Peg and Awl

We are husband and wife with a boy called Søren and a boy called Silas. We live and work in Philadelphia, Penna. Our work is made from olde things, treasures found and recovered from misfortune and neglect, relics of the unusual, the confused and the macabre, cut and pulled and built into wearable curiosities, inscribable keepsakes and useable, longlasting treasures. We used to make them for ourselves and now we make them for everyone. Peg and Awl began without a plan, a fortunate pairing of two minds, different but in sync. Both Walter and I have a fervor for history, though we each unearth our passions in different ways. I, Margaux, love the romantic imaginings of what once was and the effects time and stories have on materials and objects. Though not military-minded, I am an invader; mostly of abandoned houses and the past. Walter, home schooled by his history-aficionado mother and apprentice to his carpenter father, was a soldier in the American Army. There he learned how to do things effectively and simply though his practical nature does not preclude his immense creativity. Walter’s pragmatism, my own dreamy tendencies, and our shared curiosity combine to create Peg and Awl. With our two boys as constant companions, we find inspiration in them as much as we do in the past, taking notes and creating new objects to delight younger beings – Peg and Awl is not just for big people. After nearly bursting our house with the weight of materials, makers and ideas, in 2012 we finally decided to move the business elsewhere. Peg and Awl’s new home is in the Atlas Casket Factory, a building that still boasts a conveyor belt, a trolley track and traces of the making that occurred for decades. Here histories overlap as Peg and Awl gathers new life with new makers, new personalities, and new hands. Time clocks once again resound throughout building. Ghosts linger and invisible hands shake the visible. We are makers. In Philadelphia. Still.