Their talents were undeniable; both had had intensive ceramics and design training at the college, and Gordon's interest in engineering principles had been nurtured there, as well. Jane had gone to school for the sole purpose of getting the design and ceramics training she would need to expand and carry on the family business. Meeting Gordon there was lucky; Jane had not only found a husband, but someone she could work with as a team to realize all her dreams, and more. At Alfred, both Gordon and Jane had become first-rate ceramists, so their contributions to Marshall Studios would center around what they knew and loved best.

Veedersburg was a very small Indiana town of perhaps 1500 people, near the Wabash River, about 75 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Fortuitously for the Martzes' plans, it was in an area of clay soils, and had a history of ceramic businesses, although not ones based in fine design. Brick was what they made in Veedersburg; product from several local companies had been combined to build the famed "Brickyard" speedway used for the Indy 500 beginning in 1909. Gordon and Jane Martz began realizing their dreams by setting up a ceramics plant at Marshall Studios to produce lamp bases in the modern style they'd become trained in at Alfred.

Gordon began with some experimentation; the clay around Veedersburg was great for bricks, but yielded uneven results for pottery and ceramics. He eventually settled on a mixture of local and commercial clay, based on a formula he'd evolved at college. Once Gordon had invented the stoneware body he wanted to use, he and Jane began to design.

Coming into the Marshall family and company had shown Gordon that the company's customers appreciated the appearance of hand-made items, and that a hand-made look could be achieved under factory conditions. Although it was trickier to give factory-made ceramics that appearance than it was with painted lamp shades, Gordon and Jane Martz began devising ways to make it possible, and profitable.

The Martz Touch: Martz lamp bases were slip-cast for mass production, but in this shot, Marshall Studios employees can be seen applying incised decoration, designed by the Martzes, by hand.

Their basic tactic was to create different simple shapes in slip-cast ceramic that could be decorated in various ways, with techniques more commonly used by potters than in commercial production. A Martz design was never decorated with the decals and transfers common to most ceramic companies, and representational designs were seldom used. Gordon and Jane Martz broke their decorating techniques down to three simple methods that could be used singly, or in combination. There was incising, or scratching a design into a freshly glazed piece before firing. There was also dipping, which involved immersing a piece in a base color first, then dipping into other glazes to varying depths for a layered effect. And there was brushing, which involved lightly or loosely brushing glaze on to a piece, usually while it was being rotated on a vertical lathe. All three techniques could be learned by almost anyone, but making them look professionally applied was a skill the Martzes had to work hard to impart to others.

Fortunately, Marshall Studios had a work force - mostly family members at first - with a strong Indiana work ethic, and the three basic techniques began to be used on lamp bases the Martzes had designed. The first was the Martz No. 41, a simple columnar shape derived from the Bauhaus principles Gordon and Jane had been exposed to at Alfred. It also established the classic Martz design elements of an American walnut neck coming from the top of the ceramic base, and a walnut finial for the shade. Besides looking good, the walnut pieces utilized the Marshall Studios wood shop that had been set up to make wooden lamps. Beginning with this first design, the Martz tradition of making the product available in a wide variety of colors and decorations was established. Over two dozen glaze colors were eventually available, in both matte and gloss finishes. The No. 41 could be decorated with brushing, like black lightly brushed over dark blue, or incising, where the glaze color had a design scratched into it, so that the tan body showed through the glaze. The final flourish was the "Martz" signature incised on the base, next to the hole for the cord. With its simple, European good looks, so unlike the flashy, kitschy "modern" designs available from other companies, the No. 41 found a following, but there was more to come.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: This shot of the first Martz lamp design, the No. 41 shown on the left, shows the design quality of Martz lamps. In contrast, note the two badly designed painted plaster pseudo-Danish Modern lamps from another manufacturer at right.

The watershed product for Marshall was the Martz No. 101, an exquisitely simple teardrop shape in matte black. The Scandinavian-looking lamp was so pure in design, it came to the attention of a man who would change the fortunes of Marshall Studios for years to come. The man was Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., and he was with the Museum of Modern Art. Son of Edgar Kaufmann, Sr., who had commissioned "Fallingwater" from Frank Lloyd Wright, the younger Kaufmann was planning the 1953 Good Design Exhibition at MoMA. After seeing the No. 101, he made a telephone call to Veedersburg.

Gordon Martz hit it off with Edgar Kaufmann - or was it the other way around? - and the Martzes were invited to show the No. 101 in the exhibition. The two men found that they agreed on so many principles of ceramic design that Kaufmann asked Gordon Martz a favor. He needed an example of really dreadful bad taste for the show, to illustrate to museum-goers the difference between good and poor design. Using any manufacturer's real product for the purpose was out of the question, because of the possibility of a lawsuit. Gordon Martz obliged Kaufmann and MoMA with a howler of a bad lamp design, finished in a lurid metallic glaze. Shown uncredited, the lamp not only made its point, it enhanced the appeal of the No. 101. Stores began ordering the No.101 for customers who had seen it at Good Design, and the Martz line began to sell. And sell. And sell.

The Design MoMA Loved: The No. 101 was selected by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. for the 1953 Good Design exhibit. The timeless design was produced until Marshall Studios was sold in 1989. The late shade design shown is not the same as the example in MoMA's permanent collection; the original shade was smaller.

The No. 101's success began three and a half decades of amazing commercial and artistic growth for both the Martzes and Marshall Studios. By 1956, the complexity of the business had grown to the point that Jane's brother John Marshall came in to handle the business end that Gordon and Jane didn't have enough time for. John's wife, Carolyn Marshall, also helped when her time allowed. The Martzes were now free to work on new designs and new decorations in the signature Scandinavian-based Martz style, which followed in fast profusion. Big lamps, little ones, tall narrow ones, and short squat ones began pouring out of the little plant on Mill Street, which eventually wasn't so little any more. Marshall Studios evolved into a very complex operation, making everything in-house, even lampshades. In an age before computers were available to keep track of orders, scheduling, and inventory, Marshall offered dozens of lamp styles in dozens of colors and more dozens of decorations, not to mention shade options. There were literally thousands of possible combinations, and Marshall Studios became famous for turning out huge orders of them error-free. Jane Martz was in the thick of all this activity, helping Gordon design, and doing whatever was needed to iron out problems of any kind. After 1960, Jane turned her hand to sales, where she proved to be a powerhouse.

By the early 1960's, sales had climbed to a point of around 1,000 lamps a month. Marshall Studios products of all descriptions were carried by department stores coast-to-coast, and Martz lamps enjoyed strong contract sales to hotel chains like Sheraton, due to the high quality and durability of the product. Martz lamps even went overseas. The General Services Administration (GSA) was an excellent Martz customer, purchasing lamps for American government offices and embassies all over the world. The Marshall Studios factory became expert at wiring for European voltage. Gordon Martz tells a funny story on himself about one batch of lamps he knew was destined for the American Embassy in Moscow: Before the felt was glued to the bottom of one lamp, he wrote "Kruschchev is a bum!" on the base. The "secret message" was duly shipped to Russia, where it may still exist, undiscovered. Although it was a fairly gentle rebuke at the Soviet leader, the joke could have been troublesome if it had come to light. At least the GSA would have known Gordon was a true-blue American.

By the 1970's, Marshall Studios products included the highly popular line of lamps, plus dinnerware, serving pieces, canisters, planters, carafes, cruets, tile-topped tables, bookends with inset tiles, and ashtrays. There was even a line of Martz-designed altarware offered through Cokesbury, a company specializing in church furniture, vestments, and supplies. Marshall employee Leon Lowe, who was a Veedersburg local prized within the company, usually decorated the altarware. Lowe's innate talent for reproducing decoration surpassed that of many trained ceramic artists, and Gordon Martz eventually gave him the accolade of allowing him to "freehand" decoration without using a cartoon.