How Corry Blanc Is Casting a New Mold in Southern Cookware Tradition
It all started with one award-winning skillet. Now, your favorite chefs, home cooks, and everyone in between calls on Corry Blanc and his crew of designers, artists, and chefs at Blanc Creatives for cookware pieces.
Weβve recently been smitten with Southern cookware brands and have another crush to gush about. Blanc Creatives out of Waynesboro, VA, is the contrivance of Corry Blanc β a man whoβs a downright pocketknife of expertise and did a little bit of everything in his quest to find the answer to that age-old question: What do you want to be when you grow up?
A skilled metalworker who also knows his way around a kitchen, Corryβs first skillet won Garden & Gunβs βMade in The Southβ overall prize in 2015, and his growing coterie of skilled artisans hasnβt stopped adding to their cookware offerings since.
Blancβs Beginnings
Corry began his metalworking journey working for his uncle in North Georgia. βAfter four years working for him, I was running the shop and managing my own crew,β Corry says. He moved to Charlottesville in 2007 and landed a job at a local blacksmithing studio where he learned to forge and move metal around differently than before β his uncleβs shop was a pure welding fabrication studio.
βIn 2008, I decided to venture out on my own and focus on high-end architectural ironwork,β Corry says, βcombining my forging and fabrication skills.β But around that time, the market crashed, and people were reticent to splurge on expensive ironwork for their homes. So Corry worked throughout Charlottesvilleβs vibrant restaurant scene and took catering gigs to pay the bills.
From Farmersβ Markets to Award-Winning Restaurants
Once the economy course corrected a bit, Corryβs architectural ironwork picked up, and he found himself in restaurants less and less. His metal jobs were always interesting custom commissions, and the lulls between projects gave him the time and motivation to start making products to sell at local farmersβ markets on the weekends. βThose products happened to be food-related,β Corry remarks, βand the local chefs I befriended started to place orders for my skillets.β When the skillet won Garden & GunβsΒ βMade in the South Awardsβ overall prize, it cemented Blanc Creatives as a cookware brand that was here to stay.
Blanc Creatives team of artists, chefs, and designers
Over the years, Blanc has employed a wide variety of artisans. βThe early years were full of restaurant workers who were tired of long hours and weekend work,β Corry recalls. βBlanc was a place where they could hone a new craft and still stay connected to the restaurant industry and the joy of cooking.β Corryβs employed industrial design students, art school graduates, restaurant workers, factory workers, computer wizzes β you name it. βEveryone has left their mark in some form or another, which makes Blanc Creatives our company. My name is on the door, but the company is what it is today thanks to the talent thatβs come through over the last 11 years.β
A nurturing Virginia locale
Because of Waynesvilleβs proximity to the University of Virginia and the areaβs fertile, well-kept farming industry, Blanc Creatives has boundless potential to make a mark on the culinary world. βThe local Charlottesville community appreciates and supports the small businesses we have here,β Corry says. βThis appreciation has allowed the farmers to hone their crafts, and because of that, the food scene here is second to none as far as small towns go β in my opinion! We truly are spoiled when it comes to good food; we have amazing produce and meats. It only makes sense that a culinary tools brand would be successful here. Plus, itβs just BEAUTIFUL!β
Form, function, and can we have BOTH in cookware?
Having functional and beautiful things in the home β especially the kitchenβ can prove challenging these days. But Blanc combines form and function. βThe original tagline for Blanc Creatives was βA Balance of Art and Function,'β Corry adds. βThat ethos is what the company was founded on. Weβre not trying to reinvent the wheel or looking for a new invention; weβre taking mundane, everyday kitchen tools and putting our spin on them. If itβs something youβll use every day, why not also make it something you enjoy looking at?β
Thanks for sharing your story with us, Corry. All images courtesy of Blanc Creatives.
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Zoe Yarborough
Zoe is a StyleBlueprint staff writer, Charlotte native, Washington & Lee graduate, and Nashville transplant of eleven years. She teaches Pilates, helps manage recording artists, and likes to "research" Germantown's food scene.