Becorns Creator David Bird
My name is Dave Bird. I’m an artist, photographer, and the creator of Becorns. Becorns are small figurines that I build out of acorns, sticks, and other natural materials. I photograph the Becorns in the wild, often with real animals.
Each photo is a glimpse into a tiny, magical world that the Becorns inhabit. They explore the beauty of nature and they commune with the animals. They feed the birds out of tiny seed-pod baskets. They fend off their natural enemy, squirrels, with spears made of thorns. They marvel at glowing flowers and fruits with magical properties.
Becorns evolved from my experience as a toy designer at LEGO. One of my roles there was to build characters for Bionicle sets, using abstract mechanical parts. The experience taught me about building and character design, but more importantly, it taught me the value of visual storytelling as a means to entice and inspire. (Look at any Lego package and you’ll see how masterfully they create visual stories!)
After I left LEGO, I missed the creative process of building and designing characters, until one day I was sweeping my mom’s driveway and I looked into the pile of sticks and acorns at my feet. In a flash of inspiration, I realized I didn’t need bricks; I could build with sticks! I could apply everything I’d learned at Lego - character design, world building, and storytelling - to create my own world, with the central premise: What might life be like in a world where creatures grow on trees?
What followed was an uninhibited period of experimentation. I went on hikes and collected whatever caught my eye: I picked flowers, I dug up roots, and I sawed bark off stumps. At home, I created a workstation with clippers, a Dremel, my trusty glue gun, and shoe boxes full of materials I’d collected. My fingers couldn’t keep up with all the ideas in my head as I created countless new species of miniature woodland creatures.
The acorn people I built became my favorites, and the more I built, the more I refined the proportions and building techniques. I called them Becorns after a friend made a joke about a-corns, b-corns, and c-corns. Through trial and error, I learned to make them look as alive as possible by nuancing their posture, weight distribution, and facial expressions.
My photography evolved in parallel. At the start, I simply set up some figures in the grass and took snapshots with my point-and-shoot camera. With each shot that followed, I aimed to improve upon the last. I upgraded my equipment and took photography classes. When I set myself to the challenge of photographing a Becorn with a squirrel, I discovered a whole world of creative possibilities. . . and challenges.
Now, the building, photography, and storytelling go hand-in-hand. Generally, here’s how the creative process goes: I get an idea of the visual story I want to create. Sometimes the story is inspired by an animal I’ve observed, and other times it’s inspired by a natural material that I want to build with. Then I choose an existing Becorn from my collection, or if necessary I build a new one. Next, I take the Becorns outside and set them up in the wild, often in my backyard. I lay out birdseed or other treats to entice the animals, and I stand at a distance with a remote control in hand, waiting for an unwitting collaborator.
When I’m lucky, I get the picture I envisioned, but that rarely happens. More often, the animals surprise me with something more idiosyncratic and true to their nature than I could’ve ever planned for. For example, I once built a birdhouse for Eastern Bluebirds, hoping to get a picture of the fledglings emerging from the birdhouse for the first time. The fledglings ultimately flew away and I failed to get a shot of them, but prior to that, I was able to capture pictures of Mom and Dad interacting with the Becorns, with all manner of grubs and spiders in their beaks, en route to feeding their babies. Once I get a shot I like, I write a caption to heighten the drama, and I share it on social media. My hope for the future is to continue to flesh out the Becorn universe — both with visuals and in the form of a larger, connective story.
Sometimes people say, “You must be so patient!” It’s true, the work requires patience, but it’s easy to be patient because I’m having so much fun. The process continually deepens my connection and appreciation for nature, both in the collection of materials, and in the observation of animals. The tiny world of the Becorns evokes in me the feelings of wonder that I experienced as a child. In sharing my work, I hope to evoke those feelings in others and connect with their own sense of wonder and whimsy.
May your day be filled with wonder,
Dave