Klassics by Kurtis Inc. in Monroe has evolved over the last 27 years from a way to supplement a church musician’s income into a major international business centered on holiday ornaments.
Curtis J. Posuniak is a concert pianist and a musician who began playing in church at the age of 12. He’s now music minister at St. Patrick Church in Carleton, north of Monroe. In the early 1990s, he was performing at Neiman Marcus at the Somerset Collection in Troy when he was inspired to launch a specialty Christmas ornament business.
“There was a glass designer who was doing ornament signings nearby, and I was fascinated by the quality of the work,” recalls Posuniak, who at the time ran the Michigan Bach Festival. “There were two ladies there who said I should do ornaments of musical composers. So I went to Poland, where the specialty ornaments are made, and the rest is history.”
Posuniak founded Klassics by Kurtis in 1996 and sold 7,500 ornaments — featuring the likenesses of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin — in the first year. In subsequent years, he focused on custom ornaments for businesses, clubs, schools, churches, and municipalities.
Over time, his clients have included the Detroit Athletic Club, local churches, The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Edmund T. Ahee Jewelers, EWTN (the Catholic television network), country clubs, Greenfield Village, the Ritz-Carleton (now The Henry) in Dearborn, Channel 7, the Detroit Pistons, the Detroit Tigers, the Detroit Red Wings, Big Boy, and RE/MAX, among others.
He’s produced a Model T for Ford Motor Co., a Hemi engine for Dodge, planes for Pentastar Aviation, and ornaments for Elvis Presley’s Graceland, the Detroit Opera House, and the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
Among this year’s total run of 13,000 ornaments are custom jobs featuring Novi Catholic Central High School and a Saugatuck landmark.
“We’re in the process of trying to do a Jimmy Buffett commemorative ornament, too,” Posuniak says.
In addition to its custom work, Klassics by Kurtis produces a new collection each year to sell online and in retail establishments like Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, the gift shop at The Grand Hotel, and other outlets.
“We do $40,000 or $50,000 per year with Bronner’s,” Posuniak says. “We have our own section there. It does very well for them.”
He shares that the gift shop at The Grand Hotel takes 600 to 700 pieces each year and sells out, bringing in revenue that’s comparable to Bronner’s.
“One year a company ordered 12,000 pieces,” Posuniak says. “We had an incredible year that year. When COVID-19 hit, it was bad. Nobody was buying and (our clients) had big inventories from the year before.”
Business is bouncing back following the pandemic, and this year’s public collection includes a new Santa Claus and Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood.
All Klassics by Kurtis ornaments are created from hand-blown glass and hand-painted at six factories in Poland — three each in Krakow and Czestochowa, in the southern region of the country.
“Each factory has a niche,” Posuniak explains. “The factory that did the train station, their model-maker is just incredible. You go with what you know is good. Other factories are great with bulbs. Other factories are great with shapes. From experience, when we’re doing something custom, you know the best place to take that project.”
Regardless of the ornament ordered, it goes through a similar process.
A client submits a purchase order that requires a 50 percent deposit, with the balance due on delivery. The customer also provides as many images as possible of the building or product the ornament will represent. Sometimes even blueprints are used. From there, a prototype is sculpted in clay and pictures are sent to the client for approval.
“You get a picture of the clay model that has been sculpted to our — and our client’s — specifications,” Posuniak says. “We look at all the detail in the clay and make any necessary changes.”
When the clay model is approved, it moves to a cast iron mold. “Once it gets into the metal mold, no changes can be made,” he says.
From there, a glass-blower uses the mold to blow the clear glass into the shape of the ornament. A stem is left so an artisan can hold the ornament while painting it.
“Glass-blowers can blow 100 pieces a day, and most factories have at least five glass-blowers,” Posuniak says. “They take it out immediately and put it in water so it solidifies.”
Next, the ornament goes to another department where the inside is painted with a silvery substance — the better to see through it. After that, it goes into a room that’s kept at between 110 degrees and 120 degrees, and it’s hung upside down to dry.
Once completely dry inside and out, the ornament is painted, and photos are sent stateside for final approval. When approved, mass production can begin. And this mass production is nothing like Henry Ford envisioned.
“For each project, there are only two people working side by side doing the painting, to minimize the variations,” Posuniak says. “As it is, there are no two ornaments that are exactly the same since they’re done by hand.”
At any one time there can be 100 people working on Klassics by Kurtis ornaments in the six Polish factories.
“The artisans in Poland are not degreed people. They didn’t go to school to learn to do what they do. It’s all innate talent,” he explains. “At one factory they have a little lady who is 80 years old still blowing glass at a rate of 10 pieces a day, but most of the artists are between 40 and 60 years old.”
A couple of years ago, one of the painters slipped on some ice and broke her arm, which held up production on 200 custom ornaments for a church in California for close to two years.
To maintain relationships and to check on projects in progress, Posuniak travels to Poland at least once a year for a week or two. “When I go there, I go to every factory to see how production is going,” he says. “I go to each room where the painting is being done and see how the samples are being done.
“They all take me out to eat, which is good because it’s important to have a good rapport with them. In two days, I might visit three factories. Then I take a couple of days for myself and then visit the other three factories.”
Depending on the complexity of an ornament, it takes anywhere from two days to a week to finish a piece. Each order takes between eight to 10 months to go through the entire process.
“We have to submit our large orders no later than May to have them done for the holiday season,” he says. “For reorders, we can order in June or July.”
Deliveries come via UPS to two warehouses, one in Monroe and another in Southfield.
“Our shipments come throughout the year and within three or four days they’re out the door. We don’t carry big inventories because so much of our stuff is for other people,” he says. “We haven’t experienced any supply chain problems so far.”
Could production be done in the U.S.? “I’m sure it could be done here, but what you’d pay for it here compared to what you pay for it in Poland is very different,” says Posuniak, who adds that the cache of selling European-made products can’t be ignored.
Although he doesn’t divulge what the business brings in annually, he does confess the ornament business has surpassed his church salary. “God has been good to me all my life,” he says.
