Sandra Webb in her new happy place
When former Heritage Gallery owner Sandra Webb retired after 27 years, Cambridge knew she wouldn’t disappear for long.
Sandra Webb last week, on her last day at Heritage Gallery.
She was known as much for her enjoyment of people as for her art, so it was pretty much a given that she’d be back. And she is … albeit in a more suburban setting where she puts on her music and potters away in her home studio to no-one’s schedule but her own.
More recently, she has extended her potter’s hand to sharing her craft with others and she’s about to take part in her first exhibition in ages, next weekend’s two-day Passion for Art.
“I haven’t done anything like that for such a long time. To be honest, it feels a little strange to be putting myself out there again.”
Besides the classes she now runs, she is also working on some new ideas for pottery lovers, ones that she suggested might include clay and sip evenings.
Webb is a convert to this new, more relaxing life. When she sold her gallery in 2023 after 27 years, it was to re-energise, spend more time with family and put behind her the tough last few years marked by Covid and the financial squeeze. She said as she retired that the pottery she once enjoyed might come back, and it has.
Born in Cambridge’s Penmarric, Webb always loved art; she has a childhood memory of carting huge art books to and from the library to their King St home. She worked as a nurse before marrying, then took up pottery as a hobby, taking night classes then running ‘Studio 65’ for eight years, making and selling pots from her basement.
She started selling more widely, then in 1995, joined forces with a friend Gail Kelman who had a craft outlet in Hamilton. Together they started Heritage Gallery, initially out of what is In Stone today. Later, when Webb bought Kelman out, she moved into the adjacent premises, turning it into the corner gallery space it still is today.
Her retirement coincided with the passing of her mother, and with the death of her husband Michael a few years before that, Webb was ready for some time out. She cycled a lot, travelled to see family, and bought a new home, one with a superb light-filled studio just gagging to be used.
“I started missing the contact with people,” she said. “I had always enjoyed introducing them to the concept of clay. People have no idea that it takes so long to produce anything. A simple pot may have been handled 15 or more times before it is up for sale.”
Happy now in what she calls ‘Studio 10’, Webb has been teaching her craft to small groups.
“I hadn’t been doing pottery for such a long time, so it was quite strange getting back into it. I bought a new kiln, discovered that the costs of ingredients had doubled … it’s been a real adventure and I’m loving every minute of it.”
Sandra Webb in her new happy place … her home pottery studio. Photo: Viv Posselt
