Bethany Pierce

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

More Chocolate

 

Hotcakes Chocolate Cupcake   4" x 4"    oil on clayboard

This summer I've been working weekends at a well-known and well-loved local cafe; it's been good work, but last week I started to entertain thoughts of going back to teaching.  When I mentioned this to my husband he promptly informed me he was not a fan. Turns out, I am a far more pleasant person to live with as a waitress as opposed to a teacher.

For three years I coached college freshmen through the dull travails of Rhetorical Analysis and Research Argumentative essays.  This year, despite ample opportunity and a five-mile proximity to one of the most beautiful universities in the country, I’m on a self-proclaimed sabbatical from the classroom.  Though a drive through campus can inspire feelings of homesickness for my better students, I have to admit, I feel an extraordinary thrill every time the end of the month rolls around and there are no essays to grade. And there’s a bonus to working at the café: endless models for the daily painting project.  I spend twenty hours week around cakes and pastries and tarts so pretty I want to paint them as much as I want to eat them. 

While the recent Bethesda Hospital show inspired me to get back to the science-inspired paintings I was doing before the move to Virginia, I’ve enjoyed my brief stint with the daily paintings so much I’ve decided to keep it up simultaneous to other more involved projects.

This month I’ve specifically planned to paint each of the Hotcakes café specialty desserts, from the delectable Best Farmhouse Apple Cake to the rich Pumpkin Cheesecake squares, from the prettily layered English Truffle to the rich, dense slices of Hyde Park Fudge. It’s going to be a very delicious few weeks. 

Bethesda North Outpatient Clinic

This past week I drove up to Cincinnati to attend the opening reception of the Bethesda North Outpatient Imaging Center for Breast Care where three of my paintings were part of a 140 piece exhibition of local artists' work. Several of these pieces were purchased by the Bethesda Foundation and will be auctioned at the end of the year. All proceeds will benefit the community service provided by the Breast Center.

I've never seen such a beautiful hospital. At the reception we were invited to tour the building, to appreciate the eclectic artwork and to admire the state-of-the-art equipment. To date, the imaging center has seen 10,000 patients. Walking through the building it's clear these patients were treated with the utmost care, compassion, and dignity.

The center has been named in honor of Mary Jo Cropper, one of the visionaries who made the center possible, and a breast cancer survivor who has been battling the disease off and on for seventeen years. Listening to her son tearfully speak of her endurance and her kindness, I thought of my grandmother who passed away of breast cancer several years ago, and of other friends of friends, young and old, who've endured the disease.  It's a privilege to be a small part of what this hospital does for women inflicted, for women surviving. 

This My Temple, hanging in one of the waiting rooms.

Broken, displayed on the adjacent wall.

Bethesda, notably named years before this show.

 (After a long search we found it hanging in one of the private physician's hallways. This is a picture of the painting I took years ago...)