Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily Peters. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Emily, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
There was never a moment I didn’t want to be a singer. Way, way back before I had even grasped the concept of professions, I was just being what I was. So, when society presented that concept to my rapidly transforming baby-mind, there was no question: I am a singer!
The questioning and doubting formed later, when society presented the concept of making dollars out of what I am and what I love to do so that I can support myself financially and independently. At that point, my thoughts scurried to find something “practical” to be, because society had also told me in so many ways that musicians and artists don’t get to be paid for their work, and if they do, they must work 2-3 times as hard as everyone else. Or, they have to magically know a bunch of affluent people who want to support them.
To my teenaged perspective that spelled C-E-R-T-A-I-N F-A-I-L-U-R-E.
So I morphed and amended, twisted myself into a new shape that would please society’s expectation and demands. Luckily, I was really good at art, and since this also fell into the same doomed future as music, I decided I could be happy as a clothing designer. I thought, “Surely this is practical way to do art! Just look at all the legitimate businesses and professions in the fashion industry. No doubt I can find a j.o.b. with my name on it in this world.”
And the Gods laughed a private little laugh as I applied for the Clothing Design program at the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities. Yes, they laughed with mirth at me for trying to deny the first gift they gave me, and they laughed with glee because of everything I would learn, and they laughed with elation for all that would flower out of me because I chose this secondary gift, instead of claiming fully the singer that I was. And they laughed so they wouldn’t cry for the way I silenced my voice, knowing both the pain and the love I was denying, and that they would just have to bring it back to me as soon as they found an opening in my boxed up heart. And they laughed and laughed because wouldn’t this be an epic journey with so much abundant creation, so much unrequited love, so many moments of epiphany, so many discoveries of self, and more and more human-ness, and just the most beautiful opportunity for love reunited!
Yes, they laughed. . . and eventually I laughed with them. After a many years of battle with society’s expectations, which I had dutifully internalized to keep myself safe.
I finished that degree in Clothing Design in the frozen north, and I flourished within its whole teaching of apparel as art, craft, adornment, self-expression, technical skills, and artisanship. I got that j.o.b. as a designer for a small design house, which lured me in with, “We want your artistic expression to run free here!”, then sqashed my soul with, “Can you do something more like this. . . like what the last designer did?” (insert heinously fluffy Mother-of-the-Bride dress here). So I left that trap and desk-jockeyed while I started my own label. Then I closed that label and took off to New York to see if my degree and my smarts could land me a clothing design desk to jockey instead. I found only more dead art, and unhappy artists stuck behind swatch libraries, CAD programs, and questionable business practices.
While I traveled through a few more unfulfilling jobs of nondescript flavor, I started my real design label, Atelier E. My soul was alive, and I was artistically fulfilled. However I was smack in the middle of that limbo that was foretold in my youth – the one where I worked 16-18 hour days, held 2-3 jobs, and still couldn’t pay my rent. I rolled through that special hell reserved just for creative professionals, gathering a growing bitterness along with the sweetness of artistic fulfillment in my Atelier E.
One self-help psychedelic bread-crumb lead to another, and I found myself in the company of a handful of people dressed mostly in white at 4:00 in the morning, singing songs about unity, ego-death, and eternal ecstatic bliss. And I cried and cried at the beauty of my own voice as the Gods laughed and laughed! I was fully home again. I was back to my full self, and there was no denying my first gift anymore. My voice was out, and after a few more years and few more tears, I created my own album of those six songs we sang in the nectar hours just before sunrise. I called it Celestial Nectar. The songs on my album, Celestial Nectar, were crafted with the expertise of a few other musicians: a percussionist who also attended the early morning practice, Daniel Jai Jot Higuera, guitarist Daniel Son, violist Vishnu Ramankutty, vocalist EuGene Gant, and electric bassist and producer, Sammy Gonzalez.
So, friends and readers, that is how it happened. That is how I came into this world singing, how I pretended not to be a singer and how all the societal pressure in the world couldn’t keep me from being what I am: A Singer! . . . and an Artist!
Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
It’s so easy to live every day doing what I love to do. I’m pretty sure I feel an extra layer of gratitude because I couldn’t do what I love for so many years. I know for sure that nobody needs, nor deserves that kind of tough experience, but it leaves absolutely no room for things like taking my natural gifts, and the time, space, and financial support in which to do them, for granted. I mean, I get to create every moment of every day! I can write songs, cut metal, dye fabric, practice music, teach music to others, sew things, make patterns, make sounds . . . and I can do this every day. It’s a dream come true. It’s the realest reality in its biggest real-ness.
Put another way, I’m a musician with two music projects: as Sat Sukh, I create music in the new age, mantra, earth wisdom categories; as EIY, I create sounds in the chill experimental realms, and I’m also a designer and artist under the label Atelier E, where I create sustainable, zero-waste, and eco-friendly clothing and art-to-wear accessories. I am not one of these things more than the other. Truthfully, each of these crafts is only separated out into different labels, websites and social media accounts because the Western form of mind (American/European societal structures) is separationist. That means that the way our brains think, the way our language is arranged, and the way our communities form is in a way that perceives all things as intrinsically individual. So, since our society thinks like this, my creative talents are only perceived as digestible and marketable when they are separated into their “categories”. However, within me, I am simply a creative individual with many skills for expressing the vibrations of creation.
As a musician, I’m primarily a vocalist. I received many years of training as a child and young adult because I loved singing more than anything. I did every musical thing I had access to through the public education system, and also sought out community choirs and professional vocal lessons. In adulthood, I’ve picked up the guitar, mandolin and harmonium to accompany myself as I sing my songs. I have released two albums – Celestial Nectar and The Mother – as Sat Sukh, and a new single called Rose is in the works. On my debut single as EIY, I added music production to my creative toolbox. Air is my first self-produced song, and it’s featured as the soundtrack for TOUCH, a short movement-on-film piece created by Carlota Pradera, Lize-lotte Pitlo, and Lazaro Godoy for PAXy’s series called “Into the Wild”.
I am also a Somatic Vocal Coach. That means I teach singing and speaking in a whole-body way. To really understand what that is, let’s revisit those self-help psychedelic bread crumbs I mentioned before. They lead me to Iyengar Yoga at 16-years-old, which became a daily practice for the next 20 years of my life, which was the gateway to meditation, which lead me to a seven-year career as a massage therapist specializing in Thai and Hawaiian healing arts, which guided me to Vipassana and self-inquiry, Ayahuasca, and free-movement practices. Through all of those experiences I developed a highly attuned and extra sensitive awareness of . . . well, everything! But especially everything going on in our bodies. I can feel, see, and sense the emotions and conditioned thought forms at play in my students’ bodies and guide them gently through seeing, feeling, sensing, and releasing or cultivating them so they can express from, and with their most authentic voice.
In my art and design life at Atelier E, I explore sound through shape and form. I create accessories using conflict-free and recycled sterling silver and gold-fill, and clothing and bags using discarded linens from local hotels and linen services. After scouring the linens, I dye them using only Earth pigments and soy beans. Unlike most “natural” dye processes, this process uses zero toxic heavy metals, and little water. I do every part of the process, and I grow my artisan workshop as a real-world example of just how eco-friendly and people-friendly a fashion label can be.
Eco-friendly is a well known buzz word by now, but people-friendly may be a new one for most. Let me explain this aspect of environmentalism that intersects with the world’s peoples. Most of the world’s clothing is made in so-called “Third World” countries by people (mostly women and children) who live below the poverty level. Some are even enslaved or in indentured servitude to their employers. Those who perpetrate these unacceptable acts often get away with it because they operate in communities where people are undocumented and women are viewed and treated as second-class citizens, or not as humans at all. Most of the clothing in stores is made at the expense of others’ deep generational suffering, which has its roots in colonization. Those colonist practices are othering; they view humans (especially black and brown ones) as resources to be exploited, taken advantage of, and extracted for the collective gain of white society. I know this is all really hard to read, and has probably triggered all sorts of stuff inside, but imagine living that . . . imagine being the one exploited and kept in poverty so that someone in the USA can have a new pair of sneakers every month, or imagine being the person who has a chronic or life threatening disease from the toxic dyes you handle every day, just so that someone in another country can have the luxury of never repeating an outfit.
The complex of injustice that is the fashion industry is part of why I create with discarded linens and metals that are as ethically milled as possible. There is no perfect solution right now, and there are some things I have to compromise on. For instance, the highest rating for eco-friendly metals I could find is 90%, I couldn’t find ethically milled chain, so I settled for deadstock chain. My first line of clothing, Reflection, was made with sustainably produced organic cotton, hemp, wool and silk, and a select few of my designs still feature these new fabrics. The mill refused my offer to send them the scrap that my first jewelry collections amassed, so I started making one-of-a-kind pieces from these small beautiful shapes left over. Thanks to zero available recycling options, I started a new kind of collection that didn’t change or become obsolete with seasons or years, but remained open as the designs rolled through. As my supply of metal and chain dwindle, I’ll be transitioning to scrap metal or fabric accessories instead of metal, which is so unavoidably polluting in its milling stages.
I do what I can, and I keep learning about new and ancient ways to create at Atelier E in Earth and people friendly ways. In all of the ways I create, I do so in favor of the dismantling of white supremacy (here, I’m referring to the myriad ways we’ve all been conditioned to prioritize whiteness, not to the blatant racist hate of white supremacy groups) within me, within the creative industries of music and fashion, and within the world. I hope there will come a day very soon, when art, music, ‘women’s work’, artisans work, creative work, will be valued as the highly skilled and highly valuable professions they are by all of society.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
To see the importance of supporting creative arts, let’s take a look at how the creative ecosystem has become a separate thing from all ecosystems. Let’s go into the roots together:
Humans in the Western world generally see themselves as separate from the Earth. They think of themselves not as part of nature, but as either a guardian of nature or a beneficiary of nature. Humans in First Nations and in the Eastern world, see themselves as inseparable from nature, as a relative of the plants, animals, rocks, wind, and cosmos. In the Western world view, everything gets separated into categories and hierarchies. In the Eastern world view, everything is included intrinsically. In the West, some groups of humans are good, desirable, better and others are bad, undesirable, less than. In the East, all expressions of the Great Mystery or the Tao or Creator are beautiful, welcome and valued in their wholeness without question.
Are you beginning to see the pattern and the origins of needing to drum up support for a marginalized group like the Creative Ecosystem? If there is one thing that could best support creatives, it would be to stop seeing us as separate from you and everything else, and start seeing us as a valuable. un-separate part of the whole. When this happens experientially inside of each of us, we can only do, and participate in supporting practices that nourish the whole. Not supporting, would just be unthinkable.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
As my colorful story has illustrated, I’ve had to pivot many times in my creative life. I perceived that I wouldn’t be able to support myself as a musician, so I pursued a degree in clothing design. I couldn’t compromise my heart’s desire for creative freedom and my moral compass’s demand for clean fashion, so I built my own artful, sustainable fashion label. I grew bitter from not being valued as a creative professional and having to have a few side jobs to keep afloat (barely), so I became a massage therapist. I learned so much from those seven years in bodywork, but it wasn’t my true love, my first and greatest gift, so I returned to music.
Although each of those pivots felt and looked like a rejection or a failure, a struggle or a fight, a reason to give up and get angry and withdraw from the cruel, exploitative world, they collectively molded and guided my steps into this beautiful, multidimensional, and singular expression of creativity that is me!
Those tight turns were the best thing that ever happened for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ateliere.org & https://www.satsukh.com & https://www.eeiiyy.com
- Instagram: @e.m.i.l.y.sings & @e.atelier.e
Image Credits
Album art for Celestial Nectar, The Mother and Air by Jaqueline Soir