Happy Earth Day 2009 Blue Mountain Pottery Redo

This latest project has been finished just in time for earth day. The restored jug will take it’s rightful place in my vintage Blue Mountain Pottery collection to be appreciated for another decade or two. The change-up came when someone recycled the jug for the first time and put on a new surface of blue and gold crackle paint. Originally it would have sat on a dark oak or rod iron table back in the early 70s, possibly holding a few artificial posies, and with it’s bright red glaze it would have been either the contrasting accent piece in the room or possibly blended in with the red shag carpet.


The crackle treatment was a lot easier to clean off than most, especially in the places where the crackle effect took and broke up the thicker blue finish. I used a cake decorating knife, some soap and water and many rags, positioned myself in front of the television and proceeded to scrape with short firm strokes until all the paint was removed. It took a few nights of scraping and washing but as you can see it was well worth the effort.

There was not a chip, crack or crazed line that needed to be disguised, it was a perfectly good piece. It was only recycled to match a new décor the first time around and now it has been recycled again, restored back to it’s original appearance and repurposed as a collector piece.

Given it’s original red color and ribbed body, I did have one disappointment. The red glaze of the 70s was not produced for very long. It is a piece that I did not have BUT I was hoping that it had been hand thrown in the pottery observation studio operated by Blue Mountain Pottery’s resident master potter, Dominic Stanzione. The studio was open from 1967 to around 1973 when this jug would have been produced and he did sign most of his work done on the pottery wheel. Dominic’s signed Mocha, Slate and Red pieces along with his signature color of yellow and orange, sometimes dubbed mustard and ketchup, are muchly sought after and coveted by the seasoned bmp collectors. Oh well, it’s still a beauty and it was a labor of love to restore it back to it’s original glaze. See the rest of my BMP collection at http://grandmagrace.piczo.com