Russel Wright Residential Pink Deep Candy Pink

This is a deep pink Residential set, photo courtesy of Dust2Den

On the Russel Wright Residential history page, I've talked about how there are solid pink and solid blue issued Residential melmac.  I found examples for you to see at Etsy shop Dust2Den.  The pink is more of a candy pink than it's pale pink Home Decorators counterpart.  I will put two photos together so you can see the comparison:

Left: Dust2Den's Pink residentla and Right, the Home Decorators Pink piece found at  Zen Girl Antiques

The truth is, I never found evidence in Syracuse that these solid pink dishes were authorized by Wright. I've seen examples that they were sold in S and H Greenstamps, only because I have a box that shows the solid teal color and it was shipped to the S and H store.  Oddly, I can't find any catalogs showing these dishes in them.  I can only assume they were packing solid pink as well.

What's even stranger, is the two tone pinks and blues I've found later that match these same colors. Unfortunately, we may never know if Russel Wright authorized this color of melamine or if it was something that Northern did on their own. 

Assembling a full set of deep pink may be a challenge for the melmac collector, and I consider it rare. It was a short lived production run, hence somewhat rare.

Russel Wright Flair Arabesque

Get these at Prairie Dec Arts!

I just had to grab this cool listing to share with you from Etsy seller Steve of shop Prairie Dec Arts!  It's for  Russel Wright's Arabesque pattern in translucent Flair by Northern Melamine.  This design is fairly rare and hard to find, but is one of my favorites. Here you have  gold and blue swirls on translucent "eggshell" dishes, and oh so lovely

Snatch these at Prairie Dec Arts!

There are actually three more variations which, in my opinion, are not as lovely.

• Brown and gold designs on translucent eggshell. 
• Blue and gold designs on solid white dishes.
• Brown and gold designs on solid white dishes. 

 You can read more about Russel Wright's Flair here.

You may also enjoy these cool little shakers Steve has in his shop, go there now to grab 'em!

Russel Wright Melamine Flashback Melmac SFO Museum

Credit: SFO Photos, see them here.  Organized by McKinley Williams

Here is a photo from the past exhibit at the San Francisco Airport Museum (SFO) featuring the wonderful designs of Russel Wright. This is a shot of the melmac, and some the wonderful plastic here belongs to yours truly. The exhibit ran from March 2009 to October 2009. You can read more about it here. I am very pleased that  McKinley Williams included the plastic designs in this exhibit.


Melmac Identification Above:
Flair patterns in Ming Lace and Golden Bouquet.
Residential in Lemon Ice, Sea Mist Grey, Salmon and Turquoise.
Home Decorators in pink Flowertime Pattern. 

Hey! Check this out! 
For those of you who love all things Russel Wright, join his Facebook group "The Designs of Russel and Mary Wright" here.

Russel Wright Residential Rarity : Two Tone Melmac

Pic: Retro Chalet Shop.

I've seen some oddities along the way in my Russel Wright collecting and research. The two tone sets have to be the strangest and the most exciting.  Needless to say, they do exist, and are quite rate. What they are is actually different than anything I've seen.  There are blues/whites, yellow/whites, and pinks/whites that I've seen. All are marked Residential. 

The issue here is that some pieces are solid, but the plates, saucers, and platters actually have one color molded on the bottom, and another color molded onto the top. You have to do a double take to look very closely to make sure this is not a factory mishap. Looking on the edge you will see that indeed, care was taken to form a color on top, and color on the bottom!  More proof that Wright, if experimenting with this sort of theme, was ahead of his time !

Two colors, chalk on top blue on base. Amazing!

Of course the colors I have found haven't really matched that of the existing Residential or Home Decorator lines, so they must have been their own creation.  There are some solid blue and pink pieces that are a hue off of the Home Decorators colors that these DO match, however oddly those blues and pinks were produced in solids also. So I assume, you could get your blue straight up, or on the rocks, with the chalky impact above.  Honestly, I am unsure if they were a test run of created as a special order for someone. Examples I own look mint and first runs, no imperfections which mean the factory must have perfected this process. 

There is no proof in Syracuse that Wright was experimenting with such colors, nor that such colors were approved at Northern Industrial Chemical Company, who molded this line for him.  There is evidence however, of Wright's ongoing experimentation with the plastics in general. Early examples housed there show him putting metallic pieces into the melmac, experimentating with mottled colors , and actually baking melmac (probably in his own oven) and putting notes on the plates to see at what temperature they would burn or melt.  Given that, I think Wright was experimenting with the two tone, but perhaps such a pain for the factory to make, that he didn't put it into mass production. In 20 years of collecting, I've only acquired a handful of examples.

Russel Wright Flair by Northern

Ming Lace, real leaves in the melmac!

I've transferred the basic information on Flair over from my old site to the FLAIR PAGE, now I'm working on great new photos being added.   If you have FLAIR in your collection and have a super picture and want it displayed, let me know!