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All the United States Minnesota North St Paul Studio Payne Oddities Shop

Studio Payne Oddities Shop

Admire the art and then buy a raccoon skull cleaned by flesh-eating beetles.

North St Paul, Minnesota

Added By
Cameren Torgerud
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Tons of items   Camishere / Atlas Obscura User
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Inside old location   Camishere / Atlas Obscura User
Studio Payne   Blizzee / Atlas Obscura User
old location   Camishere / Atlas Obscura User
inside new location   Camishere / Atlas Obscura User
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About

Most cities and towns don’t have a place to go and buy artistically enhanced taxidermy, antique medical equipment, or animal bone art. One man in St. Paul, Minnesota, saw that hole and filled it.

Cameren Torgerud wanted two things: to have a gallery in which to display his and other artists’ work, and to share his passion for oddities with his hometown. He opened Studio Payne Art Gallery and Oddities Shop in June, 2016, to kill two birds with one stone, after which he probably turned the two birds into taxidermy art he could display and sell.

Studio Payne is the first place of its kind in the Saint Paul area. It is half oddities shop, half artist workspace and gallery in which Torgerud hosts workshops and themed exhibitions.

Many of the animal-related pieces in the shop are made from dead animals Togerud finds in the woods or by railroad tracks. He has 2,500 flesh-eating beetles to clean the bones and some bones are sold as they are, some become jewelry or, in one case, a deer vertebrae lamp. There are crystals and stones for New Age types and vintage Hot Wheels and old car fuses and advertisements for car aficionados.

He sells the teeth of various animals, including humans, various works of taxidermy, some artistically enhanced, fossils, antique medical equipment, animals and animal parts preserved in jars of alcohol, and curious artifacts like a prosthetic leg and an old Boy Scout first aid kit. In addition to the beetles, he is joined in his store by Franklin, a cat with six toes on one front paw and seven on the other, a tarantula, and Zeus, a red-tailed boa constrictor.

Torgerud thinks of his own skull collection as a way to get close to animals, and hopes that in selling parts of animals he can inspire curiosity in his customers, and maybe teach them some biology as well.

Update as of November 2019: The physical storefront will be closing around mid-December.

Related Tags

Oddities Shops Skulls Art Gallery Art Museum Taxidermy Collections

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Added By

Camishere

Edited By

Osage, jimmywentz, Blizzee

  • Osage
  • jimmywentz
  • Blizzee

Published

May 30, 2017

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Sources
  • https://www.facebook.com/studiopayne/
  • http://studiopayne.bigcartel.com
  • https://yellow.place/en/studio-payne-saint-paul-usa
  • https://eventium.io/venues/225845537764504
  • http://www.93x.com/2016/11/11/studio-payne-art-gallery-and-oddities-shop/
  • http://www.bulletin-news.com/articles/2016/05/29/“oddity”-coming-payne
  • http://www.twincities.com/2016/11/10/a-st-paul-gift-shop-that-sells-human-teeth-muskrat-skulls-and-coyote-claw-pendants/
Studio Payne Oddities Shop
2533 7th Ave E
North St Paul, Minnesota, 55109
United States
45.012125, -92.992914
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Photo of Minnesota

Minnesota

United States

Places 184
Stories 25

Nearby Places

St. Paul-Changsha China Friendship Garden

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miles away

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Explore the Destination Guide

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Minnesota

United States

Places 184
Stories 25

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