About
Freba Pottery
My Inspiration
In 2003 my cousins and I visited Denman Island, BC where we toured the incredible pottery studios. Up along a winding driveway one such studio ran on the honour system. The studio left me inspired and gave me such an incredible feeling of trust, a feeling of humanity. I have always loved pottery and now I was hooked.
My Story
Upon returning to Saskatchewan I began taking classes every Saturday. In 2004 I got my first wheel and set up a studio inside my house near Eston. In 2011, I started a pop up pottery stand on highway 16, 2 miles east from my present location to see if people would actually stop for pottery. It worked! So, in 2013 my husband and two daughters, Freyja and Ebba joined me in purchasing my Amma’s 1919 Heritage Farm House. From there we built the highway store and Freba Pottery was born.
I had three goals for sales; 1. Have someone stop when we weren’t here and buy pottery 2. Have a motorcycle stop and buy 3. Have a semi truck stop and buy. Mid July both 1 and 2 were reached.
Who I Am
Since then I have run Freba Pottery on the honour system. The highway sign invites travellers to stop in and leave cash, cheques or send me etransfers. In January of 2019, I began offering subscription boxes and then that summer, a semi truck actually stopped out front and bought some pottery. With all 3 goals achieved I took the plunge and launched this website to begin taking online orders in 2020!
I taught for 25 years in Arts Ed in high school and elementary schools. For the last 4 years, half my time was spent teaching, and the other half pursuing my passion of creating beautiful handmade pieces of pottery. In June 2021, I leaped into pottery full time and haven't looked back.
In January 2023, I began creating an immersive pottery retreat in my heritage house built in 1919. Renovations took over most of the year with December being the first one. I worked very hard to curate an experience where connection through creativity could happen.
i have three pillars to my business; CREATE, RETREAT and TEACH. I create functional wheel thrown pottery that I sell in highway store, online and at a few markets. The retreat is Elemental Claycation that I offer once a month. I do small teaching opportunities outside of my studio where I teach hand building pottery techniques.
My name is Marea Olafson. Welcome to Freba Pottery!
Local Art
I am an artist and I take pride in my work. I am by far the only artist around this neck of the woods though. Which is why I proudly display other amazing and one of a kind pieces of art from the community!
When you stop in, make sure to save a little bit of time to check them out and appreciate their beauty!
Click the images for more information on the artists.
All funds generated with the sale of these unique neck tie creations in donated to Vinyasa Yoga for Youth in memory of Thora Grace. The wine totes go well with the red wine. Ups for gifting a bottle of wine and having a well paired cup.