St. Olaf College

Laura Bugarini Cota


Mexico
b. 1979
View objects by this artist.

Laura Bugarini Cota was born in Juan Mata Ortiz in 1979. She learned pottery from her mother, Guadalupe Cota, and started working with clay at the age of fourteen. Cota credits Juan Quezada as her inspiration, because she got interested in making pottery while working as a housekeeper in his home. Her first works were antique paquimé designs, which she sold to American tourists. Later, she would develop a unique style of decorating her pottery which has been called the Bugarini technique after her, and usually covers the pot in rings or geometric shapes.
Since 2006, Cota has been winning awards at the Concurso de Mata Ortiz competition, and in 2013 she received Best in Show at the Tlaqupaque show. That same year, she received the National Ceramic Award from the President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, as well as being nominated for the National Prize of Science and Art from the Instituto Chihuahuense de la Culture. She was the first woman from Chihuahua awarded with the Great National Prize of Popular Art in 2015, as well as being the first female ceramicist from Mata Ortiz to go into the hall of fame in Chihuahua. Cota is married to potter Hector Gallegos Jr., and continues to create pottery.

Madison Duran ‘20
March 2019

Sources:
Harris, Scott. “Laura Bugarini.” In the Eyes of the Pot, The House of ChaRuut,
www.eyesofthepot.com/mata-ortiz/laura_bugarini.htm.
“Laura Bugarini Cota.” Cactus Fine Art, www.cactusfineart.com/collections/laura-bugarini-cota.