Bears-Direct - Teddy Bear Artist Spotlight

Artist Spotlight
Anne Cranshaw
E Willoughby Bear Company

By Jackie Morris

I've known Anne Cranshaw since I started making teddy bears sixteen years ago. She has been at it even longer than I...this is her 19th year.

There are many good caring people in the bear world, but of all of them, Anne perhaps represents for me the most what teddy bears and the teddy bear artist community is really all about.

She is always there to lend encouragement and a helping hand to a new artist. She'll go out of her way to make new

people feel included. She'll lend loving support to an old friend who's having difficulties. She always knows the just the thing to say to smooth over rough situations. It's just the natural thing for her to do.

Anne is a teacher and a nurturer. She has loved and worked with children her entire life, first as a teacher, a mother of two, a caregiver and friend.

Her deep love of children and of people in general is reflected in the sweet, unpretentious teddies that she makes. Her favorites are the hugging, orphan bears. They are the size of a small child and they feature a loc line armature so they can hug their adoptive

parents back.

She says: "It is fun to name them, dress them and see how much fun the adopted parents have with them."

While most of Anne's bears are variations of traditional, she sometimes breaks out and does something on the wild side, like the bears she's made that are hand embroidered from head to toe (one of these earned the Industry Choice Toby award this year) and her hand made chenile bears. Occasionally she makes a rabbit, a cat or a rag doll as well.

She says she is also influenced by her love of the coast of Maine where she lives. Her family vacations on a little island there

every summer, and I've heard her tell of the good times they have there. This shows up in some of her bears who are in boats or carry a shell or a beach stone.

Anne says: "Inspiration can come from anywhere. The trick is to always be receptive to the 'muse'."

Throughout her bear making career, Anne has been recognized with many awards, including a Golden Teddy and Toby Nominee and most recently a winner in the Industry Choice Toby.

She designed bears for Ashton Drake's Gallery Teddy Bears for 5 years.

In 1993 she was one of 14 artists invited to participate in England's very first Teddy Bear convention, and one of eight artists included in the first "Bear Camp", organized by Denis Shaw at his home in La Honda.

But what those of us who know her well remember her for is her sweet, unpretentious , nurturing soul. It is that soul that is reflected in her Teddies that make them so very special.