Brenda Roberts traces her professional art career back to over 50 years ago where she designed her new high school’s logo. Her second job – and the first one that paid – was designing and painting cheerleader megaphones for a rival school, but she claims that’s still a secret.

She has worked in graphic arts, illustration, airbrush art, and exhibit design before settling into ceramics, arts education and art therapy. “I was led to do art and to ultimately teach. I once was an exhibit designer and education director for a major science museum where I worked with local school children and developed hands-on exhibits,” she said. “It’s communicating who you are to the general public – the same as writing or music or any other art. Creation became my way of not only expressing myself, but connecting and encouraging others.”

As a secondary public-school art and home schoolteacher, Brenda spent years leading her students to find their own path to creativity while working extensively with special needs students. Watching a young person find a means of value and self-esteem through art has been her greatest reward. One of the most effective methods of nurturing that creativity has been through ceramics. Discovering the passion of working with clay was a major turning point in her own artistic journey as well. She says that the tactile feeling of clay and making pottery is healing for both young and old.

Brenda is currently the coordinator for the Ceramics and Glassworks department in the Creative Learning Center.