Catalina Collectors Blog

Here’s a heads up for our Catalina Collectors. Come on down to Pasadena this Saturday and Sunday, January 23 & 24th for the 11th Annual L.A. Pottery Show. We’ve packed up our wares and will join all the other amazing dealers exhibiting and selling. Lots of Catalina, and lots of good prices! We will offer 10% off all items at the show, including our books and sale items, just for mentioning this site or our on line web shop: www.potteryhound.com.

You can also meet Author Susan Toomey Frost, who will be there signing her new book, “Colors on Clay: The Art of the San Jose Workshops”, right next to our booth. Check out the NFS showcase of interesting pieces from our collection, along with historic imagery provided by Susan herself.

Hope to see you there!
Carole Coates

Do you have a rare piece of Catalina that you would like to share (image wise) with the Catalina collecting community? Perhaps an installation in your home or a display? A lot of the fun with Catalina are the unusual and one-off pieces made by workers in off hours that come to light every year, sometimes very early red clay pieces, or tiles with a twist. Here are images of one of the more unusual pieces of Catalina we’ve seen in 20 plus years. It is a very large (12″ tall) Catalina Toby pitcher, and it was most likely a wedding gift given to a young Mexican American couple who lived and worked on the Island.  The husband played in the smaller mariachi style band that Mrs. Wrigley’s sponsored and was also a laborer at the tile plant.  The image that appears in our book on page 157 shows Mr. Isidro Tarango (see below.) He is second from the left in a demonstration of “tuneful Pottery” at the Bird Park.

The Tarango family history is fascinating and goes way back on the Island. As serendipity would have it one of Isidro’s daughter-in-laws is practically our neighbor. The images above are courtesy of Sid and Sandy Tarango, but you can see the piece for yourself this September 2009 at the Catalina Island Museum Exhibit in their new case.