Peter Powning

Peter Powning is a Canadian artist and sculptor working in ceramics, metals, and glass. Since 1970, he has explored a wide range of artistic forms while working concurrently as an activist and arts advocate.

Life and work

Powning was born in 1949, in Providence, Rhode Island. He grew up in Bristol, Connecticut, and attended the University of Connecticut, where his studies included ceramics and sculpture.

In 1968, Peter met Beth Powning through mutual friends in New York City, and they were married the following year at Beth's parents farm in rural Connecticut. In 1970 the pair relocated to rural New Brunswick, Canada, They bought an 1870s farmhouse near the town of Sussex, where they still reside, and Peter built his first studio in a converted grain shed.

In the mid-1970s, the Pownings began a sojourn in Europe, and in 1976 Peter enrolled at the Croyden College of Design and Technology in London. There, he expanded his artistic scope through the study of techniques such as mould casting, slip screening and photo silk-screening, and was exposed to new ideas in the pottery field. In 1977, he showed his work at the Warehouse Gallery in London, and, following the Pownings’ return to Canada, he began to hold solo exhibitions at galleries in New Brunswick, all the while experimenting with new techniques and materials. His first Canada Council grant supported a sculptural project with integrated voice and sound recording elements. Some of the sculptures later went to the National Sound Symposium in Newfoundland. By the 1990s, Powning's work expanded to include cast bronze, steel, slumped and cast glass, and clay.

In addition to an increased focus on public sculpture commissions, Powning's more recent work has included experiments with breaking and reassembling of porcelain—a variation of the Japanese kintsugi technique—and images of altered books (in the ocean, baked, terra-formed). In conjunction with the exhibition, the book Peter Powning: A Retrospective was published by Goose Lane Editions.

Peter Powning was granted an honorary doctorate by the University of New Brunswick in 2014 and is the recipient of 2017 Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts and the 2006 Saidye Bronfman Award, which is part of the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts

Activism and advocacy Running parallel to Powning's life of artistic production and has been his activities in promoting the arts and artists in his region. Soon after his arrival in Canada in 1970, he began building a network of associations with local artists and craftspeople. He attended his first New Brunswick Craftsmen's Council (now known as Craft NB) meeting in the fall of 1972.