Sandra Bredbenner

Creating things has always part of my life. As a child my parents were always making, building and growing the things we needed in our lives. There was never a feeling that we couldn't do something if we put our minds to it. Often my father would walk in on a project being created by my mother and "us kids" and say "You should hang out a shingle" meaning we should go into business.

Becoming a potter came to me in stages. I started out as a secretary but it seemed no matter where I worked I kept running into clay. I had my first clay experience when I was working for Penn State University and took an evening class in pottery. I then moved to Tacoma, Washington and was working for the US Army and, again, there on base was a clay class. I then moved to Greeley Colorado and was working for the University of Northern Colorado and took evening classes at a local community arts center and at a community college. I worked and lived near the Fine Arts building on campus and my husband says I spent a lot of time looking in the basement window of the pottery department. It was then that I took the step of quiting my job and enrolling full time in school to become a potter. That was 24 years ago and I never regret the change I made. Pottery has given me the opportunity to be self employed and independent. It also has enabled me to express a "part of myself" through my work.

My functional stoneware line of pots comes from my love of cooking which of course comes from my love of eating. My designs and forms are also influenced by my interest in gardening. Being a potter and a gardener is a very happy fit for me. Over the last 24 years of potting some of my forms and ideas come from the people who buy my pots. I love to listen to people tell me how they use my pots and what their needs are, I then can create new forms from those conversations.

Living on the plains of Colorado amongst ranches and farms and spending weekends on our mountain properties in the Colorado Rockies have influenced the creation of my newest forms, animal wall plaques. The horse design came first to be followed by moose, deer, bear, and polar bears. The backgrounds of the plaques are impressions taken from nature. (Click on images below for larger view.)