Hinton Blaisdell had a passion for life, for the artistry of the Northwest Native Americans and for his chosen craft—the potter’s wheel. It was in the early 1950s that he founded Blaisdell Totem Pottery. He used red clay for his totem pieces, mimicking the color of the red cedar used by the Northwest coastal tribes for their totem poles. He researched the figures on famous totems of the region and then repeated those same designs in his pieces. Each represented an animal from the totems including the beaver, owl, dog, eagle, thunderbird, orca, wolf, badger, bear and many others. He made many mugs, a teapot with warmer, cream and sugar, ash trays, cruets, plates and one of the most sought after pieces`, an orca serving platter. His earlier pieces were decorated in bright yellow, red, green, white and black and never had blue. In the 1980s after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, he began adding the ash to his clay and at the same time added an aqua blue to his color palette, so any pieces with this light blue are later in date. Probably the most unique feature of many of his pieces was their ability to be stacked into a totem.
Amazingly, every piece of pottery was hand made by Blaisdell himself and he never hired a staff. He worked out of tiny studio on Beach Street in Port Orchard, Washington for over 40 years. His wife gave input on design and helped with the painting. The items were sold only in a handful of upscale souvenir shops and motels in the area and one shop in Alaska. He retired in 1990 and shipped his final order to the Smithsonian Institute. According to his family members he never got rich being a potter, but he enjoyed life to the fullest and outlived all of his brothers and sisters. Hinton died in February of 2009 in Spokane.
Only a few pieces of Hinton's actually cross over into the tiki genre, like the Triangle Female Mug used to serve the Diamond Head Cocktail at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, but because of the totemic nature of his work, many of his mugs often come up in searches or beg the question from new collectors, wondering "Is this tiki?"