Bittersweet Honey Bea

Bittersweet Honey Bea

BY Kelsey Sheppard

Bea Lesoing has always been enamored with fire. After working primarily with crochet, she felt compelled to integrate flames into her art—but fire dancing wasn’t the move. Instead, she discovered pyrography and began the slow process of learning to work with wood to create unique art.

Her work explores themes of dark feminism: beautiful women who invite intrigue, provoke thought, and occasionally unsettle the viewer. Growing up near the woods in Brazil shaped her artistic vision. Nature crept into almost every work, flowers blooming most frequently. At one point, Bea considered centering her work entirely around botany. Now, nature exists not only as subject matter, but as the canvas itself.

Bea likens pyrography to tattooing on wood, with each type presenting its own challenges and rewards. She began with pine—an affordable option whose pronounced veins can disrupt smooth lines, and knots sometimes enhance a design. Today, she favors basswood for its uniformity. The tone, depth, and shading in her pieces depend on careful control of temperature and pressure; a precision she has honed over time.

Throughout our conversation, Bea spoke candidly about her self-criticism, the difficulty of the medium, and the pride she takes in her progress. She welcomes slip-ups, letting them steer the piece toward something even stronger than she first imagined. Her next step is creating her own designs. Until now, she’s always hired artists for designs and transferred them onto wood—but she has reached a level of confidence in both herself and the process that makes designing her own work the natural evolution.