By Johnny Thurgood
For years Abe Pieciak said, “All you need is one good idea.” One day the idea came to Abe, “Why not paint lures inside a striped bass.” His first bass was filled with colorful poppers, line, and sinkers. As you looked more closely at the fish, one could see white Danny plugs, pink Deadly Dicks, Sabiki rigs, black rubber eels, Rangers, sinkers, long hooks, and a plethora of other every day tackle. Within a month of this first “Lure-Fish,” the name Abe envisioned for his art, there were false albacore, bluefish, and additional striped bass on his walls. Indeed Abe had found that one good idea to couple with his artistic talent and it was bearing fruit … well fish.
Abraham Pieciak, more commonly know as Abe, is a life-long New Englander. He grew up in the down east region of Maine, and spent a great deal of time on the beaches of Cape Cod. At a young age he discovered a knack for drawing and painting.
Six years ago, Abe decided to leave Boston, and work as a chef on Martha’s Vineyard. Like any self-respecting New Englander would do, Abe began fishing the beaches hard, and experimenting with artistic uses for the trash he found littering the ocean’s edge. He fashioned these articles of trash into a 3’ x 6’ striped bass filled with light bulbs, broken bottles, plastic sharks, flashlights, beer cans and whatever happened to wash up in his path. Abe’s artistic model of filling fish with objects was born.
Abe then began creating the paintings of fish from the Vineyard filled with lures. When he began showing people his striped bass painting, they were stoked, and wanted one for their own. He produced thirty prints of the striped bass and began giving them to his friends and family. “Everyone loved them,” Abe recounts, “It’s not a crazy idea. Fish eat lures… so why not paint them inside of a fish.”
A small buzz formed among Abe’s friends and the few lucky souls that were in “the know,” were able to acquire one of his Lure-Fish prints. Due to this positive reception, Abe continued to paint fish filled with plugs and had limited number of shirts, hoodies and stickers made. He launched his website Lure-Fish.com, and was able to place his plug filled stickers in a few tackle shops on the Vineyard.
Fast forward to September 2014. As many know, the summer tourists fade away, summer slips into fall and finally it is the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. As Abe geared up to for the long cold nights of fishing the derby, he knew he had to make a Lure-Fish to commemorate another memorable year of fishing the beaches of Martha’s Vineyard. He decided to paint the “Grand Slam,” which included the four weighable fish of the derby. Abe painted the four fish on one canvas and donated thirty-nine prints to the derby, one print to be given out each day.
Today Abe has created over fifty Lure-Fish paintings. Some of them are painted where the plugs, lures, line and hooks reflect the natural colors of the fish. Abe’s next subject was the fresh water trout which are filled with flies. Abe recently completed a fly trout series including a brook trout, rainbow trout, and a brown trout. The next highly anticipated series is comprised of a musky, northern pike, and the beloved pickerel.
As the water begins to warm up on the shores of the Vineyard and the ocean becomes alive, Abe’s fisherman/artists mind has shifted into high gear. His plans for the summer begins with getting his gear ready for the first schoolies of spring, and taking a pile of beach trash and sculpting an eight-foot trash lobster. If you would like to see what Abe is creating now you can find him roaming the beaches of the Vineyard, or go to his website Lure-Fish.com. He has assorted limited edition numbered and hand signed prints, stickers, Lure-Fish apparel, and even beach bags that his mother crafts by hand in Maine.
For more information or to order from the shop visit www.lure-fish.com.