Teal Designs by Keith Sandford vs Ken Doidge

I met with Keith Sandford at his Whangarei home yesterday and spent a couple of hours talking with him about Teal Ceramics and his life in general. Keith lost his house when the company collapsed and has had to collect Teal pottery as he finds it.


This is his collection. I think they are all pieces of his own design. We will have to rely on member contributions to illustrate the designs of his colleague Ken Doidge. I will eventually write up all my notes and post individual pictures of the items on display here, with their product numbers, where available. Teal started numbering from 100, chronologically and as some pieces start with a "2" we can be confident that there are over 100 shapes to look out for.

Keiths Sandford's original design for a backstamp, left, was referred to in house as a "pregnant duck"; it was replaced by Ken Doidge's sleeker bird, right.

Keith's collection. Keith is very proud of his designs. He had no formal training.


The large serving dish in the front was a big seller. Having a farming background Keith designed with a rural market in mind.


In centre are casseroles in the squared round or "squound" shape. Keith had noticed that on many round casserole designs there were issues with lid fit resulting from distortions created in the production process. No issues here. Made in four sizes. three shown.


Centre, behind the casseroles is a squound honey pot. The inclusion of a rubber seal required a hole to break the suction in removing the lid, but if placed on top that would create an ant door, so he put it behind the rubber seal. As the lid is raised the hole is exposed and the air lock broken.


The piece on the right that looks like a loaf tin was commissioned as a commercial serving dish and Teal were able to supply them cheaper than the equivalent in tempered glass. Knowing how clay shrinks in the kiln Keith modelled these with bowed sides and sure enough they shrank to straight.


Keith is not sure whether his coffee pot design ever went into production, so he must have salvaged this one when the company collapsed. The coffee pot seen in the Teal brochure is Ken's design.
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22/4/17
It looks as though I got the spelling of Ken Doidge correct.
I see that he is the current secretary of the Mt Pleasant Pottery Group.
http://www.mtpleasantpottery.org.nz/meet-the-team.html

I added his name to the title so he is now in a search field.