ABOUT W.A. PAINTER POTTERY WORKS
W.A. Painter Pottery Works specializes in personalized and custom made to order stoneware pieces. By utilizing historical manufacturing methods and materials that were used in the pottery industry over one hundred years ago, our stoneware has an authentic look and feel. Our pieces reflect on a bygone era where stoneware potters turned clay into jugs for whiskey and crock jars into storage containers for preserving and storing foods.
Not only were company products such as pickles, butter, liquor and kraut advertised on stoneware containers but also community events such as the “Potters Excursion”. This riverboat ride was organized by one early stoneware company in 1915 for employees and their families to enjoy a trip down the Mississippi river from Red Wing to St. Paul. The use of stoneware as a medium for advertising covered so many different products, companies, organizations and events from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth centuries.
Our line of promotional stoneware items that we refer to as "Advertising Stoneware Specialties" continues a long tradition of custom logo designed stoneware that we create exclusively for organizations, community celebrations, family events, fundraising events and businesses that are engaged in commerce in our modern time.
Our Garden Line is made up of Wren Houses, Bottle Bird Houses, Toad Houses and Garden Frogs. With textured surfaces and adornments of frogs, flowers, and stumps, they provide sanctuary for small creatures and bring nature closer to our lives and to your home.
We look into the past for old ideas and combine those with new designs, bringing them together to create a collection of unique stoneware items for the home and garden. We hope you will enjoy our stoneware as much as we have enjoyed making it!
A WORD ABOUT ADVERTISING
Our Advertising Stoneware Specialties line of promotional stoneware is custom manufactured for current businesses, organizations and events that are engaged in commerce in our modern time. We will not copy old advertising from old stoneware pieces nor will we accept commissioned orders to copy advertising from old stoneware pieces. Our personalized stoneware is created for those who are looking for a unique medium in which to advertise their business, to celebrate a family occasion or a community organized event.
There is one exception where we will incorporate old advertising onto our stoneware. When a group or organization wants to use old advertising to commemorate an old stoneware piece, the organization's name, current date of manufacture and our pottery mark are all clearly placed and recognizable on each piece to show that it is a newly created piece from W. A. Painter Pottery Works. Should we decide to commemorate an event that we attend and decide to use an old advertisement on one of our pieces, the organization's name and manufacturing date and our pottery mark will be on the base to identify it as an original and new piece from our pottery.
Any logo designs that are sent to us by companies holding intellectual property rights to marks or logo designs must be accompanied with a letter giving the W.A. Painter Pottery Works permission to use those marks in the manufacture of a stoneware piece. We will respect the laws of intellectual property rights and companies who own the rights to their respected marks.
Since 1992, we have offered our personalized and custom made to order Advertising Stoneware Specialties and custom folk art inspired pieces. New additions include Wren Houses, Toad Houses and other unique pottery items. As collectors of old American stoneware and through research of early pottery manufacturers, we have a passion for creating and bringing together our designs and ideas with those from the past to create unique stoneware items for your home and garden.
Considering a promotional piece for your event or business? Please forward any questions you may have abut any of our pottery pieces through the Contact Us page on our site. We hope that you will share our passion and enjoy our stoneware as much as we have enjoyed creating it for you!
OUR MARKS: HOW TO IDENTIFY OUR STONEWARE
Every piece that leaves our pottery is marked to help identify it. Over the years we have used several variations of our marks. Shown above are all of the variations that have been used. The “W.A. PAINTER POTTERY WORKS KANSAS CITY USA” circle marks were the first that we used. Subsequent variations of that mark include circle marks with no outer circle around the wording like the first mark shown on the left side above. The use of “OVERLAND PARK, KS” in the middle of the circle replaced “KANSAS CITY, USA” a few years ago.
More recent additions to our pottery marks include the above mark shown with “OVERLAND PARK, KANS” with no outer circle, and the sunflower mark with W.A. PAINTER POTTERY WORKS OVERLAND PARK KANS” in a scroll like design in the center of a sunflower.
Our stoneware birdhouses are marked with an impressed mark into the clay at the base of the birdhouse, on the back side opposite the entry hole. The impressed circle mark “W.A.PAINTER POTTERY WORKS” around the outer ring with “HAND MADE” in the center is used on our folk art business card holders and other pieces.
When you see these marks on our stoneware, you will know they are original pieces made at W.A. Painter Pottery Works.