Walking into the new storefront on Casper’s Second Street one can get a tattoo, purchase a taxidermized insect, or walk out with “wet specimen” — such as a baby rabbit preserved in a jar.
Welcome to Metalmark Studios where owner Kinzie Calvert said her shop offers a lot of ‘oddities’ in addition to her own and another artist’s tattoo work, as well as a colleague’s piercing practice.
“Oddities are really just things that are just different, that aren’t mainstream that people would normally like,” she said. “You probably don’t know too many people who would decorate with dead animals, not in like a hunting way, but like a wet specimen.”
The former Casper College criminal justice and pre-law student said she and her coworkers previously operated under a different name at another downtown location, and Metalmark was originally just the name of her tattoo studio. They opened at the 114 Second Street location on Aug. 2 under the name of her studio.
Shoppers can find plants, butterflies in frames, bugs in bubble glass with a cork on the bottom, jewelry for piercings, a pair of earrings made of real spider webs, and more.
Growing up with a love for art, Calvert said her career goal was focused on law enforcement and possibly going to law school.
“I’ve always loved paperwork, tedious stuff. Worksheets in school were my favorites,” she said. “My dad was a marine and then a prison guard at the penitentiary. … When I turned 15, one day it was like, ‘I’m going to be a lawyer.’ And that was my dream, until it wasn’t.”
The pandemic, she said, caused a lot of people to look at their lives. Calvert said she decided to do a “180” and launched her tattooing business in 2021. Tattooing led to friendships that did not exist prior to the business, Calvert said.
She specializes in black and gray ink, working with dot work and shading. Putting a needle into someone’s body is not taken for granted.
“Honestly, I would say causing the pain is genuinely the hardest part of my job,” Calvert said. “So, when someone is really struggling, which is pretty rare, I feel really bad, and I just want to finish it for them as soon as I can, so they are not sitting in pain.”
Some of the tattoos take several sessions to complete. Calvert said most of her clients are women.
A skull, insect tarot cards, and a butterfly sit on the shelves at Metalmark Studios, part of the oddities products at the store. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Wet specimens, such as this baby rabbit in a jar, are hot-selling items in the oddities market. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A posing beetle-like insect and a black-topped mushroom are part of the products at Metalmark Studios. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A serious looking winged insect-type creature represents more tattoo artistry by Kinzie Calvert, left. A grasshopper creature is another example. (Courtesy Kinzie Calvert) 
Metalmark Studios offers earrings made using real spiderwebs. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A diorama created by Kinzie Calvert includes dried flowers, a cat’s skull and a butterfly-like creature. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) A serious looking winged insect-type creature represents more tattoo artistry by Kinzie Calvert, left. A grasshopper creature is another example. (Courtesy Kinzie Calvert) 
Oddities include mushrooms and other materials made into art forms. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Kinzie Calvert creates taxidermized butterfly art through a process that involves rehydration which allows her to position the wings. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Insect Taxidermy
Applying her art hobby at work led Calvert to look for another “hobby” and she turned to insect taxidermy. The name of her shop, ‘Metalmark,’ is taken from the butterfly family of the same name.
“I’ve always kind of been into them, and I was looking for a hobby that was relaxing but a little different, and I just got into bug pinning,” she said. “It’s pretty big in the oddities space. So, if you are someone who’s into oddities, you’ve seen pinned bugs before.”
Calvert said she usually works with butterflies, but some people use beetles, moths, spiders and scorpions. The process involves taking the dead specimen and rehydrating it. There are different methods for the rehydration.
For butterflies, she puts them into a “rehydration chamber.”
“Once it’s rehydrated, its wings are moveable. Then you put them on what’s called a spreading board, or pinning board, and you use thin pieces of tissue-type paper and pins and just move their wings with tweezers to where you want them,” she said. “Then you just pin them down with the paper and the pins. When it dries, it stays in that position.”
Some of the butterflies she sells are those brought to her by people and sometimes she purchases them from bug suppliers. She does not spend a lot of time hunting butterflies and said she doesn’t see them as often as in the past.
In addition to butterflies, her shop offered a beetle and other objects in rounded glass displays that can sit on a shelf or coffee table.
“There’s a pretty large group of collectors in Casper,” she said. “You’d be surprised, collectors of insect taxidermy or oddities in general, like wet specimens, bone jewelry and stuff like that.”
Wet Specimens
Calvert said the “wet specimens” are hard to keep in supply. She showed Cowboy State Daily her own baby rabbit in a small mason jar.
All the specimens in her shop are “ethically or sustainably sourced.”
“So, this rabbit was not killed to become a decor. It died naturally, like stillborn, and the same with my bugs,” she said. “I try to only go through sources that at least say that they’re ethical and I hope that it is true.”
She compares the dead animals in jars to deer or elk heads on walls.
“It’s really weird to a lot of people,” she said. “But they are just cool to look at.”
The popular “wet specimens” include snakes, lizards, rabbits, hearts of animals, and her most recent supply that sold out were sheep brains. She sometimes gets stillborn kittens from a supplier who sources them from a veterinarian.
The specimens are initially prepared using formalin, but not in her store. They are shipped to her, wrapped in paper towels or a similar product. One of her coworkers takes the specimen and places it in a jar filled with isopropyl alcohol.
“I don’t like touching the dead animals, unless they are bugs,” Calvert said.
She also works with people who find roadkill in the area for part of the specimen supplies and ranchers who provide bones.
The store must follow Wyoming Game and Fish Department laws, she said, but they don’t purchase anything that would fall under the agency’s jurisdiction.
Plants
Her live products include green plants that typically cannot be found at Walmart, but she does have a few common varieties such as pothos plants known for air-purifying qualities. She also looks for varieties of peperomia to sell.
Calvert also pulled out a diorama she put together of a cat’s skull with dried florals and a green Charaxes butterfly on top.
The artist and businesswoman said traffic into the store has been better than at their former location, but September typically is a slow month for retailers. And she does have competition around town and the state.
“There are a lot of small, local creators that just create art out of oddities,” she said. “I know there are a couple of other businesses just in Wyoming that also do oddities and create things like this.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
