Landmark St. Croix County business rebrands as Aves Studio

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

November 25, 2024

HUDSON – A roadside landmark underwent a recent rebranding after the business behind it – Aves Taxidermy and Cheese – became Aves Studio.

“We wanted to make sure that we were updating our sign to reflect what we were doing this entire time,” Erin Gerlach, marketing director of Aves and daughter of its founders/owners, said.

“Our company kind of morphed more into clay (production, however), my dad didn’t ever want to give up the taxidermy part,” she said. “So we changed and updated our sign to reflect that (combined focus).”

Cheese, taxidermy, clay?

According to its website (avesstudio.com), Dave Brummel and his wife Sandy (Gerlach’s parents) started Aves together – combining his talent of taxidermy with cheese made by her 10-time world champion cheese-making father into one business.

Gerlach said the business no longer sells that award-winning cheese after Sandy’s father retired more than 20 years ago, but Brummel’s taxidermy passion continued on under the Aves brand.

“We had this really crazy combination sign of taxidermy and cheese for almost 30 years,” Gerlach said. “Anyone who sees Aves worldwide that’s in the… taxidermy industry knows exactly who we are. But anyone local driving by, they’re like, ‘Who’s this? What’s going on here?’”

That global recognition, Gerlach said, comes from her father’s homegrown line of self-hardening clay.

“We’re known as Aves Clay, and we sell it in more than 32 countries,” she said.

Gerlach said Brummel was the first in the market to combine “the features and benefits of sculpting clay with the adhesive power of epoxy.”

When her father first started tinkering with taxidermy on his parent’s farm in the ’50s, Gerlach said the clay he had available to sculpt, mold and set different features in his taxidermy projects “shrunk and cracked” as it dried.

“My dad invented these clay products before he even went to taxidermy school,” she said. “He was self-taught up until that point.”

With its unique combination of features derived both from sculpting clay and epoxy, Gerlach said Aves products dry in the shape they are molded (so no cracking) while working as a strong enough adhesive so things like glass eyes don’t fall out of the taxidermy mounts.

She said Aves’ products are also used outside of the taxidermy industry to repair wildlife exhibits and artifacts at the Smithsonian, Gettysburg and Chicago Field museums, as well as to create props in Hollywood studios.

“The artists are told to buy our product because it works really well,” she said.

Lifetime passion project

Aves (pronounced A-vees), Gerlach said, is a nod to her father’s specialty in wildlife art, as “aves” is Latin for “birds.”

The company’s logo – which incorporates eagle’s wings – and the updated road-side, semi-trailer sign depicting an eagle and an American flag, Gerlach said, pays homage to her father’s speciality and the Aves name as well.

“We‘ve (used) an eagle and the American flag because we make our products in the United States,” she said. “We’ve always used that (logo) for all of (our products).”

Gerlach said just like the company’s old semi-trailer sign, the new one is also becoming a local landmark.

“We have so many people… get out of their car and take a picture in front of our semi,” she said. “It’s a tourist spot (like the old trailer was), which has been really funny for us because it was never intended (to be).”

Gerlach said when choosing what design to put on the semi-trailer, her family decided to not include any words – because they “wanted to make it a landmark that represented our products basically with an image.”

Throughout Aves’ history, Gerlach said her father essentially sold whatever he felt he could, or should, if it solved a problem – even selling Christmas trees at one point to put her and her three sisters through private school.

Now, she said he has taken up beekeeping – using the hives to bolster the dwindling bee population while selling the honey – and has built a wildlife museum and education center separate from the clay studio.

“It has more than 300 animals in it, including a full-sized, spread-out peacock, a half-size elk (mount), several life-sized deer and some European animals,” Gerlach said. “Many of them are my dad’s personal pieces that he (created) over the years.”

Gerlach said her father’s love for education and entrepreneurship is what’s kept Aves alive for decades – that and the success of his clay products.

“When you see shoddy taxidermy, that’s (usually) a reflection of them not using our product,” she said. “It makes all the difference in the world when you start sculpting facial features, and you actually start building these animals up to what they are supposed to look like, because each animal is so individual. Just like a human – you can tell a quality mount when you look at it.”

A misunderstood artform

Even though the clay was made for taxidermy purposes, Gerlach said the clay studio and the wildlife education center are in completely separate buildings.

“(Some people have) strong feelings toward animals and think that (the education center) was like some trophy room,” she said. “Over the years, I’ve had to explain (taxidermy) to a lot of people, and I can change a little bit of their perspective when I put it in (the) context that this is an artform.”

Gerlach said taxidermists – like her father – believe “putting these animals back in the most beautiful form is a glory to God, which is what he’s always said and is why he is so passionate about it.”

Part of the value of taxidermy, Gerlach said, is the educational opportunities it provides.

“How else (can) you walk up to a deer – or how about a lion – and you look right into their face and you see all the details?” she said. “You can count their whiskers, you can actually see them, see their paws, touch their paws, in a beautiful way.”

Gerlach said Brummel – who turns 71 this December – will always practice this artform which he has loved for nearly his entire life.

“He has made that very clear,” she said. He will never retire. He will never stop doing what he is doing. He will always do taxidermy until his fingers don’t work, because he just loves it.”

Gerlach said the wildlife museum is complete and open for visitors free of charge, though it doesn’t have set hours.

“If people show up, we will let them in there,” she said.

Whether it be at Aves or elsewhere, Gerlach said she encourages everyone to learn more about and engage with the unique and sometimes misunderstood artform of taxidermy.

“Redoing the factory, putting up the new building, getting the new signage and putting the wildlife museum into play – I can’t think of a better way to honor my father’s work,” she said.

Visit avesstuido.com or Aves Clay on Facebook to learn more.