This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 19, 2009 - For her, the creating begins early, while it's dark and still. She pulls out the eggs, butter and milk, gets the chocolate and the cocoa and starts baking.
For him, the creating comes in found chunks of time, after dropping the kids off at school, piping his wife's fresh cupcakes, washing dishes and helping as needed at SweetArt. Then, he walks to his studio down the hall, paint and canvases waiting.
For both, creating happens every day here.
Reine Bayoc, originally from Tennessee, grew up loving her mom's peanut butter cookies, the kind with the fork prints. She came to St. Louis and got her bachelor's degree in English and French at Saint Louis University. At an art show, she met the artist, Cbabi Bayoc, her future husband.
Turns out he had a sweet tooth.
Reine Bayoc worked a few unhappy cubicle jobs, the couple had three children and she kept baking, perfecting recipes and thinking up ways to create food and work at the same time.
SweetArt opened in December 2008. At first, the couple thought, it seemed smart to share a space and rent. The idea for combining food and art came later.
"And then we decided, why don't we just do it together," Reine Bayoc says. "Let's just do it and see how it works."
So far, it works hard.
Reine Bayoc gets here most mornings between 5 and 6, unlocking the whiny front door, shutting off the alarm and heading past the mismatched tables and chairs into her dark kitchen to bake in peace. Her days end around 6:30 most evenings (she's working on that).
But in between, there's baking and eating, an expanding menu, customers craving something sweet, afternoons with Jurni, 8; Ajani, 6; and Birago, 3, hanging out after school, and her husband finding a little time for art, too.
So far, he's discovered, there aren't a lot of differences between marriage and business.
"I still say, 'Is this all right? Is this what I'm supposed to do?'" Cbabi Bayoc says.
For his wife, giving up control has been the hardest part of the business so far.
"I really like for things to be done well," she says. "And I think it's important, if you're asking someone to spend their money on it."
The focus at SweetArt isn't the size of the cupcake. ("Cupcakes should be small, in my opinion," Reine Bayoc says, "because they're just small treats.") The focus is what's inside.
"We take great care in the ingredients that we use," she says.
There use no transfats, no preservatives, many ingredients are bought locally and are organic. "We don't use mixes."
And they don't just sell cupcakes, there are also cakes, cookies and baked goods.
Currently, Reine Bayoc's favorite cupcake at SweetArt is the Fauxstess, their own take on Hostess cupcakes. Other flavors include Come Hither Carrot, Strawberry Lemonade, Elvis (a banana cake with peanut butter frosting filled with chocolate buttercream,) Lavender Vanilla, Chai Spice and vegan cupcakes, as well.
"They're fabulous," says customer Gabrielle Brewer. "You can just taste the freshness in the ingredients and taste the love that she puts in them."
In the future, the Bayocs plan to expand their space with a bigger kitchen and a gallery.
But even now, painting and baking seem to make good partners. She's creating cupcakes, he's creating art. And the results hang on walls the color of key lime pie and sit in a second-hand display case in the shop on 39th Street they've created together.