Janna Carter's portfolio is organised under a single phrase: Fire & Light. Fire for the ceramics. Light for the photography. Two practices, one site, and a career that didn't really begin until disability ended the one she'd already built.
Carter holds a BFA in Graphic Design with a minor in Art History from Iowa State University, where she also explored painting, calligraphy, metalsmithing, and stained glass, and later earned an MFA in Integrated Design. She built a career as a designer and art director and taught design at the collegiate level. Then she became disabled and unable to continue working in her profession. Rather than stop making things, she reignited her photography practice and took her first ceramics class at 55. "As a studio artist I am now able to better manage my limitations by creating at my own pace," she writes.
That pace has taken her further than a hobbyist's. In 2023 she travelled to Italy for a ceramics masterclass; in 2024 she studied one-on-one with maestro Mara Funghi in Tuscany, then completed a porcelain masterclass back in the States. This August, she returns to Italy again to study crystalline glazes under José Mariscal. Her ceramic art and photography have both picked up recognition in national and international juried exhibitions across more than a dozen states, from California to Wyoming, and she's held solo exhibitions in Iowa and Colorado, with one coming up in Wyoming.
Her artist statement makes the throughline explicit: "Fire is essential to ceramics. Whether it's the high heat of an electric kiln or a bed of combustibles, fire is the maturation of an idea born of clay." Her ceramic objects move between wheel-thrown and hand-built forms, a practice she describes as never-ending in what it teaches her. Photography runs on the other element. "Light comes in many different forms that can be perceived in numerous ways. Understanding and manipulating light allows me to shape the mood, depth, and visual impact of my photos." Travel, especially those return trips to Italy, supplies subject matter for both halves of the practice at once: the history of a place, a cup of cappuccino with its own fine art camped inside it.
It's a portfolio that earns its dual billing rather than just claiming it, and it's a useful reminder that "creative" rarely means just one discipline. Carter's site keeps Ceramic Art and Photography as separate galleries with their own visual logic, joined by a single artist statement that explains why they belong to the same person.
Explore her work at jannacarter.com, or see how Portfoliobox handles multi-discipline portfolios in the features overview.
