What traditions revolve around your dining room? Do you have a favorite piece of silverware, tableware, or dining-room furniture? What is it about this object or group of objects that makes it special to you?
When growing up in the Chicago area, I had no idea about the wondrous missions (except for the Alamo of course) that the Spanish had built in Texas. Little did I know that many years later, I would not only have developed a deep appreciation for these historic missions, but that I’d be living in Houston, and the plates on which my grandmother served tuna fish sandwiches to me and my brother in the 1960s would today be collector’s items.
Over the years my cherished set of San Jose Mission “calla lily” plates, cups, bowls and saucers (even a tiny creamer) has traveled from San Antonio to Chicago, Florida, and then back home to Texas. I look at them and I remember my grandmother, her kitchen and back porch, and the nook in which the three of us sat to have lunch so many years ago.
-Kimberly Bjork Lykins, Executive Director, Texas Foundation for the Arts
Shown: San Jose Mission plates passed down to me from my grandmother.
Further info: San Jose Mission, San Antonio, Texas (1920s-1950s)
Ethel Harris established her “Mexican Arts & Crafts” workshop to train and create jobs for Mexican craftsmen while preserving the arts and crafts traditions. The production consisted of wrought iron tile tables, pottery and tiles. The tiles were glazed in very brilliant colors. The images on the tiles were often Mexican workers and dancers, scenes of Mission life, cowboys, Texas animals and flowers.
