Born in Latvia, Ligita and her parents immigrated to Canada in 1950 and spent the first winter in a three room log cabin in a small mining town in Manitoba. The family soon moved to Hamilton, Ontario where she grew up, was educated, taught school and met her husband to be. The young couple spent 1½ years in Pasedena, California where her husband Janis continued his post doctoral studies at Cal. Tech.

Ligita has been interested in pottery since attending an evening pottery class in a West Covina High School in California in 1972. In 1973, upon arriving in Deep River with her husband to live and raise a family of three daughters, she was extremely happy to find that there was a potters club to join and did so almost immediately. Like most potters in Deep River she is self taught, with a little bit of help from her friends and a yearly, weekend workshop with a professional potter.

As time passed and skills improved, she along with eleven other brave and crafty artisans decided that the time had come for Deep River to have a permanent Art and Craft Shop. In the spring of 1987, From The Valley Artisans’ Co-operative Inc. came into being with Ligita as one of the founding members.

Ligita works primarily in stoneware, firing to cone 6 in an electric kiln. She has her workshop at her home, but remains involved with the potters’ club, now known as the Deep River Potters’ Guild, to teach new members, share ideas, and participate in workshops. She belongs to Fusion, an Ontario association for clay and glass artists and continually updates her knowledge by attending weekend and weeklong summer courses at Canadore College in North Bay and other summer arts programs.

Her work is mainly functional, with careful attention to line function and finish. Her pots are classic in styling, with delicate fluid brushwork usually in blues on white. Lately, she has begun to carve gently curving floral-like patterns into leather hard clay which she glazes in deep blue, green or raspberry tones in a transparent glaze that breaks over the ridges of her carved decoration. For a change, usually during the winter months, she creates original designs in stained glass, including window panels.