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