Stephen Sanders is an artist who was instantly blinded in an automobile accident.

After years of intense bitterness and frustration, he's still an artist - trying to create with his hands, the way he used to do with his eyes.

"I started making pottery as therapy in school for blind people. It was something to pass the time. When I was an artist, I considered that just a craft. It wasn't something I ever would have thought of doing full time."

Sanders explains he was a student at North Texas State University at the time of the accident. He had a summer job working in a moving van. The brakes failed and he doesn't remember much of anything until he awakened in Parkland Hospital.

He says in his struggle to recuperate, the one thing that was the realization that he was blind and what that was going to do to him as an artist.

"I have all of my paintings hanging in my apartment. People come in and I explain the paintings to them. They keep telling me how sad it all is and that makes me madder. I know how sad it is."

As his rehabilitation continued, his mother encouraged him to buy his own potter's wheel. It would help him pass the time.

"But I soon realized it was going to do more than pass the time. It gave me as much of a chance as I feel I'm going to have to be creative. It also seemed a way to get out on my own."

"I've learned to keep my own records in Braille. The first month, I lost money. I didn't even make up the rent I paid out. The second month was the same thing. The next month I think I broke even, but I've a long way to go.

Sanders still finds it hard to talk about his accident and his blindness.

"I spend a lot of time remembering how I once thought I was on top of the world. I was going to be an artist like my dad, only I thought I was going to be an even better one. Everyone said my future was assured."

He says his struggle for independence keeps him going with the pottery.

"I don't like having to depend on people to take me places or to do things for me. I've had my own apartment for a while now and I want more independence. If the pottery succeeds, it will help.

He is also trying to find a place in Dallas where he can learn an advanced form of Braille and learn how to use the public transportation systems.

"People keep wanting to know how you adjust to something like this. I don't think you ever adjust, you just learn to do the best you can - because really, you have no other choice.