Mrs. Big Stuff
A hat Beth Beverly made from a chicken. Beverly will be on AMC's new taxidermy show "Immortalized." APRIL SAUL / Staff Photographer
South Philly's Beth Beverly does "Immortalized,"
Jen Cohan had spent all morning primping her kids for a Christmas card photo shoot. The only thing missing was Elke, the family rat terrier. Elke was 16 and had been ill for months. Before she started looking, Jen knew: Elke was dead.
"What do you do when your chickens die?" she texted her friend, an urban farmer. "Beth Beverly," he replied.
Beverly is a Philadelphia taxidermist who specializes in a more creative type of mount.
"Elke might end up a hat or a Christmas tree topper," Jen's friend warned, but Jen had worked in fashion and needed little convincing. She called Beverly to pick up Elke and gave her carte blanche.
Months later, "Elke 2.0" was draped in jewels and a demure veil, winning best in show at New York's Carnivorous Nights taxidermy competition. A New York Times article about the event caught the eye of the unscripted team at cabler AMC. The next day, Beverly got a phone call.
Two years later, Immortalized, the network's first reality competition, will premiere Thursday night. Each week, an expert "Immortalizer" will square off against an upstart competitor. Think Iron Chef - but instead of frying the critters, Beverly will be decking them out with rhinestones and Frankenstein appendages.
Shortly after returning from Los Angeles to wrap shooting, Beverly works in her studio in Kensington. She's clipping the skin from a tiny, doll-like chicken, to be used for a bridal headpiece.
"She wants it similar to this other piece," Beverly explains, grabbing the chicken's head, the morsel of meat she's working to extract tumbling out of its feathery blanket. "The bird head is wrapped in a circle," she demonstrates, curling the floppy neck into a tight C, petting the bristling feathers momentarily into life. "It's just so beautiful," she coos, before dropping it like a rag doll.Clock! Its skull knocks the wooden surface of the table.
Beverly halfheartedly tosses the extracted innards into the trash. Since this specimen died of unknown causes, she won't be feeding the meat to her cats, as she normally does.
Dislike for wastefulness is something Beverly can't shake. It has haunted her since she was a child, salvaging hair and snake skins to play with, and it's what led her to taxidermy. After moving to Philadelphia from Delaware County in 2000, she began to notice dead birds on the ground, casualties of skyscraper collisions.
"Every time I passed one of those birds, I would think, 'All those beautiful feathers are going to waste.' " She bought a book on taxidermy and began to experiment.
An animal lover, city dweller, and unabashed fan of jewels, feathers, and glitter, Beverly hopes Immortalized will correct misconceptions about taxidermy, and the sort of people who make a living from it.
Petite and neon blond, Beverly, 35, who lives in South Philadelphia with her husband, Jim Coughlin, isn't exactly what springs to mind when one envisions "taxidermist." A photograph of an impeccably made-up Beverly wearing a hat fashioned out of an entire orange hen immediately struck producers of Immortalized.
A natural showman with an affinity for the camera, Beverly was surprised when she received the call from AMC, thinking the opportunity too good to be true. "I remember thinking, 'Why are you offering this to me? Who passed up on this opportunity?' "
But Beverly was just the sort of personality AMC was looking for. "Part of our programming philosophy is that we always strive to be unexpected and unconventional," explains Joel Stillerman, AMC's vice president of original programming. "If there are 25 food shows out there, we don't want to be the 26th."
Stillerman describes the show's aim as "redefining the art of taxidermy as a serious and legitimate art form, rather than a backwoods oddity." Beverly, a veteran of gallery shows and a first-time participant at this year's New York Fashion Week, is a prime example of the en vogue taxidermy popping up in metropolitan competitions and storefronts in places like Brooklyn.
In addition to her background, producers were also drawn to her personality. "Which counts when you're making TV," Stillerman emphasizes.
The bridal headpiece finished, Beverly has begun work on her next project: a spring line of hats and fascinators to coincide with the release of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. Having spent more than a decade perfecting her taxidermy art, Beverly has learned to be resourceful.
In addition to working three other jobs, Beverly finds novel ways to make ends meet. She trades squirrel hats for blowouts, wall mirrors clutched by rabbit paws for mixtapes.
The tiny chicken atop the bridal piece is a gift from the same urban farmer who introduced her to Jen Cohan and Elke. Her lifestyle parallels that of her aesthetic philosophy: She can't afford to let anything go to waste.
Beverly hopes Immortalized will give her the exposure she craves, and bring her closer to an existence where she doesn't have to work multiple jobs or cut open a tube of moisturizer to get at the last dollops. She's close, but the competition brought her nearer to one finish line and farther from another.
"While I was there, I saw how strong the work of the other taxidermists was, and it was just like I climbed this hill, and saw this mountain," she says.
Compared to her fellow "Immortalizers," some of whom have more than two decades of professional experience, Beverly is a relative newcomer. But she stole the spotlight at a promotional event last weekend, wearing a gold brocade evening gown and a hat made of a goat fetus.
"I think she's someone who's pushing the boundaries of an art form," Stillerman muses. "And we're always drawn to those people."
Contact Elizabeth Horkley at EHorkley@philly.com.
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