About James Lamar Peterson

Peterson's display of appealingly individual birds have become so popular they may well supplant the more traditional garden gnomish kitsch in Australia's suburban porches and backyards.

Popular appeal need not be a deterrent to an appreciation of these ceramic forms which have a fairly straightforward ingenuous quality.  Hand building techniques reveal moments of delicate and endearing personality expressed through what might be a simple turn of the head or twist of the body.

The formative shaping and decorative scoring on each piece display great freedom and fluency  Peterson handles clay very well, fortunately with more expressive vigour than excessive technique.  He is not a potter, but a fluent and expressive modeller.

Technically, this is clay work almost at its simplest. Peterson states that each piece is made by rolling out thin sheets of clay, and wrapping them around wads of paper. The shape is then teased out by pinching, pulling and adding torn pieces of clay where necessary.  After bisque firing the pieces are painted with a white slip and decorated with glazes, oxides and colours before their final low temperature firing.

Resting, watchful, caring or challenging - however it may be, Peterson's creations have the capacity to involve the viewer at a range of levels and it is easy to agree with his summation that the work is ultimately about vulnerability and fragility in nature.
(extract by Jeff Shaw from "Arts" Courier Mail)