FAMILY

MEET THE BRACKER'S STAFF

ANNE W. BRACKER, phone extension 11:

If you've read the HISTORY section, then you already know a lot about her. She's the boss who speaks softly and carries a big bag of clay. Although she started life as a Texan and a Physical Education teacher, we don't hold that against her. She found the two loves of her life in the late 60's - her husband Bill and clay. She did post-graduate work in Ceramics at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana before moving to Lawrence in 1975. In the late 70's, Bill and Anne took a leap of faith when they made the decision to have Bill quit teaching at Kansas University so they could become producing salt-glaze potters. Their work was in galleries all over the Midwest corridor, from Iowa and Nebraska south to Texas. Most recently, she was part of the first Rendezvous show at the University of Nebraska in Kearney. Her vase was selected for the permanent collection of the museum upon completion of the show. Over the past few years, she's been too busy sharing her advice and expertise with potters of all experience levels to make many pots, but you're still likely to walk into the store to find her with clay up to her elbows because the lure of the cool, moist clay was too much for her to ignore.

ANNE M. BRACKER, phone extension 10:

Anne M. is the eldest daughter of Bill and Anne W. Bracker. Anne and her sister, Cindy, grew up surrounded by clay. Both of them had clay in their hands before they could even speak. It was a unique childhood for them. Neither realized that all parents aren't covered in clay until well into elementary school. No one told them that it was unusual to be posed for pictures while inside big pots or archways of gas kilns. They never realized it was unusual for dinner time conversation to include discussions of firing schedules, glaze recipes, or bizarre stories about very prominent potters who shall remain nameless. But both of them survived. Anne M. took a technical turn in life and is responsible for the computer network at Bracker's (as well as dragging everyone else along for the ride). She's also guilty of any and all mistakes you might find in the printed catalog or here online. Let's face it, she's a computer and graphic design geek. She's also a die-hard Mac loyalist who is never far from a G4 laptop or desktop computer, in case you're wondering. Anne M. dropped out of college in 1993 (much to the dismay of just about everyone) to help out at Bracker's when Bill was diagnosed with cancer. She quickly recognize the draw that the world of pottery has on the lucky ones, and now can't be pried away for anything. Although she is an experienced potter, she doesn't have the time or the guts to make pottery for sale (or rent). She makes pottery for her own personal enjoyment.

CINDY BRACKER, phone extension 12:

As the youngest of the Bracker clan, Cindy's entry into the world of clay was a little delayed. Growing up, her interests led her to the world of music first, despite the perfume of clay that surrounded her as a child. Throughout school, she studied piano and the French Horn (technically known as an F Horn), as well as singing in several choirs. After a little bit of indecision about her college path, she settled on music education. While in college, it was convenient for her to work part time in the family business. Soon she was faced with a huge quandry...Clay or Music? Cindy, being the smart girl that she is, chose both. After so many years in school, she was getting a little burnt out, so she decided to take only three or four classes instead of her usual five or six or seven. She started spending more and more time working at Bracker's (hey, who can resist?). Ultimately, she made the decision to continue her college education and she graduated with a degree in Music Education from the University of Kansas in May, 2002. Her career at Bracker's, however, is not over. Although a degree in Music Education is not necessarily helpful on a day-to-day basis at Bracker's, she plans to put it to good use by teaching private or community center lessons as well as giving her future children a well-rounded background in music. Her teaching experience and education makes her the perfect choice for preparing the Teacher Info section of this web site, as well as helping teachers with curriculum related questions. Cindy has a huge amount of other responsibilities at Bracker's. In addition to ordering most of the products we sell, she's the Queen of Books. She is constantly finding new books to add to the hundreds we already sell. Cindy also has an almost freakish knowledge of the commercial glazes we sell. She loves to explore new surface decoration techniques and glaze application methods. Cindy's favorite established potter is Jim Connell (just mention his name and she'll talk your ear off about what a great guy he is and how amazing his pots are), but her favorite pottery student is her new husband, David Sturm. Cindy and Dave met while working together here at Bracker's and were married on June 22, 2002. Sophie was born on April 15th, 2003 and Daphne was born December 30th, 2004. Cindy uses her maiden name for business purposes only. Which leads us to the next bio of Bracker's staff...

DAVID STURM, phone extension 13:

Dave spent his youth in Wichita, Kansas, with his twin brother, Aaron. Dave and Aaron, both over 6 feet tall, were a force to be reckoned with on the football field in high school. They were also notorious for a variety of pranks that really shouldn't be repeated here. Dave moved to Lawrence, Kansas to study Drama at the University of Kansas. After a few years, Dave got frustrated with all the drama in the Drama department (go figure) and quit school. He was part of the management team at Perkin's Restaurant for several years, where he met and married his first wife. Although the marriage ultimately didn't succeed, he was blessed with a beautiful daughter, Kelli, in 1997. Bracker's lured him away from his glamorous job at Perkin's for an even more glamorous job as warehouse manager in 1995. He quickly showed an affinity for the scintillating and fast-paced world of equipment repair. From a simple element replacement to diagnosing bizarre and complicated problems with wheels and kilns, Dave can do it. Equipment manufacturers across the country love Dave because they know he'll help potters take care of their equipment, and potters love Dave because they know he'll help them keep their equipment in tip-top condition as cost-effectively as possible. His affinity for Cindy, however, was not as quick. Cindy and Dave were casual friends and coworkers for several years. After his marriage came to an end, Dave started hanging out more frequently with the work crew during after-hours excursions (yes, we've all been known to indulge in an adult beverage or two after a long work week). Their friendship grew and the rest of the work crew started to notice a little attraction between the two. It took them a little longer to notice the attraction. During the summer of 2000, Dave got brave and asked Cindy on an official date. There was no turning back. A year later, Dave proposed to Cindy. While his attraction to Cindy grew, so did his attraction to the world of ceramics. In addition to being a family man, Dave is the King of Repairs for many Bracker's customers, either in person while he performs the repairs himself or on the phone while diagnosing problems ranging from mundane, run-of-the-mill element replacements to complex issues with gas kilns. He is so well respected by kiln manufacturers across the nation that when a well-known kiln manufacturer found themselves in a bind (a long-time employee left and they hadn't hired a new person yet), they made a deal with Bracker's for Dave to handle the technical customer service calls until they had a new tech in place.

SCOTT LEDBETTER:

Scott joined the Bracker's crew a few years ago after graduating with a degree in Ceramics from the University of Kansas. While in the Ceramics Department, he played an integral part in the design and construction of several kilns, including a large wood-fired Anagama kiln. Scott faces the same dilemma that many young ceramic graduates face...what next? Scott works for Bracker's full-time as our warehouse manager while trying to figure out what move will be best for him next. Scott could easily excel in any number of graduate school programs, teaching, or as a professional potter. Scott continues to work on his pottery and is currently working on a series of lamps.

LEE COLLARD:

Lee worked for many years at Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop. Lee also did some concrete and terrazzo work for Dave Root (a former long-time Bracker's employee in the early '90s) at Atlas Archimedes. Dave heard that we were looking for a new employee and suggested Lee to us (Lee wanted a more full-time job). Lee hit the ground running and soon became our assistant warehouse manager. Although he doesn't come from a ceramics background, he's learned quickly and works hard. He frequently combines his love of the outdoors with his photography hobby, although he's also been known to take some great photos of his beloved cats.

LOU MCKOWN:

Lou ended his Naval career shortly before moving from the New Orleans area up to Lawrence. His experience in the Navy has made him an incredible asset to Bracker's in the small package shipping and receiving department. Heck, he IS the small package shipping and receiving department. If a package comes in or goes out via UPS, FedEx, or USPS, Lou handles it. Lou also answers phones and assists customers in the front when he isn't taking care of orders or stocking the front. Although Lou doesn't have a ceramics background, he is learning quickly and we are amazed at how he soaks up information like the sponges he restocks.

SETH GILES :

Seth's primary job at Bracker's is delivering orders, which he always does with a helpful hand and a big smile. His deliveries have become the most efficient we have ever seen and are often surprised that he returns to the warehouse so quickly. His dedication to the job has also given him the opportunity to spend a lot of time helping Scott and Lee in the warehouse, where he has proved himself equally efficient.

(all information in the biographies compiled and written by Anne M. Bracker)

Bill Bracker	This article was written about Bill for a retrospective show of his artwork, held at the Lawrence Arts Center in 1996.
	William Nicholas Bracker began his life on a small farm in rural Iowa December 1, 1940. He attended a one room schoolhouse through the eighth grade, then made the transition to Underwood High School where he excelled in sports (academic excellence would come later). The first one in his family to attend college, he worked at a Union Pacific railroad yard at night to pay tuition and bills. He had almost completed his Bachelor of Science degree at Dana College in Blair, Nebraska, when he realized he had yet to declare a minor. Art had always appealed to him, so he enrolled in design, drawing and painting classes and completed his science degree with a minor in fine arts. With a bachelor’s degree and a teaching certificate in hand, he started teaching in the Council Bluffs Public School system. The school art department had an old stand-up treadle style potter’s wheel, the first he had ever seen, and it intrigued him enough to rent a reel-to-reel film on pottery. He taught himself how to throw, and ended up back in college at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln working concurrently on a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Ceramics, which he completed in 1966, and a Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics and Sculpture, which he completed in 1967. He moved to Seguin, Texas, after completion of his Masters degree, where he taught Ceramics, Painting, Sculpture, and Jewelry at Texas Lutheran College. He met Anne Wuest in 1969 and they were married on June 6, 1970. He took an assistant professorship at Purdue University in Indiana, until 1975, when he became an Associate Professor and head of the Ceramics Design department at the University of Kansas.
The year of 1979 brought a lot of changes to the Bracker family. Bill decided, after 17 years of teaching, to retire from academia. Bill and Anne started making pots for a living, selling in galleries from Iowa to Texas and all of the states in between. They purchased their supplies mainly from Good Earth Clay in Kansas City. With as many potter friends as Bill and Anne had, almost every trip they made for themselves included supplies for someone else. When they finally realized what was happening, they decided that the supply business was a direction they wanted to explore. In 1982, they began by selling Orton Cones. A few years later, the business had grown so much that they bought a warehouse and began to expand. By the time of his death on September 23, 1993, Bracker Ceramics supplied schools and potters in a five state region.
Throughout his teaching career, he continued to develop his personal style of art. Growing up on a farm, he had always been around farm machinery, and had often used different mechanical parts for his sculptures. He appreciated the machinery not only for its intended use, but also for its aesthetic qualities. He also frequented junk yards for other sculpture components, and it was on one of those junkyard scavenges that he located the industrial float that, when added to eight hay hooks and a automobile transmission, would make the first spider. That spider created a lot of ruckus in Indiana when Bill was teaching at Purdue. Bill and Anne’s house in West Lafayette had a huge tree in the yard with a limb that hung over the road. He hung the spider from that limb above the road, and quite often a car would be heard screeching to a halt, only to back up and have its occupants stare up at the spider hanging over the hood of their car.
It was also at Purdue that the Orton National Cone Box Show was created. Bill’s inspiration for this unique show came from Jerry Evans, a teenage neighbor. Jerry was allowed a limited amount of space in the kiln in exchange for helping to keep the studio clean and other odd jobs. Because of the limited space, Jerry made many little pots, maximizing his space. Months later, Bill found a cigar box filled with nearly 100 of Jerry’s tiny pots - enough pieces for an exhibit in one box. Bill himself had often filled empty cone boxes with used cones, mud-dauber nests, and small ceramic pieces, but the idea had never come to him until he saw that cigar box full of little pots. Bill had routinely made small pots to use as a three-dimensional "sketch pad," but the idea of a miniature show intrigued him because it would allow the adjudicators of the show to look at the actual piece instead of a slide, which most current shows were using. It would also lower costs of shipping pieces, and being an artist, Bill understood how expensive having slides made and shipping full-sized pieces could be. In 1974, while doing a workshop at Drake University, Bill was encouraged by fellow ceramic teachers Lee Ferber and Richard Peeler, to pursue the idea of a show for miniature pieces. The logical size limitation came to mind when he looked around his studio and found an accumulation of cone boxes. This was a universal size, and every ceramicist would have these boxes around, so Bill sought funding from the Edward Orton Jr. Ceramic Foundation, manufacturer of the cones. The National Cone Box Show was born. Bill helped guide three Cone Box Shows, but the show was suspended when he quit teaching, due to lack of available facilities for a show of that size. Prior to his death, Bill saw the resurrection of the fourth Cone Box Show, which under the direction of Inge Balch, head of the Ceramics Department at Baker University, became an international exhibition. The opening of the Fifth International Cone Box Show was held at Baker University on April 2, 1996, making Bill’s concept continue in his memory.
Bill appreciated ceramics in all forms, but the salt-glazing process was by far his favorite. The technique of salt-glazing has been known since the sixteenth century and was commonly used until the early twentieth century for most functional pottery. Whiskey and wine jugs, storage jars, crocks, canning jars, and sewer pipes are some historically salt-fired products that may be familiar to many people. The glaze comes from ordinary rock salt which is thrown into the kiln at 2400°F. The salt vaporizes and the sodium vapor combines with alumina, silica, and metallic compounds in the clay, producing a very hard, well-fitting glaze. Gas flames carry the vaporized salt throughout the kiln chamber, producing handsome flashings, areas of heavy glaze build-up, and firing scars. All of these unique irregularities add to the beauty, character, and personality of individual pieces. This salting process also coats the interior of the kiln with layers of glaze. At this high temperature, the glaze dissolves the bricks in the kiln, requiring construction of a new kiln after about 100 firings. Salt-glazed pottery is not commonly produced by ceramic artists in modern times since it requires certain conditions which aren’t readily available to most potters. For Bill, this firing process was important to produce the husky textures and earthy colors represented by his pottery. The extra time, energy, and expense was worthwhile to obtain this unique surface enrichment on his pottery.
Even though he made his living through ceramics, Bill’s sculptures were an integral part of his life. His frequent trips to the junkyard didn’t always result in a sculpture, but he always came home with interesting pieces of metal and a lot of ideas for new sculptures. Even though he only created a few dozen sculptures, thousands more were created in his head over the years. In 1987, Bill was approached by Rebecca Johnson. The Great Western Manufacturing Co. of Leavenworth, Kansas had produced industrial equipment for milling and machinery since 1853, but the shift to direct fabrication made obsolete thousands of handcrafted wooden pattern molds that had been used in the manufacturing processes. An exhibit, sponsored by the Leavenworth Area Arts Council and the Leavenworth Historical Society, was developed to preserve the community’s history and spirit within works of art. Three artists were asked to participate, using the wooden forms for their projects. Bill writes "In creating these sculptures, my perceptions of Leavenworth are readily apparent. Visions of Fort Leavenworth, the two national Cemeteries, Churches, Prisons, and other aspects of the entire intellectual community emerge through the colors, textures, and other design elements in these sculptures. Prison doors, and the various meaning they have for us...or perhaps they are doors to a church...or row upon row of headstones in a cemetery...is that a minister chastising us from the pulpit...or an officer reviewing his soldiers...or a prison guard...perhaps a tombstone...or an Easter Island sentinel? Self-imposed parameters of using these pieces without altering or painting them and without adding foreign objects gave me an extra challenge in composing my art." The pieces were also exhibited in a one-person show at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, in September, 1993, just weeks before his death. We were all pleased that Bill himself was able to attend the opening reception.
Bill’s art was always indicative of the influence of his surroundings. The "contour" series of pots (also lovingly called his "overweight" pots) create an image of the acres of plowed fields that surrounded him as he grew up as well as mimic the "love handles" on the artist himself. Within many of his metal sculptures, many components of the sculpture can be readily identified as parts of farm machinery. The most important influence on Bill’s art was Bill himself, which becomes evident in his credo. "Each man gets as much from adventure as to adventure he brings, for things don’t happen to people, it’s people who happen to things."

SELECT PHOTOS OF BILL'S ARTWORK FEATURED IN THE RETROSPECTIVE SHOW

Bill's concept of the swirling tornadic Kansas winds comes to life in this metal sculpture. On one of his many trips to local junkyards, he found hundreds of metal triangles. To create this sculpture, Bill mounded sand to use as a form then laid out the triangles and welded them together. He had to have a detailed picture of the design in his mind because the welding is all underneath the finished platter and design and construction was done without actually seeing the visible design until the welding was completed. A funky gear was welded on as a base to the platter. The finished diameter of this particular piece is about 18".

This vase was created using a Cone 10 stoneware body. While the piece was still wet, Bill applied colored slip to the vase using broad, freeform brushstrokes. This particular vase features honey tan and brown slips, which he then "schmeared" together in some places and scraped through to reveal the natural clay in other places. Some of his favorite tools for this type of process include combs, hair picks, hacksaw blades, and a serrated rib. Although the decoration of this piece looks abstract, if you look closely you can see the furroughed land and terraces of the Iowa farmland on which he was raised. Once the pottery was decorated, it was dried slowly and then single-fired in a gas kiln to about 2350°F. At that point, rock salt is introduced, which creates a glaze over the decorated slips. The salt-firing process was completed over several days, including slow heating and cooling times. This decorative vase form is approximately 30 inches tall.

This wooden sculpture is a wall hanging from the Leavenworth show. Bill searched through hundreds of wooden fabrication molds and selected bits and pieces that he later cleaned and assembled into a variety of different sculptures. Images of the federal penitentary in Leavenworth led Bill to create a series of sculptures that reflected the concept of prison life. This sculpture evokes thoughts of locked doors and is approximately two and a half feet tall.

This page was last updated: Thursday, December 29, 2005 3:16 PM