Laura Caroline Casas is a Mexican-American potter, illustrator and crafts educator from Columbia, NC; just a little inland from the outer banks. She graduated from Western Carolina University in 2018 with a BFA in Studio Art. Her professional practice, Casas Studios, began after moving to Raleigh, NC in 2020. Laura now lives and works from her home studio in Youngsville, NC with her husband, Mason and family of cats. She is the Clay Studio Coordinator for the Town of Wake Forest.
My pottery is hand-built from red clay; pinched, coiled and decorated with an array of colored slips and underglazes. I aim to create wares that resonate with the user all while expressing my inherited cultural memory through narrative and latent energies; incorporating kitschy motifs and embracing girlhood with graphic lines and anamorphic characters. I acknowledge not only my own identity as a contemporary latine individual with an illustration style influenced by 90s + early 2000 animation but engage with the history of my Mexican heritage through form, clay, color and techniques. Through clay, I stay connected to my ancestry and culture while defining my own identity.