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

Hi Rachel, what role has risk played in your life or career?
As an artist, my life has been full of risks. Pursuing art as a career was a risk! I’ve been in the animation industry for twenty-one years and I spent many of those years saving up and taking breaks to try out entrepreneurial endeavors, take time to create art for myself, and develop original series to pitch. I became a busker for a while! At twenty-nine I discovered a Greyhound bus pass that would allow me to get on and off anywhere in North America for two months and I took it as a vlogging challenge. As an artist, TV-maker, actor, and a busker I knew a wide variety of people around the continent so I just travelled and experienced – posted it to YouTube (but the last bit of footage got lost, so it ended a bit unceremoniously). None of these things made me money, but they were invaluable to me as an artist.
I have a lot of colleagues who got animation work out of college, kept their heads down, and have done one job for the past twenty years. Part of me envies them because, you know, they own their home and they’ve moved up the ladder. But I wouldn’t be who I am or have the experiences to draw on as an artist and a creator if I hadn’t adventured my way through life!
Taking a risk could mean falling on your face (which I’ve done a lot). But without risk, you’ll never do anything great. Take ten risks and you may fall on you face nine times. But that one success could change the trajectory of everything!
This is the problem with Hollywood and TV right now. Executives everywhere are desperately holding onto their jobs because they see their old broadcast system is drowning. They’re terrified to make any wrong move so they make no moves at all. They are sealing their fate by not greenlighting anything but reboot after reboot. The industry will move on and evolve without them – people want new experiences and that requires someone taking a risk to create it.

Personally, I am currently in the middle of some big entertainment risks, but not necessarily by choice. Right now I’d have loved to keep my head down and do one job, but the trend of these dingus execs not greenlighting anything has rippled through the entire global entertainment industry and I’ve been forced to take some leaps. You either leap or your drown and I’m not willing to give up on creating meaningful art and entertainment.

So, to answer your question, risk has played a very large role in my career and my life. I would not be me without it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am an interdisciplinary artist who does a variety of things across many mediums, but since I was a child cartoons and TV were a huge passion. It was the thing I knew I would grow up to do. I’ve worked hard in my field, but I can never shake needing to create outside of my day job. I consider myself more of a sculptor and builder than a painter, and although I don’t have ADHD I feel as though my artwork does. I hate to do the same thing over and over again. I’m easily bored. I may get stuck on a theme for years, but the work itself has to be in a constant state of experiment and evolution to keep me interested. For some reason I’ve never really pushed my fine art into public realms. I’d love for my work to be seen in galleries, but it’s also the only thing I do that I don’t do commercially. I create for me and I do it in between my day job (which is also art), so there are dry seasons in my fine art. I suppose my fine art is the one precious thing I don’t have to market and sell or have any expectations placed on me, and if I ever felt that kind of pressure I’d have nothing left just for myself.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My husband, Brad Ferguson deserves a shoutout. We met as animators on our very first TV series, Peep and the Big Wide World in 2006. Jobs came and went but we remained close friends. He became a great TV director. I was off adventuring. 17 years later life brough us back around to each other and we started dating. Last year we got married.
Brad discovered his greatest passion in 2017 when he became director and coordinator of the animation program at a small private college in Toronto. He realized he wanted to start his own school and he took the leap in 2022 with Upchuckle Education!

https://upchuckle.com/

The big dream is to evolve into Ferguson College of Art and Entertainment, but right now Upchuckle Education provides art and animation workshops for adults, teens, and kids, art camps, portfolio consulting, private lessons, corporate and charitable events… Brad Ferguson has done so much four our community through Upchuckle and it’s inspiring.

Website: https://www.rachelpeters.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachelpetersartist/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelcpeters/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rachelcpeters

Image Credits
Photo credits have been lost over the years. Apologies.

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