Abe Pieciak’s latest work in progress sits on a table in the middle of his Aquinnah studio. Sea-weathered sticks, twigs, bits of fishing nets, cords and dry beach grass lie nailed and glued to a wood surface. It is an osprey nest in relief, partially assembled.
Mr. Pieciak applies some shoe glue to a bit of turquoise cord, then wedges it carefully into place.
Cigarette in hand, he speaks with the frenetic energy of someone for whom each moment is not long enough to truly communicate what he’s thinking.
“I try not to think about it too much because if you look at an osprey nest, they’re funky, they’re all different sizes,” he says.
Like an osprey, Mr. Pieciak wanders the Island looking for materials for his art. In his studio he has boxes full of flippers, soda cans, cords and nylon rope found on the beaches. Old buoys line a shelf.
“Buoys are cool. There’s so much life in buoys when you turn them into something else,” he says. He likes to use strips of them to line the borders of his pieces in a vivid mosaic.
There are things he’s collected from places other than the beach too: inherited whale bones, his grandfather’s sailing trophies, deer tails drying in salt, a framed drawing from a friend.
The last osprey piece he made is now on display in the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital as part of the permanent collection. It is based on a photograph by Lisa Vanderhoop that captures the bird as it alights, wings extended, on a chaotic nest of rope and wood.
“Lisa told me when they’re fishing, no matter how big the fish is, they don’t let their claws out. Sometimes they drown themselves,” he says. “I’ve caught some 30-pound stripers that have massive scars from osprey claws.”
The bulk of the work on this current project has yet to be done. After he finishes the nest, he will carve the osprey — one feather at a time — from found wood materials.
He has spent a lot of time watching the fish hawks.
“They guide you to the fish,” he says. He fishes for hours each night, always throwing back what he catches. One wall of the studio is lined with bucktail flies he tied himself.
“Fishing pretty much inspires all of this,” he says.
Some of his paintings lean against the wall: vibrant, intricate fish filled in with fishing lure motifs that have become well-known on the Island.
“This is the new stuff,” he says, gesturing to the more sculptural work. “I’m kind of burned out on watercolor.”
But after Mr. Pieciak finishes the ones that are commissioned, there will be no more of these ospreys. He wants to do other birds, maybe a large piece with lots of smaller ones: cardinals, orioles.
“I have too many ideas,” he says.
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