GoKawiilRecipes, money, written affirmations, and receipts. That’s what Hazy Mae keeps in her ceramic cookie jars. Cookies? None. Since she was gifted her first cookie jar, a midcentury ceramic bear, several years ago, the New York City-based artist has become a collector of a few dozen quirky, mostly vintage cookie jars. “A friend of mine was like, ‘You’re the only person I know with 100 cookie jars and not a single cookie in your house,’” says Mae, whose mother kept similar odds and ends — never cookies — in her collection of house-shaped cookie jars.
But Mae isn’t just a collector, she’s also a cookie jar maker, and her work is part of a new wave of appreciation for ceramic cookie jars. Boosted by ongoing enthusiasm for pottery and sculpture, new cookie jar creations are once again dotting retail shelves, as a revived reverence for vintage models also takes hold.
Ceramic cookie jars — those flamboyant crockeries topped with ornate finials — first brought art into the heart of American homes decades ago. Becoming a prominent kitchenware item by the 1950s, around the introduction of premade cookie dough, cookie jars remained popular well into the 1990s. But even after being sidelined as seasonal holiday decor, broad adoration for ceramic cookie jars has never fully disappeared. “The idea of a cookie jar is familiar and it feels nostalgic,” says Mae. “But also, it’s new and fresh and contemporary.”
New designs in today’s ceramic menagerie include rendered woodland creatures and splotchy puffer fish alongside cottagecore toadstools. Streetwear brand Supreme collaborated with Pillsbury to create a Doughboy cookie jar and a line of clothing featuring the classic character, offering throwback afterschool-snack vibes to a young generation whose baking rituals may have started with the brand. Similarly, Williams-Sonoma gave Mickey Mouse a refresh in cookie jar form; the result was cool enough to earn a spot in Rihanna’s kitchen. CB2’s iteration of a midcentury modern piece by designer Paul McCobb, while sleek and minimalistic, is also a nod to the retro.
At Bloomingdale’s and Saks Fifth Avenue, Mae’s whimsical, monochromatic line incorporates original characters and famous figures like Tina Turner and Iris Apfel. “I hoped that it would become a thing that a lot of people did again,” says Mae about the cookie jar resurgence. “They can contain anything that you want. A lot of people say that mine are conversation pieces.” Which is exactly what you’d hope for, given that Mae’s cookie jars cost around $800.
A Hazy Mae Elvis cookie jar, which retails for $850. Hazy Mae
Ceramic cookie jars have been a perennial muse for the classically trained artist. She painted images of cookie jars, zooming in on their features, for years before eventually expanding her practice to sculpting them. Now, Mae handmakes each cookie jar — shaping the clay on a slab roller, then building the base and head, before firing and hand-painting each — in a process that takes about six weeks to complete.
But while the ceramic cookie jar has long been repurposed for many things — even goodwill, as seen in recent charitable effort the Cookie Jar Project — I’ve always been skeptical of ceramic cookie jars as a storage solution for cookies. After my son and I finish baking our holiday cookies every December, I carefully heap them into a sensible food storage bag or a reusable container, never once considering the cookie jar in what should be its moment of glory.
“They’re not meant to be in there very long,” says pastry chef Cheryl Day, owner of Back in the Day Bakery in Savannah and the author of the celebrated Cheryl Day’s Treasury of Southern Baking. Day recommends storing homemade cookies in cookie jars for only a couple of days. Store-bought cookies, especially if they’re packaged in sleeves, can be tucked into the jar for longer. “It’s going to last a little bit longer, and it’s going to look a lot nicer.” And if cookie jars aren’t the best at keeping things fresh, they at least can protect cookies from bugs or even tiny hands, she adds.
But Day doesn’t actually keep her own cookies in a cookie jar. A few years ago, she purchased what she describes as a “faux-vintage” ceramic cookie jar. “I bought it because I loved it, and I ended up storing other stuff in there which was kind of fun,” mostly office supplies and spools of thread, she says. “Just knickknacks.”
... continue reading