We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Peggy Wiltz a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Peggy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When I was young, I started out on my journey with oils on canvas to express my artistic side. Life became too busy for me to pursue it further, but later in life, I was encouraged by a lifelong friend to try photography. She thought I had a talent for it. I ended up doing artistic photography, as well as portraiture and weddings and events. Now in my retirement, I have turned back to art, and I am making my photography into artwork as posters and oil paintings. I also have a website with my artwork on clothing and bags. All of my endeavors through my life have lead up to this combination of art, photography and entrepreneurship. Now at this stage of my life I can enjoy creating with the freedom and wisdom retirement affords me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am actually retired and disabled, but for creative people, sitting around doing nothing is never appealing. So I am creating artwork and products from my huge collection of photographs. I sell posters, canvas prints, shirts, and bags with the artwork on them. So far I have been concentrating on the world of dance. I make bags for dancers, big and small to carry their shoes to class. Make up bags carry cosmetics for stage make up and shirts to coverup tights and leotards. Next I will concentrate on something most people are curious about, the Deep South United States. I live in Louisiana where we have a very colorful culture. After that, the sky is the limit. Maybe I will even find a way to share my grandchildren’s beautiful faces on Prints by Peggy.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

Nowadays the world of online shopping seems to be taking over, even finding a way to do business online. By poking around I discovered that you don’t have to invest in a lot of merchandise that might even sit around and not sell. If that happens, you are in big trouble from a business standpoint. Now there is drop shipping. This new concept lets me put up an item for sale and when a customer chooses it and pays for it, the item is then produced and shipped directly to the customer. It prevents any waste in products and time. This method affords me to be as creative as I want because if an idea doesn’t sell, I can move on to the next idea without losing money. The fun part is creating anyway.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I have a website called printsbypeggy.com where I sell my products and artwork. I also offer the digital images of the artwork so individuals can make their own gift items and wall hangings. There are many companies that allow you to design your own. Customers can search the web to find them. I don’t think anyone should limit themselves to one way of selling though. I enjoy having full control of owning my own storefront online but I am hearing good things about the other avenues as well. Even though I have my own site I have started setting up an Etsy store. I won’t have as much control over the other avenues but as long as my products are selling, I don’t mind that. The more exposure I get, the better my artwork will get out there.

The whole idea of my life mission is to be creative. Someone told me once, “You have done so many different things! Why don’t you just stick to one thing?” I answered, “I really have only done two things for my whole lifetime. I raised a beautiful family and my businesses have all revolved around one thing, CREATIVITY THROUGH ART!” The person then said, “Now that I think about it, you are right.” I had a retail shop where I taught students how to make and paint their own porcelain dolls and giftware. I had a sewing business where I designed and manufactured clothing wholesale. I had a photography business. I also created paintings and drawings, but just for my own pleasure. My degree is even in drawing but on a computer, AutoCAD. That, for those of you who don’t know, is a computer program used to create technical drawings. So, in summary, I have always been drawing, painting, or designing and creating something beautiful.

Contact Info:

• Website: printsbypeggy.com
• Facebook: prints by peggy