Earth Needs,LTD

Earth Needs is the latest incarnation of a family legacy that dates back to the 1940’s. My grandparents, Harry and Berta Bailey, started their ceramics business, Bailey’s Ceramics, after the end of World War II in South San Francisco. My Grandpa Harry built the business by partnering with the storied Bay Area based Trader Vic’s restaurant, manufacturing the dinnerware for their first Oakland location, and then for the quickly expanding restaurant franchise nationwide. He was soon making ceramics for multiple restaurants and companies in the Bay Area, in an era where importing ceramics from overseas was a costly luxury. My Grandma Berta had her hand in it too, running a “paint your own pottery” business at the factory, teaching classes on how to alter, decorate, and glaze the pieces the factory cast right there for students to work on and then take home.

 

My parents, Hector Sr. and Sue Ellen Sedano, took over the business in the 1960’s, renaming it Penngrove Kiln and moving the manufacturing to Penngrove, California, just North of San Francisco. By then the business had expanded even further to custom mold making and production.  Penngrove manufactured ceramics for the Egyptian history and artifact Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose, casting mini tombs and Pharaoh statuettes for the gift shop.  We also worked with Podesta Baldocchi, the oldest floral design business in the Bay Area, making flower pots and containers for their plants and flowers, and Pottery Barn, which started in San Francisco in the 1950’s. These are just a few of the many Bay Area based businesses my parents made ceramics for.

 

I’ve worked in the family business as long as I can remember, starting out as a kid helping my dad where I could and getting paid in piecework. As I grew older, I was taught every aspect of the ceramics manufacturing business, from creating prototypes and mold-making, to glazing and firing. When I was a teenager my dad incorporated the business, renaming it Earth Needs, the name it still has today. It’s a name I kept when my wife, Tammy Sedano, and I took over the business in 2000.

 

While Earth Needs continues to manufacture ceramics for large companies, I’ve continued to expand the business by focusing on partnerships with ceramic designers and studio-based potters, helping them to bring their artistic vision to a larger audience who appreciate American-made goods. It makes me proud to continue a family tradition, and to maintain a connection to the pottery making industry and its artisans.

 

--Hector Sedano