A Peg and Awl Story
Celebration of a Fifteen Year Zig Zag!
Today is the 15th anniversary of Peg and Awl. It is cold and snowy out. I am conflicted when I say this, because nothing is so black and white, but I don’t love winter. I scribble scrabble repetitive wintery things that aren’t uplifting and walk driven, but gloomy downers in my morning pages and realise though, that I can be flipped like a switch. Stretch, move, stand outside in your socks and t-shirt, I told my slightly down self, and just breath ten long and slow breaths. Even without my glasses I can see so many nests in the skinny leafless trees, some are massive and impossible not to see at the top of the Tulip Poplars — squirrels nests! Others are small and tidy and close. And me, on my stoop, I am a little, insignificant thing trying to figure out how to celebrate our last fifteen years which have gifted my family and others with pretty wonderful lives. So in a very small way, from my very small space on this stoop facing the trees and the grasses and footprints in the snow, cold and shivery, I shall share some fragments that today, dot my memories. Happy Anniversary to us, and in the words of Robyn Wall Kimmerer:
"The elders say that ceremonies are the way we remember to remember.”
And now, back to the warm inside studio to better tell our story.
I don’t write long tales, but short moments, memories, dreams, rambles. This fifteen year story I am about to embark upon feels daunting, a big stretch of time with such a tangle of stories. I am unorganized and easily overwhelmed when it comes to reflection and sifting. And I grow weary of my own oft’ repeated stories. I live best in the moment which has served me well. I struggle with digging back into the past — my own past, anyway. But here goes:
In the Beginning
Walter and I officially started Peg and Awl on the 10th of January, 2010. Søren was two, and Silas was, according to the conception calendar that I hadn’t considered considering until now, conceived on this day or very close. We met in July of 2007. Søren was born less than nine months later — five and a half weeks early. When Søren was four months old, Walter and I got married in Iceland. When Søren was six months old, Walter was stoplossed and hauled off with the National Guard to Iraq. I barely knew him, so much had happened, and here I was, a mother and a wife, suddenly.
My memory of being a single parent includes a lot of walking with an ever content baby strapped to my chest whilst I did lot of reading out loud. We traveled, too. I ran two businesses — the Black Spot Books and sold used CDs online — leftovers from my record shop days — with my friend Jared, who inadvertently introduced me to Walter. Søren and I were always together even when I hauled handbound books and jewelry and photographs to shows. He was such a quiet baby. I tucked him into a bouncy seat under my show table and surprised those around me when I pulled him out from under to nurse him and to hang out. I have such fond memories of my year as a single mother.
Walter Returns from War
When Walter came home I got pregnant straight away. Then we went to Europe where Søren pointed out every animal in every painting in every museum we visited until he fell asleep. We walked for hours and I didn’t feel well enough to climb the Eiffel Tower. I miscarried on the way home.
Peg and Awl is Born!
With our family back together, Walter made a woodshop of the basement with hand-me-down machines from family woodworkers on both sides, and I continued making books and other messes on the floor upstairs next to the gorgeous reclaimed Chestnut tabletops Walter built for me the week after we met. Our ideas and projects soon smudged together and we each had our hands in everything from designing to making, photographing and tagging. We did shows together — as many as we could. Both art exhibits and craft shows. Walter painted, I made photographs layered with drawings, and we blended Peg and Awl objects and vintage finds to complete the installations. Early on, from our Art Star booth in Philadelphia, we connected with Terrain and had a real lucky start with URBN who, when carrying our treasures, mentioned Peg and Awl in newsletters, on their website, and even Instagram. Søren was two when he — along with my parents — helped tag an enormous order of book necklaces for Anthropologie.
Our house was an old Philadelphia row home that needed a lot of tlc as well as useful objects in the kitchen and bathrooms and studio that were compact enough to not take up too much space and offer organization and storage for the variety of places. We started working with restaurants like Zinque in CA — whom we still work with and just this week placed an order for their new restaurant in Paris. One early collaboration with Cofoco and Copenhagen Joinery brought us to Denmark with our two littles, and then to Sweden. It was an incredible time for our young family and young business alike.
We decided at some point to add bags to our catalog, beginning with a diaper bag, our too-simply named Tote, that we both would be happy to carry. It has two small pockets inside which fit a journal for each kid where I documented their first weird words and wonderful things they did, along with their scribbles and more. First we made things for ourselves, and then we made them for everyone!
Pivots and Random Adventures
As the years went on we developed new bags and new wooden treasures. Then, in 2016, I went to Picture Camp in Spain and on the way home started to design the Sendak Artist Roll which became a favourite — not just for me as anticipated — but for illustrators and artists around the world. This object pulled me back into making art. Walter did the same the following year with a painting adventure to Italy after which he designed the Scout Plein Air box. With all of us making more art nearly daily — journals, caddies, paint palettes, and other artists treasures erupted from our small and blooming business.
Moving, Moving, Growing, Pandemic
Walter built a small workshop in our big-for-the-city backyard, and most rooms in the house served as studios for us and our small team for making one thing or another. We moved to a casket factory next, with a conveyor belt. There, our team grew larger and Ari, who has been with us since, joined as holiday help! Next we bought a building nearby with an acre of land that we transformed into prolific raised garden beds, other beds with native trees, shrubs, and flowers, and bee hives with honey that locals loved to stop by for. We had great plans for the future including a storefront — already built just before the pandemic — events, and more. But when Søren and Silas joined a homeschool co-op outside of the city, I saw so many trees and wandered through trails three times a week and discovered my thirst and need, for nature. We decided to move out of the city. A few years prior, we bought an abandoned house behind our row home with the intention of making it a ‘Peg and Awl House’ which was to be an airbnb and living studio/shop. We sold it to fund our own house’s final fixes and transformed it into the Peg and Awl House. When it was ready, the pandemic surprised us all and our old home ended up being featured in Philadelphia Magazine and went on to be a hot spot for intimate weddings.
Growing, Shrinking, and The Five Acre Wood
The pandemic was also good for our family, as the many years of ongoingness had us ready for respite. We welcomed the quiet of moving rocks and building new gardens. We calculated the minimum about of money we needed to earn to keep our business afloat, and made time to film bookbinding tutorials that we’d been so long chattering about. This felt like a fun enterprise especially on a potentially sinking ship! The quiet of home projects turned out to be good for others too, and Peg and Awl flourished. Happy in our new home amongst trees and animals, we sold the Peg and Awl house and soon after grew weary of our ever-ballooning business. We felt we were losing ourselves as artists and makers again, managing and hiring and business business businessing. I also had a few unwelcome diagnoses that I had to change my life to tend to. We sold the Peg and Awl workshop and fixed up the rotting barn at our new home. And here we are — a small and still growing crew making new treasures and still some of the old, in new zigs and zigs, at the Five Acre Wood. Through it all, our team has continued to grow in new ways. Those who were kids at the start, have been with us now for years, and have their own kids — and lots of them! I’ve become a dog person and more of plant person. Søren and Silas are 16 and 14, and both astonishing humans and artists. We still travel a bunch and have endless projects at the Five Acre Wood. There will never be an end to the doing, the moving, and the creating. May we always have a string of unfinished projects, countless plants, and weird ideas sprouting as abundantly as they did when our business and babes were in their infancy.
I’ve left so much out — each time I reread, I stuff neglected bits into loose seams. But a story is never fully told. Thus, this mere glimpse into some of our wide zigs and zags and rambling loopty loops — here is to another fifteen years of the unexpected!
See more of the house in Remodelista!
I love this reflection— bringing us full circle. Each zig and zag.
Oh my God, this is just the best story of your family, how it clearly was written in the stars for you all to become the amazing, creative force that you are. I love the values that you and Walter clearly have for how you have wanted your family and your lives to go and grow. I love your writing Margaux, the raw feelings you express and the simple truth you unearth. Here's to as many years of Peg and Awl as your heart's desire there to be. Cheers to you all.