VintageToGoetsy offers local pick up or delivery in the Los Angeles area and this was the second person who took advantage of an eco-friendly way to save on shipping costs.
They were ordered from Bill Stern, who started his collection when a neighbor was moving and turned it into the Museum of California Design!!!! He sent this email:
Kennedy,
I bought my first Vernon Kilns
dishes in 1980 from a neighbor who was moving. (I tell the story more
completely in my 2001 book "California Pottery: From Missions to
Modernism.")
After
finding out that Vernon was just one of many companies that made
dinnerware here in the 1930s I wrote about that phenomenon in newspapers
and magazines and I eventually established the Museum of California
Design -- www.mocad.org.
We now have an exhibition -- at the Autry through January 6 -- that
includes pottery by Vernon Kilns and other California producers.
Interesting enough, his neighbor, was a porn star. Part of the story is here, at Cultural Weekly or the complete story is in his book, "California Pottery: From Missions to Modernism." The book tells of the impact California's ceramic designers have had on American homes, gardens and offices and is autographed by him and many other California pottery designers and producers, including Eva Zeisel, here from the Museum of California Design.
I have/had many plate sets, but these were my favorites. Not only are these California made, but they were a Los Angeles based company in the city of Vernon. One of the adjacent cities to where I used to teach, now a part of Los Angeles.
I found a good amount of interesting info. on the company and the first art director of Vernon Kilns, Gale Turnbull. The most interesting is: it seems he revolutionized the under glaze, so the artist's work could be produced exactly as intended.
Other interesting information that I found about Vernon Kilns and Gale Turnbull:
1. In 1931, Faye G. Bennison purchased Poxon China and called it, Vernon Potteries, Ltd.
The company survived hardships, like the depression, earthquakes, fires, war and became a leader in the pottery industry, then in 1958 Vernon Kilns closed their pottery due to mounting labor costs and competition from foreign imports. Metlox Manufacturing Company, Manhattan Beach, California, bought the molds and continued to manufacture some of Vernon's patterns in their Vernonware division.
2. Vernon Kilns was originally Poxon China and then Vernon China, founded around 1912 by a ceramicist chemist, George J.W. (Wade) Poxon, a member of the Wade Family. The Wade family is well-known for it's English pottery, which today is a subsidiary of Royal Doulton.
Poxon China Company was built at 2310 East 52nd Street, Vernon, California. Bennison continued to produce Poxon lines, using Poxon shapes for some time before an earthquake in 1933. It forced Bennison to develop original shapes for Vernon. Info. from "Breakfast with Vernon Kilns" by Alma Jane.
3. In 1936, Gale Turnbull was hired as art director, a celebrated painter and engraver. Turnbull had gained fame in Europe and America, and had already received recognition for his contributions to Leigh Potteries of Alliance, Ohio, and Sebring Pottery, of East Liverpool, Ohio.
Ever wonder why it's called, "Under Glaze"?
One of Turnbull's trademarks would be his emphasis of color in the Vernon Kilns lines, and a technique of underglaze printing, which would revolutionize the industry. In essence the design in color was applied on the "bisque" before the glaze was put on.
The process involved etching the design photographically on copper cylinders which were then treated with chromium to make them hard and durable, and the design in oxide colors was then transferred to paper. This in turn went on the bisque (clay dishes) after they have first been fired at 2000 degrees. After the color was on, the paper was washed away, and the dishes were fired again at between 1900 and 1950 degrees. Because the designs were acid etched instead of hand etched, like the English method, the patterns were reproduced exactly as the artist created them in their studios. Info from Don Blanding site.
4. Contract designers and artists were hired to create tableware and art ware, some were: Jane Bennison, Faye Bennison's daughter, Rockwell Kent designed three dinnerware sets based on his famous woodcuts: Salamina, Moby Dick, & Our America. Don Blanding, an Hawaiian poet and illustrator designed four basic tropical design patterns for tableware. Vernon Kilns signed a contract in 1940 with Walt Disney Productions to make figurines based on Walt Disney's films: Fantasia, Dumbo, and The Reluctant Dragon. Vernon also manufactured art ware based on the film Fantasia.
5. Vernon Kiln's beginning pottery, like most California Pottery was originally mass produced as solid colors in the 1930s. Read the the interview/article of Bill Stern by Adam Leipzig in Cultural Weekly, What's so California about Bill Stern? and see if you think Fiestaware is actually a California pottery knock off!
Information gathered from 'Collectible Vernon Kilns' by Maxine Feek Nelson. Vernon Kilns History, wikipedia, Don Blanding site, and Vernon Kilns Plaid Dinnerware. Inspired by Bill Stern of MoCAD and Nathalie of etsy.
Saying Good-bye: My mumbo jumbo dish sets have been more easy to let go, mainly because they have gone to collectors to add to their sets. Also, though not currently in use, even though they used to be, are two sets of China from my Grandmother. Currently in use are my Azurite blue plates by Fire King and will be the last I list, unless I can decide which China set of my Grandmother's to part with, the Noritake or the Give Away set from gas stations, grocery and dime stores.
What I Learned:
1. The story of how Bill Stern started to collect California Pottery is beyond interesting, inspiring and awe-striking. I would like to know how he turned his 30 year passion of collecting into something bigger than himself! What a legacy of preserving California Design for everyone to enjoy for generations to come! Thank you for being the founder of the Museum of California Design!
From a five color piece luncheon collection of Vernonware all the way to a museum? That's got to be the top dog story of all collections! From collector to journalist to museum founder, director and curator for the Museum of California Design! What's next Bill Stern?
2. I have a lot plate sets! Five sets have been found so far! Still available are Roselle Mid Winter, by Staffordshire England, designed by Marquis of Queensberry and Blue Azurite Charm by Anchor Hocking, Fire King, Carnation Sterling China by Russel Wright. Gone are Vernon Kiln's Plaid Mix by Gale Turnbull, and Sigma the Tastesetter by Doug Wilson.
3. Most likely my writing style is not going to be short and sweet any time soon because it really is a maze of writing with hitting too many dead ends, until I find what is hidden or what I "really" need to say, as opposed to want to say. Also, writing one a day is challenging because I need time for my writing to "sleep" and create distance to decide what info is important and what isn't, so I end up including it all, but at least I'm getting all the stories that have come in, out! I'm motivated by having a clean slate for the New Year!
Only time will tell: as my hoard clears and my home is less cluttered, so will my mind!
4. I have forgotton how fun and inspiring it is to visit exhibitions. I remember going to the Autry as a kid and remember it as cowboy museum. It was called, The Gene Autry Museum. About ten years ago, I revisited for a class and it had changed a lot! Not so much cowboy stuff! Hmmm, maybe I have the Autry Museum mixed up with the Autry National Center, which is just called the Autry. It's definetly time for a return visit!
Thank you Bill for the email and inspiration! Thank you for being the guest curator of California's Designing Women: 1896-1986 at the Autry from the California Museum of Design! Check out the preview of California's Designing Women: 1896-1986, A Museum of California Design exhibition at the Autry National Center!
If you are in the Los Angeles area or will be soon, plan your trip to the Autry at Griffith Park! Make it a day trip or a weekend because there's a lot more at Griffith Park! See the California Museum of Design's exhibition, California Designing Women: 1896-1986, until January 6, 2012! Be there or be square!
Thank you Nathalie for emailing your interest in Pottery Factories, especially Sebring, in Ohio and for your story about the Sebring Ivory tulip cup and saucer! Your interest peeked my interest and I researched Vernon Kilns for this post.
Thank you etsy for providing me a forum to get my hoard out there to people who appreciate it more than I do! I am thankful to everyone who has left me a story and all the inspiration and motivation it brings along with it!
Thank you for stopping by and being part of my HoarderRehab!
I am posting this comment for Nathalie of etsy, who doesn't have an account with google, AIM, typepad, etc. and sent me an email on 12/08/2012 asking me to post this for her. I've been trying to do so, but can not find a way, except to post it like this:
ReplyDeleteHiya
What a great blog you have created.
Here, there is plenty to learn from and certainly plenty upon which to feast the eye.
Drinking coffee from the lovely, old, deep, art deco cup you sent me is like drinking from a glazed tulip. The softened colors, the frisky crazing, all speak of time and wear from loving hands and lips which have passed it on and on to the next. This effect gives it an almost shimmery quality, not quite here, as if it was visiting only for a while from another time and place.
Thus in this equation of sharing, searching and learning together, the mind, heart and material world come together as One.
I see my name popped up briefly like a little jack-in-the-box!
What fun :) I am honored. Nathalie