David Peters – Red Lodge Clay Center

David PetersHelena, Montana

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David Peters was born and raised in Amarillo Texas. The son of a wood-shop and earth science teachers, he was curious about the natural world and made things at a young age. He went on earned his bachelors of art from Utah State University. While an artist in resident at the Archie Bray Foundation, David began using locally sourced materials for his work. During graduate work at Montana State University he researched and refined his unique approach to wood-firing through kiln design and experiments with CAD. He has returned to Helena Montana where he is a full time artist.

My perpetual instinct is to return to the earliest principle of ceramics, the forming and heating of clay. For me this means clay mined directly from the earth and heat produced from burning wood. This is simple in idea, but not in application. Natural materials and their transformations are inexplicably complex. I welcome this character, for with chaos comes serendipity. I create conditions that I judge likely to cause the desirable to happen. My art is to pay attention, to discover, to harvest the beautiful, and absorb the disappointment.