Peter Karner is a full-time potter based in Denver, Colorado. He produces six bodies of work each year, with every collection allowing him to explore fresh ideas and refine existing concepts. As a studio potter, Peter is primarily focused on form, functionality, decoration, and firing. For him, a piece is truly successful only when all these elements come together harmoniously.
Unlike most other media, high-fire reduction pottery presents numerous variables that are not fully within the artist's control. Over the past eight years, Peter has worked with the same glazes and firing techniques. During this time, he has opened kilns to both treasure and disappointment. Although this process can be frustrating, the challenge of creating strong, functional forms with distinctive, sophisticated glazes motivates him to learn from both success and failure. Peter believes that repetition is key to resolving design elements, such as the size of a foot or whether a form works better squat or tall, and how glaze and decoration complement various forms. Ironically, it is through repetition that pieces begin to embody an unstudied, organic quality. Despite the many unsuccessful pots that result from this process, he finds that working in series over extended periods has fostered significant personal and artistic growth.
Peter draws inspiration from a variety of sources. His primary inspiration comes from pots—both contemporary and historical—that have caught his attention. A visit to the ceramic collection at the Freer Gallery in Washington, DC, was a particularly influential experience. Holding pots from different centuries and styles, he came away with the clear understanding that successful pieces share an essence: a sense of the maker's hand and spirit. To Peter, this same essence is mirrored in the natural world. The flowers, mountain peaks, ridgelines, trees, and cloud formations near his home in southwest Colorado embody this quality to the fullest. Additionally, Peter is deeply influenced by the designs in textiles and the fluid movement of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy. Ultimately, he strives to infuse every piece he creates with the fluidity and grace drawn from these diverse sources of inspiration.