10/15/2026
🎉 Welcome to the Community Gallery CASA Artists! 🎉
We're so excited to celebrate 25 years of CASA! And don't forget to mark you calendars for the closing public reception on November 12 from 5:30 - 7pm in the Community Gallery.
Participating CASA Artists:
Mary Anne Begg
Maureen Burke
Christine Cowan
Kaitlyn Gehrels
Arka Ghosh
Natalie Jackson
Lucky Kim
Linda Lewis Lieberman
Nathan Moore
Michele Mullen
Isaac Rolf
Joy Sabl
Ruth Soseman
Lee Anne Willson
Norma Wolff
Lee Anne Willson, one of CASA’s founding members:
“Twenty-five years ago, a handful of individuals who had been taking clay classes and had reached the point of needing access to studio space formed a new non-profit, Creative Artists’ Studios of Ames (CASA) in order to qualify to rent space from a local church. On 01/01/01 the first artist moved into the space at 130 S. Sheldon Ave, and by summer 2001 the clay studios were up and running. Over time, the membership has grown to forty artists of whom about 30 are working in clay.
In most communities, artists are either still taking classes or they set up independent studios. CASA provides an intermediate step that allows more people to move beyond the stage of being a student while still having the support and mentorship of more advanced artists. The studios also allow our artists access to a wider range of equipment than most independent studios can support, and to space to teach classes or workshops. We also see a lot of inspiration circulating among our artists, and some interesting collaborations have resulted over the years.
A number of our artists have moved on to independent individual studios; others have remained to work with the less experienced members. Some of our potters’ work can be found at area restaurants including the Harbinger in Des Moines and Bar La Tosca in Ames. Our Fiber Arts Node is a relatively recent development welcoming all forms of fiber arts and including a library of origami materials.”
