When Christie Pierce took a photo of a chipmunk named Mr. Stubbs, making it appear as if he was playing cards with drink tickets she received at a casino night, she didn't expect it to ignite the creation of a niche wildlife photography business.
"I had no master plan other than one foot in front of the other, and here I am 10 years later, still with my little business and people still clamoring to buy my stuff," Pierce says of her business, FriendChips. "It's pretty remarkable."
After seeing her photo of Mr. Stubbs, friends encouraged her to sell it and take more of chipmunks performing various human tasks.
So Pierce kept taking photos, even though she was at first hesitant about the success of such an endeavor. She and her husband, Paul — who has built miniature sets and replicas since he was a child — took it upon themselves to start making sets for the chipmunks using items they find at stores or that are given to them, as well as Paul's own creations.
The Pierces now sell their chipmunk still lifes on cards, in FriendChips calendars and in a book, FriendChips: Around the Mountain.
"It's hard to describe because it all kind of evolves in my head," she says. "A lot of times exactly what I'm picturing is exactly what I get, almost creepily."
As she built her portfolio and became more experienced at making sets, Pierce started adding fun hidden details to her sets.
In the photo, Poker Face, a chipmunk is captured "playing" poker with a toy bear. But closer inspection of the image reveals numerous details — poker cards crafted from hole punch remnants and mini-bottles of "Nutz Lite." Hanging in the photo's background is a replica of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge's Dogs Playing Poker that Pierce shot using toy dogs.
Another FriendChips photo, The Office, shows a chipmunk working on the computer, with a mini graph on the screen and note cards stuck up around the perimeter. Pierce even found a tiny printer, which she set up with a mini version of another of her photos, which appears to be printed out of the machine.
"It's very unique, it's real, and nothing's Photoshopped"
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Capturing all of these photos relies on one crucial element: the cooperation of the chipmunks. Accomplishing such a task had a bit of a learning curve.
"I used to try too hard to make them do something," Pierce says. "They kind of taught me that this is how we behave, you figure it out."
She lays trails of buckwheat or sunflower seeds on the ledge of her patio's retaining wall, where she also places her set. And then she waits.
Pierce hides seeds in specific areas of a set — say, inside of a miniature mailbox, atop a flagpole or adjacent to a handcrafted mini saw. Once the chipmunk arrives and begins interacting with the desired props, she'll start snapping photos, adjusting the framing as she goes.
"I can move a little bit to get the illusion that [the chipmunk is] holding [something]," she says, "And honestly, people's brains fill it in and they think they're holding it."
It's like Old Hollywood special effects, she says. "Godzilla is not really doing that, it's just your perspective."
In her photo, Volleyball, husband Paul made both the volleyball net — using the netting that holds avocados in the grocery store — and the ball itself.
The pair suspended the ball — which they stuffed with seeds — into the air with a welding wire, hidden in the background foliage of the shot, and Pierce was able to capture the chipmunk reaching up for the ball searching for seeds, or alternatively hitting it in the air.
"It's very unique, it's real, and nothing's Photoshopped," she says of all of her photos. "It kind of gives me goosebumps, honestly. It's remarkable."
Pierce says that she never dreamed of FriendChips being as popular as it's become. But since day one, she says people believed in its potential and helped her get started.
Her husband helped navigate the financial and licensing side of starting a business. And her neighbor created the font that she uses as the FriendChips logo. Her nephew runs her website and helps her process orders, and her brother is a buckwheat exporter and provides her with giant, 50-pound bags of the grain for her business.
She says that even the companies she prints with helped her get started and have worked with her on the cost of printing items so that she's able to sell them for a low price.
"I don't want people to go in the store and buy an $8.50 card that goes in the garbage," she says. "I want them to be able to buy a $3 card that is collectible and frameable and you can talk to your friend about it."
Pierce often prints large batches of her calendars and cards, selling them at numerous retailers in the region — Auntie's Bookstore, Simply Northwest, Wild Birds Unlimited, Prairie Dog Pet Mercantile, Miller's Hardware, Ace Hardware on Monroe, Two Women Vintage Goods, the Looff Carrousel Gift Shop, and at Artisans at the Dahmen Barn in Uniontown.
"As cheesy as it sounds, [FriendChips] really is about spreading goodwill and joy and not letting the handwritten note die," Pierce says. "It's just the coolest thing to think that somebody's getting that much fun out of one little click of the shutter."
