Meet Pepper Racoon — what a ratbag!

1. Hello, who are you and what do you do?

I’m Pep­per Rac­coon and I’m an artist and merch design­er inspired by nature, mag­ic, and inter­net cul­ture. I design my own afford­able art prod­ucts, and pro­duce a lot of them in my home stu­dio as well, and have been in busi­ness for 8 years sell­ing my appar­el, enam­el pins, stick­ers, and more online at pepperraccoon.com, and at local and nation­al events.

2. What’s your connection to Wellington?

I’ve lived in Welling­ton for a total of around ten years, leav­ing for a bit in the mid­dle some­where and then com­ing back because I missed it so much! When I moved back here from the US as a young twen­ty-some­thing, I picked Welling­ton as the place I want­ed to live after pass­ing through, and I’m so glad I did. In the last few years, I’ve enjoyed get­ting out to the Hutt and putting down roots in Wainuioma­ta.

3. There’s a Ratbag Market coming up soon — can you tell us more about that — its origins, kaupapa and where you see it going? I love the name!

Rat­bag Mar­ket is a col­lab­o­ra­tion between myself and Cos­mo Bones, anoth­er Welling­ton artist, cre­at­ed in response to the loss of events dur­ing and after COVID, and also in response to the cost of liv­ing cri­sis. We believe that artists should be able to sell their wares to recep­tive audi­ences who val­ue their efforts, and that more oppor­tu­ni­ties for tal­ent­ed artists to earn a liv­ing are nec­es­sary for Welling­ton to flour­ish as the cre­ative cap­i­tal it hopes to con­tin­ue being!

Our mar­kets empha­size orig­i­nal work, arti­san-lev­el craft, and voic­es that may oth­er­wise not be heard in our com­mu­ni­ties, and we have had some incred­i­ble turnouts at our pre­vi­ous events.

In future, we hope to con­tin­ue to offer our mar­ket events, pos­si­bly branch­ing out into more fre­quent small­er ones, as well as per­haps offer­ing some work­shops! Bal­anc­ing run­ning events with our busy work and per­son­al lives is tricky, so we take it one step at a time.

The next Rat­bag is hap­pen­ing THIS Sat­ur­day 20 July — 11am-4pm at This­tle Hall.

4. You do a lot of native birds and wildlife illustrations — if Wellington was a bird (or a native mammal) — what do you think it would be?

I’m a strong believ­er that if Welling­ton was a bird, it would be a Kākā! They’re such a spe­cial part of our urban sound­scape, espe­cial­ly as you ven­ture out into Brook­lyn, and Karori, and it’s amaz­ing to hear them spread­ing through­out new areas and see them goof­ing off. They’re birds with huge per­son­al­i­ties, a tonne of scrap­py ener­gy, and an abil­i­ty to adapt, even in adverse con­di­tions, which is what I love about our vibrant city, too!

5. How hard is it to make a living as a fulltime artist? What are some of the good parts about it?

Mak­ing a liv­ing as a full-time artist is chal­leng­ing, I’d say it’s pos­si­bly one of the tough­est solo career paths one can choose for them­selves. The suc­cess rate is unfor­tu­nate­ly fair­ly low, and I don’t advise any­one to go full-time until they’ve test­ed the waters as a side hus­tle.

How­ev­er, I’m my own boss, I design and make my prod­ucts with my own skills (and often hands), and I get to work with amaz­ing sup­pli­ers both with­in NZ and over­seas to pro­duce things I can’t make myself, which is delight­ful. Mak­ing peo­ple smile, see­ing peo­ple find them­selves in your work, and get­ting to work with amaz­ing clients like the McEl­roy Fam­i­ly, Kawai­icon, a bevy of authors, and Zealan­dia, make it all worth­while.

6. What three possible things would make Wellington a better place to live?

I approach this ques­tion from a cre­ative per­spec­tive, because I feel that as won­der­ful as Welly is, in recent years, there has been a mas­sive exo­dus of cre­ative tal­ent from our fair city, which is both lam­en­ta­ble and pre­ventable.

In order to have a city with cul­tur­al expe­ri­ences and vibes, we have to incen­tivise cre­atives to stick around and do what they do best: cre­ate art, music, and mag­ic for our cit­i­zens to enjoy. My top three things that would enable this and also make lives bet­ter in gen­er­al:

1. More afford­able hous­ing, rent con­trolled apart­ments, and places for peo­ple who might not earn as much, but con­tribute a lot to the cul­ture of our home. When cre­atives can’t afford to live in the city, we all suf­fer a loss of art, the­atre, and music.
2. Coun­cil-sup­port­ed retail and stu­dio spaces for cre­ative busi­ness­es. There are so many emp­ty retail shops in Welling­ton right now. In Auck­land, there are ini­tia­tives to allow artists to pop-up in The Strand Arcade shops, install their works in vacant shop win­dows, and more, to ensure that the city remains vibrant. Mel­bourne pro­vid­ed retail spaces for artists sub­sidised by the city coun­cil for many years. We could be doing the same, and ensur­ing a future for cre­ativ­i­ty!
3. More rela­tion­ships and col­lab­o­ra­tions between artists and busi­ness! We have some fab­u­lous street art, amaz­ing brands like Welling­ton Choco­late Fac­to­ry and Garage Project who work with artists, and we could always use more of that kind of ener­gy. Welling­ton’s best brands can become icon­ic and con­nect with their local roots in a mean­ing­ful way, by reach­ing out to col­lab­o­rate with local artists, and that brings colour to our often grey-weath­ered city.

7. Who else do you think we should profile from here?

My top picks for amaz­ing Welling­to­ni­ans who need a pro­file are (if you haven’t already) Greg Broad­more (ridicu­lous­ly tal­ent­ed dude who does way too many things real­ly well), Cos­mo Bones (beau­ti­ful artist), Hol­lie Arnett (cham­pi­on for cre­atives), and Eddie D’Amore (drag king champ and an absolute leg­end of a per­son).

Fea­ture image por­trait of Pep­per also by Sam Blyth