When Edith needed her first pottery wheel, it was Brian who made one for her. He ingeniously converted a treadle-powered sewing machine into a well-balanced wheel.
To get ready for her first exhibition, Heath had to make 200 pieces of tableware in less than three months. She focused on sets to make the monumental task easier.
For a few years Heath taught ceramics at the popular California Labor School, a program run by the Communist Party of the United States. Heath wasn’t a communist but she did care about worker rights.
Starting in 1951, the Heaths became regulars at the Aspen Design Conference. They logged almost 40 years of participation and attendance, helping direct programming and encouraging other designers to participate.
The Heaths helped give Sausalito houseboat living a boost when they designed and built a modernist version on an old potato barge called the Dorothea. Eventually they floated it across the bay and beached it in the town of Tiburon, where it remained their home for several decades.
Heath ceramics were included in many mid-century design exhibitions, including the Good Design shows held at the Chicago Merchandise Mart and New York’s MoMA.
In the 1950s, Seattle’s fire marshal specified Heath’s “safety ashtrays” for the city’s public buildings. News spread and it gave ashtray sales a huge boost. At one time, ashtrays represented 25 percent of the company’s sales.
Heath helped design the company’s current factory with architecture firm Marquis and Stoller. Completed in 1960, it featured Trofdek, a Swiss-patented wood “folded plate” prefab roofing system, and prefab exterior wall panels that sandwiched rigid insulation between sheets of portland cement.
Heath’s dinnerware lines include Rim, popular with restaurants because of a wide rim that makes stacking easy, and Plaza, notable for its contemporary square plates.
The Heaths typified California living, especially when they installed a full-size bar on the top floor of their factory to entertain friends and clients, who no doubt appreciated the panoramic views of Sausalito and the bay.
