After water, tea is the most consumed beverage in the world.

And wherever you find tea you find teapots.

Our collection comprises over 20,000 objects.

We don't live with all of them because the collection is too big for our house.

Of course, they're ours so it's like your children and grandchildren.

As an attorney I did estate planning so I learned a lot about objects.

But I think Gloria has a better eye than I do.

I was more the acquirer and Gloria was more the appreciator.

Definitely the appreciator.

We have a big antique collection, things from the 1700s on.

This one that looks Chinese, because of the bamboo, is actually British.

And this one came from China.

We have a collection of miniature teapots, particularly from Victorian times on.

I feel like I'm four or five years old again when I look at some of these.

I used to go Sunday morning to the flea markets, and I saw these production teapots.

These are made by companies.

There's houses, and there's cars, and there's people.

I found them fun, Gloria less so, but...[LAUGHS] Such sincerity, you know?

We love contemporary, one-of-a-kind teapots.

We refer to them as containers full of ideas, because I think what the artist was thinking of or celebrating or worrying about came through in their work, in their hands.

Richard Notkin, his works are often very political.

This is from his Broken Heart series.

The chain around the heart, a reference to the prisoners of war in the Vietnam War.

Well, this is one of my favorite teapots because years ago I would run seven miles a day, every day, and if you call it a teapot, it's a teapot.

We have a collection of ephemera or paraphernalia.

Things that aren't teapots but that have tea or teapot images on them.

Sitting down and having a cup of tea with someone, you know, it's a universal symbol of friendship and hospitality.

Many of the pieces in our collection have been commissioned.

And commissioning was a real adventure because you never knew what you were going to get.

And we would talk to-- - It's like a blind date.

You would talk to an artist to say, you know, we want you to do something in your language, your artistic vernacular, and sometimes we were absolutely amazed with what artists would do.

We have our teapot made of tea bags, used tea bags.

This is window screen, pistachio shells.

We met an artist who said, I have all these watches, and I can put them together and call it the Watchdog Teapot.

There's probably a hundred different watches on there, none of which work very well.

This is Peter Shire's wonderful teapot.

We have a lot of his work.

Teapot madness, boy.

I come to my studio every day and do different things.

Sometimes it's making coffee.

You guys want an espresso?

I work with making things.

I live for making things.

I'm arguably happy when I'm actually making things.

And sometimes it's making ceramics.

You know, this clay, when it fires, will be white, but I want this to be very distinct on top, not too transparent.

In the '60s, my direction was towards pottery, because it hearkened to a trade, which of course made it declassé in the art world.

But there was a moment in California clay by John Mason and Peter Voulkos and Ken Price using ceramic as a sculptural medium and had taken up the flag of, of abstract expressionism.

I love this.

Peter Shire is a Los Angeles legend.

I'm always attracted to artists who have a vision, a whole artistic vocabulary that's beyond just making the object.

And for Peter Shire, it's through and through.

They're ceramics that are not very expensive.

It's art for the people.

But his vision extends through his sculpture, his very sophisticated paintings.

It extends to his truck, even to his scooter.

We wanted Peter to bring his special artistic world into the gallery.

I came up with Rumpus Room from that kind of 50's notion of Rumpus Room is a place where anything can happen that you can't do in any of the other rooms.

These works are a cross of design language, craft language, and what we call art.

The teapot is a It maybe the ultimate object within the lexicon because it's got the most parts, spout, handle, on an axis, and then there's the lid.

I had an idea of combining sculptural values into the teapot, yet still this hydraulic situation, you could be, be operative.

How does the liquid go in?

Where does it go?

How does it move within the piece?

This is my Mickey Mouse teapot.

You know, of course, the nose is the spout, and the, one of the ears is the entry for the tea, and the handle is the other ear.

It's got its balance.

We talked to him about commissioning a mailbox for us.

It's sort of like a giant teapot in a way.

\ And he has all these little flying figures, kind of oiling the works to keep our mail coming.

But after it was installed we didn't get mail for a few days [LAUGHS] because the mailman didn't know what it was.

Well, it's such a funny endeavor, but I'm a collector, too.

My wife, she says, you're a hoarder.

These things I work with, and yes, there are certain things that don't get used, but we take joy in looking at them and maybe remembering a moment.

These two hammers, one was my dad's favorite hammer.

He used this to frame houses, and this is the hammer that was my grandfather's.

They're virtually the same hammer.

It's so nuts, hammers and teapots.

But God bless the collectors.

[LAUGHS]