For photographer Rob Clark, the fascination with taxidermy started with a fright. “There was a big polar bear in my hometown, in Hays, Kansas,” he says during a phone call last August. “They kind of hid it behind a door and I’d always forget it was there, and you’d come around the corner, and it would just scare you to death.”

He’s talking about the polar bear in residence at the Sternberg Museum, right off I-70. Standing on its hind legs, ears back, mouth open in a snarl, paws poised to rip you apart, the preserved bear sunk its claws into Clark’s imagination and never quite let go. But it wouldn’t be until years later when Clark would fully realize the