“Nope” mug by artist Cat Viera.

Cat Viera completed an AA and AFA in Visual Arts from Coastal Carolina Community College and graduated with a BFA in Ceramics and a Minor in Psychology from East Carolina University. Cat served in officer roles on the Board of Directors for the Arts Council of Jacksonville-Onslow. Before moving to Seagrove, she taught art classes and hosted open studio nights for a military healing arts program. She is the Ceramics Artist in Residence 2022-2023 at the North Carolina Pottery Center, a registered yoga teacher, an award-winning artist, and tattooed professionally for 13 years. Her journey into the clay community has been a catalyst for healing; and letting go of attachments to the past and future. By combining yogic meditations with the intimacy of tattooing, she expresses the joy of being present when making ceramics. Cat’s pottery borrows elements of tattoo designs and freehand techniques to explore use of space. While Cat utilizes electric kilns for controlling the outcome of underglaze work, she enjoys atmospheric firings with wood, salt and soda, delighting in unexpected discoveries that result from finding a balance between effort and ease. Originally a New Englander, she loves a wicked good story, seafood dinners, haunted houses. Cat enjoys drinking coffee at the beach, walking and reading at the same time, goofing off with her daughter, and borrowing people’s dogs.