Meet Peter Schilling | Sculptor and jade carver

We had the good fortune of connecting with Peter Schilling and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Peter, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Although I earned two degrees in studio sculpture I’ve spent most of my adult life working for other people in the arts. I’ve built stretchers for painters, worked for artist jewelers, and installed exhibitions in major art museums.
While I was working at the Harvard Art Museums I began carving jade and selling my jade jewelry and sculptures in galleries and at craft shows.
Eventually I had a big scare when the retina in my left eye tore and detached, and then the right one did exactly one month later. This gave me the impetus to stop what i was doing and devote my self full time to my art and business.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As a sculptor and jade carver my stock and trade is making three dimensional objects by hand.

I am more of an abstract artist than figurative. I don’t believe that art should be so literal and one-dimensional that I can say “This piece means (such and such.)”
Art objects should stand on their own and be able to insist on their own, more ancient and poetic, meaning that can’t easily be reduced to simplistic explanations.

I began selling my working work within a few years of beginning to carve jade, but wouldn’t say it has been easy to make it into a successful business. Each of my carvings is unique and hand made from start to finish. American culture doesn’t necessarily value jade or the time and skill needed to work jade. That said, there are always a few individuals who respond enthusiastically to my work. Putting my work online on Etsy has helped me reach a global audience, and as a result my work is now in collections from Hong Kong and Singapore to Geneva and London.

Money isn’t everything. In the end, I do what I do because I love the process of designing and making objects from beautiful and enchanting natural jade.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If a friend were visiting me here in the Boston area I would first take them to the Harvard Art Museums to show them the best collection of ancient Chinese jades in the western hemisphere, collected by Grenville Winthrop in the early 20th century. These jade carvings from 7000 year old Neolithic works through the early Han dynasty have to be seen to be believed,

Then, preferably on a cool day in the spring or fall, we’d visit the beaches on Plum Island north of Boston, Located within the Parker River Wildlife Sanctuary between salt marshes and the north Atlantic, these beaches are wild and beautiful.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have to give a shout out to art museums. I would not have the understanding and appreciation of true art can be if I hadn’t had the privilege of handling and installing great art in museums.
Thirty years of this daily experience of art from Neolithic Chinese jades to contemporary art have been an immense source of inspiration. These intimate encounters of handling art objects “up close and personal” informs my sense of what art can and should be.

Website: www.takingformjade.com

Instagram: takingformjadestudio

Other: Etsy- takingformjadestudio

Image Credits
Bill Kipp