Home Improvement : Tile Design Specialist Continues Her Career
When Franciscan Ceramics Inc. closed its famous ceramics plant last year, 280 employees lost their jobs.
Among them was Peggy Spaulding, a designer who spent 30 years at the 45-acre facility at 2901 Los Feliz Blvd.
Unlike a newspaper, where bylines and credit lines are used liberally, artists at places like Franciscan--the only U. S. facility of Wedgwood Ltd., Stoke-on-Trent, England--labored anonymously. Peggy and her co-workers produced beautiful ceramic designs for such commercial projects as Disneyland, Epcot Center, Caesar’s Palace, the Santa Barbara Biltmore and the Sunset Growers test kitchen, as well as for celebrities such as Danny Thomas, Fess Parker and Glen Campbell.
All that is in the past for Peggy Spaulding and her husband Jim. Their studo occupies most of the space in a tract house in the San Fernando Valley and Peggy Spaulding now gets credit for her designs in tile for homes and commercial projects.
Much of her work uses the bulbing technique that Franciscan Ceramics was famous for. The artist uses a bulb device to squeeze out glaze with a black line (resist) to separate the plain glaze from the decorative glaze. The technique was developed centuries ago by the Persians, she said, and gives a striking three-dimensional look to tiles.
She showed me several samples of bulbing on Fasar stove-top tiles, a Spaulding specialty. A set of five of these tiles, for the Fasar induction cooking system, costs about $825 in virtually any pattern the customer wants, with the bulbing technique, she said. The tiles replace the plain production tiles supplied by the Fasar people.
Other techniques from the Spaulding studio include hand brush, silk screen and decal. She will also reproduce diplomas and other documents on tiles, produce family crests and just about anything you can imagine.
Much of the work of the studio, at 8445 Colbath Ave., Panorama City, Calif. 91402, is for interior and kitchen designers, architects and contractors, but Jim and Peggy Spaulding will gladly work with retail customers. This is the kind of column I especially like to write; if there are any more success stories coming from the Franciscan plant closure, I’d appreciate a line.
Jackie Barton at Better Homes & Gardens, Des Moines, Iowa, saw my remarks on their Wood magazine (May 5) and kindly sent along all the back issues of this home workshop-oriented publication.
My impressions of the June, 1985 issue were correct: the quality was good right from the first issue last fall. I’m sure the charter subscribers and those who find it at news dealers are as pleased as I am. This is the kind of publication that one wishes came out every month, instead of every two months.
Designer/craftsman John Nyquist will teach at a six-day “hands-on” workshop on chairs and seating at Fullerton College, 321 Chapman Ave., Fullerton 92634, June 24-29. The hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day and the fee is $100. More information can be obtained from Chris Feddersohn at the college.
