A Woman Owned Business / October 2005
Brown's Creation in Clay
 Anna Brown |
Anna Brown is a “hands-on” business woman. The West Virginia potter, owner of Brown’s Creations in Clay, about five miles out of Morgantown, has been designing and creating pottery for 34 years. As a child, she made mud pies and decorated them with daisies. Today, she grows her own herbs and presses them into clay to complete her signature dishware, decorative vases and drinking vessels.
Working out of a studio and shop arranged in the basement of her home, Anna explains that she is a hand-builder of pottery, “I don’t use molds or a potter’s wheel.” Using her fingers, she pinches clay to make forms, or rolls it out with a rolling pin or coils it or simply sculpts the material into the shape she desires.
After years of success as both artist and businesswoman, Anna takes the demands of both roles in stride. “I’m a one person business.” She works easily in front of potential customers, who often arrive in busloads. She dresses for comfort, and to keep cool amid the multiple kilns she uses to fire her pottery. “Everything comes from the earth–the clay, the minerals for the paint–and is fired to 2300 degrees. People see me as I am.”, she says. “They are welcome here seven days a week, but I am working, and this is how I work.”
The popular artist lives and works on property originally granted to her family by the King of England two centuries ago, creating decorative and functional pieces that her ancestors could easily appreciate. Self taught at her craft, Anna says, “It’s a God-given talent. I’m using it and sharing it with other people. ”
Whether she is making dishes or drinking vessels, vases or sculptures, Anna gives each piece the attention and time it deserves. She says, “I don’t go at this like a man or worry about how long it takes. When it’s a labor of love, it doesn’t matter how long it takes. I don’t even know how many pieces a year I make. If I want to work, I work. If I don’t want to work, I don’t work.”
Besides, she says, “I have a house to take care of. The house is fun and I like to cook for my husband. And I garden, and make pesto and herbal vinegars. The weeds always need to be pulled.” She says her four daughters seem to share her creative genes.
Anna has plenty of buyers for her pottery. Besides selling from her shop, she sells through other outlets. “I’ve sold to Tamarack, since before they opened!” She does special projects for WVU and private industry and her work is sold at the Greenbriar and a variety of museum shops and craft venues from Pennsylvania to Maryland.
Although she promotes her business with brochures and demonstrations, Anna says even in hard times, her pottery has always sold. “I was given a gift from God and I’ll keep using it. I’m doing what I’m happy doing. And, if you do something well, you stick with it!”
For more information, call Anna Brown, 304-296-6656.
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Femme Fair 2006
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