About
Abbey Peters is currently based in Denver, CO and serves as the Phipps Visiting Professor of Ceramics at the University of Denver. She holds an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Iowa and a BFA from the University of Arkansas. Her work has been exhibited across the US and Canada in over forty group exhibitions, in addition to recent solo shows at Berea College, and UIHC Project Art.
Peters has received international research grants supporting projects on reproductive care, seed preservation, and beekeeping in London, UK. She has held technician and teaching roles at Anderson Ranch Arts Center (Snowmass Village, CO), Lillstreet Art Center (Chicago, IL) and Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA). Peters has been awarded residencies at laRex l’Atelier (St. Raphael, France), the inaugural CIRCA Exchange (Boulder, CO), Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), and the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT).
Referencing domestic spaces, decorative arts, and gardens, my work explores ideas of matrilineal knowledge, concealment, and preservation. I think about secrecy as a tool for survival and resistance, especially in the absence of formal systems of care. I build interactive ceramic forms that hide items commonly used by myself, and people back hundreds of years that may now or one day be illicit: contraceptives, abortifacient herbs, recipes, books, quilts, notes, seeds, etc. Layered floral patterns cover the sculptures, and utilize the usual dismissal of decoration and femininity throughout history to camouflage the contents in plain sight.
In this work, I am exploring decoration and pattern as an opportunity for hidden function – disguising compartments, drawers, or tools within the patterned surface as a coded form of communication. At its core, my work asks: How have women offered and received care, protected what they needed to survive, and how can those strategies be reimagined for today, or a distant tomorrow? Through the layered patterns and varied forms, I am reconsidering how decoration can function not as embellishment, but as a material language rooted in care, resistance, and survival.