CLASSIC ARIZONA KITSCH

Kitsch: It's All in the Eye of the Beholder

"It's so... kitschy..." How many times have you looked at something, let's say, unusual, and used that phrase? You probably said it haltingly, not wanting to hurt the feelings of its owner; not sure that your appreciation of the, let's say, unusual, was sufficiently developed. Kitsch is like that a squirrelly thing. Officially kitsch is defined as the epitome of bad taste. But that doesn't really do it. Perhaps a better label would be something so awful it's wonderful. Or something so silly it delights. Or maybe overly sentimental memorabilia would cover it. Of course you could always call it what many do: junk. It soon becomes apparent that you can't always define kitsch, but you know it when you see it. Kitsch is in the eye of the beholder. The praying Santa that is so popular is considered kitsch by some but a wonderful appreciation of Christmas by others. A pink flamingo in the garden? Anyone who thinks it's a lovely lawn ornament would be insulted if you laughed at it and called it kitsch. Just like historic building preservationists would take issue with the idea that Phoenix's wedding-cake-shaped Tovrea Castle is pure kitsch. So when compiling a list of kitsch, you've got to be very careful. And when you enumerate Arizona kitsch, well, there could be problems. Toes are going to be stepped on. Feelings are going to be hurt. State pride is going to be wounded. Oh well, onward. Arizona kitsch is a special breed. It encompasses history, tradition, lifestyle, mischief, utilitarianism, and a heavy dose of humor. To qualify for the dubious list of Classic Arizona Kitsch, it has to be something extra special. Or extra awful. We're not talking here about the ordinary everyday stuff you can still find in any souvenir shop.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Treasured kitsch like Blakely glassware, a Tepco bowl, and salt and pepper shaker headstones can be found at Dowadidy's of Phoenix. The place mat is from Flagg's of Scottsdale. (ABOVE) A Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunch box is a great 1960s' keepsake. We found this one at Shaboom's of Glendale.

Don't try to pass off Arizona-labeled shot glasses or spoon rests or trays or toothpick holders or playing cards as classic kitsch. A Grand Canyon State T-shirt doesn't make the list. Neither does a key chain with a picture of a roadrunner. Nor does virtually any desert animal preserved in a plastic dome, like a scorpion or a black widow or a rattlesnake.

Oh sure, they're kitsch, they're just not classic kitsch. If you think about it, you get the distinction.

But jackalopes are definitely classic kitsch so kitschy that few would dispute their inclusion in this category.

Jackalopes are a myth: a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope. Hence, the thing looks like a rabbit with horns. Nobody has any real idea who came up with this ridiculous image, although some say it can be traced to 15th-century Jesuits from Germany's Black Forest. Now they're so accepted as an inside joke that in the mid-60s, then-Governor Jack Williams named Arizona author Don Dedera as the state's Official Jackalope Inspector. (Dedera still has the proclamation, complete with the state seal, in the bathroom of his getaway cabin - a document that itself qualifies as Classic Arizona Kitsch.) If you're looking for pricier Arizona kitsch, you couldn't do better than Red Wing earthenware in the Roundup pattern. This set of dishes is something to behold. You stand there, looking at various pieces in Deb Walker's Whiskey Row Emporium in Prescott, and you really can't believe your eyes. You're not sure if you should laugh or cry. You end up laughing until you cry.

Now any collector knows Red Wing is a winner; dozens of hand-painted patterns are available from this fine ceramics firm. Many patterns are beautiful. Some are clever.

Roundup, on the other hand, is totally awful.

Each piece and all are different features a wild-looking cowboy on the range. Sometimes he's stirring a pot over a campfire. Sometimes he's roping a calf. Sometimes he's sitting on a fence watching the dogies go by. Sometimes he's heating a branding iron. The same colors show up on all the pieces: pinks, blues, browns, and greens.

Want a dinner plate in Roundup? It will cost about $45. A gravy boat goes for $95. A cookie jar for $225.

This isn't for the casual collector. This is for those truly serious about Arizona kitsch. And it seems there are plenty because Deb Walker says Roundup is a hot seller in her store.

And all should be warned: like most kitsch, the stuff grows on you. Half an hour after being introduced to Roundup, you could fantasize that if you ever fell in love with a cowboy and had a ranch house on a hefty spread in the mountains of Arizona, this set of dishes would be oh gee, this is tough to admit - perfect.

Now if a complete set of wild cowboys would never be your style even if you fell in love then maybe your perfect Western table could be set with old advertising pieces. Like a plate and bowl ($24.50) that promoted "Rod's Steak House, Williams, Arizona: Gateway to the Grand Canyon." This type of "restaurant ware," as it is called, was once the rage. Various restaurants, resorts, and stores in Arizona had it made up as souvenirs. The Collector's Mart in Prescott has a nice example in its "Safford Valley Plate" for $25. It's blue and white with cattle brands around the edge, made sometime in the 1940s by Vernon Kilns.

Keep an eye out for that particular kiln because it went out of business in the 1950s, making its products particularly collectible in the kitsch market. So while a Grand Canyon plate made today and available for a couple bucks just about anywhere in Arizona is not kitsch, what does qualify is one made by Vernon Kilns for Fred Harvey, who developed the lodge at the Grand Canyon. And that will cost you about $25. What you get is a plate of various scenes of the Canyon with Indian figures around the edge.

Short of that, you could give your kitchen a touch of this particular brand of sublime-ridiculous for just $10. That is, if you can find a set of the only salt and pepper shakers bizarre enough to make the list of Classic Arizona Kitsch.

Imagine this: white tombstones with the name Tombstone, Arizona, printed on the front. Now if they stopped right there, they'd be just a dumb souvenir. The kind you'd take home to the cousin you don't particularly like but must remember anyhow.

Of course, they don't stop there.

"Here Lies Salty O'Day 1861-1881. Hoss thief," reads the front of one. And then follows the pièce de résistance: "A rope necktie / An old oak tree / And Salty wasn't / What he used to be."

If you think that's good, consider the companion: "Here Lies / Pepper Tate / 1860-1881 / Hanged by mistake / He was right / We was wrong / But we strung him up / And now he's gone."

Like Pepper Tate, the most collectible Arizona kitsch is the stuff that's long gone. Things that harken back to the earlier days of Arizona before interstate highways and nuclear power plants and cities that gobbled up the desert.

From the 1940s to the early '60s, Blakley

COLLECTI az THE WEST

gas stations were found in various parts of Arizona. The nice thing about Blakley was that you got coupons - like green stamps -when you filled up, and once you saved enough, you could turn them in for Blakley dishes.

Two varieties were available, one in fine china, the other in stoneware. The favorites were a set of cactus glasses, either the tall ones just right for sun tea or the juice glasses. And you were really in if you had a complete set of both.

The tumbler set included a wooden tray embellished with various cowboy brands. Each end of the tray had four indentations to hold the tumblers. In the middle was a little corral to secure the pitcher. The best part was that each tumbler featured, in color, a different cactus or desert plant: prickly pear, organ pipe, yucca, century plant, ocotillo, barrel, saguaro, or cholla.

Nowadays, reports Doug Patterson of Phoenix's Dowadidy's, it's "pretty rare" to find a complete set of the tumblers. If you do, they'll set you back about $125. You could get by a little cheaper - but not much with the juice set of eight small glasses on a round wooden tray, no pitcher.

But no one should get the idea that kitsch is limited to tableware or knickknacks.

Virtually anything that could be labeled "cowboy furniture" falls into the Classic Arizona Kitsch category.

You want a sofa and coffee table decorated with half wagon wheels? Honey, you're into kitsch. How about a lamp made out of a dried piece of cactus? Or an animated clock with a bowlegged cowboy whose arm holds a rope that twirls as the clock runs? Absolutely. How about an entire set of outdoor furniture made of iron horseshoes welded together? Maybe uncomfortable but certainly sturdy and certainly kitsch.

"Cowboy stuff really commands a high price," notes Jacque Stufflebeam, whose own collection so spilled over that she and her daughter opened Shaboom's, now in Glendale.

Now Jacque seems like a perfectly normal and intelligent woman. But as she leads you into the Western section of the nostalgia store, her eyes take on a special glow.

Before you is just about any imaginable item that celebrates the days of the Old West. And almost everything carries a price tag that yells, "This is for the serious collector only!"

"I know this stuff is kitsch, but I love it," she says, showing off a dining room hutch made of dead saguaro cactus pieces that goes for $695. If you need a ceiling light cover with a cowboy theme, she has them for $95 to $125. Or maybe you want something more personal, like a green silk tie with a cow painted on the front that advertises "Gene Autry's Western Store, Phoenix, Ariz." This item from the 1950s runs $65.

But it's not always "things" that count as Classic Arizona Kitsch. Sometimes, it's "The Thing?"

You've been tantalized by this strange roadside attraction if you've ever driven Interstate 10 between El Paso and Phoenix. Every now and then, there comes another blue and yellow sign entreating you to see for yourself the "mystery of the desert" that is "The Thing?" Between Benson and Willcox, there it is, a weird must-stop that's been featured in a Jane Pauley special on NBC-TV and in the trash-culture travel guide Roadside America. Closer to home, journalist Dave Walker has called The Thing? "one of our state's most intriguing tourist attractions."

Walker also labels it "absolute kitsch."

What is "The Thing?" Well, that's exactly what the sign says directly above the block enclosure that holds the treasure. And don't be surprised when after looking at it staring, actually - you still don't know. It appears to be a mummified woman and child, but then it could be old papier mache. Whatever. The entrance price of 75 cents is certainly reasonable for this piece of Classic Arizona Kitsch.

"The Thing?" opened in its present location in 1965, and it has remained virtually unchanged since.

And finally, with apologies to Western art collectors who think anything featuring a cowboy is sacred, we come to the ultimate piece of Classic Arizona Kitsch.

It's the series of four paintings by Arizona artist Lon Megargee for the old A-1 beer label.

The most famous is called Cowboy's Dream, and it features a sleeping cowboy dreaming of a woman sans clothing riding a horse in the clouds over his head.

The second is called Barbershop Quartet and shows four guys singing in front of the Poker Flat Saloon (where "regular meals" are two bits). The third is called Black Bart and features the hombre getting a haircut. And the last is called The Dude, boasting a heavy-set lady doing rope tricks for cowboys. In each picture, the A-1 label is somehow present, like on the face of the branding iron lying next to the sleeping cowboy.

You'll be hard-pressed to find copies of all four, but any selfrespecting collection of Western kitsch will have at least one.

Going through this list you probably laughed, shook your head in disbelief, and thought "never in my house." But don't be so sure. Today's serious collectors acknowledge they thought the same thing once. But the stuff grew on them. It made a statement. Mostly it said, "I'm a piece of kitsch - a silly piece of history - and proud of it."