We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Peggy Skemp. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Peggy below.
Peggy, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
A problem I faced starting out was the experience of having my work treated as “women’s work,” a hobby or a frivolity. I have been making and selling my jewelry since 2001 but only began working as an independent jeweler full time in 2009. In the beginning it was difficult to discern a good opportunity from a bad one. I did a lot of craft fairs, e-commerce, and sold to shops on consignment and gradually decided how I prefer to see my work presented.
Consignment is also a bad deal for artists- Oh, you say you want to sell my jewelry as longs as I give it to you for free? Hmmm. This implies that my labor is worth nothing and that the materials I work with (gold and silver!) are also assumed to have no value. In a consignment situation, the shop-keeper is unwilling to bare any risk associated with carrying my work and in-turn, they have no incentive to take care of the jewelry, to keep the silver polished, or even to prevent it from being stolen. Its a lousy deal. By contrast, galleries traditionally support artists by commissioning entire collections and paying up-front for them. This incentivizes artists to make their boldest work, and implies a regard for what we do as being real work.
I appreciate the gallerists and shop keepers who incorporate my work into their curations, especially in real-life social spaces, as opposed to virtual ones. E-commerce is, undeniably, a driver not only of the climate crisis, but of a growing interpersonal isolation crisis. Brick-and-mortar shops and galleries create spaces to gather for real-life experiences. They breathe life into the communities they exist for. I prefer my work to be discovered in those settings
Peggy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I make sculptural scientific illustrations in recycled gold and silver with gems that are procured from thoughtful sources. In making my jewelry I implement a variety of ancient and new techniques including hand-engraving, casting, forging, stone-setting and hot glass enamel work.
My most popular designs have been my Anatomical, Tentacles and Fungi collections. The Anatomical jewelry, which I began making in 2008, is intricately detailed, opening on hand-made hinges to reveal detailed hand-engraved anatomically-correct interiors. The Tentacles, (2010-Present), are molded from antique octopus specimens, cast in silver, with conflict-free diamonds and other gems set in the tentacle suckers and gripped within their coils. I started making Fungi Jewelry (2010-Present) and the most current iterations are cast from golden oyster mushrooms I have been growing from oak and maple logs outside my workshop in Wisconsin. I have also made a collection glass-enamelled adornments based on the sensory organs of parasites (2009-2010), Honeycombs (2010-Present) Neurons (2010-Present) cast silver Muscles (2011), Earthworms (2006-2017), Snakes (2013-Present) a collection of intricate hand-woven and twined silver and gold spiderwebs (2018), Brain Cacti (2021) Marine Molusc Shells (2021) and my kinetic, one of a kind mini-series, Drip Drip Splash (2021).
I have made work for celebrities, TV and movies, including the new CBS series’ Star Trek Discovery and Star Trek Picard, which featured earrings I made for creature artist, Neville Page. The earrings were used as a communication device on Picard.
I am currently accepting commissions and preparing a new body of work for a small group show in June, 2023.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
NFT’s are unethical. They are a driving-cause of climate change because they are based on the blockchain, and creating the block chain utilizes a massive amount of energy. A small bitcoin farm can consume more energy than a medium-sized city! The block chain consumes so much energy that dirty, long-defunct coal burning plants have resumed operations, increasing rates of athsma among coal workers and in the communities around those coal plants. I beleive bitcoin-mining and blockchain farms should be illegal in the US as they are, increasingly, in other countries.
Although I have had ideas for temporal art and sculpture projects, I will continue to look for ways to share these ideas in the context of traditional galleries and online instead of through NFTs. I will not offer NFT-based art or offer NFT-linked jewelry until and unless the blockchain is made exclusively with green energy sources like solar or wind.
For more information on how blockchain-based technologies are driving sources of climate change, please checkout this episode of the Reveal Podcast
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I would like for consumers, artists and business owners to get more comfortable asking tough questions and demanding transparency from our small businesses, corporations and lawmakers. Through my participation with Ethical Metalsmiths I have learned that, as a jeweler, asking difficult, sometimes uncomfortable questions of my vendors is a way I can ensure my work is sustainable from “cradle to grave,” at all levels of my supply chain. Asking questions that convey our values, not being afraid to “be annoying” is a small way consumers can promote meaningful change through their purchases and patronage. For example, many people are now “shopping small,” which great, in spirit, but in my experience is that many small businesses pay artists on consignment, a bad deal for artists. By contrast, the gallery system, which tends to commission entire collections and pay up-front for them, promotes a healthy ecosystem for artists as workers. It is ok to ask the shops you buy from questions about their ecological and labor footprint. If they respond defensively, it signals that they either have not considered it or have something to hide.
As a creative business-owner, I am eager to answer questions about my values, sustainability efforts and how my work is made so I expect the same from my vendor-partners. None of the shops I sell to ask me to work on consignment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.peggyskemp.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peggyskemp/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PeggySkemp
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peggy-skemp-80395660/
- Other: https://revealnews.org/podcast/can-our-climate-survive-bitcoin/
Image Credits
Photos by Rachel Hanel