About The Artist

Leila Humphreys

In order to describe my art and me as an artist, I would like to share a little bit of my background. I was born in northern Spain. My mother is a Spaniard from Aragon, Spain, and my father a Francophone from northern Morocco. I grew up in both countries and was exposed to both the Spanish and Middle Eastern language, culture, and traditions. During my high School years, I attended the School of Applied Arts in Zaragoza, Spain, where I learned acrylic and oil painting, drawing, metal forging, and alabaster carving

After moving to the United States, I graduated from the University of North Texas with both an Undergraduate and Master in French with a minor in Spanish. Post-graduation, I taught foreign language at the high school level. I left teaching after 16 years to pursue my love for the arts. My curiosity for pottery started when I signed up for ceramic courses at a local art center. I immediately fell in love with the art of ceramics, and to further my techniques I decided to build a small ceramic studio in my backyard where I spend most of my days creating.

My artistic creativity and inspirations are a blend of my Spanish and Moorish roots. I take the historical aspect of the culture and create a present-day artistic concept. Some of my artistic visions are inspired from Spanish artists like Velazquez’s “Las Meninas” painting, Gaudi’s colorful mosaic patterns, and the Moorish artistic geometrical pattern approach. A large percentage of my pieces are hand built. I fell in love with hand building because unlike painting, ceramics gave me the ability to produce images in a three-dimensional form. Through this technique I can bring all my visions to life.