“TWO TOURS are never the same,” Carla Astaphan says of her job as narrator on St. Kitts aptly named Scenic Railway. This fact is largely thanks to Dominican-born Carla’s talent for literally changing up the script. Everything from poetry excerpts to local folklore stories and an in-depth knowledge of Kalinago history weave their way into her engaging train commentary, which she’s been doing for almost two decades.
The natural-born storyteller – and former contributor to our very own Visitor Magazine – is a wearer of many hats, juggling her Sales Associate role at Oualie Realty with making pottery. Many of her signature ceramic motifs, like the Dancing Sugar Cane pay tribute to the island, and more specifically – in the case of her sugar mill-shaped incense oil burners – the cinematic train journey itself.
Carla’s destiny wasn’t written in the stars, rather in the streets. “There was a road called Potters in the neighborhood where I grew up,” she says. “As children, we played with miniature clay monkey jars and yabba pots [both Caribbean earthenware vessels] as toys in the yard.”
Immersed in arts and culture from a young age, Carla fondly remembers her Shakespeare-reciting mother taking her to plays, and tells me, “We have a lot of creatives in our family: writers, actors, musicians…” She followed suit studying interior design in New York City, during which time she recalls “aggressively bidding” at an auction for a ceramic breakfast set that she still uses to this day. Fast forward four years to 1993 when Carla attended a three-week intensive ceramics course in St. Kitts, cementing her love affair with clay.
When Carla’s not throwing pottery on the wheel in her home studio-gallery (where she also teaches ceramic classes), you’ll find her catching some rays in Frigate Bay. “I’m a beach bum!” the mad keen swimmer says gleefully.
🌐 The Potter's House, St. Kitts