Post #641529 by danlovestikis on Sun, Jun 24, 2012 9:00 AM

WestADad, thank you so much for the photo. I'm glad to see the Bumatay necklace fits. Is your dog named Wishbone? He has such perfect coloring.

VampiressRN even though we are not together we are having a visit here. You make me happy.

hang10tiki I love visiting your threads too so keep posting often.

Now it is time to continue my personal Frankoma story.

I'd like you to meet Jonice Frank. Her First name is pronounced like her father's name John. She is shown her with one of her sculptures. She is both a master sculptor and a master mold maker.

Just go to eBay and bring up Frankoma and you will see the massive amount of creations made by this artistic family.

Both Jonice and I have a deep love of clay and what it can become. This photo was taken just before she sent the statue on the right to my home. I treasure both the statue and our friendship.

As I have shown on page one of this thread tragedy struck Frankoma pottery. There was a fire that destroyed not only the building but every single mold that they had made.

This is Jonice looking through the rubble.

Only the sign was left standing after all the debris was removed.

The factory was rebuilt and for many years to come ceramics were made but the tiki line was gone. Not many had been produced to begin with but now they had become such a treasure that the eBay wars had begun.

While Gecko worked on producing ceramics of the War God and Geckoma I continued working with sculpey clay. I wanted to reproduce the giant sized Frankoma War God and the Frankoma small tiki bowl for Dan's collection.

This photo is from a magazine called Pot and Puma put out by a Frankoma collectors guild. This is the Tiki Collection by Jonice Frank.

A friend of ours Joanne had both of these War God mugs and I photographed them at her home.

Another friend had a photo of the rare bowl.

I will continue this story tomorrow. Meanwhile here's what we have been up to.

I've finished pouring enough big Bob's for the next wish list. When ever I come across an air bubble at the top of a mug I dig it out as shown on the left. The tiny size of this hole is decieving. It can never be filled with glaze to hide it.

So dig it out and fill it with clay and smooth.

Now that the big Bob's are done we put those molds to storage and got out all the small Bob's and the bowl mold and the Bumatay molds. Now we'll continue to pour until I have a few of these ready for the next Wish List.

All of these are waiting for me today. I need to open them and to clean up the casts. There's always work waiting.

I started the priming (painting with Gesso) of the canvas for the Elroy Art painting. I'll work on it now while the Oasis painting rests. I need a rest too.

Until next time, Wendy