In the Gallery
You Deserve Your Flowers
Opening Celebration, May 17th 4-7PM
On view until September 19th
Healing comes in a multitude of ways through spirituality, action, listening and engaging with complexity. Although these journeys are different for everyone, healing is the response to adversity all while redefining what normal is. Through thoughtful intention and presence, understanding oneself aids in building stronger connections to each other. During a time of immense social-political violence against people of color, women, disabled and LGBTQIA+ communities, this exhibition offers a place of respite and recognition. With access to information becoming less available, it is the voices of marginalized communities that need to be protected now more than ever. In solidarity and celebration, our communal growth needs to be prioritized. Through all the labor of healing, we must pause and reflect on how far we’ve come and how many possibilities are still open to us through our continued efforts.
While the world has been unkind to so many, through the exemplary work of artists such as Laura Casas, Isissa Komada-John, S.Lantz, Vanna Ramirez, Sam Shamard, Viv Siqueiros, and Alexis Tellefsen; this exhibition celebrates artists who use their practices to process, find their voices, and uplift themselves and their communities. Realized through their journey, we are supplied with profound narratives celebrating the nuances of our experiences and finding that we grow closer when we trade anxiety for creativity.
Through the lens of contemporary ceramics, “You Deserve Your Flowers” features emerging artists of color exploring themes of identity and healing. Acknowledging the labor that goes into healing; confronting hardship, uncertainty and melancholy is only an aspect of their journey. While working in their studios, these artists are embracing their authenticity and honoring their communities. This exhibition is meant to celebrate the catalyzing nature of these artists whose works deserve “flowers” for their vulnerability and bravery.
About the curator
Lena Chin (she/her):
Lena Chin is a first-generation Ecuadorian-Chinese artist and curator based in New York’s Hudson Valley. Bridging her biracial heritage with a focus on material storytelling. Chin’s practice spans ceramics, exhibition-making, and critical dialogue. She holds a BFA in Ceramics from SUNY New Paltz and is pursuing an MA in Museum Studies, deepening her commitment to reimagining institutional narratives and amplifying intersectional voices. In 2025, she was awarded the Helene Zucker Seeman Curatorial, Research, and Critical Writing Fellowship for Women by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA), recognizing her innovative approach to bridging art, community, and critical theory.
Chin’s studio work is a vibrant exploration of identity, belonging, and play through the lens of a biracial artist. Her ceramic pieces interrogate the nuances of expression through designs using bold lines, dynamic colors, and form colliding to encourage investigation. Contrasting surfaces against form, these sites of joyful experimentation converge personal heritage with communal narratives. Chin invites viewers to create connections by searching and knowing, holding multiple truths at once.
Meet the Artists
Laura Casas (she/her):
Laura Caroline Casas is a potter and illustrator from Columbia, NC. She graduated from Western Carolina University in 2018 with a BFA in Studio Art. Laura was the 2019 Women’s Studio Workshop Chili Bowl Intern. She now lives and works out of a home studio in Youngsville, NC, with her husband, Mason, and family of cats. Laura is the Clay Studio Coordinator at the Pullen Arts Center in Raleigh, NC.
Instagram:@casas.studios | lauracarolinecasas.com
Isissa Komada-John (she/they):
Isissa Komada-John (b. 1988, New York, NY) is a mixed, Afro-Caribbean artist and designer, raised in Brooklyn and Queens. Working primarily in clay and on paper, her work explores hybridity and the in-between. Her functional and sculptural ritual vessels serve to encourage contemplative practice and support personal and collective liberation. Isissa enjoys practices that support presence and healing, and has been a student of Buddhism for over ten years. She currently makes art and home on unceded Cherokee land in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
Isissa is a recipient of fellowships from the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (Multicultural Fellowship), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Windgate University Fellowship), and The Color Network. Her work has been exhibited nationally at the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati, OH), Shaw Center for the Arts (Baton Rouge, LA), Benedicta Arts Center (St. Joseph, MN), and Antler Gallery (Portland, OR). She has been awarded grants and scholarships from Artists’ Literacies Institute and the Penland School of Craft. She was a 2022 artist-in-residence at Township 10. She holds an A.B. in Africana Studies from Brown University.
Instagram: @isissa | isissakomadajohn.com
S. Lantz (they/them):
S. Lantz is an artist primarily working in ceramics. They are pursuing an MFA in Ceramics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and are the Administrator for The Color Network. S. Lantz has exhibited in Seattle, nationally, and abroad. They graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington, Seattle. S. Lantz investigates expressions of care, intimacy, and identity. Ceramic forms graft visual and technical languages of tattoos, piercings, and adornment with communication of
individual and collective identity to self and others. In this work, they grapple with explicit or encoded identities, contact, care, context, liminality, and identity. Themes of celebration and mourning, expressions of ownership of self and body, the ownership and telling of stories and histories, surface in this work.
Instagram: @s.l.a.n.t.z | augustlantz.com
Vanna Ramirez (she/her):
Vanna Ramirez is a Baltimore-based artist working in clay, exploring the intersections of sculptural and functional ceramics. Her work pushes the possibilities of the material, blending technical expertise with creative experimentation. She holds a BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College and has expanded her practice through the Special Student Program at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, workshops at Penland School of Craft and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and NCECA’s Multicultural Fellowship. Her residencies include Red Lodge Clay Center, Arquetopia, and Baltimore Clayworks.
As the founder of Vanna’s Studio LLC, her first independent business, Vanna is building a sustainable creative practice rooted in community engagement and artistic exploration. In addition to her studio work, she is a sales associate at the Baltimore Museum of Art Shop, where her ceramics are also available for purchase.
Sam Shamard (she/hers):
Sam Shamard is a mixed Mexican American artist from Austin, Texas. She received her MFA at Clemson University, in Clemson, South Carolina, and her BFA in Art Education at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Sam was a 2023 Penland Winter Fellow, and her work has been exhibited widely in galleries and museums across the country. She most recently has exhibited with the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin, Texas, and the American Museum of Ceramic Arts in Pomona, California. She is a faculty and Art Education Program Coordinator at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, Texas.
Instagram: @sam_shamard | samshamard.com
Viv Siqueiros (they/them):
Drawn to making socially interactive sculptures, Viv siqueiros plays with familial memory, queer identity, and clay kinship. Working in clay studios since their adolescence, siqueiros traces years of mentorship and sustained practice within their work. Siqueiros studies ceramics within and beyond art institutions, finding connections in and working towards collective spaces. Currently residing as a guest on Nisenan Land, commonly known as Sacramento, siqueiros has found grounding in reconnection to earth and body through communal farming.
Instagram: @viv.ceramics
Alexis Tellefsen (she/her):
As a production potter and designer of functional wares the majority of my studio time is spent making work that is meant to be used. In a world where there is a clear focus towards consuming less, usefulness and purpose are qualities that I value and apply to my work. I believe that daily objects can and should be beautiful. And whenever possible, they should bring joy.
Tellefsen Atelier is my line of small batch, wheel-thrown ceramics. It is a business and a job but it is also an experiment in living life on my own terms. Of independence and curiosity. Of successes and failures. It’s an expression of myself and a lesson in becoming.
Instagram: @tellefsenatelier | tellefsenatelier.com