05/22/2026
This was one of my favorite pieces of the Pennsylvania Taxidermy competition because there is so much going on in such a naturally fluid way. Brian Good with Triple Trophy Taxidermy really had us all stopped and staring. Three totally different animals, facing totally different directions and all somehow tied together perfectly. His choice of direction and interaction was stellar. He had the deer looking at a branch and the bear looking at a hornets nest that gave both of their gazes a purpose. He had an incredible habitat that moved between them all, tying them together neatly. Not too cluttered, just a simple and neat design. What you don't see from here is his habitat skills. I was lucky enough to be back stage behind the scenes while the judges were writing their critiques and it was so interesting to see how some judges move quickly when they see everything they need for the scores and how sometimes they seem stumped or amazed. This was one of the latter. I watched Mike Vernelson, an incredibly talented habitat recreation artist, walk circles around this piece. He crouched down, stood on his toes, and analyzed every single part of this habitat. Not the interesting custom made hornets nest, but the use of a perfectly blended combination of real habitat and fake habitat. Most artists use either, or. Most artists might just have a touch of both but Brian Good had them interwoven and intertwined. I just had to ask Mike why he spent so long looking at this one, what kept catching his eye? He said not only did Brian capture a natural movement and fluidity between the pieces specifically by the shape and direction of the tree itself, and positioning the unrelated animals accordingly, but then he started pointing out which parts of the tree and habitat were real and fake. He said "look here....that's fake. But then up here, this is real. And in between the two, you lose track of where each one starts and begins. He used the power of illusion, he used fake replication to his advantage while not losing sight of the real thing. That's a very uncommon talent" and watching this incredible judge smile as he told me everything he admired, it was a pivotal moment for me. I am still new, I have only been learning this for a couple years, and I never truly saw the beauty in habitat before. I saw it in the modern pieces but always felt the natural pieces had to directly reflect the type of mount and position. This one was so intentionally done in the simplest way that I just know other artists with extremely detailed and heavily decorated habitats were upset that this piece won best habitat of all. Probably because they spent more time on it, maybe more thought and more money, too. But THIS artist said less is more and he showed a habitat that expressed more talent than the ability to recreate a realistic national geographic photographed scene. The full use of the artistic eye and the ability to ignore our typical approach of caring too much about the habitat and hoping it makes the piece look better with extra leaves here and there. I learned so much from this encounter with Mike and the details about this thought out piece by Brian and it reminds me how deep the world of taxidermy really is, and how little I actually know. There is so much more to learn and I continue to be amazed by everyone's talent. I'm thankful to every artist that brought something for us all to analyze and look it, and I strive to be someone people want to learn from as well. I'm so happy I drove from NC to attend this show, and for the incredible skill I had the honor of witnessing in every single room I walked through. Don't ever be discouraged, let the challenges encourage you.
PA Taxidermy Association
