kashmir...by dorothy liebes for pomona tile, 1957 and cathy's major eBay score, 2011

i originally posted this on june 3, 2007. i found this ad in an issue of arts + architecture and it caught my eye because i just love all of the designer collaborations that pomona tile did. more on that here and here.

so here's the original post:

in 1957 pomona tile hired dorothy liebes, paul mc cobb, saul bass, paul laszlo and millard sheets to design tiles for their "distinguished designer series".

dorothy liebes was a weaver and textile designer from san francisco. she was well known for her bold color combinations and use of unexpected materials such as jute, plastic threads, ticker tape, grass, leather, straw, ribbon, and metallic yarns. dorothy also collaborated with many architects such as frank lloyd wright.

fast forward:

i'd had "pomona tile" on my ebay saved searches for years and nothing from the designer series ever came up. because i am usually maxed out on my saved searches the search for pomona tile had to be deleted to make way for something else.

last year when i started taking weaving classes i became interested in the work of dorothy liebes. i added her name to my saved searches and (having forgotten that she did some designs for pomona) lo and behold a listing appeared for 2 of her tiles. the dealer was in arkansas and had listed many tiles from the designer series - he had some really cool stuff. turns out that pomona tile had a manufacturing plant in arkansas and some samples from a tile salesman's estate were making their way on to ebay.

needless to say i really wanted these tiles. since i'm not so into sniping i always wait to bid on my own at the last minute. for some reason that's the way i usually win ebay auctions. the thing was the auctions for the 2 tiles were going to end while i was in new york. there i was standing on a corner in the west village trying to bid using my iphone and the price just kept going up and up (beyond my budget) and i lost the auction.

much to my surprise an auction for 3 of the tiles (just like pictured in the ad) came up a couple of weeks ago. i figured i'd lose out on those too thinking they would go for much higher. but guess what, i got all 3 for less than what the first 2 went for that i lost out on.

 

Comments

[Anna]

score!