Ronan Peterson
North Carolina

Stoneware with Slips and Glazes, Cone 10 Soda-fired
Functional
10.25"w x 5.25"d x 7.5"h

About the Teapot
All of my teapots for this show are a departure from my studio electric fired earthenware work.  I like exploring different temperatures and atmospheric firing to see how I can translate some of the textures, colors, and patterns with different circumstances and materials.

Artist Statement
Essentially, I am dealing with the effects of agents of growth and decay and how these agents shape and embellish the surfaces of stones and the skins of trees. These agents also serve key roles in interacting with my ceramic vessels. Mushrooms, seed pods, grubs, and other growths serve as knobs and handles, allowing one to remove lids and discover what might be inside or underneath a covered vessel, like lifting a rock to have insects scurry in many different directions when subjected to the light of day. The vessels are not intended to be actual representations of the trees and rocks but abstractions and stylizations of these natural phenomena. Employing an earthy background palette stretched across textured but quieter surfaces; I wanted to upset that quiet earthiness with intense splashes of vibrant color, patterns, and glossy surfaces not commonly associated with tree bark or the rough surfaces of rocks amidst fallen leaves. I am interested in inflated volume and thick line qualities referencing comic style drawings and how that can apply to interpreting the natural world. With my ceramic vessels, I hope to create a comic book interpretation of the natural world, focusing on the rocks and trees and their role in the perpetual organic comedy of growth and decay.

About Ronan
Ronan Kyle Peterson grew up in Poplar, NC, a small community deep in the mountains of western North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with a minor in Folklore.
Ronan currently maintains Nine Toes Pottery, a ceramics studio in Chapel Hill, NC, producing highly decorative and functional earthenware vessels. His work is drawn from processes of growth and decay in the natural world and translated into a ceramic comic book interpretation of both real and imagined phenomena.

*Teapots that are sold must remain on display in the gallery as part of the exhibit until the show closes on September 10, 2020.  After the show closes, teapots will be carefully packed and shipped by September 26 or available for pick-up at the gallery.