Andrea Garcia

Andrea Garcia is a New Orleans based ceramic sorceress by day and cocktail conjurer by night. Having found her passion for clay years ago, she carved her own educational path, apprenticing with clay professionals in New Orleans including potter Kate Tonguis, sculptor Susan Bergman, and most recently ceramist Rachael DePauw with whom she won the 2020 Studio Potter Grant for Apprenticeship.  She’s been awarded a number of scholarships and residencies throughout the country, including Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, and the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in New Castle, Maine.

This 2023 NCECA Multi Cultural Fellow currently has work at Companion Gallery in Humboldt, Tennessee, where she has been included in several of their invitational shows including “Material Mugs IX” and “Last Call IX”.

Born to “The City that Care Forgot”, she represents both her city and herself in her work, communicating through a visual vocabulary of New Orleans iconography, stories of resilience and celebration, inviting viewers to confront and transform pain into wisdom. Built with a combination of thrown and handbuilt elements, her work is deceptively ornamental, yet surprisingly functional sculpture that memorializes moments of grief.  Using decorative techniques including slip trailing and image transfers, she incorporates architectural influences with rough brick textures and the slick patterning of iron work.

Most recently winning the 2024 Individual Artists Career Opportunity Grant through SouthArts Organization, she is also an awardee of the National Performance Networks 2022 Take Notice Fund, honoring artists and culture bearers of color in Louisiana. You can find Andrea teaching classes at the Clay Center of New Orleans or fervently sculpting flower petals in her studio.