OUr 2026 Theme: Clay Colorama!
"Clay Colorama!" - Celebrating the use of color and transformative power of clay to create vivid, dynamic, and visually expressive ceramics! Whether you’re a college student, a professional, or a passionate pottery enthusiast, this is your chance to deepen your skills and expand your vision. Join us as we explore Clay Colorama with an inspiring lineup of artists who will share their techniques, insights, and creativity. Don’t miss it!
This year’s conference will follow the format of past gatherings, featuring two full days of demonstrating artists alongside multiple speakers. Three demonstrators will work side by side, engaging with the audience, answering questions, and exchanging ideas with one another. Interspersed throughout the program, additional speakers will share their techniques and insights, all tied to the conference theme.
Demonstrating Artists
Laura caroline casas (youngsville, NC)
Laura Caroline Casas is a Mexican-American potter, illustrator and crafts educator. She grew up in Columbia, NC and received her BFA in Studio Art from Western Carolina University.
As a culturally mixed individual, it is important for Laura to make work that unifies her multiple upbringings. Laura’s pottery is handbuilt from red clay; pinched, coiled and decorated with an array of colored slips and underglazes. Through color, narrative and technique - she is able to define her own identity as a contemporary Mexican-American woman.
In addition to teaching, Laura operates her creative practice, Casas Studios, from her home-studio in Youngsville, NC. She is Clay Studio Coordinator for The Wake Forest Renaissance Center.
Website: Laura Caroline Casas
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram (@casas.studios), Tiktok (@casas.studios)
Carol Long (St. John, Ks)
Carol Long is a Kansas-born ceramic artist whose work is inspired by plant and animal life. She studied ceramics at Barton County Community College under Glenda Taylor, Linda Ganstrom, and Steve Dudek, building on her early interest sparked by high school teacher Sheldon Ganstrom.
Her pottery is characterized by joy, whimsy, and beauty, qualities she continues to explore through evolving forms and surfaces. Influenced by both historical ceramics and contemporary makers, Carol creates pieces that celebrate the natural world around her.
Her work is represented by Plinth Gallery in Denver, CO, Charlie Cummings Gallery in Gainesville, FL, Karg Art Glass in Kechi, KS, and The Filley Art Museum in Pratt, KS. She also presents workshops across the United States.
Website: Carol Long Pottery
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram (@carollongpottery)
scott jones (Grimesland, NC)
Scott Jones is from Northwest Ohio. He received his BFA from Bowling Green State University and an MFA in Studio Arts from Wichita State University, with an emphasis on ceramics and printmaking.
Scott has completed residencies at the North Carolina Pottery Center and Starworks. Most recently, Scott launched his own business developing hydrographic ceramic glazes.
Scott Jones’s work is a response to the malleable nature of clay. Through it, he creates a space for introspection that questions his relationship to conformity. From crumpled slabs to carefully joined vessels, he engages the material in a way that values its unpredictability and its structural logic. The expressive presence of his forms invites reflection, offering valuable insight into individuality, irregularity, and the dynamics of presence and awareness.
Website: Scott Jones Art
Social Media: Instagram (@sj_ceramics)
Speakers
dean mcraine (Kapaa, HI)
Dean McRaine, the self-taught artist behind LightWave Pottery in Kapaa, Hawaii, draws inspiration from the island’s tropical beauty to create vibrant and uplifting ceramic art. With 35 years of experience, he specializes in vivid colors and intricate patterns achieved through innovative colored clay techniques.
His signature technique fuses ceramic stains into white porcelain, creating a full spectrum of colored clays. He stacks, blends, extrudes, and slices the clay to reveal psychedelic designs within the body—not just on the surface.
For the past 15 years, Dean’s major interest has been the vivid colors and rich patterns that can be made with colored clay. His goal as an artist is is to create work that is beautiful and uplifting and brings joy to those who see it.
Website: Lightwave Pottery
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram (@lightwavepottery)
Lily Lund (scandia, mn)
Lily is a ceramicist from Minnesota who makes slab built pottery out of her own black porcelain clay body. Using impasto mark making she uses slips, underglazes, and glazes to create her abstract paintings upon her surfaces. She refers to her work as “organized maximalist chaos” as she is always ingesting the world, the people and everything in between. Her heavily decorated surfaces are her way of communicating how she perceives everything she experiences.
She recently has been gravitating to creating paintings that are combining illustrations, 3D mini sculptures and her impasto painting method. Lily graduated from the University of Wisconsin Stout as a Ceramics Studio Arts major and was awarded residences in Syracuse New York and Red Lodge Montana.
Lily assisted Linda Christianson during her workshop at Adamah Clay in 2019 and was named Ceramic Monthly’s Emerging Artist in 2020. She was also a part of the Austin Texas Art Crawl and most recently was a presenter at Clay Con West 2025. She has shown her work throughout the USA, Australia, London, and Germany and has worked with Companion Gallery, Clay Akar, Northern Clay Center, and Carbondale Clay Center.
Website: Lily Lund Ceramics
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram (@lilylundceramics)
andrew clark (jackson, tn)
Andrew Clark is a ceramic artist and teacher living in Jackson, Tennessee. He began working with clay in 2007 and graduated from Union University with a BFA in ceramics in 2014. Andrew is gallery manager at Companion Gallery, which is a contemporary ceramics gallery representing over 60 artists. He also teaches at East Mitchell Clay, a community studio that offers membership and weekly classes to around 50 students.
Andrew makes functional pottery influenced by machinery and engineering, and aims to make functional pottery that features a mechanized process. Terra sigillata and underglaze allows him to put moving parts into his work.
“Bright contrasting colors separate the layers I create which is similar to schematic drawings separating each part of the machine through color. Through the process of problem solving I seek to find a combination of a simple functional vessel and a complex machine.”
Website: Andrew Clark Pottery
Social Media: Facebook, Instagram (@andclark), TikTok (@andclark)