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KAREN SHAPIRO


Art & Office Supplies

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Belmont Mucilage
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 7


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Crayola Crayon Box with 4 Crayons
Raku Fired Ceramic
24 x 12.5 x 3.5

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Crayons
Raku Fired Ceramic

(set of 6, wall mount)
17 x 4

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Elmer's Glue
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 8.5 x 4


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Marks A Lot Marker 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
25 x 5


Automotive

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Bardahl Oil Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 8

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Brake Lubricant
Raku Fired Ceramic
9 x 10

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Bugatti Squirt Oil Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 10

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Ferrari Squirt Oil Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 9

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Ken Lube
(Kendall Grease)
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9.5

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Harley Davidson Motorcycle Oil
Raku Fired Ceramic 
13 x 9.5

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Indian Head Brake Fluid
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 10 x 5

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Indian Motorcycle Oil
Raku Fired Ceramic 
13 x 9.5

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Matchbox Ferrari
Raku Fired Ceramic
8.5 x 17 x 6


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Matchbox Ferrari
Raku Fired Ceramic
8.5 x 17 x 6

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Matchbox Lotus
Raku Fired Ceramic
8.5 x 17 x 6

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Mobil Oil Can
Raku Fired Ceramic 
13 x 9.5

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Motor Rythm Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 7


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Pennzoil Motor Oil
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9.5


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Quaker State Motor Oil
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 8.75

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Simonize Wax
Raku Fired Ceramic
4.75 x 12.25


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Simonize Wax Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
5 x 12
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Texaco Oil Bottles (4) with Crate
Raku Fired Ceramic
23.5 x 19 x 4

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Zerone Anti-Freeze
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9.5



Cosmetics & Bathroom

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4711 Cologne
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 3.5 x 4


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Baby Cream
Raku Fired Ceramic
9.5 x 7 x 9

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Chanel Lipstick
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 10


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Chanel No. 5 Perfume Box
Raku Fired Ceramic
16.5 x 10.25 x 8

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Clinique Lotion
Raku Fired Ceramic
16.5 x 7



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Clinique Lipstick
(2pc)
Raku Fired Ceramic
17.5 x 7.5 x 4.5

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Crest Toothpaste
Raku Fired Ceramic
20 x 8 x 4.5


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Evening in Paris Perfume
Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 10 x 5

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Imperial Talcum Powder
Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 10 x 2.5


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Ivory Soap
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 9.5 x 5

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Lava Soap
Raku Fired Ceramic
  15 x 9.5 x 5

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Lyons Theatrical Cold Cream
Raku Fired Ceramic
8 x 13

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MAC Nail Polish Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 6 x 6


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Maybeline Great Lash Mascara (Green)
Raku Fired Ceramic
20 x 15 x 4.5


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Maybeline Great Lash Mascara (Black)
Raku Fired Ceramic
22 x 4

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Mennen Talcum Powder
Raku Fired Ceramic
14 x 7


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Noxema
Raku Fired Ceramic
11 x 10

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Revlon Nail Polish
Raku Fired Ceramic
20 x 5


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Sweetheart Powder
Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 10 x 5

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Tiger Balm
Raku Fired Ceramic
11 x 10


Food

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A-1 Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 4 x 4

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Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
Raku Fired Ceramic
10 x 14 x 8


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Baby Ruth
Raku Fired Ceramic
19.5 x 8 x 6


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Balsamic Vinegar
Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 6 x 6


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Beech-Nut Gum
Raku Fired Ceramic
5 x 22 x 3

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Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia
Raku Fired Ceramic
11 x 10


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Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey
Raku Fired Ceramic
11 x 10


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Ben-Hur Ginger
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 9.5 x 5.5


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Barilla Rigatoni Pasta
Raku Fired Ceramic
14.5 x 9 x 6


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Best Foods Mayonnaise
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 8


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Blackbird Sesame Seed
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 5 x 9.5

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Black Jack Gum
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  5 x 22 x 3

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Borden Eagle Brand
Raku Fired Ceramic
12.5 x 11

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Campbell's Tomato Soup
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 8.5

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Carnation Evaporated Milk
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9.5


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Carnation Milk
Raku Fired Ceramic
14 x 4 x 5.5

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Maygi Chicken Bouillion 
Raku Fired Ceramic
25 x 11 x 4

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Clover Half and Half
Raku Fired Ceramic
16.5 x 6 x 6


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Coyote Trail Hot Sauce
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 5


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Cracker Jack
Raku Fired Ceramic
20 x 80 x 4

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Cream of Wheat
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 10 x 3

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De Cecco Pasta
Raku Fired Ceramic
15 x 9 x 5


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Franco-American
Raku Fired Ceramic
11.5 x 9.5

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French's Mustard
Raku Fired Ceramic
11 x 8


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Frosted Flakes
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 11 x 5


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Ghirardelli Chocolate
Raku Fired Ceramic
  10 x 6

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Grey Poupon
Raku Fired Ceramic
10 x 8.5


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Goldfish
Raku Fired Ceramic
20 x 6 x 5


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Heinz Horseradish Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 5

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Heinz Ketchup
Raku Fired Ceramic
19.5 x 5


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Helmann's Mayonnaise
Raku Fired Ceramic
12.5 x 7

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Hershey's Cocoa
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9 x 6


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Hershey's Instant Cocoa Mix
Raku Fired Ceramic
13 x 9 x 6

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Hungarian Paprika
Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 8

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Ibarra Mexican Chocolate Box
Raku Fired Ceramic 
12 x 10

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Kellogg's Corn Flakes 
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 11 x 5

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Kingred Paprika
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  7 x 10 x 10

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Life Savers
Raku Fired Ceramic 
6 x 25

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Log Cabin Syrup Tin 
Raku Fired Ceramic
10 x 12 x 7.5

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M & M's
Raku Fired Ceramic
  8" diameter
(colors: red, yellow, orange, green, brown, purple, blue)

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Marmite Jar
Raku Fired Ceramic 
11.5 x 10

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Maxwell House Coffee Tin 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
8 x 11

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McAllspice: McCormick;s Spices 
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 8 x 5 

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McC Tea
(McCormick Tea)
 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
14 x 9 x 7

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McConnon's Cinnamon  Raku Fired Ceramic 
14 x 9.5 x 6

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Miracle Whip 
Raku Fired Ceramic
  12 x 7

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Morton Salt
Raku Fired Ceramic
12.5 x 6.5

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Paprika Spice Tin
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  10.5 x 9 x 5

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Planters Cashew Can  Raku Fired Ceramic
9 x 9.75 diameter

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Planters Peanut Can
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  8 x 10

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Pompeian Olive Oil Can  Raku Fired Ceramic
12.5 x 11.5 x 8.5

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Popeye Pop Corn Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic 
12 x 9.5 x 5.5

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Pumpkin Pie Spice Tin  Raku Fired Ceramic
9.5 x 9 x 5

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Quaker Oats
Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 8

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Scharfenberger Chocolate Bar
Raku Fired Ceramic
24 x 16 x 4

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Schilling Black Pepper Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
  11 x 9 x 5

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Skippy Peanut Butter
Raku Fired Ceramic
  10 x 8

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Snickers Candy Bar 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
23 x 7 x 5

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Spam Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
  11 x 9.5 x 5

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Sriracha Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 4.5

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Sudan Rubbed Sage
Raku Fired Ceramic 
15.5 x 10 x 7

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Tabasco Bottle 
Raku Fired Ceramic
21 x 5

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Green Tabasco Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
21 x 5

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Velveeta Box 
Raku Fired Ceramic
8.5 x 17 x 5.5

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Wheaties Box 
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 11 x 5

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Yuban Coffee Can
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  12 x 9 diameter


Beverages

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7-Up Can 
Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 7.5

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A&W Rootbeer Can
Raku Fired Ceramic 
13.5 x 7.5

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Budweiser Can and Opener
Raku Fired Ceramic
  13.5 x 6

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Carnation Milk Carton
Raku Fired Ceramic 
14 x 4 x 5.5

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Clover Half & Half
Raku Fired Ceramic 
16.5 x 8 x 10

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Coca-Cola Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 7.5

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Dad's Rootbeer Bottle
  Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 5

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Diet Coke Can
  Raku Fired Ceramic
  13.5 x 7.5

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Diet Pepsi Can
Raku Fired Ceramic 
13.5 x 7.5

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Dos Equis Bottle
Raku fired Ceramic
18 x 5

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Dr. Pepper Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
18 x 5

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Dr. Pepper Can 
Raku Fired Ceramic
  13.5 x 7.5

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Hamm's Beer Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 7.75

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Heinekin Beer Bottle
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 6

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Schlitz Beer Can with Opener
  Raku fired Ceramic
  13.5 x 8

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Starbucks Coffee Cup
  Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 9

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Tab Can 
Raku Fired Ceramic
  13.5 x 7.5

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Tecate Can
  Raku Fired Ceramic
13.5 x 7.5


Wall Mount

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Bazooka Bubble Gum 
Raku Fired Ceramic
  16 x 10 x 3

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Bicycle Playing Cards
Raku Fired Ceramic 
19 x 14 x 3.5

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Bit-O-Honey Candy Package
Raku Fired Ceramic
28 x 16 x 3

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Black Crows Candy Box  
Raku Fired Ceramic
25 x 11 x 2

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Chiclets Gum Box
  Raku Fired Ceramic
27 x 11 x 2

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Cootie Game
Raku Fired Ceramic 
17.75 x 12 x 4

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Dots Candy Box with 7 Candies
Raku Fired Ceramic 
24 x 11.5 x 4

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Good & Plenty Candy Box 
Raku Fired Ceramic
29 x 10 x 3.5

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Hot Tamales Candy Box  Raku Fired Ceramic 
28 x 11.5 x 3

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Juicy Fruit Gum
Raku Fired Ceramic
23 x 6 x 3.5


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Junior Mints Candy Box
Raku Fired Ceramic
30 x 11 x 3 

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M&M's Bag and Candies  Raku Fired Ceramic 
24 x 16 x 2

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Mallomars Cookies
Raku Fired Ceramic
  35 x 11 x 3

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Milk Duds Candy
Raku Fired Ceramic

28 x 16 x 4

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Peanut M&M's Bag and Candies 
Raku Fired Ceramic
24 x 16 x 2

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Reese's Candy Bar Package 
Raku Fired Ceramic
27.5 x 10 x 2.5

Pharmaceuticals

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Adderall Capsule
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 4.5

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Fukidol Tablet 
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 2.5 x 3.5

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K-Y Jelly Tube
Raku Fired Ceramic
  20 x 8 x 4.5

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Prozac Capsule 20mg 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
15 x 4.5

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Quaalude Bottle
Raku fired Ceramic
14 x 7


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Quaalude Tablet
Raku Fired Ceramic
8" diameter

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Viagra
Raku Fired Ceramic 
14 x 10 x 3

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Xanax Tablet 
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 4.5 x 3


Miscellaneous

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3-in-One Oil Can
  Raku Fired Ceramic 
18.5 x 8 x 3

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Boraxo
Raku Fired Ceramic
  14.5 x 10.5 x 6

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Brillo
  Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 13 x 4.25

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Dad's Rootbeer Bottle Cap
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 2.5
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Dominoes Game
Raku Fired Ceramic
Box: 21.5 x 6.5 x 5
Each Tile: 8 x 4 x 1.5

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Dress Parade Shoe Polish 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
Box: 11 x 7.5 x 7.5

Bottle: 11 x 7.5

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Figaro Cat Food Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
4.5 x 9.5

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Flying Oil 
Raku Fired Ceramic
18.5 x 8.5 x 4

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Friskies Dog Food Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 8.5

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Hartz Mountain Birdseed Tin
Raku fired Ceramic 
14 x 9.5 x 6

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Liquid Wrench
Raku Fired Ceramic
  18 x 8 x 4

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Monopoly Board
(with 3 Game Pieces)
Raku Fired Ceramic
  26 x 13 x 1.5

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Murphy's Oil Soap
  Raku Fired Ceramic
12 x 8

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Raid Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
  17 x 7

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Roach Motel Box
Raku Fired Ceramic
8 x 18 x 4
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Singer Sewing Machine Oil Tin
Raku Fired Ceramic
  19.5 x 9.5 x 4.5

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Titleist Golf Balls
(Tiger Woods Wheaties promotion)
Raku Fired Ceramic
17 x 6 x 6

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Touring Auto Card Game  Raku Fired Ceramic
  11 x 15 x 4 

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Vogue Band-Aid Tin
  (c. 1960's) 
Raku Fired Ceramic 
14 x 10 x 4

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Wilson Tennis Ball Can
Raku Fired Ceramic
16 x 5.5

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Zig Zag Cigarette Papers
Raku Fired Ceramic
16.5 x 10 x 1.5


KAREN SHAPIRO - Biography

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Karen Shapiro is an artist working in clay.  Raku is her choice and it is a soft, glazed, hand-built earthenware having its origins in the tea ceremony of ancient Japan. Raku ware is unique in that the glazed pre-heated bisque is placed in the red-hot kiln with long-handled tongs. The glaze matures in 15 to 30 minutes (at a temperature of approximately 1750 degrees) and the ware is then withdrawn while still glowing. Look carefully at Karen’s pieces and marvel at her skill in the pure technique of this now refined medium.

Karen Shapiro derives her art from what's already there. It doesn't have to be studied, interpreted or understood. Her ceramic sculpture is what it is. Shapiro's ceramics represent items that are used, and they look it. Each piece speaks to an era or a season, an event or a time when the item belonged in the life of the viewer. Who doesn’t remember rousing games of Monopoly, your Mother’s ‘Evening in Paris’ cobalt blue perfume bottle not to be touched, the pumice laden Lava soap ever present on the sink for grubby fingers, Grandpa’s shaving brush and foam? Now, Karen takes these same objects, frequently larger-than-life in our memories and presents them to the collector as precious and now larger-than-life in person.

"I call them pop icons, except they have a little surface development and a patina that gives them a friendly, used quality," says one collector.  "Some pieces, many of which are from the '30s, '40s and '50s, are quite nostalgic. They have an historical element but are still around, which gives them popular appeal. Collectors tend to buy two and three pieces and then put them on a kitchen counter or vanity, places where the actual items would go."

Although Shapiro considers herself a new kid in the ceramics circle, the techniques of kneading and forming, carving and cutting, baking and glazing are not new to the artist. For 30 years, she worked as a pastry chef, sculpting the ultimate edible art form. She enjoys the process of rolling out, cutting and forming her slab-built pieces, but it's the glazing and firing that takes the cake. "I use a high-fire clay, which I low-fire because I raku... The raku puts in the wonderful imperfections of real life... My work is fun, it's whimsical," she said. "I feel lucky I can make a living at it. It's not conceptual; it's literal. People don't have to understand it; it's already understood."

“My first recorded attempts at artistic expression were at the ripe age of 5 years or so when I painstakingly painted the adobe brick walls surrounding our house in Tucson. The records of these attempts are the scratchy old home movies taken years ago -- the painted images being executed in nothing but tap water and disappearing instantly in the Arizona sun. Years later I majored in art in high school where I began working in clay and continued in this medium as a design major in college. After college and continuing until a year or so ago, my medium changed drastically to a more edible art form in the shape of a long, hard career as a pastry chef.”

“I am now happily out of the kitchen and back into the ceramics studio where I am finding great joy in working in a sculpture style which is new for me. In earlier years, my emphasis was on abstract form -- believing, of course, that I was redefining the perfect form. Upon re-entering the ceramic studio at the College of Marin, under the tutelage of the ever-inspiring energy and talent of Anne Peet Carrington, I naturally tried to take up where I had left off many years ago. I was immediately frustrated and disappointed to see that those "perfect" forms would no longer come from my hands. Instead, I was drawn to the form of a milk carton, then to my espresso pot from Italy, next to an artichoke from the market -- in other words, I found an inexhaustible source of fascinating shapes and forms staring at me from all sides.”

”Now I find myself jumping around from vegetables to nail polish bottles and lipsticks, to crayons and on and on ... and in addition to these wonderful objects I have also discovered the raku kiln. The excitement of reaching into a red-hot environment with tongs, of the flaming bucket, even the choking smoke, and finding results I never dreamt of -- always changing, always so much to learn -- has given me back an enormous energy, appetite and passion for my work. It's an adventure I've just begun, and I look forward to many fulfilling years and ever more exciting results which I hope to share with as many people as may also find them interesting and fun.”



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