Lenore Rae Lampi is a ceramic artist known for her sculptural and functional work. She went to the University of Minnesota, where she earned a BA in fine art and an MA in art education. Afterwards, she spent over twenty years teaching art in Virginia, Minnesota. Lampi is one hundred per cent Finnish heritage. Her best-known work is her birch bark motif series, which studies the movement and perception of tree bark, or “tree skin”, as she sometimes calls it. Lampi’s more recent series, Big Bling, explores ribbons, bows, and streamers. Both use clay as a starting point. Lampi’s work has been featured in a number of exhibitions around the world, in the United States as well as in Finland, Sweden, China, and Argentina. Lampi describes her relationship with art with a beautiful, resonating quote: “All art is about a certain type of love”.