Monique Péan on the Transformative Nature of Fossils, Rocks, and Meteorites

New York–based jewelry and object designer Monique Péan sees fossils and extraterrestrial materials as portals to another time, space, and place. Pyritized dinosaur bones, woolly mammoth tooth roots, meteorites, and lunaites are among her work’s mediums. She sources these from remote locations—including the Arctic Circle, where she located fossils with Native Alaskan Inupiat and Yupik tribes, and on Easter Island, where that site’s aboriginal Polynesian inhabitants helped her hand-carve cosmic obsidian, found on local terrain—and then transforms them into striking, sculptural works of art. 

Recently, Péan began working on a larger scale, expanding her practice to sculpture and furniture. One of her first pieces in this vein, a bronze vessel incorporating part of a rare meteorite, is included in “Objects: USA 2020,” a forthcoming exhibition at New York’s R & Company gallery (now opening on February 16, 2021, due to the Covid-19 pandemic), curated by Glenn Adamson, Abby Bangser, Evan Snyderman, and James Zemaitis. Péan wants viewers to experience the wonder she feels when holding a piece of the universe in her hands: a transportive, calming energy that signals the vastness of deep time—and illuminates her role in harnessing it. 

Péan traces her draw toward these specimens to her younger sister, Vanessa, who died in a car accident at age 16. The loss prompted her, then in her mid-20s (she is now 39), to approach life with urgency and intention. She quit her job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs and, a year later, in 2006, launched her eponymous jewelry line. Each piece is, in a way, a memorial to her only sibling. They’re also a means for the designer to explore the origins of life, and to express not only herself but also gratitude toward the planet: Péan donates a portion of the proceeds from every accessory sold to Charity: Water, a nonprofit that provides clean drinking water to communities in need, and avoids using materials that require mining, opting for antique diamonds and recycled gold or platinum instead. The ancient materials she uses are found lying on the Earth’s surface, collected by simply picking them up off of the ground, and in Péan’s hands, they’re turned into wearable reminders of natural phenomena.

On this episode, Péan details how she came to understand time through geology, talking with Spencer about her fascination with fossils, rocks, and meteorites; her profound experiences working with indigenous peoples to locate age-old materials; how her Haitian-Jewish background has shaped her worldview; and the ways in which her jewelry pays tribute to her late sister.