Something To Crow About

I woke up yesterday morning with no intention of going out. Insomnia and a crummy Saturday had set my mood. My husband wanted us to go to our favorite Indian Sunday brunch, and meet a couple old friends. I trudged through my morning animal chores, grumbled as I dressed, but all at top speed. We'd inadvertently slept in, and people were waiting for us.

We had a nice brunch visit with them, also collectors of various ilk. I even had time to sketch and email some projects to a client, while I nibbled kheer and gulab jamun. That sentence right there is my heaven on earth, my favorite combination of things to do! 

It was such a sunny day, we decided to extend our morning in town. We headed for the art supply store, which happens to be located next door to a vintage-and-antiques mall. While my husband gathered some supplies, I took a stroll through the mall, curious but expecting nothing. This mall is well known to all local chinaheads and Tikiphiles, and it is thoroughly (and weekly) combed by the same. These days, I never expect to find anything that fits my collecting focus; it's just not a statistic likelihood. I was mostly looking for Christmas gifts for friends. Where are all the Poodles?!

Almost halfway through the mall, a figure at eye level shouted out to me. Collectors, you know what I mean! It was very shocking, almost dream-like, because there is only one known example. The one known example lives in my collection, at home. This was a completely different glaze finish, and it was slip-stuck to a functional item!

"I know you! What are you doing here?"

Photo taken "in the wild".

As it sat there on the shelf, it appeared to be a lid mismatched to the casserole dish beneath it. It was set at a jaunty, somewhat risky angle, so I took a photo, put down my camera/phone, and then lifted it off with both hands. Here is the tag description:

My mind began to sort out the similarities to other non-HR Love ware, by the production value and colors. There are several Maureen Love molds that were not produced by Hagen-Renaker, but are known from her sketchbooks and single examples in her personal estate. She even mentioned having freelanced for Twin Wintons and others*, and a recorded interview identifies the owner of another pottery: Bill Lenaburg. Some people call these the Mystery molds, but this blog has deduced that the factories that produced some of them were Marcia of California and Lane and Company Ceramics.

This is the previously only known-to-the-hobby example, a gift from Margo Potheau, just about a year ago.

He was not produced by Hagen-Renaker, and it was assumed by most of us that it was a piece Maureen designed and cast in stoneware for her own collection.

After this random antiques mall find, I am happy to report that you, too, can own an OF version of this charming Love rooster! All you have to do is search Etsy and eBay. It is my best guess that these are Marcia of California, as the glazes are found on other MC functional ware. These plate molds show two of several ways that MC marked their molds. The round plate was also used with a non-Love rooster accent, and was the top of a lazy susan egg dish.

Pretty sure this will make my chicken-collecting pals very happy! Who knows, maybe your grandmother's egg dish had a bit of Love in it, all along?

This white OF piece had a rough time in greenware.

Either crude casting or cleaning reduced some of his beak, hackle/cape, and the blade of his comb.

I have already seen much better examples, online.

The variations I have found in just a brief search are:

four-points leaf egg plate, marked with mold number 515 and Calif. USA (typical for MC)

round egg plate, no marks (also well known for MC ware)

Two different colors of green glaze!

Mold number 515 refers to the plate mold, not the rooster mold. 

The rooster mold number is unknown.

I have found these colors:

solid dark green leaf plate with white rooster

solid white plate & rooster

squash orange with white rooster

Some have a little streaking in the glaze where the rooster's white glaze ran down into the color glaze of the plate. Values online are under $30 for these plates. The Love rooster is the same mold for each. Like the Marcia/Lane Love Horses and Bull, the rooster's greenware cleaning and mold crispness varies.

< Crispy Chicken                  Soft Chicken >

Although the plate molds are also found with more upright-posed roosters, sculpted by someone else, the base where Maureen's rooster is attached appears custom-fit for both plate molds. Maybe the company gave Maureen a footprint outline, in which to sculpt the figure? Which came first, the chicken or the egg plate?

It's very interesting is that this Rooster and the Fighting Bull both are done in Maureen's Cubist style, and both were represented in her estate by single examples, custom glazed by Maureen. It fits that they both turned up in OF Marcia/Lane production.

This find feels like another gift from Margo, and the timing gives me goosebumps. I am keeping my promise to identify and share Maureen's work with as many people as I can, with the help of the internet.

Collector friends, you are thus challenged: 
What other "only one known" Love pieces may have been produced by other manufacturers? Let's find them!


References:

*Kelly, Nancy. Horse, Bird, and Wildlife Figures of Maureen Love: Hagen-Renaker and Beyond. Page 8. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd.: Atglen, PA, 2003.

Online sources linked throughout post.

Return of the Cryptomolds

It's time for an update on the research into the mystery molds by Maureen Love, free-lanced during her lay-off from Hagen-Renaker between 1960-62.

It seems the identity of the factory that made them is quite complicated. In the California pottery trade, some factories had their own means of marketing, via trade shows and a manicured list of representatives and dealers. Other factories used distributors, and the distributor often had their own name carved into the molds, or in the form of stickers on the finished wares.

It has been determined, via the link here that a seller identified at least the derivative mold H-114 (bent leg) as a Lane of California piece, way back in 2007 (long before this blog started). Was the seller in error? 

I don't know yet, but it is interesting that I also had come to the same identification conclusion, on my own.

On the other hand, speculation is over when you get the answer straight from the artist's mouth. How is this possible? Thanks to a sound file from fellow researcher and multiple-HR-book author Nancy Kelly, I can tell you what Maureen herself said in a recorded interview about her Mystery Horses!

This is an excerpt from a recorded interview with Maureen, conducted by Gayle Roller and Kathleen Rose in 1987. If there is any error, it is entirely my transcription at fault.

[Describing the mystery horse mold in question, to Maureen:]

Kathleen: ... much like Nataf, it has very similar facial structure. It has metallic gold mane and tail; it was made by a California pottery company, of some sort. It's large, maybe this big.

Maureen: Oh, oh. Yeah.

Kathleen: I think my friend, Mary Goth [spelling uncertain], sent you a picture of it, I believe.

Maureen: Ah.

Kathleen: Just a while back, a few months back. She asked you about it.

Maureen: Yes, yes that, that's right. That was, that was, I did that for one of the Lenaburg brothers, and I don't know which one. They both had potteries, years ago... up in... One of 'em was in El Monte, and the other was in...and I did work for one. [snipped because the next sentence talks about a very personal family conflict between the brothers]

Gayle: It wasn't Freeman-McFarlin?

Maureen: No. Oh, no. No, it was Bill Lenaburg.


Gayle's question is a good one, because F-M had an El Monte factory location, before they opened the San Marcos location (later to become the HR San Marcos factory). 

William Lenaburg, and his brother, Leonard, came into the pottery trade via their father, Reinhold. That pottery name was Sierra Vista, located in Pasadena, CA. Leonard eventually took over that pottery 1, and William split off to start his own pottery some distance away, due to a family conflict (according to Maureen's interview). However, Maureen identified William (Bill) as the one she designed the horses for, but I can't locate the name of his own factory! This makes me wonder if he got out of it, shortly after acquiring her designs, and sold them to another factory (or two or three).

Why is the sale of the molds to another factory even a possibility? In a past blog post, I showed this original retail price tag on a Natural A-9. 

I wrote:

"This is a big deal to me because I recently found another original price tag, and the markings on it identified the exact mold. Opposite the mold number, "A-9", is a mysterious "MC". This had me researching both "Marcia Ceramics" and "Maurice of California". Frustratingly, Marcia did animal figures in black pearl, and Maurice used art glazes with airbrushed gold accents swipes and eyes on their very few animal figures. Red herrings, or perhaps they were factories distributed by Lane? The 6-71 may very well be the inventory date (June 1971), as mentioned in an earlier original price tag discovery. "


Thanks to collectors and researchers Dawn Sinkovich and Nancy Falzone, here is the A-9 version 1 in Natural color, on a Marcia of California catalog page.

Note that the mane and tail are white, so this one does not have gold overglaze decoration. It is a typical Natural, thought to be among the last of the A-9 (in either OF version) mold to be produced. The date notated, 1977, seems to back this up. Marcia of California also produced ware in the Black Pearl colourway, as shown on their puppies. It is reasonable to think that they are also responsible for the Black Pearl on the A-9 v.1 mold.


I have yet to find anything that ties Marcia of California pottery and Bill Lenaburg together, so a transfer of Maureen's designs seems more likely. You can tell MC embraced mold variety, just by looking at the different styles of horses in the catalog page fragment.


Two weeks ago, I introduced readers to the initial research Dawn Sinkovich did, and the photos I took, of the Cubist Spanish Fighting Bull, which was the only non-HR mystery mold represented in Maureen's estate. In these two weeks, even more has come to light about this design. Here are two images of the bull in a Red and Gold colourway, with its own matador. Photos courtesy Dawn Sinkovich, but the original provenance of the photos is not known. These may not be up forever, as I don't know who owns them.

Two different examples of bull are presented here. 

The one above has a gold butt and hindleg.

Same matador mold as below, but wow! Decorations!

Days after my post, fellow Mystery Horse collector Diana Dubbeld messaged me that a bull and matador set in White Pearl was on eBay, with a reasonable "Buy It Now". I'd like to make an appreciative shout-out to Diana for finding it, then trying three ways to reach me immediately to tell me about it. She helped make my wish in that blog post come true, more than anticipated (a matador, to boot!). The other ceramics collector who helped bring the wish to reality is eBay quick-draw Liz McKinnon, another supporter of my "Ugly Horse" habit. 

It is not known if Maureen sculpted this human figure.

It looks like it was directly inspired by the Treasure Craft matador.

It has different elbows, upper curves of the cape, and costume elements.

He has the same wide facial features that Maureen gave her 3D human figures.

I get a few repeat questions about the Mystery molds, and mostly it has to do with "Is this a Love horse?"

To sum up, Maureen's treatment of legs and body proportions, even in her stylized works, are more refined and symmetrical than the typical California pottery horse figures. She had a way with horse faces. The following are not Love mystery molds.

Neat examples of genuine Love Mystery horses that have turned up, lately:

A-9 v.1 with lots of yellow on one side. Model courtesy J. Kubas.

H-1 v.2 27" tall. Photo courtesy Kim Knight.

This recent eBay auction had a White-Purple-Gold on the rare '62 first version of 239 Love mold, sold for $51.01. 

Now, to really confuse the issue, here is the same rare 17.5" tall '62 mold, but with an added mold number! It is now known as the H-15. When computing forward in time by mold number sequence, it means that 1962 was the latest year that Maureen did the horse designs for Bill (which makes sense, she was back on with HR in 1963). I've been thinking the small Leg-Out was the last of the originals she sculpted in the series, and the number sequence seems to support that.

A sighting of a "realistic" glaze on a derivation of the H-11. This mold is so far removed from Maureen's hand, it is not appealing to collectors of her work.

This derived mold appears to be identified as 964.

Apologies, I do not know who sent these images.

Finally, reader submissions of derived hobby molds:

Hobby mold for home use, derived from the A-9. Photos courtesy D. Dubbeld.

Hobby mold (bent leg, derived) in art glaze.

Photo courtesy Tina Dils.

A small (16"?) version of the Bil-Mar hobby mold, derived from factory H-11.

Cold painted hobby casting.

Photo courtesy Tina Dils.

That's all I have today, but I'm certain there will be more information to dig up. There are always more questions, the further I go into this subject.



References:

1  Source: http://www.calpotteries.com/gallery/sierra-vista/

Roller, Gayle. Hagen-Renaker: A Charlton Standard Guide. Third Edition. The Charlton Press: Palm Harbor, FL, 2003, p. vi.

Muddy Monday: You'll Never Bull Leave It

These posts have a pattern: they start out with bittersweet memories, and end with happy coincidences. This one began with my husband and I on the cusp of losing his father to a 10-month-long battle with brain cancer. We lived next door, and provided daily care and support to both parents, even to the point of our own livelihood coming last. At the same time, the estate of Maureen Love was being dispersed via eBay auctions. It was very hard to watch pieces I'd remembered seeing around her home and garden, now scattered to the winds. We were trying to recover from nearly a year of selling off our own collections to support our caregiving. Buying stuff wasn't a priority.

My husband, however, knew what it meant to me. He kept watching the auctions. When random items were staying low, he'd snap them up, when we could afford it. One such item was a black Spanish Fighting Bull that he fell in love with, at auction during the week that his father passed away. When it arrived, it startled us both by being such a large ceramic piece for such a small price. It barely fit in the cabinet, it was so long. 

Maureen love's personal collection piece

Approx. 7.5" tall x 5.5" wide x 15" long

Seeing it in person made me so happy, it was so unusual and artsy. It is regal, full of movement and strong angles that catch the light. The hole in his neck is damage, but it's a result of a thin area of the casting, so I don't want to restore it. It is a peephole into the process. This casting wasn't perfect, because the lower areas are very thick, and that upper neck is paper-thin. It looks like what happens when plaster doesn't absorb properly, maybe due to mold soap, and, later, the slip plugged up while draining, making the lower surfaces extra-thick.

Its glaze looks similar to the glaze that Maureen called the "lizard skin" glaze. Years before, during a raku workshop at Pour Horse Pottery over a BOYC show weekend, this was the glaze I had chosen for my workshop medallion. 

The smoke gray texture surrounding the horse is the "lizard skin" glaze.

I'm not sure this is exactly what Maureen's bull is glazed in, but if it is, the difference may be due to raku firing vs. low firing (bull). I'm curious if anyone knows if this is the bull's glaze identity, for certain. 

All I know is that this was custom glazed by Maureen, and is a claybody custom. The eyes and various features have extra carving, and it has an overall Cubist style. 
If you think about it: Spanish Fighting Bull... Spain.. Cubism... it's really neat.

The pale speckles are household bug debris and dust, exactly as it came from Maureen's home.
His textured glaze has a crackle, and I'm afraid to wash the debris into the crackle with a cleaning.

Wait. How do I know it has "extra" carving?

Because this mold was also produced by a factory, without hollowed-out eyes and sharpened hooves.

Dawn Sinkovich had seen this black bull in Maureen's collection, a few years before. She has a curiosity for the unusual, even the abstract, ceramics by Maureen. When she recognized the mold in a production copy of this bull, she bought it on instinct. Recently, she brought it to my studio for photos, to be briefly reunited with its brother.

Add another mold to the list of those Maureen designed for Lane & Company/ Lane Ceramics. This a very abstract, angular interpretation, quite divergent from the style of her Lane horse molds. There is no mold marking nor number on it. I need to locate an old order form to learn its mold number and name.

Dawn told me that she has seen it in red with gold overglaze accents, as well. I am looking for a White or Black Pearl of this bull, to display with the custom. Please contact me if you have one for sale.

They are so large, I couldn't quite get the camera to show them at the same angle.

Another interesting "tell" on this White Pearl bull, which makes me think it is a Lane, or at least produced by the same factory that Lane distributed, is the way in which the pearl is sprayed on. It follows the same "upper surfaces" pattern that was used to decorate the "Running Horse" A-9 in White Pearl.

Belly is plain white glaze.
The black bull's hooves are also hollow and open, but his 2 raised feet have carved hoof bottoms.

Using extreme PhotoShop contrast to show the spray pattern of the pearl overglaze. 

Note how it is broken by the belly line, with some overspray to the sheath and inner foreleg.

This is a result of the same directional shading method used on the White Pearl A-9.

Soft mold detail tells us that they ran a lot of these from the molds.

We should be able to find them, out there!

Maureen carved out hollows for eyes on some of her own home-glazed works. 

There is a stoneware Gig Thoroughbred, and some smaller pieces, with the same carved-eye style.

This means that this black pebble-skinned bull is the only known example of a Lane mold (or whatever factory Lane distributed for) that was custom glazed by Maureen. Like some of her personal collection custom glazes on Hagen-Renakers, the black bull was a greenware second (uneven thickness of casting walls). I would imagine that, since she took home a bad greenware bull and customized him for herself, that she might have done the same with her horse molds for Lane, too. That's what I'd do! This means that we all should be on the lookout for the "Mystery Horses" in Maureen Love's own textural finishes, turning up in yard sales or eBay. 

How amazing a coincidence that one of the few pieces I was able to acquire from the estate auctions ended up being so unique and relevant in my later research into the Mystery Horses, I mean, the Mystery Animals*, that she designed!

You may be thinking, "So, you have evidence of a fighting bull. Did he have a matador? Other mid-century ceramic bulls were paired with their own matadors." 

If you look at this site, you can view a Lane TV lamp of a lone matador, sans bull. Where is the bull? 

http://www.tvlamps.net/lane_matador_big.jpg

I think we know where he is.

And I doubt that Love collectors will ever leave one of these bulls again, if they are lucky enough to find one.





Special Thanks to my husband, Paul Francis for the black bull, and to Dawn Sinkovich for bringing her White Pearl bull for the photo shoot.


* I'm now really wondering about the Puma planter, shown in earlier posts on the Lane/Mystery subject. It has crossed my mind before.

Bulls In A China Shop

This tangent brought to you by an uncommon youth. While my fellow teens-to-early-twenties were indulging in chemically-induced shenanigans, I was networking in my future field. I had been trustworthy at collectibles shows since an early age, and later had to be reliable as the lead working student at the barn. As a result, most of my social circle was comprised of adults, already well-established in their lives. The other great thing about mature friends is that they have cars, and are pretty awesome about letting "the kid" tag along for road trips to big model horse shows in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

I jumped at the chances for shorter trips to run errands, visit potters, or going to pick up new models. I was very fortunate to have fallen in with the authors of the first Hagen-Renaker Handbook (now the Charlton Standard Catalog) and other local collectors. My journals of those years record details about visits to the Renakers and some of their designers. One of these personalities was a former moldmaker for Hagen-Renaker. We knew him as the dude with some HRs for sale, which was unusual in the hobby back then, and as a friend who used to play card games with Joan, Susan Candelaria, and little ol' me.

Part of Skip's sales list, from 1993:


Now, you may be thinking, "A misspent youth, going to Vegas and playing cards!" Nope. It was innocent Uno, at Joan's old dining table, under that retractable lamp that was replaced so long ago. The game earned him his nickname: "Skip". Back then, long before Pour Horse had a kiln and added the word "Pottery" to its name, the ceramics fun was where Skip worked. A tile maker had leased a couple Renaker family-owned greenhouses. Skip was using part of that space, and as he was no longer an HR employee, he was working on free-lance moldmaking, including dolls, etc. Looking back on it now, it was a pretty sweet deal for a potter. He was surrounded by molds, samples, discarded pieces, and even had a working fiber kiln. The guy was like an art student on a self-directed semester; he experimented with reglazing, and once, he attempted to immortalize a mouse. Yes, in the kiln, which was in the area where he slept.

"[Skip], moldmaker to H-R at San Marcos, and previously moldmaker to Freelin McFarlane, was a very interesting man. He told us about dipping a dead mouse in slip until it was covered, and then firing it to achieve a perfect (and perfectly useless) shell mold of the mouse. Something tells me that being in the room with the firing kiln that day was not very pleasant. Or, likely, for some time to come. Besides, who wants a mold of a dead mouse? Is that what happens when moldmakers are bored?..."
Joan Berkwitz, March, 2003

When Pour Horse started, Joan was just learning about resin casting. She entrusted our first big venture, the Roped Calf model horse prop, to Skip's moldmaking. This was one of my first full-body sculptures, and I had so much emotionally invested in it. Let's just say, the last thing a nervous novice wants to hear is this, in a deadpan tone:


That would be an accurate self-portrait of that moment, recorded in my journal for February 9th, 1994. And then:
"The guy in the studio next to Skip... saw my [Pour Horse Roped Calf]... And so, my friend Skip introduced my name to him... Laird wants to hire a part-time sculptor to do some modeling* and some relief tile work. He said that people write to him from back East, asking for jobs in his studio... He didn't want to hire someone that was artistically 'set in their ways', but rather a new talent who could be trained and groomed to the business' style."

February 13th, 1994:
"I did a frog tile today! I was interviewed yesterday and accepted as part-time sculptor (designer). Last night, I went out to dinner with Joan, her husband, Susie, and Skip to celebrate. We ended up playing cards 'til midnight, hoarse from laughing."

Of course, only until midnight, as I was a good kid and had to sculpt at Laird's the next morning! In three weeks' time, Laird asked to me spend the Summer working full time as his designer. From there, my dual career was started as a professional commercial sculptor/ceramist.

Sometimes, I rode along on trips to Skip's to pick up very special HRs from his collection, too rare to risk shipping. These pieces were not like his sales list items, some were tests and custom glazes. As a youth, I never dreamed I would ever be able to afford such treasures; I just stared, with eyes like chicken eggs, much as in the drawing above. I'm really glad I kept my ears open and have these memories of the models' provenance.

During one such visit, Skip sold his two custom glazes of the DW Longhorn mold in 1994 or 1995. I have the year 1995 from another source, but my journal timeline leans toward 1994. Skip told us that these Longhorns were originally commissions for a non-hobbyist private collector. One of these customs now resides in the late Karen Grimm's model horse museum collection. Skip made it very clear to us that these were both custom glazes, not tests. These are pretty amazing to have survived at all, as the Longhorn models were very easily tipped over and broken, due to their touchy balance. Here is the other one he sold:



He has a pinpoint of missing color on one horn tip, which is how he came from Skip. It's staying that way, as a sort of salute to his origin. There is no signature to the glaze. He was decorated in the factory, making him a factory custom, in collector terms. When I first saw this bull, he enthralled me; I found his face, hair, and skeletal details so beautiful. He has very crisp mold detail. I was an aspiring cattle artist, with my modest Roped Calf sculpture so weak by comparison. I wished I could capture cattle like his designer, Maureen Love.

In retrospect, it makes me smile that both Skip and this model resonated together with my first apprenticeship, which led to my career. Skip made the people-connection and the same species subject got me "discovered". Let's not forget, Joan got the ball rolling by both introducing me to Skip and commissioning that hapless Roped Calf, in the first place.

Years later, this Longhorn changed collector hands. Fortunately, when he came up for sale a third time, I was in a position to acquire him. Of course, this bull is named, "Skip".



The regular run HR San Marcos DW Longhorn looks quite different, and it was made for only one season (in HR terms, a "season" is half a year), Fall of 1981. The older (Monrovia) regular run color was a dark brown pinto, achieved by some resist or sgraffito technique (or both), and was only made two years. There is one to view at this interesting site. I'm very curious to handle one in person and see exactly how it was decorated. "Skip" the custom bull was decorated by airbrushed spots, in contrast.

It is a great joy when old friends and good times are immortalized by the very ceramics we collect. I like having a bull in my china (work)shop.



* meaning, modeling clay, not catwalk stuff