With a surprise ring of the doorbell, a routine Friday evening watching The Carol Burnett Show turned into a welcome special event. During that conversation by candlelight, I rediscovered another enduring symbol of 1970s popular culture: Beer-can collecting.
Back then, beer-can collecting was a fast-growing hobby. Walls were filled with finds collectors cajoled from others or unearthed with the help of metal detectors. Whether their tops are flat or cone-shaped, or opened with pull tabs or stay tabs, some beer cans are rare and unique, but they all offer a unique take on brewing history since they were introduced in 1935.
Collections are not only beloved examples of their owners’ personalities, but also important pass-downs for future generations. Legendary acquisitions and surprise discoveries are proudly displayed — mostly at home, but sometimes as the subject of a museum exhibition.
That was the case last Fall, when the Dayton Art Institute displayed a private collection of Marblehead pottery, a subdued, but stunning product of the American Arts and Crafts movement.
Known for its soft colors, simple designs, matte glazes and thorough workmanship, Marblehead Pottery got its start in 1904. A medical doctor named Herbert Hall had begun a therapy program for women with nervous disorders in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a coastal fishing village north of Boston. While recuperating in a relaxing environment, patients could choose to engage in a variety of soothing handicrafts, including weaving, woodcarving, metalwork and pottery.
Each craft was developed and supervised by an individual, and Arthur Baggs, a student at the New York State School of Clay-Working and Ceramics at Alfred University, was hired in 1905 to oversee teaching patients the therapeutic techniques of pottery-making, as well as producing the pottery.
Early Marblehead pieces were made from clay discovered nearby; then, the pottery was created from a mixture of Jersey stone and native Massachusetts brick clay. Simple forms were hand-thrown and individually decorated.
In the beginning, pieces were predominantly green and blue, with a matte glaze. Soft, warm tones were reminiscent of the village’s gardens and streets, as well as the nearby rocks and sea. A distinctive deep blue glaze became known as “Marblehead Blue.” Other colors included gray, yellow, tobacco brown, wisteria, rose, putty and yellow. Vases typically featured two tones: an outer glaze in a slightly different color from the interior glaze.
Hand-thrown vases and candlesticks, as well as cast tiles, trivets and bookends, were common creations. Many featured abstract, geometrical decorative motifs associated with New England, such as a square rigger ship, stylized waves and harpoons. Other natural motifs included trees, vines, flowers, insects, birds, seashells, animals and fish.
Early pieces bore a hand-drawn mark depicting a seagull overlaying the capital letter “M.” Eventually, the mark developed into an impression featuring a square-rigged ship flanked by the letters “M” and “P.”
Before long, it was obvious that Hall and Baggs were on to something, and the art and design field noticed. “The Marblehead Pottery stands for simplicity – for quiet, subdued colors, for severe conventionalism in design, and for careful and thorough workmanship in all details,” House Beautiful observed in 1912.
What began as a summer endeavor continued as a permanent responsibility. Three years later, Marblehead Pottery was established as a separate, for-profit enterprise with a staff of employees. When its output grew to over 200 pieces a week, the pottery business was sold to Baggs in 1915.
By 1923, Baggs summered at Marblehead, but spent the rest of the year teaching pottery in New York and perfecting glazes at Cowan Pottery in Cleveland. In 1928, he became the first faculty member hired by the new Department of Ceramic Engineering at The Ohio State University in Columbus, heading the program until his death in 1947. Today, the Arthur E. Baggs Memorial Library, in the Department of Art’s ceramics area in Hopkins Hall, includes a collection of ceramics-related books, objects, tools, glaze notebooks, test tiles and other material. University Archives also holds the Arthur Eugene Baggs Papers, containing his correspondence, research and class notes, and publications.
Marblehead Pottery sold its award-winning, distinctive items through mail order and in shops across the country. It closed in 1936.