Larry served as the Gallery Director for the Fine Arts gallery, and the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.  He retired in 2003 as Gallery Director Emeritus, and is now concentrating on his own studio work.

on the ceramic work

Trish Nixon: Does the ceramic work reference that of the ancient Japanese tomb mounds you refer to in one of your earlier statements?  

Larry Peters: Yes, the "Grave Marker" group of works refers to the Japanese "Haniwa" of the ancient tomb mounds.

TN: “Black Marker” I assume is referencing the ancient Kofun burial mounds. What do the two holes represent in the center of the slab-like form?

LP: "Black Marker" is just a title and has no specific reference and the holes are just to break up the surface and have no specific reference either.

TN: What other symbols or meaning should one look for in this body of work?

LP: "Markers" may mark any significant event, point in one’s life. They might also be a sort of guardian.

TN: Are there any craft or art movements that you are influenced by…any artists?

LP: A great deal of my clay work has been influenced by past Chinese and Japanese functional pottery. Even with the sculptural pieces I have kept the use of the potter’s wheel and the making of the vessel-like forms.

Even if it is not easily evident, I have been influenced by my first instructor in college, Jack Wright. I have also been influenced by people such as Peter Voulkos, Ken Ferguson, Byron Temple, and Toshiko Takaezu.

People that have had some influence upon my two-dimensional work (collage) are Cy Twombly, Antoni Tapies, Robert Motherwell, Anselm Kiefer and an early instructor, Jim Hunt.

on the Holocaust collages

TN: Recently, I found a reference to some of your influences for your collages—-Anselm Kiefer, Antoni Tapies, and Robert Motherwell which I can see immediately (looking at Remains 2). Are the collages an on-going project? If so, do they take a new direction?

LP: Yes, collage is an on-going medium for me and they have taken on a new direction for a group of small works that have been titled the "French Bedroom or French Panties" series.

TN: Is it safe to assume that the focus on representing ghettos, extermination and work camps mirror what’s currently happening in other cultures throughout the world?

LP: Yes, these sorts of things are still happening around the world.

TN: Is there anything you want the viewer to get after observing the work?

LP: The world is not perfect and will not be and of course, I do not want to see the "Holocaust" forgotten.

TN: Intense, sad, real, and eye-opening seem to be appropriate descriptors of the “Holocaust” series. Do you want visitors to view the series as a memorial or more as a reminder?

LP: I hope more as a reminder, however, viewers may see the work as a memorial and that is quite alright. I started the work as a release from my readings on the subject. I had a question that I could not answer and that was about what would I have been and done if I had been born earlier and in Germany. My ancestry is almost all German.

Compiled from a recent email interview between artist Larry Peters and Associate Curator Trish Nixon