Spurlin Ceramics (tiki mugs)

Spurlin Ceramics was a small ceramics business in Lynwood, California, run by the designer Stella Bodey. From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s it was one of the first makers of tiki mugs and communal drink bowls for American Polynesian restaurants. It sold much of its work through Oceanic Arts, a decor supplier in Whittier.^[1][2][3][4] It is probably the Spurlin name most often seen by collectors of mid-century barware.

Name and ownership

"Spurlin" was Bodey's maiden name.^[1] In a 2003 email quoted on the Tiki Central forum, Oceanic Arts co-owner Bob Van Oosting placed Spurlin Ceramics in Lynwood and named Bodey as its maker. He called her one of the first suppliers of mugs and bowls to the Polynesian restaurant trade.^[3] The catalog for Oceanic Arts' April 2022 auction says Bodey was a high school ceramics teacher who started the business in the mid-1950s.^[4] See Stella Bodey.

Work with Oceanic Arts

Oceanic Arts (OA), founded in 1956 by Bob Van Oosting and LeRoy Schmaltz, supplied decor to Polynesian restaurants and bars.^[4] Van Oosting wrote in 2003 that OA had represented Spurlin's line of more than 25 tiki mugs and bowls.^[3] Spurlin left samples and prototypes with OA to show to restaurant clients. They stood in OA's showroom cabinet, known to collectors as the "Holy Grail" case, until the OA collection was auctioned in April and October 2022.^[4][5] The April 2022 catalog called a prototype of Spurlin's Vicious Virgin drink bowl the centerpiece of that cabinet.^[4] The two auction catalogs list dozens of Spurlin samples. They include Fog Cutter, rum-barrel, bamboo and coconut mugs, a "Jazz Hands" tiki chalice, salt-and-pepper sets, and prototype scorpion bowls standing on three tiki, Ku, Marquesan or moai figures.^[4][5] The first catalog says Bodey tried out drip and salt glazes, and reused her salt-and-pepper molds as feet for drink bowls.^[4]

Spurlin also made the ceramic parts of tiki table lamps. According to the April 2022 catalog, OA had its ceramic lamp figures made by Spurlin or Desert Ceramics and assembled the lamps itself.^[4] A collector who went through the OA archives with Van Oosting in 2015 reported that Bodey also made ceramic tiki posts for the Illuminee Candlelite Manufacturing Company, a maker of lamps for hotels and restaurants.^[6]

Clients and products

The mytiki.life database lists 31 Spurlin Ceramics items.^[7] Venues named in collector sources and the OA catalogs include:

• The Islander on La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, which opened in 1959. Spurlin made the Island Chief ("Husband Killer") mug with a matching scorpion bowl and shakers, a Cobra's Fang mug, Headhunter mugs used for the "Coffee Grog", a rum barrel, and the "Vicious Virgin" mug and bowl.^{[8][9][7][10][11]} One Tiki Central collector has argued that the "Islander"-marked Vicious Virgin mugs were made by OMC and doubted that Spurlin's own version was used at the restaurant.^[12] A collector wrote on Tiki Central in 2014 that the Islander hired Spurlin in the late 1950s to make all its drinkware.^[13] See Spurlin Island Chief tiki mug, Spurlin Cobra's Fang mugs and Spurlin Vicious Virgin mug and bowl.
• The Tahitian in Pasadena and Studio City: a coconut mug with "The Tahitian" incised on the base, a rum barrel, a "Smog Cutter" mug, and the ceramic figure of the restaurant's table lamp, which Bodey modeled on Andres Bumatay's logo tiki.^[14][7][4]
• Sam's Seafood in Sunset Beach, California: brown and green wood-grain Fog Cutter mugs, a wood-grain scorpion bowl, and a "lined-face Maori" design used for a mug, shakers and bowls standing on three kneeling figures.^{[15][16][7][4][17]}
• Coco Palms Resort, Kauai: a gold-glazed coconut that OA commissioned from Spurlin for the lamps of the resort's Coconut Palace lounge, also made as a lidded mug.^[4]
• Steve Crane's Luau in Beverly Hills and other restaurants: the ceramic part of a three-tiki oil lamp that OA assembled.^[18]
• Club Bonnie Rae, a 1960s nightclub in South El Monte, California, outfitted by OA: a palm-tree mug.^[19]
• The Islands restaurant at the Hanalei: a Fog Cutter tiki mug; OA's sample has the OA logo under the base.^[7][4]
• Inter-Island Resorts, Hawaii, and the InterContinental hotel in Samoa: turtle-design coconut mugs and a green coconut table lamp with a sea-turtle design, made for OA's resort jobs. The April 2022 catalog says Desert Ceramics took over the turtle mugs after Bodey sold her molds.^[4][5]
• Oceanic Arts itself: the OA Cobra Fang mug, marked with OA's sail logo. The 2022 catalog calls it the only mug OA sold as an open catalog item rather than for one venue.^[4]

Bodey is also credited with the open-mouthed tiki mug that OA supplied to the Mahi Mahi in Nashville, Tennessee.^[2] The April 2022 catalog says OA engaged Bodey and Spurlin for it. mytiki.life, however, dates it to about 1968 and names Desert Ceramics as the maker, and a 2005 Tiki Central post relaying Van Oosting says Desert Ceramics produced it from her molds.^[4][20][21]

Marks and glazes

Most Spurlin pieces carry no maker's mark, so collectors attribute them mainly by shape and glaze.^[22][11] Some have a venue name on the base, such as "Islander" or "The Tahitian". Van Oosting said the name on the base of the Tahitian coconut was in her writing style.^[14][3] Collector sources describe the glazes as distinctive, running from pink to muted greens and a mottled yellow-brown "rusted" finish.^[1] Collectors have also remarked on the rough, hand-made look of the pieces compared with later mass-produced mugs.^[2][22]

Sale of the business and copies

mytiki.life says Bodey sold the business and molds in the early 1960s, and that Desert Ceramics was using them by 1965.^[1] Later collector accounts place the sale around 1965 or 1966. They say the molds went to Desert Ceramics, a Palm Desert firm that also worked with OA, and to Beauce Pottery of Quebec, whose tiki line reproduced Spurlin designs.^{[23][24][17][4]} One eBay seller adds that a Bodey moai design went to Toby Designs.^[25]

Tiki Central collectors, including the Book of Tiki author Sven Kirsten, have written that the Japanese importer Otagiri Mercantile Company (OMC) obtained a set of Spurlin's Islander pieces around 1960 and copied them. They say OMC later took over supplying the Islander. Spurlin samples from the estate of an OMC sales representative, one pencil-marked "Original Islander", sold on eBay in 2006.^[26][27] Modern makers have also revived the designs. OA and Tiki Diablo made a run of 100 Cobra Fang mugs from the Spurlin molds, reported on Tiki Central in 2013, and Tiki Farm and Bauer Pottery have made versions of the Island Chief.^[28][29][30]

In the marketplace

WorthPoint's archive of past sales includes Spurlin's Islander Cobra's Fang, Island Chief and Club Bonnie Rae mugs and an Island Chief scorpion bowl.^{[31][9][32][33]} Reported prices include $499 for an Island Chief scorpion bowl on eBay in 2012, $835 for another (reported as of December 2017), $180 for an Island Chief mug in August 2018, and, according to a later eBay seller, $1,500 for a prototype Spurlin Ku scorpion bowl at the Oceanic Arts auction.^[33][34][35] Not every listing that names Spurlin is a Spurlin piece. One archived listing is for a 1960s OMC pointed-headdress mug that the seller says was "inspired" by the Spurlin Islander design.^[36]