One-of-a-kind bugscapes Randi Thomson draws inspiration from insects and bones The Creators
By: AV Kitching Posted: 2:00 AM CDT Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025

While the rest of us receive run-of-the mill bills, flyers and advertisements in our letterboxes, Randi Thomson gets skeletons in hers.

The mail carrier delivers meticulously packaged specimens — fox paws, snake bones and rat skeletons — that will be added to the collection of lifeless butterflies, dead bugs and ghostly cicadas in her living room.

The remains form the backbone of Thomson’s entomological art, with each piece playing a pivotal role in the composition of her “bug landscapes.”

Thomson creates her dioramas — where time is suspended, and death doesn’t automatically mean decay — from preserved lepidoptera, mounted arachnids and taxidermied cockroaches, pairing her bugs and bones with dried plants, grasses and flowers.

She places the fauna and flora in cloches, small globes, ornate vintage picture frames or brooches, each receptacle chosen to complement the dried matter.

She posts pictures of her work on her Instagram account

Thomson sources her materials from a “bug dealer” in Quebec, a taxidermist who supplies her with creepy-crawlies from all over the world.

The specimens are all ethically sourced, Thomson stresses.

“They either died naturally or were raised and bred for this purpose,” she explains.

The creatures come pinned, where their wings, if they have any, are folded out or pressed down, or unpinned, where the entire exoskeleton is folded in, with no discernible colour or pattern visible.

The bones are purchased from Etsy shops, and sometimes from friends, acquaintances and family members.

Sometimes her clients — Thomson is a hairstylist by day — turn up with rather unusual gifts when they come for their cuts, colours and blow-dries.

“A lot of my customers for hair, they all know what I do. Some live on farms and they give me cool things. I’ve had customers bring me snakeskin, a wasp nest. People are always handing me bones and beetles; my garden is full of them,” she says.

The plants, like moss, lavender and roses, come from her garden, or from bouquets she’s picked during visits to a flower farm. She dries them out herself on tables in her porch.

Flowers are chosen based on whether their colours are retained when dried, and if they can be “squished down a bit without busting.”

“I love lavender — it looks super cute and smells great. I like to work with mini snapdragons, straw flower, roses and thistles. I even pick mushrooms off the trees; there’s a whole bunch in my yard so I pick them and dry them out if they are small enough,” she says.

Thomson’s “obsession” with making art from plants, bones and bugs is recent; before making bugscapes she used to create terrariums.

“I was doing that for around eight years. Then my son gave me flowers one Mother’s Day, which I dried out. I had been gifted an inside-out butterfly and I put them all in really nice cloche I had. Everything looked cool together; I became obsessed,” she says.

Her first few creations were minimalist in nature — a lone dead bug in a container with a rock, a butterfly pinned on a flower stem — a far cry from more her recent pieces, which are smaller, more intricate and detailed, containing anything from 10 to 25 different elements including honeycomb, crystals, petrified wood and tree bark. Commissioned pieces will include whatever her clients request — as long as she is able to source the materials.

The artist doesn’t see herself tiring from making the her “little, tiny dried-out worlds” anytime soon. Crafting them helps her regulate her nervous system.

“I find working on them to be calming; it has been good for me,” she says. “It keeps my extremely anxious and moody brain busy.

“I have tried other crafts and I never followed through. Now I make the kind of things I like. They’ve gotten me out of my comfort zone, to go to markets like the Winnipeg Punk Rock Flea where I meet people, a community that doesn’t make me feel like a weirdo or an outcast.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca