‘Secret Life of Squirrels’ is author’s passion
When Nancy Rose and her husband were house hunting last year, the first question she’d ask whenever they visited a property was, “Are there squirrels?”
The confused real estate agents would invariably reply: “Are you scared of squirrels?”
“I’d say, ‘No, I like squirrels,’” Nancy said. “‘I take photos of squirrels.’”
In fact, squirrels are as vital to Nancy’s work as paints are to a painter — or, perhaps more accurately, as a ballet dancer is to a choreographer.
Squirrels are Nancy’s raw materials. She photographs squirrels engaging in human activities: mailing a letter, cooking dinner, doing the laundry. Three of her books have been published in the U.S. and Canada. A fourth is on the way.
“People still think the squirrels are photoshopped into the scenes,” said Nancy, who lives in Bedford, N.S. They’re not. “The way their little paws are kind of wrapped around something is pretty much impossible to Photoshop,” she said. “Or the way they’re standing against something or behind something. They’re just funny poses.”
Funny poses that are the end result of a lot of work. Nancy erects tiny sets on her backyard deck and dresses them with squirrel-scaled props. Then she lures squirrels with peanuts. She stands at her tripod-mounted camera and waits for the squirrels to come.
“Those who know what I do think
I’m kind of crazy,” she said.
Nancy’s slide into squirrelography was gradual. A one-time home economics teacher and school guidance counsellor, Nancy had always been crafty. Ten years ago, she took a digital photography course and started taking pictures in her backyard.
“Flowers, scenery, birds,” she said. “Then one day the squirrels were there. I thought, ‘Let’s try to get some of those.’”
But after a while, the squirrels bored her. “They were always looking the same,” Nancy said.
A squirrel is a squirrel is a squirrel.
Piling peanuts into a cat food dish and snapping a photo was only mildly amusing. Nancy decided: “They need something their size.”
She started constructing backdrops, gluing together Popsicle sticks, moulding things from self-hardening clay. “My eyes are always open for something that might be squirrel-sized,” she said.
Nancy came to understand the rhythm of the squirrels, when they were most active, how their natural curiosity would lead them to puzzle out where a nut was hidden. She posted her photos on Flickr. She made calendars for friends. Then she landed her publishing deal. Her books include “The Secret Life of Squirrels,” “The Secret Life of Squirrels: A Love Story” and “Merry Christmas, Squirrels!”
To me, Nancy’s masterpiece is the cover of “The Secret Life of Squirrels.” A squirrel appears to be dropping an envelope into a mailbox. She made the mailbox out of a blue file folder, to look more American. She taped a tiny envelope in the mailbox opening and put peanuts inside the box.
“I always have the story in my head,” Nancy said. “Then it’s just a matter of praying that he’ll do it.”
And he did. Nancy fired off shot after shot as the squirrel’s paw swept across the envelope, creating an anthropomorphic illusion.
It can take a lot of trial and error, as when Nancy made a papier-mâché school bus. “What I really wanted was the squirrel standing by the door of the school bus, like a child waiting for the bus, or in the driver’s seat, like a bus driver,” she said. “But the squirrel kept going through the front window or out the side window.”
A defenestrated squirrel would not be attractive.
“I realized I had to block the windows with stiff clear plastic so the only way into the bus would be through the door,” Nancy said. Why squirrels in the first place? “I guess it’s sort of the cuteness factor,” said Nancy, 63. “If you look at the Internet, people are all about baby rabbits and children, anything cute and babylike … ”
Occasionally, curious chipmunks stop by, but they don’t really serve Nancy’s purpose.
“They don’t stand on their hind legs,” she said. “They don’t look like little people.”