Lei Lani and Hawaiian Flowers Dinnerware by Don Blanding for Vernon Kilns

Lei Lani and Hawaiian Flowers 9 1/2 inch plates, designed by Don Blanding for Vernon Kilns

I recently discovered the joys of Don Blanding’s poetry and illustrations, as seen in the lovely set of his notecards from the 1940s which I recently purchased and discussed here.  Now I am on the hunt for the dinnerware Blanding designed for Vernon Kilns in the 1930s--and happily, I found a couple plates to amuse me.

By the mid 1930s, Blanding had achieved success with the publication of numerous books of his poetry and illustrations.  He helped propagate the idea of Hawaii as an exotic paradise in books like Hula Moon, The Virgin of Waikiki, and his best known work, Vagabond’s House.

Vernon Kilns was one of ‘The Big Five’ California pottery manufacturers, based in Vernon, just south of downtown Los Angeles.  In 1936, the firm hired Gale Turnbull as artistic director to and he proceeded to hire three popular artists of the day to design dinnerware--Don Blanding, Rockwell Kent and Walt Disney.  (An aside--the Rockwell Kent pieces are awesome and I want some of the ‘Our America’ series and some Moby Dick plates!  The Disney dinnerware is not decorated with Snow White and Dumbo, but surprisingly pleasing all-over patterns of delicate leaves and pinecones.)

The plates I have are in the Lei Lani and Hawaiian Flowers patterns.  They are essentially the same--both use a transfer-printed center and border, but Lei Lani adds hand-painted details.  Both are on the ‘Ultra’ shape plate, very simple with a downward sloping rim and the pattern was later printed on slightly different pottery blanks.

Lei Lani became one of the most popular patterns produced by Vernon Kilns, and was available from the late 1930s into the mid 1950s.  Blanding’s linear style was well suited to this medium.   The dense profusion of tropical flowers has a feeling similar to English Chintzware of the previous decade, but Blanding’s treatment has a more stylized, modern feel.

Each piece in the line was signed with the pattern name and ‘Aloha, Don Blanding’ the artist’s standard greeting (he signed his books this way, too).

Hawaiian Flowers was available in the maroon color I have, as well as blue, pink and orange (the orange version is beautiful, like a delicious Hawaiian creamsicle!).

I’m on the hunt for more of Vernon Kilns dinnerware--in addition to the patterns I have, there is another floral pattern (the variations are called Glamour, Joy, Ecstasy and Delight!) and one with tropical fish.   Blanding’s designs are pretty desirable, hard to find, and not inexpensive...I’ll post on Blanding again as I find more pieces.

I occasionally offer some of my Blanding pieces in my Etsy shop--check it out here.


© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg

Vintage Hawaiiana - Ruth Taylor White Maps of Hawaii

I love maps.  I can stare at them for ages, remembering the places I have been and dreaming of the places I have yet to visit.   And look what I found--vintage maps of the Hawaiian islands by Ruth Taylor White from the 1930s.  Heaven!

Images were long used to enliven maps (think sea monsters in the oceans of 16th century examples), but pictorial maps found a wide audience in the 20th century.  As means of transportation improved, more people could travel to more places, leading to the increased need for maps.  A map could delineate the roads and geography of the place, but it could also be used as an enticement.  Clever and appealing pictures added to a map helped create an image of the place that made it irresistible.  This type of illustrated map is sometimes called a cartograph, or pictograph.

Signature on the Oahu map--Ruth would later drop her married name when signing her work

Enter Ruth Taylor--traveler, illustrator, cartographer. 

Born in 1899, Taylor and her family, like many, headed persistently west in the late 19th century, moving from East Coast to West in the span of about 20 years and finally settling in California. According to the 1920 US Census, Taylor seemed to be settling into a pretty normal life--she was married to Leonard White and living in Phoenix, Arizona.  Leonard was a life insurance salesman.  Two kids followed, and so did divorce.  With limited information, it’s easy to fill in the gaps and imagine a disastrous mismatch of temperaments, but all we know is that Ruth and her children moved to California and she began working as an illustrator.

From Art Deco Blog

Ruth’s artistic training is unclear, but her family proved to be very important in her future work.  Several of her early jobs were linked to her brother, Frank J. Taylor (1894-1972).  Frank was a journalist and writer, served in World War I, and attended Stanford University.  That school connection probably helped Ruth earn one of her early commissions, the cover of the November 1927 The Stanford Illustrated Review.  Her detailed style brings humorous life to the crowd attending a football game.

From the National Parks website

Ruth and her brother moved in an artistic and adventurous circle in the San Francisco area and the siblings shared an interest in the majestic nature found in the country's national parks.  Frank was married to Katherine Ames, who was also an author.  Like Frank, Ames was interested in nature and travel and she wrote books on nearby Yosemite National Park.  Her 1926 Lights and Shadows of Yosemite featured the first published photographs by Ansel Adams.  Frank wrote popular books on the national parks and Ruth provided illustrations for his 'Oh, Ranger!’ A Book About the National Parks (1928) and Grand Canyon Country (1930), both of which went into multiple printings.

Ruth’s style crystallized in the 1930s, when she was at her busiest and most peripatetic.  In the Spring of 1930, she left the kids at home in California and spent five weeks in Hawaii.  Her trip was likely prompted by a commission from the Hawaii Tourist Bureau to draw the maps of the Hawaiian islands that I just acquired, as printed versions turn up by 1931.  The four largest islands of Kauai, Oahu, Maui and the Big Island and a map of the entire island chain are included in the set, which would have been handed out by the Bureau to visitors.

Massachusetts, from Our USA:  A Gay Geography, 1935.  From Barry Lawrence Ruderman.

These Hawaiian maps may have been the seed for a larger project Ruth undertook, again with her brother Frank.  Our USA:  A Gay Geography, published in 1935, was an atlas filled with whimsical and charming maps of all the states in the union, as well as American territories.  The New York Times said in their review, ‘Any one who remembers his childhood efforts to visualize Kentucky as something more than the green spot on the map, or New York as the pink State, will appreciate this volume. Brilliantly colored pictorial maps of the same order which have been amusing adults for the past decade show the United States and their Territories as active, picturesque entities.’ (NYT, 17 Nov 1935).  This book is very tough to find these days, even in libraries, and sadly is most often found dismembered to sell the maps individually.

This is where I live now--Hagerstown, Maryland, at the top left.  There is indeed an organ factory here.  From Saturated Color on Etsy.

So now you have the background for my sweet maps of Hawaii.  These are likely later reprints from the 1940s of Taylor's original 1930 illustrations, published by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and given out by the Tourist Bureau to servicemen.  The nice woman from whom I bought these four maps said that her father got them in Hawaii when he was there during World War II and that they had been rolled up in the original mailing tube ever since.

Taylor’s maps aren’t about geographical exactitude, but rather the people and character of the place--what will lure you there and what you will remember when you have left.   And this is decidedly a rich white folks’ view of the islands--people with the money and leisure time to travel were the intended audience of these maps (discussions of imperialism will have to wait for another post).  Golf courses, yacht clubs and polo grounds are generally noted, but so, too, are heiaus (temples), locations connected to Hawaiian royalty and traditional island activities such as hula, surfing and hukilau (a type of net fishing).  Taylor devised a palatable combination of the familiar and exotic, an ideal paradise for tourists.

I’m fascinated by these views into Hawaii’s past.  So much has changed (some might say not necessarily for the better), but many places and their attributes are comfortingly the same.  The big banyan tree is still in Lahaina, there are still surfers in Hanalei Bay and coffee still grows in Kona.  It’s interesting to see so many more Hawaiian place names used, the vast pineapple and sugar fields that are no more and the old churches that can still be found dotting the landscape.

Ruth Taylor, Map of Treasure Island, Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, 1939.  From Beinecke Library, Yale.

Ruth Taylor continued to travel. In 1939, at the age of 40, she was in Japan (she did a map of the Philippines that may date from that trip) and as political tensions increased in Asia, she wisely returned home to the San Francisco area.  That year, she rendered a cartograph of Treasure Island, the site of the Golden Gate International Exposition, a copy of which can be found at Beinecke Library at Yale.

Remarkably, during World War II, Ruth kept up her international wandering.  The end of the war found her in Calcutta, India, and by September 1945 she arrived back in New York, headed to her brother’s home in Los Altos, California.  The wine map of California below is the only work I've found of hers in the post-war years.

Wine map of California by Taylor, late 1940s.  From Barry Lawrence Ruderman.

I haven’t been able to find out a lot more about Ruth Taylor in her later years, but would love to learn more about her and her work.  This little bit of research was pretty quickly done and I didn’t have access to all the resources I would have liked (I live in the boonies, remember).   There are many more avenues to be explored!  If you have any corrections, or additional information about her, please do be in touch.


© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg 2012-2018

Hawaiiana - Don Blanding’s Vagabond Notes - Vintage Stationery

Even though I’ve been around old stuff all my life, the part of my job that I like the best is that I am always learning something new.  Just when I think I can’t bear the sight of one more Tiffany lamp or when I walk into a little shop and it all looks painfully the same (Pyrex...Fire King…), I find a new category of stuff that I’m not familiar with.

I recently did a search on eBay for vintage Hawaiiana (it’s been six months since my last trip and I'm missing the islands) and found some items by Don Blanding.

Don Blanding at a book signing in Hawaii in the early 1950s, from the Honolulu Advertiser

Turns out I’m late to the Don Blanding party.  How have I not come across him before?  Blanding was a wildly popular poet and artist in the 1920’s, ’30’s and ‘40s.  Blanding had a special affinity for Hawaii, which makes me like him right there (you had me at Aloha, Don).

As a young man in the midwest, Blanding saw a play set in Hawaii and promptly hightailed it to paradise.  The First World War interrupted his island sojourn but enabled him to travel the world for a few years, after which he returned to Hawaii.  He worked for an advertising firm in Honolulu, where his poetical ads gained him some local renown.  Blanding had a knack for rhyming couplets.  His poetry was straightforward, easily understood and usually about a happy, pretty subject--a recipe for popularity at the time.

He compiled some of his poems about local Hawaiian life into the self-published Leaves from a Grass Hut in 1923.  Numerous books followed, the most successful of which was Vagabond’s House, first released in 1928.  His writing allowed Blanding to continue to travel, hang out in Hollywood and live what generally sounds like a pretty good life.  He continued to publish into the 1950s.

Two note cards from Vagabond Notes.  The images are separate pieces of paper, so the glue has darkened over time on some, as you see at the top corners of the image on the right.

Blanding’s drawings were generally done in silhouette, a very art deco style that was ubiquitous in the 1920s (I see a million silhouette-decorated objects at the Antiques Roadshow).  Dramatic ladies in profile, exotic landscapes and flowers were favorite subjects and he seems to have found a style that worked for him and stuck to it.

This design was used on a dinnerware pattern for Vernon Kilns

Blanding developed a brand.  He proselytized a beach-hopping vagabond lifestyle that was a mix between the glamorous and bohemian, which no doubt had appeal in the Depression era and war-torn ‘40s.   In addition to his many books, Blanding designed several dinnerware patterns for Vernon Kilns of California, fabric patterns for aloha shirts and lectured all over the country. Blanding’s book signings attracted crowds--indeed, it is hard to find one of his books without ‘Aloha, Don Blanding’ on the first page.

Blanding suggested the idea for Lei Day, now a state holiday in Hawaii celebrated on May 1

Just after World War II, Castle Greeting Cards of Los Angeles produced three sets of note cards featuring illustrations and text by Blanding:  Romance Notes, Desert Notes and Vagabond Notes, the last of which related to his popular book.  In Vagabond Notes, a number of the twelve cards in the set depict Hawaiian subjects and some are of vaguely exotic women.

My favorite, of course, is the house on the beach.

I’m looking for more Vagabond Notes, so I can have some to send to friends--I have to keep this set for me!   I love nice stationery, and these are vintage and Hawaiian, so they are checking lots of boxes.  I'm sure I'll have more on Blanding again soon. 

 

© All text and images are copyright of Jeni Sandberg