Why I collect Brad Keeler

***UPDATE: To try to answer more questions about my grandfather Brad Keeler’s work I have built another website devoted entirely to him. It’s still in development but please click on over and have a look: http://bradkeelerartwares.squarespace.com/***

Brad Keeler is my grandfather. So what, right? Right. I think I went most of my childhood without ever really knowing who my grandfather was. Sure, the roosters and lobsters in the kitchen were fixtures, but not much was said about them. It was only as a young adult that I finally began to ask about him.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am not the only grandchild. All three of his children–Bradley, Patrick, and my mom, Heather– all had children. There are seven of us grandchildren in all, not counting great-grandchildren.

We’re not a tight-knit family. To the contrary, I haven’t seen any of my Keeler cousins in decades. My Uncle Pat passed away from a heart attack at the age of 36, following the family pattern of dying young from heart failure: Grandpa Brad was only 39 when he died, and his dad, Rufus — an acclaimed tile maker himself — passed away at 49. My Uncle Brad, the oldest child, I haven’t seen since I was eight years old, but my mom speaks to him regularly. I did have a chance, though, to speak at length with Grandpa Brad’s brother, Phil, before he died, and more recently, his sister, Jeanne. They have helped me close the gap in my knowledge, and, someday, I hope to go through a chest my mother has that is filled with old photos and news clippings. Because I never had the chance to know him — my mom was only five when he died — I have this drive to learn more about him while I still can, so that I can pass it on. He was a significant figure in the California art pottery movement, but very little information is available to those who might be interested. Though his work and a brief biography are featured in numerous antiques & collectibles guides, they give no sense of who the man was or how hard he worked to bring his vision to fruition.

I was very close to his wife, my grandmother Catherine, my namesake. After her passing my mom gave me some of the figurines that her mother had held on to for so many years: a trio of birds and a trio of “moonshiners” as we have come to call them. I treasured those figurines. I put them up on my bookshelf, carefully gluing a wing back on when it fell, then, again, gluing the other wing back on after some later accident. I didn’t know anything about them, except that they belonged to her.

That’s her in the polaroid, standing in front of wooden shelf nearly identical to one I purchased to house the demitasse set and birds. I hadn’t remembered that shelf until my mom produced the polaroid!

These are the moonshiners, appropriately housed with the brandy glasses.

When I was twenty-two another grandmother, Violet (my dad’s mom, completely unrelated to the Keelers), was moving from her home into a senior apartment and I was moving from her home where I had lived for a short while into the home where I currently live with my husband. When she was cleaning out a closet she came across one of Brad Keeler’s lobster dishes, which had belonged to her mother and which she had been saving to give to me. That was my first lobster dish.

I think it was around this time that I started asking my mom more questions about her dad. We made a trip out to their home in Laguna Beach, the home where he died. She showed me old news clippings and photos. I began to scour antiques stores for his work, occasionally picking something up. Then, of course, I found eBay. Today I own twenty-seven individual pieces plus a seventeen piece demitasse set.

But I’m not a professional collector. I don’t care if a piece is cracked or chipped. A professional collector would probably eschew pieces like that, but to me, they’re all a part of my history, including their imperfections.

Several dozen people have found this blog because they are Brad Keeler collectors, family members, and even relatives of former employees. Just last week, Deborah Lipp, who writes for the Mad Men Blog: Basket of Kisses, contacted me. I had no idea that the series had used one of my grandfather’s tomato dishes (the infamous “chip and dip”) for one of their episodes, titled “Red in the Face”. We don’t watch a lot of television in my house, and had only caught snippets of the Mad Men show from time to time, but I did download the episode from iTunes and watched it, just to see Pete return the 1940s tomato dish/chip and dip to a 1960s department store.

Today on Basket of Kisses Deborah Lipp writes about how she came to own a couple or three tomato dishes of her own, and how that led her to me. So, if you’re a fan of Mad Men and/or Brad Keeler, you might find her post pretty interesting. I enjoyed corresponding with her, and found myself yet again digging through my archives to recall biographical details for her to include. It has renewed my drive to create a website and forum dedicated entirely to the man and his work, for collectors and former employees and family to come together and share information, swap stories, and maybe even swap some of his work. I’ve talked for years about writing a book about him, but the more engaged with the internet I become, the more I want the information to be freely accessible, so that those who want to know more can learn more in just a few clicks. (For collectors, there is at least one site available. It is still in progress, but does have some information: http://www.lakevortex.com/index.php.)

In the meantime, here is a poem from my first book, Seven Floors Up, that explains in far fewer words my own  complicated relationship with my grandfather and his work.

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CRAZED COLLECTION

This piece, representing a green cabbage or lettuce leaf, has a bright red lobster claw to provide interest… There are no chips, cracks, dings, scratches, etc. There is the usual amount of crazing… The backside is marked Brad Keeler… This super piece… may fill that void in your lobsterware collection.

– ad found on E-Bay.

Glazed eyes gaze into the infinite distance
on the open shelving in my kitchen.
Earthen elements molded into lobsters and leaves form
a frieze of my dead grandfather’s work.

On the open shelving in my kitchen
I’ve arranged his platters, casseroles, and bowls.
A frieze of my dead grandfather’s work,
these crazed green-garnished, blood-threaded dishes.

I’ve arranged his platters, casseroles, and bowls.
Imperfections longed for: cracks, dings and scratches.
These crazed green-and-garnet glazed dishes
have found a home amid my homely kitchen’s

imperfection. Longing for cracks, dings and scratches,
I order imperfect pieces. The damaged
find a home in my home’s kitchen.
Crazed collection elevating the forgotten,

I order imperfect pieces– the damaged,
disregarded, fill a void in this
collection, elevating the forgotten
yellowed news-clips, dust-covered photographs.

The discarded fill a void in this
kitchen, remember what I’ve never known.
Yellowed news-clips, dust-covered photographs,
reveal my mother’s father. In this

kitchen remember what I have never known:
earthen elements. Molded into lobsters and leaves, form
reveals my mother’s father. In these
glazed eyes the infinite distance gazes back.

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