Susan Peterson

Ceramicist
American, (1925–2009)

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Beyond her artistic production, few studio potters can claim the influence that Susan Peterson has had upon the field of postwar American ceramics. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Mills College in 1946 while working with F. Carlton Ball. Later, receiving her Master of Fine Arts from Alfred University in 1950. As a teacher, Peterson was instrumental in southern California at the Chouinard Art Institute and later the University of Southern California, where she remained teaching for twenty-threeyears. Beyond teaching, Peterson’s legacy is in her efforts to disseminate ceramics to the general public and document its history. She was the host of the influential educational television program Wheels, Kilns, and Clay, which was first broadcast in 1964. Petersonunderstood the influence Japanese and Native American ceramics shaped the development of ceramics in the western U.S. and wrote several key texts on the subject including Shōji Hamada: A Potter's Way and Work(1974), The Living Tradition of María Martinez (1977), and Lucy M. Lewis: American Indian Potter (1984).