B is for Blue Willow

Blue Willow is a distinctive elaborately patterned dish ware designed by Thomas Minton in 1790.  The pieces are examples of blue oxide transferware,  created in 1775.  Minton's process eliminated the tedium of hand painted china with the use of copper plate etchings to create repetitive copies.  The Blue Willow Ware pattern was created in response to the high demand for Far East Canton and Nanking goods.  It was Chinese imitation at its best:  bridges, flying birds, pagodas, rivers and weeping willows. The pattern was so popular it was copied by countless manufacturers, in many countries including China itself!

Through the centuries stories were passed down to promote sales of Minton's  Blue Willow pattern.  As an incurable romantic, I am especially enamored with  the following tale, entitled fittingly 

The Romantic Fable

Once there was a wealthy Mandarin who had a beautiful daughter, Koong-se.  She had fallen in love with her father's humble accounting assistant, Chang, angering her father due to the class differences between them.  He dismissed the young man and built a high fence around his house to keep the lovers apart.  The Mandarin was planning for his daughter to marry a powerful Duke.  The Duke arrived by boat to claim his bride, bearing a box of jewels as a gift. The wedding was to take place on the day the blossom fell from the willow tree.  On  the eve of the daughter's wedding to the Duke, the young accountant, disguised as a servant, slipped into the palace unnoticed.  As the lovers escaped with the jewels, the alarm was raised.  They ran over a bridge, chased by the Mandarin, whip in hand.  They eventually escaped on the Duke's ship to the safety of a secluded island, where they lived happily for years.  But one day, the Duke learned of their refuge.  Hungry for revenge, he sent soldiers, who captured the lovers and put them to death.  The Gods, moved by their plight, transformed the lovers in to a pair of doves.

Who knew dish ware could provide such a story of devoted love and passion.  My kind of cool!

For the coffee lover:  this perfectly sized  large 'mush cup'  is available for sale at simplycoolstuff

Ode to the Autumnal Equinox

The Autumnal Equinox in the northern hemisphere occurs when night and day are nearly the same length of 12 hours each.  This happens the moment the sun crosses the celestial equator (declination 0) moving from north to south.  The date could be anytime from the 22nd through the 24th of September, marking the first day of the season of autumn.  Equinox derives from the Latin meaning 'equal night'.

By all these lovely tokens September days are here

with summers best of weather

And Autumns best of cheer. 

                                                                     Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830-1885, American Writer

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge and Plum Island Sound Estuary 

 love you Dad

Birds get restless while humans hunker down...
Farewell Summer.  You were a Beauty!

Be You

It is never too late to become what you might have been.

George Eliot, aka Anne Evans, 1819-1880,  English Novelist

A is for Antiques

To say something is an antique delineates some kind of craftsmanship made precious as a result of age and rarity.  The US Customs Office defines an antique as an object that is at least 100 years old.  It was the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which constituted an antique as a 'work of art (except rugs and carpets made after the year 1700), collections in illustration of the progress of the arts, works in bronze, marble, terra cotta, parian, pottery or porcelain, artistic antiquities and objects of ornamental character or educatioal value which shall have been produced prior to the year 1830.'  That year heralded the beginning of mass production, and the definition makes the distinction between genuine antiques, vintage items and collectibles.  

Do you  L O V E  the uniqueness of antiques as much as I do?  They provide such a special link to those days gone by that cannot be replicated by modern artifacts no matter how hard we try.  Old is old!

Ageless

Age does not diminish the extreme disappointment of having a scoop of ice cream fall from the cone. - Jim Fiebig

On this Labor Day, may you celebrate in the spirit of the holiday that has been in existence since 1894.    As a tribute to American workers and as a symbol of the end of summer - enjoy your day of rest, and, 

your ice cream...in the cone.... Be safe everyone!

Ode to the Hurricane

Love is all around you like the air and is the very breath of being.  But you cannot know it, feel its unfeeling touch, until you pause in your busyness, are still and poised and empty of your wanting and desiring.  When at rest the air is easily offended and will flee even from the fanning of a leaf, as love flees from the first thought.   But when the air or love moves of its own accord it is a hurricane that drives all before it. - Barry Long, (1926-2003),  Australian spiritual teacher and writer

Riders on the Storm pay strict attention to this date in August as the beginning of the High Season for hurricanes when air and ocean are in sync for storming.  Technically speaking, vertical shear (which is the change in wind direction and height) is low enough in the atmosphere and temperatures are warm

enough in the sea to create the chaos of the storm.

This is the time of year to pause in your busyness and free your mind and body of those thoughts and emotions that are toxic to your well being, as philosopher Barry Long suggests.

Create that hurricane in your soul as a necessary step to living life to its fullest! 

Z is for Zanesville Ohio Potteries

Zanesville, Ohio, located in southeastern Muskingum County, was named after Ebenezer Zane, the engineer who built the road traversing through Ohio from Wheeling, WV to Maysville, KY during the late 1700's.  Although it was the state capital from 1810-1812, Zanesville's real claim to fame for us vintage lovers is its role in the history of Art Pottery during the early years of the 20th Century.  Due to its plentiful reserves of iron ore and clay as well as water from the Muskingum River,  Zanesville was dubbed the Clay City for its contribution of gorgeous pieces of pottery from 1900 through the 1940's.  Potteries included Nelson McCoy,  Owens,  Robinson/Ransbottom, Roseville, Weller, and Zanesville Pottery to name a few. They are truly special;  uniquely formed and beautifully glazed.  Research and explore your favorites to adorn your home with precious art pottery from a time long gone by.   Happy Hunting!

 McCoy planter

Nelson McCoy bowls

 Roseville Clematis Pattern

Zanesville Pottery