chess

After reading my Collectors’ Quest article on chalkware, Luke M. Vaillancourt, of Vaillancourt Folk Art contacted me — and if that name seems familiar, it’s because Luke is the son of founder & artist Judi Vaillancourt. The family business has been creating chalkware figurines in Massachusetts for the past 25 years.

Original Father Christmas Vaillancourt Chalkware Piece

Vaillancourt Folk Art was founded in 1984 by Judi Vaillancourt, a formally trained illustrator and architectural historian, and her husband Gary Vaillancourt, who came from the computer imaging industry. Judi used three of her antique chocolate moulds by pouring them with liquid chalkware and handpainting the resulting figures. During the last 25 years the company has sold to such retailers as Nordstroms, Saks, Neiman Marcus and many more. More importantly to Judi, she has also created product and programs with museums such as Colonial Williamsburg, The Boston museum of fine Arts, The metropolitan and many others. Today the company employs approx 25 employees in their Sutton, MA. Studios. Visitors can see the painters creating the Vaillancourt originals, tour the Vaillancourt Christmas museum and adventure through one of America’s most interesting retail galleries.

Since one of the goals of VFA is to create pieces that will be collected and passed down for generations, Luke naturally agreed to an interview here at Collectors’ Quest so that you all could become smitten and begin collecting. *wink*

Luke, what was the first piece made?

The first Santa made was the VFA Nr. 101, Original Santa in a Red Coat, using an Anton Reiche chocolate molds.

Have there been any special pieces, limited editions, etc., that have become very popular (and perhaps pricey) with collectors on the secondary market?

There have been many special limited editions made over the last 25 years but two stand out: Every year for the last 20 years the Vaillancourt’s have made a Santa that benefits the Starlight foundation. The piece is produced each year from May until Christmas and it is then retired. The first Santa done in 1990, which sold for $95, sold last year on the secondary market for $2,300. This series tends to be the most highly sought after collection.

1st Annual Starlight Santa by Vaillancourt Folk Art

The other rare item is the two versions of chess sets that Judi did in the late 1980’s. Both sets sold out very quickly and are also highly sought after on the secondary market.

Chess sets?

My mother first started doing folk art and historical restorations (the company started as Vaillancourt Folk Art & Friends), so her first few chalkware pieces were a Noah’s Ark that she created from wood and hand painted (accompanied with chalkware animals), wooden (followed by chalkware) clock faces, a Parcheesi game board with pieces (VFA Nr. 1004), and then two different Chess Sets.

The first Chess Set (VFA Nr. 1000) consisted of a wooden board that fit over the bottom that held the pieces that she had constructed and painted with a Christmas theme. The pieces used miniature chalkware figurines and was created as a limited edition set of 25. The sets sold out at a retail price of $3,000. One recently was found on eBay being sold for $7,500.

Vaillancourt Christmas Chess Board #1000

Vaillancourt Chalkware Chess Pieces, Set #1000

The second chessboard set (VFA Nr. 1003) was introduced a year later (1989) and was a limited edition set of 25 also selling retail for $3,000.

Vaillancourt Folk Art Chess Board #1003

Vaillancourt Holiday Chess Set #1003 Chalkware Chess Pieces

It is also worth noting that Judi had licensed several designs to Gorham Silver (1986) which manufactured another set of chess boards and pieces that sometimes surface on eBay. “Vaillancourt Folk Art for Gorham” was sold after a year of producing several small ornaments and Vaillancourt Folk Art ended it’s relationship with foreign manufacturers.

Do you or your mother collect chalkware?

Personally, I have about 75 – 100 chalkware Santas, Halloween figures, and rabbits. While I do have some favorites that I buy, most of them have been given to me from grand parents that have passed. To have a piece that was cherished by my grandmother or grandfather makes it all that much more special to me. And that is really our goal, to create an heirloom that can be passed on to family members.

Do you have a favorite Vaillancourt piece? If so, which one & why?

I always seem to change favorites with each year… I always find one that I love, but once my mother designs a new piece for the following year, I seem to adopt a new favorite. My current favorite is the Small Father Christmas because of the size, shape, color, rosy cheeks, and the amazing silhouette city on the back of the coat.

What &/or who inspires your mother’s designs?

Judi’s designs are often inspired by history. She studies constantly and whether it is an antique post card, fabric sample or architectural element it works into her designs. She is never influenced by what sells best (much to my father’s chagrin) but what moves her at the time and looks good! She is always using for historical references in design.

Judi Vaillancourt At Work

Why make chalkware rather than items made of resin, etc.? Doesn’t the fragile nature of the material make for more fragile heirlooms?

The reason chalkware was chosen was because of the painting surface that it has. It is smooth and lends itself like a canvas to the fine detail of our oil paints. My mother was the first to use this surface as a canvas for oil paints.

Come back tomorrow for Part Two of the interview — and find out what really, really impresses me about Vaillancourt Folk Art!

My son’s first grade teacher informed the parents yesterday that she’ll be teaching our six and seven year olds how to play chess this year. I would never have thought to teach chess to a child that young, but apparently she does it every year and the kids love it. I myself have never become a proficient player, but I’ll give it another go this year so I can play with the little guy, and that will give me an excuse to get one of those beautiful chess sets that I’m always admiring in stores but never buy.

There is some disagreement about the origins of the modern version of the game of chess – some say it came from India while others believe that China was the birthplace of chess. The game spread into Persia and on to the Arab world and during the middle ages was brought by tradesmen and invaders to Europe, where it quickly became popular among the nobility and upper classes and developed into the game we know today. Medieval Europeans gave the pieces names and shapes of familiar characters of their time – knights, bishops, kings and queens. The standard shapes that are used today were developed in 1849.

While chess sets with horses representing the knights and crowns representing kings and queens are perhaps the most well-known, there are all sorts of sets available for those who love chess, and collectors love searching out a new and different set. There are sets with elaborately carved kings and queens and sets that depict figures from actual wars and battles, such as the Civil War or Battle of Hastings. There are sets designed for children with friendly characters from familiar cartoons like Scooby Doo or famous movies like Star Wars. There are even chess sets made from materials like jade or pewter – the choices are endless!

By way of concluding coverage of the pleasantly chaotic Toy Fair, I think that’s it’s really important to mention some of the stuff that people generally don’t get to see. There are three enormous floors worth of toys and games and ideas in the Javits Center alone. That’s without even taking the free shuttlebus to the Toy District, which has two towers interconnected by a bridge and each floor full of showrooms and offices, all dedicated to the pursuit of innocent pleasure. Far too much flies under the media radar, some of it exciting and innovative, and some of it hopeless and bound to crash and burn and give off highly toxic fumes. I’ll let you decide which is which in this small gallery.

By way of ‘collectability’, Spin Master has two different Marvel Comics items planned for this year. The first of these is a series of super-tiny comic books that can only be read with a magnifying glass, to be packaged in groups of seven, which reprint both recent and classic Marvel comics. Reprinting comics in teensy form isn’t a NEW idea, and DC Direct did it exceptionally well when they packed in mini-comics in their ‘First Appearances’ line of action figures, but these… seriously tiny. Eye-strain tiny. ‘Secret cabal with the optometrists of the world’ tiny. And presumably, one can also play games with these tiny comics, like a trading card game.

The second innovative collectible idea from them is individually packaged Marvel chess pieces, representing a wide array of superheroes and bad guys in 3D, mini form. I remarked that I was surprised to see Red Skull among the characters, given the fact that he has serious Nazi leanings and most companies shy away from using him, but Captain America DOES need someone’s butt to kick. These chess pieces will be sold at your local toy store for around 2 bucks. It may take a lot to fill up a chess board, but when you’re done, it really looks like a lot of double-nerd fun. They’re more like miniature statues than actual, delineated chess pieces, but they’re an interesting concept.

LEGO will be expanding their Star Wars line of products to include more mini-figures (arguably the best part of collecting LEGOs) and scenarios. I practically squealed with delight when I noticed that they’d finally made a Boba Fett in a little LEGO Sarlacc Pit. You know, the sand-hole-with-teeth that he fell into on Tattooine? Like a total goober? THAT pit, in blocky LEGO form. LEGO will also be rolling out the first in a Batman themed set of products, ranging from ten dollar vehicles to high priced playsets like the Batcave. Mini-figures will include Batman, Robin, Catwoman, Penguin, the Joker and Killer Croc, among others. There are no plans to release these separately, but if you get those late night Batman Mini Figure pangs like I do, you can always look up Art Asylum’s C3 line of construction kits, which include mini-figures of many DC characters at a cheap price. Be warned that many of these C3 sets had missing and malformed piece issues which can no longer be resolved with the company, as the line has been discontinued. You can’t beat Lego anyhow, and if you tried, you’d probably totally cut up your hands on their damned sharp corners. It can just about kill you if you step on a LEGO in the dark – I care not to fathom what one could do should you engage it in fisticuffs.

Also, be sure to check out the LEGO Factory, where you can custom design ANYTHING you want online and have them ship it to you. It’s amazing beyond words.

My number one favorite Toy of the Year [non-mainstream category] is by far Product Enterprise’s prototype ‘Space Vixens of Galaxy Vega’ line. Call it a love of retro-space-chicness (or ‘chickness’), or call it a simple appreciation of women in all of their spacebound forms, but Captain Peggy Rider took my breath away. She’s but the first 12” figure in a line of many that are planned, and while Product Enterprise (a European company who has previously focused on sci-fi vehicle reproductions) is searching for wide distribution on these, I’ll be dreaming of what could come next. If the final product is anything like the prototype, this will be one of the rare instances that an original intellectual toy property completely takes the market by storm. Keep an eye out for this – I predict great things.

Mimobot presents a completely useful functionality to the world of collectible mini-figures. Not only are these little guys very indie-art stylish, but you can pop open their heads and store a considerable amount of data on them via a USB port! Some people might call them flash drives. I call them ingenious. The ‘urban vinyl / designer toy’ market is burning up right now, merging pop surrealist artistry with toy culture, and now with computer culture and functionality. These start at about 60 bucks and work their way up in price as data storage increases. And it’s a lot more fun to store your term paper on a ninja.

One of the more literally rewarding items we found is ‘Perplexcity‘, and by ‘rewarding’ I mean ’solve a series of puzzles and get $200,000 in real cash money’ rewarding. Worldwide puzzle games with actual buried treasure are nothing new, but Perplexcity adds a new spin on the genre of real-live adventure by incorporating it into a trading card game. Collect packs of cards, solve the increasingly difficult puzzles on each card, trade them with other puzzle solvers and tally your points online to unlock deeper and deeper clues. Eventually, these clues will lead you to finding ‘the Cube’ somewhere in the actual world. I’ve played games like this before, and they’re HIGHLY addictive. Subcultures are formed around them, and the earlier you get in on them, the better off you fare in the game. Similarly, the wider your unmoving butt grows as you seek out each progressive clue. The second wave of cards is coming out now, and many of the players have almost 7000 points, so you’d better hurry.

I found myself wishing that I’d had a few more days just to take in the sites, see more costumed characters, pick up another sack full of free goodies and samples, but the highly inclement weather and fatigue and a lack of traveling companion prevented me from visiting the event on a second day. We sampled milkshakes and played drums and suffered through barely-English presentations of completely bizarre board games that promoted unhealthy lifestyles. Last year, I got in trouble for my lambasting of certain items by name, so I’ll avoid those strings of diplomatic eMails this year by being polite. Poke around through the photo gallery and see what we saw.

There’s dreams and aspirations packed into the halls of the Javits Center during Toy Fair. Sometimes, you recognize dreams from last year and you’re pleased that the dreams are still alive, no matter how crazy. Some dreams you never see again, and some blossom into incredible things. And some dreams are spandex-clad girls who giant metal helmets with Jimmy Durante noses on them, and you sigh and wander to the next booth.

I can’t wait to do it again next year.