Meet the Artist: Liberty Pierson

Liberty Pierson
Sculpture: Spirit of the Bay

Growing up in El Sobrante, Liberty Pierson always had an interest in art. She expressed her creativity in a variety of different mediums like graphic design, computer art, and photography. After high school, she moved East to study art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. However, her heart belonged in the Bay Area so after six years she moved back in 2014 and due to its thriving art scene settled in Vallejo.

In Vallejo, Pierson developed her skills as well as her relationships with mentors and fellow artists. Her focus became portraits—not with the typical medium of oil on canvas, but rather wood, with the image burned onto it and then painted, creating a unique style.

Before becoming involved with the SolTrans project, she had little experience with sculpture. Her talent with other projects caused her artistic peers to encourage her to participate. Liberty’s vision for the sculpture was both large and heavy, and due to its size, it was also very labor-intensive to produce. Almost every technique Liberty needed to fabricate the piece was a new experience for her, but with the help of other artists on the project she was able to successfully finish the project.

A common question while crafting the piece was “Who was the inspiration for the woman?” The face, however, is not meant to be “someone” but is instead an amalgamation of everyone, a compilation of every nationality in the Bay Area. She wanted the viewer to be able to find something familiar within the face and make her seem recognizable as if they might know her. Liberty drew from memories, friends, and images of people from around the world; her strong background in creating portraits played a key role in helping her design the sculpture.  

The colors of the piece have also become a common question for Liberty. She was not trying to represent skin tones or hair colors, but rather nature and earth itself. She focused on two main themes in colors: the first is that of light and dark to represent the day and night and the passage of time while the other colors represent the four basic elements of nature (earth, wind, fire, and water).  

The combination of the colors and the face of the person represent all of us living here and all the things around us, which of course gives rise to its name, Spirit of the Bay.  

To see additional work by Liberty Pierson, you can follow her on Instagram @LiberyPierson and check out her website at libertypierson.com.