WILLIAMS — Local bear artist Brenda Carter is getting attention by national industry magazines. In January of this year, she received recognition for Miss Penelope in teddy bear & friends magazine. This month she is mentioned with others in Bear Beautiful magazine.

Brenda grew up in England during WWII amid air raids and bombs dropping. Many a day was spent in the basement of their home during a raid and amazingly the damage to her home consisted mainly of windows blown in and ceilings falling down while other homes on the street were destroyed.

Over fifty-years ago, she immigrated to the USA. Meeting her husband many years later. He served with the Sheriff’s Office in California for 26 years. After his passing she moved to Williams and opened a gift shop called Autumn Buffalo for about 12 years.

When she retired, she started a hobby of making dollhouses and furniture. Later her friend Lorrie a well known sculptor of art dolls (LorelieBlu Studio) taught her how to sculpt fantasy dolls.

Brenda started a Facebook page called Teddy Bears and Fantasy Dolls and quickly gathered many followers. The past couple years she started to think about how much her little teddy bear from the war gave her comfort which she still has and decided to start creating Teddy Bears for others to collect and make their own memories. This is when she moved into making Teddy Bears and became a Banner member of Artist Bears International where she posts her work for sale.