Curtz: a Brand Born at a Repair Bench in Salt Lake City

Curtz is the one-man bench American pipe maker Arley G. Curtz ran under his own name in Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah. The brand is the product neither of a factory nor of a family tradition passed down through generations; it was built on a pursuit taken up late in life.

Curtz's actual profession lay in a field unrelated to pipe making, arts administration; he took up the bench after retiring as director of the Bountiful Davis Art Center in Bountiful, Utah.

From Repair to Making

Curtz's first regular contact with briar came not through making but through repair. He worked as a pipe repairman at Jeanie's Smoke Shop, a tobacconist in Salt Lake City, and entered into the structure of the pipe while working through broken shanks, burnt rim edges, and deformed mouthpieces. Because repair requires taking a pipe apart down to its inner channel and airflow to understand it, it is an unusual but solid school for the transition into making. Exactly which year he began producing his own pipes is not clear in the records; sources only note that he moved into making following his time as a repairman. In later years he gathered his work under the name "Curtz Handmade Pipes and Pipe Repair," running making and repair side by side on the same bench. This dual way of working resembles the small benches set up in the American scene after retirement.