One of the great delights of the recent Fat Lava exhibition in Amsterdam (a blog entry is on its way) was putting faces to names of many fellow collectors who I’ve got to know over the years via email. Once such collector is Els van Petersen. Els and I first got in contact when I found a Dutch studio pottery vase with a paper label reading ‘van Woerden’, and put it in a Miller’s Collectibles Price Guide. “Do you know anything about them?“, Els asked me by email. “Only a little bit…”, I replied. Els had a number of van Woerden pieces in her collection and, being intelligent and inquisitive like most collectors are, wanted to find out much more. Little did she know that the journey would take her to places as close as Monster and Gouda in the Netherlands, and as far away as Ontario in Canada!

Trophy won in 1976 at the Gouda pottery

festival. Presented by the Major of Gouda