Like most people interested in mid century modern design, I’m a huge fan of the Mad Men show. But the show uses props from time periods from 1930 up to 1950, and doesn’t focus solely on mid century decor. That means they’ve featured various types of California Pottery from many different eras. In the past, I’ve spotted a Bauer casserole, Vernon Barkwood dinnerware and quite a few other pieces of art pottery.

The LA Times recently ran a short piece on Mad Men set decorator Amy Wells. While this article didn’t really showcase any Calif. pottery, it was interesting that she talked about doing a lot of her prop shopping at second hand and antique stores in Pasadena, which is where I’ve found a lot of California pottery in the past.

In particular, I found it interesting many of the photos (including the one above) were taken at the Salvation Army Collectibles annex on Waverly. I was actually just there yesterday! It is VERY true what she says about a whole lot of wonderful things being surrounded by a whole lot of horrible things. I’ve found the entire area is very hit and miss with both selection and price. Occasionally, you’ll find amazing pottery for extremely cheap. A great find I had at this store was this 3 piece set of Laurel pottery.

But it’s becoming a lot harder to find great California pottery at reasonable prices. Stores are catching on, and there’s just so much pressure with “dealers” buying up everything in sight. Sigh, if only I’d started collecting just 10 years ago, it would have been much easier. Oh well, I guess could always build a time machine…

Incidentally, the new season of Mad Men starts up on Sunday August 16. Mark your calenders!

Source: LA Times