning to play guitar and only knew three chords.
• Her friends called her Lilly and she pretended to hate it.

Medium: Preserved dermis, bracelet with heart charm)

Acquired: May 2025

Location: Gallery One - Fairy Tale Wing

Insurance claims processor. Divorced. Daughter six years old. Perfect. Old enough to remember, young enough that losing her mother will define everything that comes after.

Every fairy tale needs absence. The dead mother. The missing mother. The wound that shapes the hero's journey. Every Disney story has one. She wasn't playing a character. She became an archetype.

The pattern I carved took four sessions to complete: a silhouette of a woman reaching toward a small hand, the space between them growing wider down her spine, until at her lower back there is only empty space where the hands should meet. The empty space is the point. The absence is what matters. Her daughter will carry that empty space forever.

As performed by Nicki Cleveland

• Nicki was a claims processor at an insurance company. She’d been saving for two years to take her daughter to Disney World.
• She was divorced and had a six-year-old daughter who liked to sit on the bathroom counter and watch her put on mascara.
• Her bio on all of the dating apps said “package deal.”
• She packed her daughter’s lunch every night before bed, always with a note inside.
• She wore a bracelet with a heart charm her daughter picked out at a mall kiosk for Mother’s Day.

Medium: Preserved dermis, swim team medal, pressed flowers

Acquired: August 2008

Location: Gallery Two - Classical Tragedy

Competitive swimmer. Division I scholarship. The irony wasn't lost on me when I chose the drowning maiden as her character. She lasted longer than most because of her conditioning. Athletes always do. Strong lungs, strong heart, stubborn will to survive.

The floral patterns I carved referenced the flowers Ophelia distributed in her madness: rosemary for remembrance across her collarbone, pansies for thoughts trailing down her left arm, fennel and columbine intertwined along her right side. My most intricate work to date at that point. The petals required a lighter touch, finer blade work. She deserved the effort.

Found her medal in her car afterward. Took it as a signature.

As performed by Laura Ray

• Laura swam the 200 butterfly in under two minutes and had a Division I scholarship waiting for her in the fall.
• Her dad drove four hours to every meet and kept a spreadsheet of her times going back to age nine.
• She woke up at 4:30 every morning for practice.
• She kept every pressed flower anyone ever gave her, flattened between the pages of whatever book she was reading at the time.
• Her teammates called her Ray-Ray.
  

Medium: Preserved dermis, expired beauty pageant sash, whiskey flask

Acquired: March 2022, acquired in Tupelo, Mississippi

Location: Gallery Two - Classical Tragedy

Former pageant queen. Miss Tennessee 1989. Thirty years later, still telling anyone who'd listen about her glory days. Drinking too much. Living in the past. "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

Well. She got a stranger.

The magnolia pattern I carved, a single bloom across her back, petals falling away and drifting down toward her waist, edges deliberately rough to show age and decay, was delicate work. Blanche's beauty was always illusion, always performance. So was hers. The fallen petals scatter across her lower back like discarded dreams. Some are half-formed, incomplete. The flower is dying in real time.

As performed by Zule Jimenez

• She was Miss Tennessee in 1989 and it was the best night of her life, and she would tell you that if you asked and sometimes if you didn’t.
• She could recreate any makeup look if you showed her.
• Zule worked the cosmetics counter at Belk for twenty-two years.
• She had a daughter in Knoxville who called every Sunday and a whiskey flask she thought nobody knew about.
• She was sixty-three years old and still had the sash.

Medium: Preserved dermis, divorce papers, children's drawings

Acquired: May 2016

Location: Gallery Two - Classical Tragedy

Custody battle. Bitter divorce. Her ex-husband had already moved on, started a new family. She was fighting for weekend visitation rights.

Medea killed her own children to punish Jason. This one didn't have to. Her children will grow up wondering what happened to mommy. That's punishment enough.

The serpent design, a coiling dragon that wraps completely around her torso, scales individually carved, forked tongue reaching toward her heart, took seven sessions. Medea fled in a chariot drawn by dragons. The dragon's eye on her left side watches eternally. Its tail disappears around her back. You'd have to turn the piece to see where it ends.

As performed by Imani Cole

• She was a pediatric nurse who knew how to stay calm when everything was falling apart.
• Her kids' drawings covered the fridge.
• She'd been in a custody battle for eight months and hadn't slept a full night in six.
• She cried in her car, never in front of anyone.
• She hated the idea of her kids being used as pawns in her ex husband’s financial games.

Medium: Preserved dermis, engagement ring, wedding invitation

Acquired: June 2011

Location: Gallery Two - Classical Tragedy

Twenty-two. Wedding in three weeks. Everything planned, everything perfect, everything ahead of her.

She begged me to let her go. She said her fiancé would pay anything. I almost felt bad about that part. Young love, genuine love, the kind that doesn't last anyway, even when people aren't murdered in caves.

The dagger design on her shoulder, an ornate Renaissance-style blade pointing downward toward her heart, pommel detailed with tiny roses, was obvious symbolism but sometimes obvious is what the piece requires. Star-crossed. Tragic. Gone too soon. The roses in the pommel matched the ones that would have been in her bouquet.

As performed by Genesis Jordan

• Genesis was twenty-two and getting married in three weeks.
• She had the dress, the venue, the flowers picked out, and a fiancé who would have paid anything to get her back.
• Her fiancé still had the voicemail where she said yes.
• She was a kindergarten teacher who kept a drawer full of drawings her students made for her because she could not bring herself to throw any of them away.
• They had just closed on a little house with a yard and a kitchen she said she was excited to learn to cook in.

Medium: Preserved dermis, wedding ring, road map

Acquired: September 2023, outside Birmingham, Alabama

Location: Gallery Three - Mythology Wing

She was lost. Literally. GPS failed, wrong turn, ended up on a road that doesn't get much traffic. Stopped to ask me for directions.

Eurydice followed Orpheus out of the underworld. Almost made it. But she looked back and was lost forever. This one looked back too. Saw me in her rearview mirror as I followed her to a "better spot to turn around."

The pattern I carved, a doorway on her back, half-open, light streaming through with shadow reaching back, shows the moment of choice. She's in the doorway, one foot forward, head turned back. Forever caught between worlds. The detail work on the shadow alone took three sessions. You can see her hand reaching back toward darkness.

As performed by Madison Reed

• Madison Reed was a middle school art teacher who took a different route home every Friday just to see what was out there.
• She had been married for three years and still texted her husband when she was on her way home.
• She kept a handwritten list of restaurants she wanted to try in the glove box of her car.
• She stopped to ask for directions without a second thought because she believed strangers were just people she hadn’t met yet.
• She was twelve minutes from home.

Medium: Preserved dermis, karaoke microphone, sheet music

Acquired: May 2010

Location: Gallery Three - Mythology Wing

Singer at a bar. Voice like honey. She'd do open mic nights, mostly jazz standards and blues. The kind of voice that makes men do stupid things.

Including me, apparently. Broke protocol and went to the same bar twice just to hear her sing, and even went home with her, before I made my move. Unprofessional. But her rendition of "At Last" was genuinely moving.

The musical notation I carved along her spine, actual notes from "At Last," each clef and note precisely rendered, curves from the nape of her neck to her lower back. Treble clef at the top, the melody flowing down in perfect pitch. I worked from sheet music I took from her apartment. The preserved skin holds the pattern beautifully. If you know how to read music, you can play it.

As performed by Allison Karen

• Allison sang jazz standards at a bar on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the regulars rearranged their weeks around it.
• She worked as a dental hygienist during the day and nobody there had ever heard her sing.
• She had a shoebox of handwritten set lists from every show she ever played.
• She was twenty-eight and saving for a demo tape she kept saying she would get around to recording.
• Her mother said Allison came out humming and never really stopped.

Medium: Preserved dermis, college ID, pomegranate seeds (preserved)

Acquired: April 2007

Location: Gallery Three - Mythology Wing

Spring break. She was hitchhiking back to campus. Nobody hitchhikes anymore. This was the tail end of that era of misplaced trust. I've always appreciated the seasonal symmetry. Persephone taken in spring, just like the myth.

She fought beautifully. Broke two of my fingers before I got her secured. The pomegranate motif along her spine, seeds in a descending arc, each one carefully shaded, took three sessions to complete. The symbolism was worth the effort. Six seeds. Six months in the underworld. Six sessions of pain before she finally stopped screaming.

Better preservation work this time. Learning.

As performed by Asja LaVey

• Asja was a sophomore majoring in environmental science because she wanted to do something about it, not just talk about it.
• She hitchhiked because she was broke and impatient and didn’t see the point in waiting for a bus that came once an hour.
• She had a younger sister who texted her every day and wanted to be exactly like her.
• She broke two of his fingers.
• She disappeared during spring break.

Medium: Preserved dermis, military dog tags, religious medal

Acquired: August 2021, in southern Alabama

Location: Gallery Four - Cultural Icons

Army veteran. Iraq War. She'd seen real violence, survived real combat. Thought that made her prepared.

It didn't.

The flame pattern I carved across her shoulders and back, fire rising from her lower spine, consuming her, each flame individually detailed with inner shading to show heat and movement, took six sessions. Joan burned at the stake for her visions. This one burned in a different way. Fever from infected wounds, the fire of pain that never stops. The flames look alive. They flicker across her skin even now.

Warrior. Martyr. Believer. She prayed the entire time.

As performed by Captain Endia Miller (Ret.)

• She did two tours in Iraq and came home with a Bronze Star and shrapnel in her left shoulder that the surgeons decided was safer to leave in.
• She taught self-defense classes at the VFW on weekends because she didn’t like the idea of women not knowing what to do.
• She called her mother every Sunday after church, both of them still in their good clothes.
• She prayed the entire time.
• Endia was forty-one, from a town in southern Alabama.

Medium: Preserved dermis, gold cross, azalea graf (preserved)

Acquired: May 2025

Location: Gallery Five - Cultural Icons (New Wing)

Wealthy family. Agricultural background. Here on an internship, learning propagation techniques. She was talking to Lucy the afternoon I took her. The connection was too perfect to resist.

Day of the Dead celebrates the return of the departed. The living keeping vigil for those who've crossed over. Marigolds to guide them home. Sugar skulls. Photographs. The beautiful intermingling of life and death.

She's spirited. Angry. Still fighting even now.

The preservation process hasn't even started. I'm breaking all my own rules with this one. Nicki is still curing in the back gallery. Normally I'd wait. But opportunity doesn't wait for process.

As performed by Gabriela Varga

• Gabriela Varga comes from money but doesn't act like it.
• She's in Tennessee on an internship and takes notes in a mix of Spanish and English that makes sense only to her.
• Her nails are always done, even in the greenhouse.
• She has a voicemail greeting that fake-answers before telling you it's voicemail.
• She makes friends by accident, usually by talking to herself in Spanish and getting overheard.