It’s not too often you come across artwork blending traditional taxidermy techniques with western textiles and geometric patterns, but that is exactly what Seth Patterson set out to do. An Oregon native, Seth has made a name for himself, blending replica fish mounts with Pendleton blankets in the form of modern taxidermy. Marketer turned maker; we sat down with Seth to learn about his artwork, career path, and love for fly fishing and the outdoors. Follow along in this Artist Spotlight as Seth Patterson shares his story with Flylords.
Flylords: When did you start fly fishing?
Patterson: I’ve always hunted and fished since I was really young. The first time I fly fished was around the age of 12 or so; my dad took me up to a small creek that flows off of Mount Jefferson. I had a Pflueger reel and an old Hardy rod that had been in the garage for a long time. I do remember hooking a few small trout, which I don’t even know if they were rainbows or cutties, but that was the first time I went fly fishing.
I got into it more in high school when I went to the Deschutes with my dad. Fishing Oregon’s premier fly fishery is something special. But college is where it all changed for me. I went to college in West Texas, and being from western Oregon, I quickly got tree sick, not having tall trees in sight like I’m used to. My roommate and I watched A River Runs Through It, and immediately after the movie, I said, “We’re moving to Montana this summer.” And so then we both got jobs on a dude ranch just outside of Jackson Hole—called the Gros Ventre River Ranch—and fly fished pretty much every day that summer.
Flylords: What is your favorite aspect of fly fishing?
Patterson: For me, my favorite aspect of fly fishing is the presence of being in the water. I don’t have a favorite water, a favorite fish, or a favorite fly. I’m 40 now, and I started my work career when everyone was starting to get iPhones, so technology has really changed everyone’s lifestyle a lot in the last 20 years. I just feel the more we are on our phones and the more we’re using technology, the more I want to be on a river or be in nature to get back to the root of how things are supposed to be. The presence of being in the water, away from technology, away from email, and away from my phone is really my favorite part of fly fishing.
Flylords: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into art?
Patterson: My dad introduced me to the outdoors at a very young age. I did a lot of mountaineering with him, fishing, and hunting, and then my mom exposed me to a lot of art while I was growing up. It was a lot more on the music side, but she was also the craft lady volunteer who came to my school for craft day, so I grew up making stuff and bringing the outdoors inside.
Then, professionally, I started out as a marketer at Pendleton Woolen Mills. In 2013, I was their first-ever head of digital marketing, helping them tell their story online. Initially, it was a lot of analytics, so I rolled around in a lot of data and made a lot of recommendations and optimizations and all this and that, but I ultimately started to get really interested in product. I’d make a lot of product recommendations based on the data, the audience, and what people were searching for. I worked closely with the merchandising and product teams and had a lot of success launching new, novel products. What changed things for me was when I realized I could launch new products on my own without needing to go through layers of approvals.
I ended up starting my own company, 84 East, in 2016 while I was still working at Pendleton—totally separate from Pendleton. The name 84 East is the highway that follows the Columbia River east from Portland (where I grew up), where salmon migrate upstream. It’s always been a side hustle for me, but it’s been my playground where I create new products made with Pendleton wool and get to act as both maker and marketer. Under 84 East, I’ve designed and launched a handful of blankets that Pendleton made for me with it, plus done my artwork. My experience with Pendleton and my love for art and the outdoors is what got me to where I am today with the artwork.
Flylords: Where did your idea to use fish mounts and art together come from?
Patterson: In 2016, I came across a trout design by Casey Underwood called the Gaucho Trout—it was a kind of geometric design on a trout body with a natural head, fins, and tail. When I saw that, I thought to myself, “I need to make that in real life.” I had been at Pendleton long enough to know their designs well and how Pendleton wool was being incorporated into interior design spaces by adding a little splash of color into a room. Like a blanket over a couch, an upholstered chair or pillow, or something on a wall. So, I thought it would look cool as a wall mount.
I didn’t know how but knew I needed to make that real life. And so then I became a fabric lady, and I acquired lots of fabric during my time at Pendleton. I ended up paying a taxidermist in Washington a day’s wage to teach me how to assemble and paint a reproduction fish, which is not a sufficient amount of time to properly learn how to do anything. But I got exposed to the process of working with reproduction blanks, using sculpting clay, making the eyes, and then the process of painting and piecing it all together.
I came home with a 44-inch chinook salmon that was painted, and all the different pieces were laid out. Over the next few months, I ended up putting over 40 hours into my first fish and upholstering the body with Pendleton fabric. I posted it on Instagram, and a friend bought it very quickly. It now hangs in a law firm in downtown Portland. That’s how I initially made something. I didn’t make it because I wanted to sell it. I made it just because I thought it was cool and I enjoyed working with my hands.
Then, I had a bull skull in my shop that my dad had given me years ago. It was a Texas Longhorn kind of thing. I upholstered that, which took a long time to figure out how to do properly. Eventually, I finished it, posted it, and somebody bought it. And so I was like, oh, maybe I’m onto something. It started in 2016, and I’m still doing it today.
Flylords: How would you describe your artistic style?
Patterson: My main goal with my artwork is to bring the outdoors inside. I plan to only and always work with Pendleton fabric since I have such a deep personal connection with the brand. I would call it western-styled art, but it’s really a modern take on taxidermy. My main goal with all my pieces is to bring natural textures inside in a way that is fresh and compelling.
One of the things that I love doing most in my life is introducing people to the outdoors, taking them hunting or fishing for the first time, sitting in a duck blind, or floating my favorite rivers in a canoe or a drift boat in central Oregon. I love doing that. I think most fly anglers think about fishing a lot. It’s our favorite outdoor passion; we’re planning our calendar around it and tying flies when we’re not fishing—it’s all-consuming. So the question is, how can I bring that passion inside? What I’m trying to do is bring that feeling inside in a novel, surprising, and exciting way.
Flylords: What is your process for creating a new piece?
Patterson: The process is simple in terms of the components. First is the form that I’m using, whether it’s a fish reproduction blank, a replica elk euro mount, or a longhorn. For skulls with antlers/horns, I use resin-based replicas, which are incredibly realistic-looking. So there’s that main form, and then there’s the wool fabric and a good pair of scissors. I’ll find a wool fabric pattern that matches the fish or skull. The next step is adding sculpting clay to the form so it’s shaped in such a way that the fabric design flows properly and really pops. Then, I adhere the fabric to the form, which takes a long time and involves a lot of sitting and holding. I’ve painted some fish but I mostly have a taxidermist paint the head and fins these days.
The fabric upholstering has taken a lot of time to figure out since the fish and skull forms have all sorts of contours to work around. It took a lot of time to figure out how to do everything so that I could be really efficient. I mean, that first fish took close to 45 hours; I think the first longhorn I did took over 20 hours. Now, I’m pretty quick on stuff, but I don’t rush it. I enjoy the process of making stuff. There are definitely a lot of high-profile cuts that I make on every piece, and I only have one chance to cut the fabric perfectly, or it’ll ruin the whole piece. It’s taken a lot of reps to know the forms well, where to make the cuts, and how to work with the fabric. It’s a bit like turning chaos into an orchestra, as every piece is different, and there’s always something new to figure out.
The most important part of making a piece is choosing the right fabric. Pendleton wool fabrics are designed with a repeat. Essentially, it’s a measurement that corresponds to when the pattern repeats itself. A 9-inch repeat will repeat quicker than a 20-inch repeat. The smaller patterns that have a quicker repeat tend to work better on smaller pieces like a mule deer or an elk skull. Bigger repeats work on large pieces like a longhorn or a huge chinook. If I just slap any old fabric on one of these, it doesn’t look good. You have to pick a pattern that fits the form well but also matches the color of the fish. For example, I’ll make sure that there’s a good flow between the head of a steelhead, the body of the fish, its lateral line, and all that.
Flylords: What similarities do you see between refining your craft as an artist and honing your skills as a fisherman?
Patterson: For me, I don’t see fly fishing as a sport but more of an enjoyable pastime. I benefit from getting better at it over time but have never approached it with an athlete’s mindset of constantly improving. My skills have been more passively acquired, fishing with people who fly fish a lot rather than studying the game, so to speak.
To bring that back to the artwork, I do enjoy making stuff and honing my craft. One thing I’m trying to do now is find a river that these fish naturally live in after I make a piece and photograph them. That’s part of my job, blending my two passions, art and the outdoors.
I would say that in my artwork, I’m more intentional about becoming better. Each time, learning a new trick, and with fly fishing, it’s similar. I never force honing my craft; it just happens naturally over time in both my art and my fishing.
Flylords: How would you like people to remember your art?
Patterson: My main goal with all my pieces is to bring the outside inside in a new and fresh way. I’ve recently started to work with a lot of Airbnbs. One of the travel trends I’m seeing is immersing yourself in the culture of an area, which has really started to gain popularity. I think my art can help create more immersive, shareable moments when people stay in a home or hotel. For example, imagine staying in a beautiful home on the Oregon Coast and having a big chinook salmon upholstered in Pendleton fabric on the wall above the fireplace. It’s eye candy with a local story. My artwork can sit in these spaces on the wall and inspire folks to get outdoors.
In marketing terms, I suppose my artwork is an acquisition play to get people outdoors. Many people did not grow up with parents who introduced them to the outdoors in a meaningful way. I like to think people are all the same. We’re all the same species. We all need to have a connection to the Earth. So, I hope my artwork can inspire people who did not grow up in the outdoors to appreciate and experience nature.
Everyone has a propensity to love the outdoors, which means they all have a propensity to spend money in the local markets of the places they visit. If they go hiking in Colorado or if they want to go on a fishing trip in Florida, they all have a propensity to help with conservation. But they need to have that first experience with the outdoors. This is a long-winded way of saying I want to inspire people to get outdoors, and the way I’m doing that is to bring the outdoors inside.
Flylords: Is there anything we didn’t touch on that you’d like to discuss?
Patterson: One thing I want to do more of is use my art to highlight organizations or causes that I find meaningful. Every year, I donate a few pieces to organizations I find meaningful. For instance, this year, I donated a big steelhead to my friend, Bucky Buchstaber, at Fly Fishing Collaborative (FFC). FFC is a nonprofit that saves kids from trafficking around the world through the efforts of the fly fishing community. It’s an incredible and impactful organization.
This year, they are working on a project here in Oregon with the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, building an aquaponics farm to boost their local economy. Matt Mendes, a native guide on the reservation, and Bucky went steelhead fishing on the Deschutes this last fall with the steelhead piece I made for them. I asked Bucky to photograph it on the river, so he went fishing with Matt, and they caught a steelhead. They got a cool photo of the real fish next to the replica fish, which felt like a full-circle moment for me to see. In March, FFC is holding its annual banquet for the Warm Springs hydroponics farm build and will be auctioning off my piece to help raise money.
Flylords: How can folks get in touch with you about purchasing art and commissioning pieces?
The best ways to contact me are through Instagram or my website, sethpatterson.com.
