Colorful, whimsical teapots on display in Salem

The first teapot Sonny and Gloria Kamm got together was as a wedding gift, and as far as they can remember it was a typical “brown betty” — the traditional glazed pot.

Today, the Los Angeles couple have more than 7,500 teapots and related items, filling shelves and closets and even a condominium they bought for storage and affectionally call “Teapot Central.”

Gloria, a docent at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, describes the collection as sculptures masquerading as teapots.

“It’s a familiar item,” adds Sonny, “so even people who wouldn’t necessarily be interested in art would find something fun and accessible about these pieces.”

They have a ceramic teapot shaped like Mr. Potato Head. Another looks like a pipe. Recycled tin forms an armadillo-shaped teapot.

Function isn’t necessarily a requirement for the teapots, in fact most wouldn’t be capable of steeping the more than 3,000 varieties of teas out there. But they do need to have the basic components of a traditional pot: handle, spout and lid.

“A teapot can be a plain brown betty or it can be so much more,” Gloria says.

About 250 teapots in the couple’s collection are part of a nine-city traveling exhibit that is currently showing at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.

The display runs through March, and the Kamms checked out the show this week.

“After water, tea is the most popular beverage in the world. And where there is tea, there are teapots,” Sonny said.

The couple started collecting teapots in 1985, shortly after they moved into a new home and were looking through their art collection for something to fill the built-in shelves behind the bar.

“We aren’t big drinkers, and some of our vases and other objects didn’t fit on the narrow shelves” explained Sonny, a lawyer for a securities firm.

But the couple noticed they had a number of teapots.

“It made sense, in a clever, funny way, for us teetotalers to put teapots behind the bar,” he chuckled.

The museum exhibit displays a broad range of teapots, including designs by Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein and architect Michael Graves, whose whimsical pots are big sellers at Target stores.

The exhibit is organized in themes highlighting form, materials and decoration.

A metal pot designed with doll parts called “I’m a Little Teapot” looks like it could be in a horror film. Other pots have spouts that double as noses and handles that form ears.

“What good would you do putting Tension Tamer tea in that one,” laughed museum visitor Yvonne Twomey, of Scituate, Mass., pointing to a pot designed like a bomb detonator.

Many of the teapots in the Kamm collection were commissioned by the couple. Other pots were purchased through galleries, auction houses and flea markets. Sonny said they have teapots that were bought for as little as 25 cents and as much as $50,000.

“I couldn’t possibly have a favorite,” says Gloria. “It’s like making me pick between my children.”

(this article was written by Brooke Donald, Associated Press Writer for Boston News)