Address
90 Knickerbocker Rd, Boothbay, ME 04537
Store Hours
Online or by Appointment
The Road Less Travelled
You may be accustomed to finding our traditional line, priced to be affordable to the middle class. We would love to be making it and also to be teaching others how to make our line but, alas, we do not currently have a production and training studio. To raise funds for a studio we are putting our vintage collection of rare, one of a kind and original design prototypes on the market. To learn more, follow our blog, Andersen Studio Evolution Diaries. We love this process and are committed to seeing it continue for the benefit of future makers.
Andersen Design is an American Designer Craftsmen Studio established in 1952 on Southport Island, Maine, USA by Weston and Brenda Andersen.
This vase is decorated by Brenda Andersen in the Birch Tree Pattern in a very rare turquoise and coral color pallet. Only one such vase decorated by Brenda in this pallet is known to exist. At the time the vase was created, the recording technology which exists today had not been invented and records were seldom made before a work was sold. Brenda produced repeatable patterns in standard color, but she also spontaneously produced one of a kind ceramic artwork on the slip cast forms designed by Weston, on the spur of the moment. This color scheme might have been created in response to a customer’s request or it might have been created in a moment when the creative inclination overtook the production process just because it was time to change things up.
Brenda developed many prototype decorative approaches to decorating the forms designed by Weston. This vase is a prototype design developed and executed by Brenda possibly in the 1980’s. The turquoise used appears to be a commercial decorating color which were experimented with in later years.
The signature is a sgrafitto AD. There is a chip on the rim which was there before the vase was glazed, so that it is a glazed chip, on the inner rim of the vase, There is another very small spot at the top of the case where the glaze skipped but it is not prominent. On one of the narrow sides of the vase there is a small area where the glaze is rough as if there were some bits of sanded bisque on the vase when it was glazed but it too does not distract.,
The oval column vase was designed by Weston. We call it the 49 Vase because that is the number it was given. It is slip cast in white stone ware and is 9 inches tall. The form is a flattened oval cylinder. Weston also designed the decorating colors and glaze
Everything Andersen Design makes begins with the raw materials of the earth and is hand-made in the USA. is hand-made in the USA.
Mackenzie Andersen,
artist, philosopher
Andersen Design was started by Weston and Brenda Andersen in 1952. Our generation has the great honor and responsibility to guide it into the 21st century, maintaining while expanding upon its unique philosophy. What is that you say? Read on... Andersen Studio Evolution Diaries, by Susan Mackenzie Andersen
Store Hours
Online or by Appointment