225BatonRouge.com

Her canvases are living, breathing, twitching, and sometimes sweating human beings, but the works she creates are one of a kind.

As a master face painter Susie Pierce never imagined going to work could be so much fun. As the youngest of five children in a family full of artists, Pierce’s work was constantly compared to that of her older, talented siblings. Tired of the constant criticism she resigned to put her art on hold and pursue a different career path. A string of unfulfilling jobs later, Pierce took up caricaturing professionally in 1980. But it wasn’t until 1993 that she found her true calling.

“Somehow I got roped into doing the face painting at my church fair that year,” Pierce says. “By the end of the fair people were asking me for my business cards and it just kind of spiraled from there.”

Studying with internationally renowned artist Olivier Zegers of Belgium and face-and-body art champion Mark Reid, Pierce has emerged as one of the rising stars of the face art painting world. She placed third all-around at the Face and Body Art International Convention in May in Orlando. Competing against 400 of the best face painters from around the world in the categories of speed-painting, cheek art and full face, Pierce was in the top three overall, and she placed first in the full face category for her tribal design.

“Maybe next year I’ll go back and enter the body painting competition, who knows? The sky’s the limit,” she says.

Pierce created La Fete last year, a face-painting event with art and Cajun food, which drew 40 artists and stands to attract double that in March 2008.

“Its beginning is really a funny story,” she explains. “I invited another artist to come down, telling her that we’ll paint and I’ll make her some gumbo. Before you know it one person turned into 40 and it turned into a mini convention. But, I guess when there’s good ol’ Louisiana cooking involved, who can turn that down?” thepartyartist.com