Curt Blanchard has been in the pottery world for most of his entire adult life and although he's a collector, it's not cookie jars!
As Curt says "Been too close to them for too long. Antiques, American and Chinese Ephemera, political campaign buttons, antique decorative accessories such as Frankart, Tiffany, American and British art pottery etc are what I collect. I also draw recreationally, a kind of postman's holiday."
He also said that at one time he researched a glow-in-the-dark enamel that could be used on ceramics. His idea was to design a Cheshire Cat jar and when the lights were out in the kitchen, just the grin would be visible. Unfortunately that project never got made, but it would have been a fun piece.
Now more about Blanchard:
- Blanchard graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration and started out his life's work as a designer.
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Within a few years of graduation Blanchard went to work for
Holt-Howard doing design work on a multitude of different projects, including Christmas items, angels and figures.
Alas, he cannot take credit for the very popular Holt-Howard Pixieware, as that was on its way out when he joined the company in the late sixties.
- In the early '70s Holt-Howard was bought by General Housewares Corp. Giftware Group and relocated to Massachusetts. Within a short time, he was the only member of the company that was carried over from the original Holt-Howard team. Early in his career at Holt-Howard, the company purchased Colonial Candle as part of their giftware line. Blanchard worked with that division of the company until around 1990. He spent a lot of time traveling around Europe and Asia, designing jars, candles and other pieces in the giftware lines.
- In 1990 Holt-Howard Company disappeared after General Housewares disbanded and sold the Giftware group in 1990. Colonial Candle was sold to another candle company and the textile division was sold to a textile company. It was time for a change and Blanchard, an East Coast resident for all his life, made a big move to the West Coast and to the Albert Kessler Company. He worked for a few years for this ceramic company (that produced kitchenware) and when they were sold just three years later, Blanchard decided to go out on his own and do consulting work.
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In the mid 1990s Blanchard wound up working for Treasure Craft, which was then owned by Pfaltzgraff. Up to this time in the Treasure Craft history everything was manufactured in the Los Angeles area. They had just stopped production in the USA when he came on board. His job was to move over 400 items to Asia to be produced. The majority of these were licensed items and it was no easy task to make this huge a move.
When an item is licensed, the company granting the license exercises tight control over the way the item looks, is produced, and basically all aspects of the item. This all necessitates numerous trips back and forth for approvals, design changes, etc. After all the dust settled, the items made in China were not only lower in price, but Curt felt they were much better in quality! This allowed the price to be reduced on many of the pieces to the end consumer.
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Pfaltzgraff bought Treasure Craft primarily to make accessories for their dinnerware lines. This worked well when they were being made in the USA, but as the production moved offshore Treasure Craft became less important to Pfaltzgraff. Since cookie jars didn't really relate to their core company dinnerware lines, Treasure Craft was soon sold again.
Now it was three people that bought the company, one of which was Blanchard. Although some very neat items were produced during this time, it didn't take long for the owners to realize it wouldn't work unless they had deep pockets. The company needed much larger funding than they were able or wanted to get into at the time, so Treasure Craft was sold once more -- this time (in 1999) to Zak Designs in Washington.
- Curt has been involved with consulting work since 1999. He has spent time working for Colonial Candle of England working on products for them including lanterns and candle holders. He has also done consulting work with companies in Portugal, a country which is one of the largest exporters in Europe of ceramics and porcelain pieces.
- In the early 2000s Blanchard once more found his way back to a Howard company, but this time it was Grant-Howard, the Howard from the Holt-Howard Company. Blanchard designed a group of cookie jars for the company, along with a line of retro-inspired Pixieware pieces. These were made to complement the vintage pieces and were all new designs, so as not to confuse the collector. e.g. The cookie jar was a popular new piece, but the original Holt-Howard pieces did not have a cookie jar in the line.
