Moving Fauxforward - Claire Blome

B y Cl a i r e Pa t t e r s o nP h o t o g r a p h y b yT i m Ja c o b s e n52 AMERICANSTYLE • April 2009

Beth Piver and Andy Vickcreatively solve art anddesign problems in theirCumberland, Md., home—with fantastic resultsApril 2009 • AMERICANSTYLE 53

hen Beth Piver and Andy Vick found their two-story loft space ina brick building in downtown Cumberland, Md., it was a blank canvas.The 6,000-square-foot space was airy, open and painted a crisp white—and covered in “acres of mauve carpet,” Piver says. In lieu of replacingit or refinishing the floors underneath, Piver saw the carpet as a designchallenge. Today, it’s the last thing you notice. Painted mannequinsgreet you at the entrance to the third floor, the couple’s main livingspace. Blue and purple faux fur covers the walls of their bedroom.A massive banner reads, “America’s largestcircus sideshow presents strange peopleentertaining in person.” The hood of a Fordtruck, which serves as the base of the diningroom table, rests in front of two expansivewindows. Squares of LED lights beckonfrom the living room wall.Piver is the artist, architect, designer andgeneral handywoman for the loft space,which saw incarnations as a bowling alley,pool hall and furniture showroom beforethe couple moved in. The space has grownand changed alongside Piver’s art, which hasmorphed from jewelry and metal sculptureto painted mannequins, fiber sculpture andmixed media. The synergy is obvious.“I don’t know which comes first,” Vick says. “Whatshe’s doing artistically manifests itself in the home. Andthen what she’s doing in the home can do the same thingfor her work.”Cold connections are the link. Piver likes using techniqueslike wrapping and riveting in her art because shefeels it takes more creativity to come upwith a workable, functional connection thatcontributes to the aesthetic of the piece thanit does to solder.“Beth is constantly reinventing herself,”Vick says. Although he’s often asked forinput about the house, Vick doesn’t pushhis own ideas. He’s happy to be part ofPiver’s journey. It’s apparent that he’s grownattached to their home; it’s a reflection oftheir travels, showcased through their extensive(and rotating) collection of art.Piver and Vick met in 1987 when theyboth landed at the University ResearchCompany, a government-contracting firmin Washington, D.C. Piver worked in the graphic designdepartment, while Vick had an administrative position.She had recently graduated from the University of Illinois,having studied graphic design and photography. Vickwas fresh out of the University of Pennsylvania with adegree in medieval history. They married in 1990.54 AMERICANSTYLE • April 2009

Piver and her husband Andy Vick eat most oftheir meals at the kitchen table, which Pivercreated out of a wood sculpture base, a layer ofSuper Balls and a glass top. Riotous colors in theliving areas, opposite, include pink desks underthe hanging Bubble Chair (which serve as astepping stool to the lofty perch), a reupholsteredhospital stretcher nestled into a corner belowa hanging rug, and Piver’s LED light sculpture,flickering on the wall of the TV lounge.A jewelry class Piver took in 1991 at the Torpedo FactoryArt Center in Alexandria, Va., redirected their careers.By 1993, she had started a jewelry business, and Vick wassupporting her full-time in production, administration andaccounting. Based in Fairfax, Va., at the time, the coupletraveled the country doing craft shows.On a windy November afternoon, a lean and unassumingPiver sits on a black-and-white faux fur cushion in aBubble Chair that hangs from the living room’s 14-footceiling. She faces bright-orange couches framed by a limegreenwall. Below and behind her are shockingly pinkfur-lined walls. Vick reclines on a reupholstered pink zebraprintlounger. The sunny space is at once overwhelming andcomfortable—after a while, the fantastic colors and designsbecome the new “normal.”“In here, I decided to do everything I could in pink. Idon’t know why,” Piver explains. The faux fur is “so easy,so much quicker than painting a wall,” andwarmer, too. “No animals were killed inthe making of it,” Vick jokes.Piver’s first fur experiment was on theguest bathroom’s ceiling. That led to lightblue fur on cabinets below the bookshelvesdownstairs. When the couple agreed to movethe bedroom from a noisy open space at theback wall to a quieter enclosed room threeyears ago, fur seemed like the obvious choiceto adorn the walls. “When we did the bedroom,I decided to cover it in fur, and morefur started happening elsewhere,” she says.Cumberland is about a two-hour drivefrom Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Washington,D.C. Located in the mountains of WesternMaryland, the former railroad hub hasnow begun attracting artists with its historicbuildings and picturesque surroundings.“We like the feel of Cumberland,” says Vick.“It has the nestled-in-the-mountains, red-brick aesthetic.”Piver and Vick decided on the town only after extensivetravel. When the deal fell through on their first choice, abright-fuchsia printing-press building, they took anotherlook at a turn-of-the-century three-story building andpurchased the top two floors in 1998.The couple bought the space from an architect, whosecontribution was the large cutout between the floors, openingPiver’s second-story studio space to the light that poursin through the third-story windows.The move to Cumberland signaled another change.The couple fully anticipated they’d be doing craft shows“forever and ever,” Piver says, but after a decade, the marketchanged and Vick found himself increasingly volunteeringin the community.That work eventually led to a full-time position as theexecutive director of the Allegany Arts Council in 2003.56 AMERICANSTYLE • April 2009

“In here, I decided to do everything I couldin pink. I don’t know why.” —Beth PiverApril 2009 • AMERICANSTYLE 57

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“We have worked very hard with our cityand county to rebuild Cumberlandas an arts community.” —Andy VickNatural light pouring in from upstairs helpsbrighten Piver’s expansive second-floor studio,opposite. A lounge area outside the office isilluminated by a doll lamp, left. The hood of anold Ford truck and repurposed glass doors actas a formal dining room table, completed byspray-painted vintage stools, above.“We have worked very hard withour city and county to rebuild Cumberlandas an arts community,” Vick says.He estimates that artists in the area nownumber in the hundreds. He’s helped almostthree dozen find studio and living spaces througha relocation program. “It’s been a great passion ofmine. We’re hoping to create another communityin Frostburg,” about 10 miles away, he says.Metal is a theme that runs through every room ofPiver and Vick’s house. Bicycle wheels and mixedmediasculptures pop up frequently, roof flashing fluttersacross the bedroom’s ceiling in waves, and thin pipesmeander through the kitchen to hold pots and pans.When she first started to decorate, Piver hung art, movedfurniture and tried to envision how to make the space comfortableand livable. Then came the paint, and the car hoods.An old Volkswagen Beetle hood is the focal point of thekitchen, smiling back with brightly painted features.“That was one of the first things Beth painted,” Vicksays of the flea market find. “It became an anchor for someof the artistic development that followed.”Their home is chock-full of items thatanyone else would overlook—rusted bedspringshang below a staircase, and mannequins linea wall—but the charm is more than Piver’sunique design sense and use of surplus materials.What makes it home is the collection of piecesthey’ve gathered from friends and travels.The couple doesn’t make it a point to build amuseum-quality collection—their art serves to recall thememories of people and places in their lives. “That’s whatart is all about—making that connection,” says Vick. Andthat’s exactly why their home works—you feel instantlyconnected. It becomes the most surprisingly natural placein the world to be. lClaire Patterson is the assistant editor of AmericanStyle.lFor more images of the Piver-Vick home, plus tips from BethPiver on creating unique living spaces, check out the online Aprilissue of Am e r i c a nSt y l e at www.americanstyle.comApril 2009 • AMERICANSTYLE 59