Squirrel Season, Smooth 1:6 Bookends

The idea for "Squirrel Season" came to me when my husband Brian and I walked our dachshunds Lizzie and Edgar in our neighborhood, AKA "Squirrel Alley." Squirrels stimulated two entirely different approaches to hunting: manly Edgar simply stared at a squirrel as if he could "will" it down from the tree, while his eternally optimistic grandmother Lizzie leaped and leaped, hugging the tree and nearly wearing the hair off her chest each time she attempted to reach the squirrel.

My dachshund anatomy mentor, Judge Weldon Long, once commented about my Dream Chasers Series that I had done the impossible; I had made a dog look as if it is "on the move." It was Weldon's comment that encouraged me to create Lizzie leaping.

Collector Janet Depler commented, "You captured the power of their obsession and make me feel a bit better about admiring their determination and physical prowess. Thank you for expressing your affection so exactly."

As with my other 1:6 scale works, I modeled these dachshunds directly in wax and created the bases to fit the action. Designed as a pair, they may be used as bookends or as a two-part freestanding sculpture.

"Squirrel Season-Smooth" shown at the opening at the Hiram Blauveldt Art Museum in Oradell, NJ, where it earned an Award of Excellence at the 43rd Annual Exhibition of the Society of Animal Artists in September 2003, after which the exhibition traveled to various museums for a year and a half.

Many thanks to Marijane Singer, the late director of the Blauvelt, for displaying "Squirrel Season" as art rather than as bookends. Thanks, too, to Bob Mason, husband of fellow award-winner, Diane Mason, for this photograph.