You say lustreware...I say lusterware...

A glint of shiny copper caught my eye, among the jars and glassware on the housewares shelf at G-Dub (my local Goodwill store) last week. Magpies always go for the glitter. Sure enough, it was a little copper lusterware creamer; a total steal for $2.99.  (Sorry, I was hasty with the Goo Gone, and forgot to leave the wax pencil-marked price for all to enjoy.) Lusterware or lustreware, as our English friends like to spell it, is pottery or porcelain, with metallic oxides in the glaze, that give the effect of iridescence.

After a little research, I found this creamer was older than I suspected, dating from about 1810 to 1840, when most of the overall luster pieces were produced. The chip on the spout actually gives a clue to its origin, exposing the rough, red earthenware clay, used to make these pieces in England. The copper pieces are the most common, followed by silver, and then gold, the more rare and collectible. I now have one piece of each, in my  collection of three. The silver pieces were sometimes known as "poor man's silver", a shiny, inexpensive substitute for the real thing, back in the day.

Gibsons, Staffordshire, lusterware, silver

Wedgwood, Fallow Deer pattern, lusterware, gold

Soufflenheim and so forth

Just because I've been taking a little bloggy break, doesn't mean I haven't been stopping by G-Dub every Friday.  Don't worry.  It's only a minor addiction.  I like to think of it as a small way of contributing to the community. Anyway, I know you're dying to know about my latest find, this little Soufflenheim guy. Actually, he's a mini jug or jardiniere.  I have a few pieces of this pottery, and couldn't resist him.  What did I pay?  Ninety-nine cents.  Yep.  My kinda bargain. Can you believe it?  You can't even get a cheeseburger at McDonalds for less than a dollar anymore.

Soufflenheim is a town in northeastern France known for its charming pottery, hand-painted with a recognizable design of flowers or birds. The forested area in northern Alsace is a natural source for a special clay that has been used for pottery since the Bronze Age.  I love the history of the design, the legacy of the clay.

click to embiggen

keeping company with art

my mod 1950s vase

My daughter was in from New York this past weekend. One of our favorite traditions is to dig for buried treasure in the Heart of Ohio Antique Center. It's the largest in the Midwest with over 650 dealers and takes a good four hours or so to walk through, even at a quick pace. So Saturday, we hopped aboard the old green Land Rover, accompanied by gorgeous N.C. Wyeth skies.

One of my finds, was a mod little 7 1/2 inch vase. It was stamped UE Sweden on the bottom with a serial number and initials:  a juicy story just begging to be investigated.  Did I comply? Of course I did.

Mari Simmulson Swedish Modern tray
(I love her quirky  Picassoesque style.
Note the chignon.)

Mari Simmulson tray

My sleuthing turned up some fun results.  The "UE" stands for Upsala-Ekeby, founded at the turn of the 20th Century in Uppsala Sweden. The company produced artistic ceramics from 1920 until 1973 when it was sold and subsequently closed down. Several important Swedish Modern artists worked at Upsala-Ekeby including Mari Simmulson, Anna-Lisa Thomson, Ingrid Atterberg, and Vicke Lindstrand.

Mari Simmulson

The initials "MS" on my piece stand for Mari Simmulson, a potter and artist, born 1911 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Educated in Tallin and Munich, she started her career at AB Gustavsbergs Fabriker in 1945. Between 1949 and 1972 she worked at Upsala-Ekeby and became a Swedish citizen in 1952.

An extremely creative artist, her work has been featured in public art displays in Sweden and Copenhagen and is represented in museum collections all throughout Europe.

My little Mari Simmulson 1950s vase?  An exact match is online for $200. I paid $14 and consider it a great investment in keeping company with art.

Mari Simmulson owls

hedi schoop

I found this little guy lurking among the dingy glassware at Gee-Dub (my local Goodwill store) today, immediately fell in love with all ten inches of his lucid creaminess, charming shape and couldn't pass him up for just $1.99.  The best part of Gee-Dub shopping is doing a bit of sleuthing, once I get home. I discovered that he is a Dutch boy vase, (there's an opening in his backpack for flowers) designed by Hedi Schoop in Hollywood, circa 1940.

Schoop was born to a prominent family in Zurich, Switzerland.  Her father was editor of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung and president of Dolder Hotels. She studied sculpture, architecture, painting and fashion design at several European institutions, including Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna and Reimann Institute in Berlin. She was also an accomplished dancer in Germany, as was her sister, Trudi, a comedic dancer who pioneered the treatment of mental illness with dance therapy.

Frederick Hollander and Hedi Schoop

Schoop was married to well-known composer, Frederick Hollander. In 1933 she and her husband fled Nazi Germany, settling in Hollywood, where he eventually wrote music for over one hundred films. Many of his songs were made famous by Marlene Dietrich. Hollander can be seen as the piano accompanist in A Foreign Affair, 1948, where he speaks a few words of dialog. He received four Academy Award nominations for composition.

Hedi began experimenting first in plaster and later in pottery, and soon became one of California's most respected manufacturers of ceramic products. She personally designed nearly all the pieces produced at the North Hollywood factory.

At her studio's height in the 1940s, Schoop employed over fifty workers and produced over 30,000 gift ware items per year, including such items as such as planters, bowls, ashtrays, candy dishes, and lamps. Sadly, a disastrous fire destroyed her factory in 1958. She chose not to rebuild, instead selling some of her molds to other local manufacturers, and began to focus instead, on painting. Schoop died in Van Nuys, California in 1995, at the age of 90.

top photo: taken by me

following photos borrowed from Google images

high as an elephant's eye

Blue Door Antiques, Sunbury, OH. (Closed. Darn.)

I know. All of you are probably thinking I've fallen off the face of the earth. Forgive me, for it's been over a week since I've been round the bloggyhood . My daughter was home to Willow Manor for a rare week-long visit, so I've shopped till I dropped, staying up to the wee hours listening to all the latest gossip, eating like a complete pig, and participating in wicked killer Scrabble championships. I guess you could say I was making rather merry.

However, like the dutiful blogger, I did take a few photos to share. We visited our favorite sellers of all things vintage this week, including the largest antiques dealer in the Midwest, the massive Heart of Ohio Antique Center, as well as shops in the villages of Powell, Sunbury, and Delaware, Ohio.

The corn in my neck of the woods is super lush this year from all the hot sun and rain; definitely high as an elephant's eye. The skies in Central Ohio were kind enough to give us a glorious display of what I like to call "N.C. Wyeth skies", or in keeping with the "high as an elephant's eye" corn, it was a glorious "oh, what a beautiful morning" Oklahoma kind of sky.

In addition to the ubiquitous corn fields, on our antiquing excursion, we passed wonderful old red barns, court houses in town squares, quaint gas station buildings now used for car repair, and an empty grain elevator, still in use, not for grain, but as a cell phone transmission tower, and last but not least, lots of proudly displayed American flags.

Clockwise: courthouse, Sunbury, OH; empty grain elevator outside Delaware, OH;
car repair shop in Delaware, OH; and a residence in Sunbury, OH.

E crossing the street in Delaware, OH, to Sandusky Street Antiques

So, did I find any goodies? I always find goodies. I like to keep my eye out for interesting pottery, mostly American, of course, although I do collect some West German, and actually found a nice piece of Waechtersbach in Powell, this week. (below, center) A quirky little Pigeon Forge, TN piece (left) found in Sunbury, and a mod aqua McCoy piece (right) waiting for me in Delaware....Ohio, that is. My daughter, E, has an excellent eye and loves to find all kinds of stylish, inexpensive stuff to take back to New York.

my loot from this week

It will take me a while to come down from my "elephant eye" high, but I'll be slowly making my way around to your particular street in the bloggyhood this week. First, I must write a little something about tomatoes for this week's Magpie Tales creative writing prompt. Click HERE to join in the fun! See you soon, my friends. xx