Local Sculptor Brings Mummy to Life for ‘NOVA: Iceman Reborn’
Posted on February 17, 2016 by Lindsey Foat
Renowned paleo-sculptor Gary Staab owes a lot to the taxidermied animals at the Hastings College Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
It wasn’t until college while sketching a diorama for his drawing class that Staab realized there was a way for him to combine his love of science and art.
“I had this epiphany,” Staab said. “People actually had to build exhibits for museums, and that that was a possible career path.”
More than 25 years later, the Kearney, Missouri-based sculptor has created pieces for museums all over the world ranging from a 75-foot Brachiosaurus to a replica of the mummy of King Tut.
Tonight, Staab’s work will be in the national spotlight in “NOVA: Iceman Reborn.” The documentary follows Staab as he creates a painstakingly detailed replica of the world’s oldest wet mummy.
Ötzi, as the mummy is called, was found in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps in 1991, and is kept in a special freezer at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
Staab was granted rare access to study Ötzi and spent more than 2000 hours creating the replica. For the documentary Staab helped film some of his process, which he then edited down to three minutes.
After a sneak peek screening of the documentary at Union Station last week, Staab answered audience questions about Ötzi and his work.
As someone who recreates extinct animals, have you ever made a model with little idea of what it looked like, only to have new evidence come to light?
That happens all the time. In fact, as a paleo-artist I always say that you cannot be afraid of being wrong. My classic example of this is I was working on the world’s largest frog, Beezlebufo. It’s fossil that’s found in Madagascar and it’s a 65 million year old frog. … We had about 60 percent of the skeleton to create a model. While I was making the mold of it, which is pretty much you’re done, I get an email from Madagascar that says, ‘We just found better skull material!’ So you always have to adapt the mold to fit the new data.
As an artist, how has sculpting Ötzi changed you?
It’s so powerful to work on these human forms. I have been so lucky, so privileged to be able to work on Lucy, King Tut, the Iceman, … some of the linchpins of evolution. That comes with a lot of weight because so much work is put into the study of these particular fossils, but you feel so rich as artist. I am not accepted in either field; I’m not a scientist and a lot of fine artists don’t see what I do as art…. I find (this position) as an artist to be the most satisfying place to reside because I learn so much, each project is a journey.
What’s coming up next?
We have as a studio seven different museum commissions running right now. So that equates to 28 different models to be made in the next year. That includes everything from a life-size mammoth to two life-size rhinos to a pterosaur the size of a small plane.
“NOVA: Iceman Reborn” airs tonight at 8pm on KCPT.