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March Issue 2010
NC Museum of
Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, Features Works by Ronan Peterson
The NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, will present the exhibit, Stumps and Stones, featuring clay works by Ronan Peterson, on view in the Nature Art Gallery, from Mar. 5 - 28, 2010.
Peterson, owner of Nine Toes Pottery, a ceramics studio in Chapel Hill, NC, produces highly decorative and functional earthenware vessels. This exhibit was inspired by the processes of growth and decay in the natural world and reinterpreted into whimsical forms reminiscent of comic book art.
Growing up in the North Carolina mountain community of Poplar, Peterson says he was exposed to all the seasons of the southern Appalachians. At the same time he buried his head in the comic books collected by his father. "My childhood was a mixture of color and fantasy, filled with super heroes and alien beings, and the lushness of the rhododendron that filled the mountains," says Peterson. "I spent hours leafing through comics, imagining worlds within worlds and encountering alternate universes and secret wars, all the while cicadas were singing and shedding their skin and whirring into the night air."
All these influences are evident in his work in the way he combines the natural with the fantastical. He abstracts budding leaves and lichen bark for example, magnifying some aspects and diminishing others into an assemblage worthy of contemplation. "Through my ceramic objects, I hope to relay a narrative of the natural world, focusing on the overwhelming visual and tactile information that seduces and causes me to wonder."
Peterson opened Nine Toes Pottery in 2003 and has maintained a rigorous show schedule since showing all over the Southeast. Locally, he has shown at Artspace, Cedar Creek Gallery, Lee Hansley Gallery, Potters Market Invitational at Charlotte's Mint Museum and Blue Spiral 1 in Asheville. In addition to showing and selling his work he teaches adult classes at Claymakers and the Durham Arts Council in Durham, Jordan Hall Arts Center in Cary, Pullen Arts Center in Raleigh and the Artscenter in Carrboro.
Peterson's work is included in permanent collections of the NC Pottery Center in Seagrove and the Gov. Morehead School in Raleigh. His work has also been featured in both Ceramics Monthly and Clay Times and the books 500 Bowls and 500 Plates and Chargers, both published by Lark Books.
Peterson earned a BA in Anthropology with a Folklore minor from UNC-Chapel Hill. His interest in Folklore led him to the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, where he began studying ceramics. He worked in the Asheville area for two years making pottery before deciding to further his studies at the Penland School.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences documents and interprets natural history of the state of North Carolina through exhibits, research, collections, publications and educational programming.
For further information
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery
at 919/733-7450, ext. 369 or visit (www.naturalsciences.org/museum-store/nature-art-gallery).
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