How a taxidermist spends Sunday
Growing up in a cramped Miami apartment, Divya Anantharaman spent hours by the kitchen window, staring at the birds flying by.
The wildlife was enchanting, but zoo tickets were expensive, so Mx. Anantharaman, who uses the pronouns she and she, regularly visited free museum days and gazed at the dioramas full of creatures – owls, elephants, tigers – they had never seen before in real life.
mx. Anantharaman moved to New York City in 2001. A few years later, while working in fashion, they started taking taxidermy classes. The barrier to entry seemed high. “Taxidermy is a very homogeneous field. It’s very, very white and very, very straight,” they said. “I am neither.”
They opened Gotham Taxidermy in 2015, determined to diversify the field. Based in a studio near Green-Wood Cemetery, the company conducts workshops and creates mounted pieces for private and corporate clients, including Tiffany blue butterflies for a Tiffany & Company ad campaign and replica flamingos for the actors Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka.
mx. Anantharaman sees the art form as a way to help people connect with nature, to experience “that moment of stillness, vulnerability and enchantment” – even in an urban environment.
Taxidermy “shows you that bodies aren’t solid and finite — they’re very liminal,” they said. “Bodies can really be whatever you want them to be.” mx. Anantharaman, 40, lives in Flatbush, Brooklyn, with their partner and four cats: Fugazi, Garfield, Mani and Junior.
MEOW I usually get woken up by my cats before my alarm goes off. My smallest cat, Mani, sleeps on the pillow next to my head. At 7:30am she starts stretching and wakes me up. It really sets the rhythm of the day.
SOMETHING SWEET I’m a fruit person so I’ll have a bowl of berries or mango or papaya depending on the season. Sometimes I go for brunch near me Zanmia Haitian restaurant, or Purple Yam, which is Philippine fusion. I always get ukoy, this prawn and vegetable fritter.
FOR THE VIEW Greenwood Cemetery is one of my all time favorite places. I like to go early as it is the best time for bird watching. You can walk up Battle Hill and see the tombstones jutting into the city skyline. I like the coexistence of all these things: the loud things and the quiet things, the green things and the gray things. It reminds me why I love living in New York City.
LEARNING TAXIDERMY At least one weekend a month I teach taxidermy in my studio in Greenwood. It’s usually four people – never too big. I want to pay attention to everyone. We make dioramas of English sparrows or starlings, butterflies or insects. Sometimes people say, “It must suck that you work weekends.” But it doesn’t. Not if you share something you love. It’s really cool to give people that dose of nature in the city.
CITY CHICKS When I’m not doing taxidermy, Sunday is my beach day. I volunteer with a group called NYC Plover Project on the beaches of Fort Tilden and Breezy Point Tip. We help protect Piping Plover chicks because their first weeks of life are so delicate. The best part is showing people the chicks through my binoculars, because many people can’t see them. They are the size of a cotton ball when they hatch. The average New Yorker probably has no idea that these endangered birds breed in the city.
ENDANGERED PLACES Then I go to Riis Beach. It’s only about a mile from where the shorebirds nest, but it’s so different. I remember the first time I thought it was so different from the beaches I grew up on in Miami, where you had to look perfect and wear the right bathing suit. At Riis I felt at home. The beach has been a beacon for the gay community for generations, but many people are concerned about the future. An abandoned hospital is demolished and people worry about what will take its place.
GLAM HOUR I get my nails done around 6pm. Sometimes I go to Black, a small local business in Flatbush. Or I go to The pointy nail, which is a really cool nail art studio between Bed-Stuy and Williamsburg. People tend to think of anything “feminine” as frivolous, but it really isn’t. It could be armor. My hands are such a big part of my livelihood, so that hand massage and pampering feels really important.
SUNDAY IS THE NEW SATURDAY Sunday is a nice night to go out because not many people are out. There is a bar called of ginger that’s really cool – it’s one of the few spaces for queer women in New York City. There is also a place called Good Judy that has pretty cool drag shows. But I don’t go out as much as I did when I was younger. In the colder months I usually stay indoors and admire my new nails. I eat something edible and order takeout from Debe Kitchen, a roti restaurant specializing in Indo-Caribbean dishes.
BLUE NIGHTS I usually start winding down around 10:30 pm with a cup of tea. I really love everything that has to do with herbs. Chamomile is my go-to. Or butterfly pea flower – it’s blue and it reminds me of bedtime. The last thing I want is a CBD gummy. I give the cats a snack, crawl into bed and fall asleep.
Sunday Routine readers can follow Divya Anantharaman on Instagram at @gotham_taxidermy.