From aliens to dragons, to unicorns and orcs – there’s nothing too fantastical that can’t be made from junk by this Cumbrian man.
Dac Henderson, 56, of Silloth, is a heating engineer turned self taught artist who uses recycled materials to create fauxidermy creatures that he mounts on shields and sells as jaw-dropping home decorations.
He first started making his hyper-realistic creations during the first COVID-19 lockdown, when a pause in his work changed his perspective on his former job.
He said: “I worked in the building trade all my life as a heating engineer and I started my own business and became self-employed in 1999.
“But I fell out with it, it got to the point where I didn’t want to go to work. So when the COVID thing hit, it gave me a bit of a break and did me a favour really, it made me realise there’s more to life than working full-on and that you can do something enjoyable and make a bob or two.”
He added that during the pandemic, he decided to do some work on his home which led to the creation of his first fauxidermy creature.
Dac said: “I wanted two mounted creatures to look at each other in the hall and I have a thing about unicorns, so I wanted a unicorn on one side and a dragon on the other.
“But I couldn’t find a dragon anywhere to buy, so I got a horse’s head and turned it into a unicorn and then I made my own dragon head and mounted it on a shield.
“That’s all where it began really, from there I started making all sorts of things.”
In 2021, he went on to give up the building trade and became a full-time artist working through his new business The Slaughter House – a name inspired by his workshop, which is based in Silloth’s old slaughter house.
Despite his creations looking real enough to suddenly come to life – all of his work is made entirely from junk like toilet paper, recycled plastic and objects that he finds in charity shops.
He added: “It’s all made out of junk, things you find lying around or in charity shops, everything is recycled. The dragons for example have chicken wire frames inside around a lump of wood.
“I do the mouth first and join it to the chicken wire and then use papier mache and cardboard to build it out into a proper shape. The inside of their mouths are made from bedsheets and some of the eyes I make by melting old vinyl records together and shaping them with spoons. I make a clay from toilet paper and PVA glue to create texture too.
“I also put every scale on individually and when you put the scales on they start to come alive and look like taxidermy. My aim is to make them as realistic as possible.”
Dacs creations aren’t small either – they’re about the size of a toddler, if not occasionally bigger, and take up to two months to create.
He also takes care to capture the smallest of details like saliva, yellowed teeth and watery eyes.
He said: “The designs just come from my head. It all depends on what I find, I’ll find pieces of junk and they inspire me. I see things and my brain starts going a hundred mile an hour, I’m always thinking about what I could make.
“For the dragons it’s really the shape of the mouth that changes how I finish the rest of it. It evolves as I go along. But I’m very fussy, and if it doesn’t look right to me I keep chugging away until I get it right.”
While Dac doesn’t have any formal training in art he explained that he had always been very creative and artistic.
He said: “When I was 29 I went to the doctors and I was told I was dyslexic. A lot of things clicked into place for me then. I could never do maths or English in school, but I was always great at art and woodwork.
“I have no qualifications in art whatsoever, but I can pick anything up and make anything out of it.”
Dac is currently working on a dragon that has large webbing on its head and jaw and a Qiling, a dragon from Chinese mythology.
He also creates other sculptures and pieces of fantastical furniture and home lighting.
His work is sold exclusively through his youngest daughter Jenna’s shop Big Mam’s Bottom Drawer, based in Silloth, which sells local art, antiquities and curiosities.
Dac added: “There’s been a few occasions where people have actually asked for me in the shop wanting to meet me. We had two fellas come in wanting to shake my hand at one point.”
