The skills of the company’s modelers, mold-makers and ceramic chemists, combined with the growing market for art pottery, encouraged Gates to develop what had previously been a pleasurable avocation into a subsidiary line of his terra cotta business. The new venture would be known as the Gates Potteries and its product would be called Teco ware. Derived from the “Te” in Terra and the “Co” in Cotta, the name was to be pronounced “Tea-ko,” according to promotional literature, and a special trademark featuring an elongated “T” was adopted to identify the pottery. Teco ware was to be an entirely new type of decorative pottery: a standardized art product unlike the utilitarian ceramic wares being mass produced in many potteries and superior in design and execution to hand-decorated art pottery made in studios or manual arts classes.

During the winter of 1899–1900, Gates and his chemists concentrated on developing glazes compatible with various clays suitable for firing at low temperature in the kilns alongside the terra cotta ashlars (tile blocks) produced by the parent company. The vogue for matte glazes (first displayed on French ceramics at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago) and the color green (considered the tone most restful to the eye and soothing to the nerves) inspired the chemists to work in that direction. Soon they produced a glossless crystalline glaze in a cool, silvery green. Varying from pale to a deep moss hue, it resembled aged bronze that had been exposed to the weather. An excellent “fit” over a dense buff clay body, this waxy glaze, nicknamed “Teco green,” would become the hallmark of the pottery.

Gates’s experiments with clays and glazes kept pace with his invention of new pottery shapes. His aim was to produce ware whose beauty would derive from line and color rather than from elaborate decoration. It would conform to the highest artistic standards, yet be sold at modest prices.

Over the years, Gates had become a reasonably skillful potter. But he was acutely aware of the talent and skills required to Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125