Cardew Club News » 2007 » January

READING, Pa. - Cynthia L. Wahl can now call her tea fit for royalty.

Wahl, who owns a wholesale tea business in Bucks County, served Cynthia’s Blend of black loose-leaf tea to Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, during the royal couple’s visit to Philadelphia.

“This is the Super Bowl of tea,” the Laureldale native said. “Serving tea to the royal family. You can’t really top that.”

Wahl and her partner, Elmer J. Conti, prepared 18 gallons of tea for about 120 people at a Saturday afternoon reception at International House, a college dormitory mainly for foreign students near the University of Pennsylvania.

Never trust a man, who, when alone in a room with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on his head. This is the code by which Billy Connolly has lived his life, which explains why the madcap funny man is enthroned, like the national treasure he is, in the garden of his Candacraig country seat, crowned with a tea cosy and hugging an exuberant silver teapot on wheels.

Dear All

I am still contacted on a regular basis from collectors who are looking to sell their teapot collections. Below are just a couple of Paul’s wonderful teapots that are up for sale.

The “Queen of Hearts and three Cardmen” was a special “Collectors Day” teapot made for our “Alice in Wonderland” themed signing day. Only 20 of these were ever made and were obviously snapped up as soon as the collectors saw them.

The “Flying Saucer” again was a special teapot made for one of the Signing Days and again, only 20 of these were produced - in all of their glory.

Traditionally, teapots pour tea, but at a north Baltimore ceramic arts center they speak as well, telling stories of tradition, inspiration and, yes, passion.

The teapots are “talking” in a new exhibit, “100 Teapot III,” which opened Jan. 13 at Baltimore Clayworks in Mt. Washington. The exhibition, the third of its kind, showcases 100 teapots chosen from a pool of 670 entries from artists nationwide. The exhibit closes Feb. 21.

“I think that each of these pots, whether they are narrative or functional pots, tells the story of the artist and what people find beautiful,” said Forrest Snyder, exhibitions director for Baltimore Clayworks.

Lucille Ball, Aunt Jemima, and Ebenezer Scrooge are up in Ethel Frattaroli’s attic.

But even Sherlock Holmes — yes, he’s up there, too — would have a tough time finding them among this collection of nearly 5,000 teapots in Newton.

“I’m so proud of them,” said Frattaroli, who will turn 88 next month. “Sometimes, if I get down in the dumps, I come up and look at them and I’m happy again.”

Frattaroli converted her attic into a teapot shrine 20 years ago. Three shelves hug the walls of the entire room. Not an inch is spared among the teapots, coffee pots, and chocolate pots — the latter was all the rage in 17th-century Spain, well before Swiss Miss entered the hot-beverage picture.

To Noi Volkov, a simple faucet, a model of a Ford Thunderbird and photos of Marilyn Monroe and Woody Allen are more than just odds and ends.

To him, they are the makings for a ceramic teapot.

“I am trying to create a new, unorthodox style of ceramics,” said the 60-year-old Owings Mills man. “It’s a mixture of Renaissance and pop art. It has a little bit of Dali and some Picasso.”

The teapot uses the back of the T-bird model as a handle, the faucet as the spout, and images of Monroe and Allen on either side of the body.

A British air force crew had to use a teapot to mend a hole in their plane.
The Royal Air Force squad were attempting to drop a satellite buoy into the sea at 8,000ft when a metal plate failed to open fully. The crew decided to use a teapot on board to fill the gap.

Master aircrew Neil Campbell, of 201 Squadron at RAF Kinloss, said: “It was a simple case of covering up a hole to stop the wind whistling in. It had no safety implications and really is a storm in a teapot.” The Nimrod plane, which had been out on an operational flight, was returning to the Cornish air base when the problem occurred.