Peggy didn't start out as an artist; her formal training was as a special education teacher. In the late 60s to early 70s she was a member of the Peace Corps in Malaysia, serving as an advisor on math and science curriculum
Peggy Kaufman
Who Are We? Profile of a Del Ray Artisans Member
The Colorful Collective
To enjoy one of Peggy Kaufman's mosaic sculptures is to see the artist herself--from an eclectic assortment of adventures and experiences, a multifaceted one-of-a-kind gem emerges.
Peggy didn't start out as an artist; her formal training was as a special education teacher. In the late 60s to early 70s she was a member of the Peace Corps in Malaysia, serving as an advisor on math and science curriculum. It was during a side trip to Indonesia that she decided to travel the artist's way. She was introduced to the ancient art of batik and she loved it! Upon returning stateside to her home in California, she threw herself into doing batik for a marketplace ripe for her creations.
As a self-proclaimed compulsive personality, Peggy "worked like a maniac", supporting herself for years doing batik. Once sated however, she moved to New York to try something new, alternating between working on her art full-time for six months and then working full-time at whatever job she could find, such as selling gourmet food, painting theatrical stage sets, and tutoring child actors. She even was a tutor for the Bill Cosby show. Her 6-month artistic spells were binges of intense productivity doing calligraphy, silversmithing, product illustration, weaving, and Peggy's favorite form of expression, oil painting. Her unrelenting perseverance towards finding a way to provide for herself as an artist became her proudest achievement.
Peggy's wholesale business, Digital Prism, began in 1993 with the introduction of her millefiori ornaments, and it is the success of this business that now supports her and enables her to employ 3 helpers. Using a medical blade designed to slice material for microscopes, tissue-thin wafers of polymer clay rosettes are applied to spheres which are then strung with ribbon. These beautiful kaleidoscopic creations, along with her handpainted recycled lightbulbs, have been sold in more than 200 shops nationwide, including the Museum Company and the American Craft Museum. For this upcoming holiday season she has created three exclusive designs for the Art Institute of Chicago gift catalog. Peggy markets her ornaments through advertisements in national trade publications and by exhibiting at two large East Coast wholesale shows: the Rosen Show and the Atlanta show. Next year she hopes to sell at the San Francisco Gift Show.
Then of course, there are her mosaics. Homely bedposts, discarded high-heeled shoes, and broken crockery are all fodder for her artistry, becoming bejeweled and beguiling accessories for the home and garden. A garden urn is encrusted with hundreds of fragments of dinner china, marbles, shells, and even the porcelain plug to an old sink! It is at once both elegant and bizarre. Because of their sculptural nature Peggy cannot mass-produce the mosaics as she does her ornaments; each is unique, and each a Peggy Kaufman original.
