Don McDermott finishes up a white-tailed deer at his shop, Big Game Taxidermy, 1001 Elm St. in Eudora.

If you talk about the color of Picasso or the realism of Rembrandt at a cocktail party, many will find you so sophisticated.

If you talk about ear butts, they’re likely to cut you off from the bar.

I guess some people still don’t appreciate the art of taxidermy.

But Don McDermott does, which stands to reason since he’s owned Eudora-based Big Game Taxidermy since 1974. Who knows, you might even enjoy hearing him talk about ear butts, which is that part of an animal where the ear starts to connect to the skull. It can sometimes be tricky to get that part to look just right on a deer or other trophy animal.

“It is basically sculpture with a tanned skin,” McDermott says of his work.

It is art that definitely is not just regional in scope. You might be surprised at the variety of animals that come into the tiny shop located behind McDermott’s home. There are javelinas, a type of wild swine found in Texas and other parts of the southwest. There are moose, brush buck and all types of other horned animals. If you don’t believe him, just look at the ceiling of the shop. It is full of holes where the horns of really big animals have caught as he’s moved them around. He’s also done many types of bears, including brown, black and grizzly.

Then there is the international contingent. Sable, from places such as Russia and the Far East, have come to the shop, and so too have kudus, a type of African antelope, and Cape Buffalo, those African bovines with the distinctive horns coming out of their heads.

“I have quite a few customers who go to Africa, and they usually drag something back here,” McDermott says.

No, I didn’t ask what type of carry-on luggage they use for that.

Let’s be honest here, there are parts of this artistic endeavor that are a bit messy. McDermott does the tanning for a lot of the work he undertakes. That involves skinning the animal and putting the hide in a pickling bath that he stirs with a boat oar. There is a tanning solution that is used. There is lots of baking soda used to neutralize the solution. There’s also salt involved in the process. It is spread across the hide.

“That stops the hair from falling out,” he explains.

That also may explain why some of my middle-aged friends are busting salt shakers over their heads these days.

The tanning and skinning process is all necessary work, but McDermott said he gets more enjoyment out of creating the final product. That involves creating a mold, or sometimes combining a series of molds, that allows McDermott to stretch and shape the prepared hides. Sometimes the molds can be purchased. Other times he makes them himself, sometimes with products like Bondo, the automotive body putty that you may use to repair the dents in your car. (Like, after you hit a deer.)

The sculpting is only part of the deal, though. The most important piece may be the observing. McDeromott said getting to observe the little details of nature is one of the more enjoyable parts of the profession. McDermott looks at things the rest of us simply overlook. Like the shape of a deer’s eye. McDermott has an entire photo album that is nothing but photos of how the eyes of various deer look.

“I want them to look as close as to how God made them,” McDermott says.

It is a complicated process, but the learning process for McDermott started pretty simple.

“In high school, I got a book in the library and started reading it,” McDermott says.

That started the hobby of taxidermy. Then when he went to work for a construction firm, he decided he didn’t like that type of work very much, and tried to make a go of taxidermy. He started reading more, and started picking up pointers from other taxidermists at competitions or museums. (Lawrence is actually one of the more important places for taxidermy history. The Natural History Museum at Kansas University has had world-renowned taxidermists over the years.) McDermott just kept looking for ways to teach himself the profession.

“You can learn anything, if you set out to do it,” McDermott says.

You can also see a lot too, if you take the time to look. McDermott hopes his taxidermy work helps people see more of nature than they would otherwise.

“I used to work a job with a lot of young guys who had never seen a sunrise in the woods,” McDermott says. “A lot of people are so wrapped up in their phones and that sort of thing. We’re just too plastic anymore.”

McDermott knows not everyone is a hunter, and they don’t want to experience nature by killing it. Each to their own on how they view that, but McDermott says he would be just as happy if they armed themselves with a camera and experienced the beauty of nature that way.

If a finely preserved, artistically presented deer’s head or stuffed pheasant or the imposing figure of an African buffalo piques someone’s curiosity enough to get them to take a trip out into nature, McDermott figures his art has done a lot of good.

“If I can get them out there in nature once, I bet you they will come back again,” he says.

And who knows, maybe someday we’ll even get to the point where talking about ear butts won’t get you thrown out on your ear.

— Lawhorn’s Lawrence focuses on the people, places or past of Lawrence and the surrounding area. If you have a story idea, send it to Chad at clawhorn@ljworld.com.