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By Stan Modjesky (Peg's husband of 33 years)

Peg’s interest in handcrafted jewelry goes back at least as far as I have known her, and that’s over three decades. When she agreed to marry me, we had sterling wedding bands made by Phil Jurus, a friend who does fine art jewelry. Coincidentally, Phil was an ordained minister, and performed our wedding ceremony, a private little affair conducted while we three were seated on a rock in the middle of the Gunpowder River.

But she’d never owned much jewelry, except for a few favorite pieces, mostly what she refers to as “chunky stuff.” One such is a necklace made from un-dyed onyx, which has a jasper-like coloration (to my eye), although its surface finish is much glassier. We found it in a trunk-full of stuff left in the house we’d rented when we first married.

Flash ahead a few years, and we find ourselves selling old books out of a shop in the Fells Point neighborhood of Baltimore. The best thing about selling old books is that you get to look at, and buy so many of them. In the process of buying entire collections, I discovered that when people are ready to sell a book collection, they usually have lot of other interesting impedimenta to unload, as they are generally moving to smaller quarters. At some point, Peg started making some of the “house calls” with me, and before we knew what had happened, we had accumulated a lot more stuff than we’d ever planned on owning, most of it of early 20^th century vintage.  (If there’s one thing Peg and I share, it’s that we are obsessive. My own obsessions run to things loud and oily, and we won’t go into those here.)  

So, in addition to the book shop, we took booth space in the Antique Center of York, about an hour’s drive from home, across the Pennsylvania line. Peg has always had a flair for decorating and arranging things, as evidenced by nearly third of an acre of gardens that surround our house. This spilled over into the way our “antiques” booth was arranged, and she was somewhat flattered to learn how many of the Antique Center’s browsers would come straight in the door to our booth, to see what she’d done with the displays that week. We sold in York for over six years, and the book shop lasted nearly ten, before we decided to abandon the retail businesses so we could travel by RV when, where and for how long we please. (That’s a story in itself.) 

Of course, selling stuff is a great excuse to buy yet more stuff, and we soon became regulars at a couple of the local auction houses. Peg will have to tell you what lit this particular fuse, but she returned from one evening sale with a bit of Bohemian or Victorian jewelry that was nice, but needed re-stringing. You’ll see a lot of the Bo-Ho influence in Peg’s traditional designs. 

Her first visit to a bead shop for supplies led Peg to buy some extra beads that looked interesting. Nature took its course, and five years later, we’ve found that our RV traveling always leads us past at least one bead store or rock shop, from Maine to Mississippi.

Now Peg’s workbench is well equipped, not only with tools and supplies, but a healthy “stash” of beads, pendants and other goodies to work with. A PegM design almost never starts with a sketch, but with some particular bead or pendant that’s caught her eye. Before you know it, the piece is laid out on the beading board and ready for stringing, then perhaps a bit of readjustment. 

Peg is as practical as she is artistic, thus her designs do not run to pieces that are too delicate, impractical or uncomfortable to wear. Often, she’ll build a necklace, wear it for a day or two, then make some final adjustment so that it “hangs” just right.

By the way, if you’re wondering about the photograph back on the index page, it shows Peg with our beloved English Springer Spaniel, “Good Golly Miss Molly,”  (Molly for short). The two of them are getting a bit of inspiration, watched over by a hakata doll. The photo is nearly ten years old. At the left is a current photo of Molly.

Two other dogs share our household: a loopy (and un-photographable) standard poodle named “Moravia’s Louie, Louie” and a zany but drop-dead handsome German shorthaired pointer named Bailey (as in “Bill Bailey won’t You Please Come Home”).

Louie (above) needs particular lighting to show his features against his black coat. But as the photo shows, he refuses to pose. He is also double-jointed, which explains the bizarre angle of his hips.

Bailey (shown left and right) is a poster-boy for the Mid-Atlantic German Shorthaired Pointer rescue, and for Kong brand dog toys. Unfortunately, he consumes a large "Kong"  in about a month, so we buy them in quantity. He's also crazy about any excuse to run, whether it's chasing a boomerang or pulling me on a scooter, at which he's been clocked at better than 20 mph.

As for me, aside from being the family webmaster, I am self-employed as a freelance writer, musician (trumpet) and music teacher.