Bethany Pierce

Amy Inspired (!)

Exciting news: the manuscript that did not quite make it to bookshelves several months ago is back on track for publication.  Those of you that follow the blog may remember my posting the cover design for My Little Brother's Getting Married and Other Things That Should Have Happened to Me First; the new editorial team has whittled and refined the old title to a short, even downright quip-y Amy Inspired. I'm just signing the contract today so it will be a few months before anything tangible appears, but it's a relief to see the story back on the road out of my head and into the public sphere. 

I don't know that I'll ever quite get used to the idea of my private, struggling manuscripts leaving me to masquerade as flawless books, dressed in tidy print and shiny covers.  If I could, I would strap the finished novels to my head, like an  Orthodox Jew who has bound his forehead with Tefillin to keep God's law always before him. I would walk through life with the books on my forehead so that anytime I looked in the mirror I would see a visible symbol that, yes, it did happen, I am an author, I didn't dream it. 

But the slide from euphoric success back to everyday normal is short and quick and, let's face it, healthy. The night I was given an offer on the book I did a few victory laps with Lucy (the dog) and made several phone calls in a spurt of hyperactive excitement. An hour later I was back on the couch watching Scrubs and eating cold noodles from wedding gift Tupperware. 

Sometimes life is just so normal I forget the book is on its way. Forgetting is fantastic, because it means eventually I'll remember and thus improve by day significantly: my customer service smile is a little less forced, my paintings look a little brighter. Even those cold noodles taste better. 

Would you like a muffin with that?

Waiting tables, I've gotten very good at apologizing: "Sorry your food is late/cold/overcooked/underdone/not at all what you ordered/ missing/ missing its side bacon."  Offering complimentary muffins softens the blow.  

Considering I've spent three days in a state of near perpetual contrition, I've decided not to apologize for my belated post, especially since I can't offer you a free delectable dessert to make things better. I'll just shoot pictures of desserts at you instead...

 

Hotcakes Rasberry Fruit Tartlet, 5" x  5"  oil on clayboard

 

Powdered Donut, 6" x 6" oil on panel  (sold)

Glitter Pink Donut, 6" x 6" oil on panel  (sold)

I've done most the one-a-days on paper or small centimeter thick panels--both are so cheap they save me any interfering feelings of commitment to the painting I've given myself for the morning. I've been surprised though, but what complete and self-sufficient pieces this project has produced. I painted the last two images above on cradled panel to see how it changed the presentation and am very happy with the result.   

I should confess that the Glitter Pink doesn't exactly qualify as a one-a-day. I bought the dessert from a shop just down the street that makes the most stunning little glitter bedecked cupcakes. I couldn't help but revisit the painting for several days in a row.

I have a few abstract paintings in the works, but it's one step forward, five back for each. Every time I go to studio to work on a larger canvas I get distracted by a slice of pumpkin pie or a package of ninety-nine cent chocolate donut holes. And for the first time the temptation is not from the stomach but the eye. We'll see. If this keeps up, I may just have to follow the trail of crumbs where it leads. 

**E-mail at bethanypiercems@gmail.com if interested in purchasing...

Squirrel Hunting

I haven’t even carved a pumpkin yet and already its time to bake them into pies. Since I started working Saturdays and Sundays my weeks feel inverted: Saturday is my new Monday, Tuesday my new weekend.  The months feel a week long.  

I know it’s November because the bakers slipped pumpkin pies into the dessert case at work; because we hung the new First Friday exhibition at studio; because Michael’s Arts and Crafts replaced the aisles of candy corn and ghoulish masks for shimmering tinsel and overly pungent plastic wreaths. If not for these helpful clues, I would still be dating my checks for September. 

The weather is no help for charting the changing seasons. I’m accustomed to gray, rainy Novembers. It’s all blue skies and gorgeous sun here, evenings cool enough for jackets but afternoons more cheerful than the best of Ohio summers.  It’s so lovely out I don’t even mind getting up just after sunrise to pick up steaming puppy poo up in Kroger bags.

Of course, the dog's morning excitement is inexhuastable.  She has just discovered squirrels. Everywhere we go, her eyes are alert, her ears perched. When we see a squirrel, we run, both of us, as if we might catch it. 

The other day I was walking from my car to studio and a big, fat rat of a squirrel ran right in front of me. Instinctually, I stood on the tips of my feet to bolt after it.  Before realizing, of course, that the dog wasn’t with me, that I was an adult not a puppy and that there were more important things to do. Still. It’s the little things.   

Hotcakes Carrot Cupcake  5" x 5"  oil on clayboard

 

 

Hotcakes Croissant and Preserves   5" x 7"   oil on canvas paper

I'd already finished the croissant when I decided to slather on the jam splatters; the pastry was hugging the corner so tight, the painting needed something in the bottom corner to balance the composition. Adding the alizeron crimson on top of the bright backdrop was messy. The red kept bleeding into the white. It was like painting with spilled jelly, which worked, really, now that I think about it. 

 

To Have Cake (and Eat It, Too)

Someone just asked me if I ever eat my still lifes when finished painting them. Usually, no: The icing melts or the cake goes stale or the frosting begins to glisten with an unappetizing sweat.  The foods I've painted are a little less tempting eight hours out of a fridge and under a spotlight. 

The slice of chocolate sin, however, was an exception. 

I'd spent the morning admiring famous cake paintings online and then flattered myself I was channeling Thiebauld while painting the slice of chocolate cake. But where Thiebauld made art of food, I'd created a picture of cake that was neither delicious as food nor delicious as art. The painting was stiff and I was more annoyed by the composition and colors with every brushstroke. In a fit of boredom--or call it inspiration--I ate half the cake, mashed the rest around on the plate, and picked up my palette knife to try again on a blank sheet of canvas.  

Hotcakes Chocolate Sin  5" x 7"  oil on canvas paper

Sin, Eaten  5" x 7"   oil on canvas paper

                                                             (detail)

The paintings hang side by side on my studio wall, symbols of the overarching struggles I'm having with painting in general: thin or fat paint? over-rendered or gestural? and, ultimately, planned or spontaneous? 

The last issue is a constant source of contention in the two larger pieces I started two weeks ago:

 

In the past fear years I started paintings knowing more or less what I wanted the final picture to be (typically because I'd created the image on Photoshop, which begs the question why paint it at all? Why not just become a digital artist?) and running entirely on autopilot as far as every other aesthetic element was concerned. I put my head down and raced to the finish line. Sprints, not marathons. The above paintings are an attempt to switch gears, to be strategic about the decisions I make regarding content, composition, color, and paint density, while at the same time having absolutely no idea at all how the final image will turn out

All this requires more thinking than I'm accustomed to generating in studio. I take a lot of breaks to eat pretzels and drink espresso. 

Or, perhaps, to take bite of a still edible still life. 

 

 

Hotcakes Rasberry Danish  5" x 7"  oil on canvas board

Hotcakes Black & White Cake, 5" x 7"  oil on canvas board

Hotcakes Fruit Tartlet,  3" x 3"  oil on clayboard

Hotcakes Special

Hotcakes Strawberries 'n' Cream, 5" x 7"  oil on canvas