Each week we ask you to show us something. This week it’s Sean Patrick Riley’s animal pelt collection. Got something to show us? showus@chicagoreader.com
“I don’t have a favorite dead animal,” Sean Patrick Riley says. “I just have a collection. I haven’t named them; it’s not that creepy.” Riley began collecting animal pelts a couple of years ago after his dad visited and gave him one. He now has about ten, including wolf, fox, coyote, skunk, and badger—all from Montana, where he grew up. Some, including a couple of elk and a couple of deer skins, are from animals his brother killed.
“My room freaks people out. I have the garden floor, so it’s like a big, scary log cabin in the middle of Chicago,” Riley says.
Asked whether he warns people before they come over for the first time, he answers, “Hell no. I hear someone gasp, then I realize, oh yeah, sorry. Dead things.”