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Keithley Pierce, artist and maker of Bad Girl Art products
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Bad Girl Art “How about a nice cup of shut the hell up?” ceramic tile/coaster, 4.25 by 4.24 inches
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Bad Girl Art “Well, another day passed and I didn’t use algebra once,” cotton twill grocery tote, 15.5 by 13 by 7 inches
Who: Keithley Pierce
Business: Bad Girl Art
What she makes: Place mats, pillboxes, magnets, flasks, decorative tiles, business card cases, small journals, paintings, prints “and a few other things that I’ve forgotten.”
Fun saying: “Don’t ever be ashamed of loving the strange thing that makes your weird little heart happy.”
How she got started: A lifelong resident of Richmond, Pierce discovered art early in life. “I used to love art as a child,” she says, with fond memories of art classes while attending St. Catherine’s School, but after a high school teacher ridiculed her work, she changed her mind about majoring in art at college and studied early childhood education instead. Pierce went on to have a successful career in real estate before returning to art at the age of 40.
What makes her work unique: “My work says things people don’t have the nerve to say out loud,” says the artist. Her work is colorful and outside the box as well as outside the lines, with a style that’s a cartoon-like partnership of paintings and words. “You don’t have to draw realistically to be an artist. I paint like a child,” Pierce says. “I paint women’s faces and think of an irreverent saying to go with it.”
With more than 1,000 works completed, her personal favorite is an almond-eyed woman with two black pigtails. The caption reads, “Am I perfect? No. But am I striving to be a better person every day? Also no.”
Inspiration: “There wouldn’t have been a Bad Girl Art without Georgia Terry,” says Pierce, who met Terry at the Carytown artists’ co-op But Is It Art? in the 1990s. The two shared similar styles and personalities and became fast friends and collaborators until Terry lost her battle with kidney disease in 2007.
Pierce’s work deals with broken relationships, divorce, childhood trauma, sickness and death – but always in a way that makes people smile. “I like to encourage people not to take themselves too seriously,” she says. One of the best compliments she received came from a minister who said of her work, “She may not be religious, but she’s very spiritual.” And that, says Pierce, is “what’s gotten me through the hard parts of life.”
Where to find Bad Girl Art: Bad Girl Art products can be found at Tinker’s Gift Shop on Westwood Avenue, Cool Colors Gallery on West Cary Street and online.
