You're doin' fine Frankoma, Okay!

I started collecting Frankoma pottery quite by accident, almost eighteen years ago when I first bought the house.
A friend had given me a set of four mugs. I liked the colors, a sage-like green mottled with whirls of cocoa brown throughout. Each mug was different, I later found out that it's due the chemicals used in the kiln process.
I wanted to know more about the pottery name that was stamped on the bottom of the mugs. Investigating further, I found out the company was started in the 1930's by an ceramics professor at the University of Oklahoma named John Frank. He combined his last name with his state's and hence the pottery's designation. While the company has made many forms of tableware, vases, and sculptures over the years that come in many colors, I am partial to green/brown color combination. I especially like the darker terra cotta red clay pieces that were made with a particular mud from a  town called Sapulpa.

I started to hunt down new pieces to add to my collection. Antique stores, junk shops, flea markets, garage sales...I would find new additions everywhere if I just kept my eyes peeled.
Just about the time I started collecting, the website Ebay was just beginning to get popular also. It was a great source for still more finds.
I keep most of the collection in a china cabinet in my dining room. I found it years ago in an antique store called 'Ruby Beets'. It used to be in Bridgehampton but has now re-located to Sag Harbor. The proprietress told me  the cabinet was from Czechoslavokia. Yeah, right. I just liked the worn texture of the mustard color paint and all the cubby holes it had.  As you can see, it holds a LOT of Frankoma!

I've got dinner plates, desert plates, coffee mugs, bowls, vases, pitchers, salt and pepper shakers, trivets, figurines...you name it. A lot of pottery collectors look down on Frankoma, it's mass produced bric-a-brac quality doesn't appeal to most, but I like it massed...and maybe I'm also drawn to it's Southwestern heritage, being a Texan.
I've got more of the stuff scattered around the house too, the pieces that don't fit in the cabinet.

A cake stand holds pieces for my coffee station; I especially love the honey pot with the bee on top!

Two pieces sit on some shelves at the top of the stairs, a little bowl... 

...and a little Grecian style bud vase 

A mid-century bowl I keep on the TV room coffee table

Still another grouping in the shelf in my home office

One last bit of Frankoma trivia: a couple of years ago I went to see the movie version of the play "August: Osage County" starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. The movie takes place is Osage County, Oklahoma. There's a scene with Meryl and Julia in her bedroom, she's at her makeup vanity with a coffee mug beside her. Well, I have to hand it to the production designer, how perfect that--you guessed it--her mug was a Frankoma piece. That's attention to detail!

Here's a still from that scene, can you spot the Frankoma? ;o)

Some mornings before I've had my coffee, I look like this!