CHANDLER, Ariz. — Caring for hair isn’t new for Rachel Lewis. She was a hairdresser for 13 years when COVID hit, and she sought to spend more time with her family.
Her new job though still keeps grooming hair.
“With being a hairdresser, you know, you look at hair patterns and things like that and that's what a lot of the taxidermy is, is being able to put the skin back where it should go,” Lewis said. “And I think that hairdressing gave me that ability, as well as that creative aspect.”
Lewis opened Copper State Taxidermy in Chandler about three years ago.
“I’m an animal lover and always have been and I just thought there’s no way I would, you know, do something like that,” Lewis said.
But, Lewis said she’s fallen in love with the art form that is taxidermy.
Now, her workshop has molds, tools and work she’s completing - mostly for hunters.
“My husband came out and I had the can of hairspray he’s like, ‘What are you doing with that?’ I was like, “It holds the hair perfectly in the ears in place.’ He’s like, ‘I knew your hairdressing would come in use.’ And it really kind of has,” Lewis said.
A new creation she’s made is bringing back the nostalgia of piggy banks through a novelty piece.
“I ended up creating a taxidermy pig piggy bank,” Lewis said.
She said she was inspired by a digital art creator a few years ago an the idea cured for a few years to become a taxidermy pig piggy bank.
“It just kind of came into my mind when I got the specimens in and I had it kind of locked away for a while,” Lewis said.
The mounted life-like pig has a hole in its back for change, just like ceramic piggy banks, with a stopper to take the money out of the pig’s bottom.
While she intended to keep the one she had finished, she sold it. But is working on another.
However, the specimens are rare. Lewis says pigs are not harvested for this purpose but are instead pigs that are stillborn or die shortly after birth from local farms.
“I just hope that they understand that I’m not causing harm to these animals and that they really are loved,” Lewis said.
Lewis sees it as making art to bring a new life and purpose.
“I kind of took them on as like, what can I do with this to kind of salvage or give it a life that it didn't kind of get to have,” Lewis said.
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