In spite of a renovation that is clearly still underway, the 19th century farmhouse that Woodstock native and fine jewelry designer Rebecca Peacock calls home is already beautiful. Peacock and her husband, local chef Tim Storrs bought the house as a fixer-upper in 2011 and they’ve been doing just that ever since. The result is the same simple, understated elegance that marks each piece of jewelry Peacock handcrafts in her small studio.
In the living room, a petite black woodstove puts out steady heat while the soft white walls allow you to appreciate the few carefully chosen accents like the colorful wool rug and the antique wooden hat rack that hangs next to the door. The open kitchen and dining room look out onto a sunny backyard that drops down a gentle slope to the Sawkill Creek where the couple’s four ducks take daily swims in all but the fiercest weather. “They somehow just know when it’s safe and when it’s not,” says Peacock.
Even in the frigid grip of late January, the property shows signs of life — three beehives, well-wrapped for the winter are protected from overeager bears by an electric fence. “I got the bees from Hudson Valley Bee Supply just down the road — those guys have been so great,” says Peacock who has clearly developed a passion for her apiary. “I love how much they make me tune into nature,” says Peacock. “You are just aware of every different flower and tree that is blooming and when. And they make you slow down, too — it’s one of the best ways to avoid getting stung.”
In addition to the ducks and bees, Peacock and Storrs have six chickens, an angora rabbit and…a peacock. “He was a gift from a friend,” explains Peacock with a somewhat rueful grin. A handsome, wooden barn in remarkably good condition stands ready to house any additional livestock the couple may acquire — Peacock mentions the possibility of both goats and lambs during my visit.
She grew up on Schoonmaker Lane in Woodstock — the younger child of two native Woodstockers. After graduating from Onteora, she migrated out to Venice Beach in California where she found an apartment one block from the beach and enjoyed skateboarding, surfing and the excellent state schools before finding a good job in the library of a private school in Santa Monica. But when a decade had passed and her grandmother became ill, Peacock began to feel the pull of home more strongly. “California was the exact right place to be in my twenties but I just wanted to be with my family in the next part of my life,” she says.
When she returned, Peacock took classes at SUNY New Paltz, including several in metals where she got her first taste of jewelry design. “It just felt natural,” she says, “that this was something I was going to do and make part of my life.” She invested in the tools needed to make jewelry and committed space and time to her new craft, although her progression to full-time jewelry designer was a gradual process that unfurled over the years.
Peacock met her husband, Tim who had followed his sister to Woodstock after spending several years in Argentina. The couple lived in a small apartment in Hudson for a year while they saved up to buy a home.
They began their search with clear goals. “We wanted space, we wanted water, we wanted a sunny spot, we wanted outbuildings and a barn so we could have animals, and we wanted to be near family,” says Peacock. Although they initially looked in Woodstock, Shokan and Mt. Tremper, they found what they were looking for along the banks of the Sawkill. “I’ve never lived this near Kingston before,” she says, “and I really like it.”
Now Peacock runs her business, Rebecca Peacock Jewelry, out of a small studio in her home. The tools of her trade — a mallet, drill bits, assorted torch heads and small sheets of precious metals line a white wooden work table. Welding goggles and several pairs of plastic safety glasses hang from a metal lamp overhead for easy grabbing.
Peacock works primarily in silver and in 14K and 18K gold. She likes to use natural colored diamonds and “one of a kind” diamonds with inclusions — small birthmark-like imperfections within the stone. “I think they make the stones very unusual and beautiful.” After examining a selection of Peacock’s simple, elegant earrings and bracelets that are arranged on a chippy white painted slab of wood, it’s easy to agree.
But Peacock does not limit her talents to jewelry, alone. A hand-crafted silver honey dipper and two tiny, delicate, silver spoons set carefully on a piece of white linen catch the eye.
She says her designs are influenced by the work of many artists including Lee Bontecou and Eva Hesse. “She actually lived at Byrdcliffe for a while,” notes Peacock. Japanese American sculptor Isamu Noguchi is another of her favorites — “His sculpture is one of the only one kids can climb on at Storm King.”
But artists are far from her only sources of inspiration, “I’m inspired by so many things — from the Knicks finally winning a game to the words of James Baldwin and Toni Morrison, to the bees outside and just being here in the Hudson valley and feeling that this is my heritage — it’s endless,” says Peacock.
Her work appears on the ears of actress and comedienne Amy Poehler in the January issue of Glamour, and she seems to have found a niche both nationally and internationally. She sells her designs through her web site, at markets including the Hudson Valley Hullabaloo in Kingston, Hudson River Exchange in Hudson, Phoenicia Flea, and Field + Supply in High Falls, as well as through a handful of stores. She also attends tradeshows in New York City as a way to gain broader exposure.
“I think that if you do good work, the community responds — and I’m very grateful for that. I couldn’t actually have imagined doing this anywhere other than the Hudson Valley.” ++
For more on Rebecca Peacock, see www.rebeccapeacock.com/.
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