Ceramics: Mug Retrospective

While at Arrowmont, I drank my coffee, iced tea, water from as many different vessels on display and for use in the dining room.  I would feel each cup's heft in my hand and examine it for all its charming details, which I vowed to reference and re-create in my own hands once I returned to California.  Some of my re-creations were utter failures, especially because I used reclaimed clay for each one which sometimes leads to unpredictable and not so pretty results.  Below, however, are the ones I am fond of.

I call this one my Form and Function cup, where I started to make a handle to resemble brass knuckles and played with a pouncer and underglazes to make geometric shapes in my favorite color palette from modern quilting and of course, had to include text.

This one I kept even though I dislike it because I want to remember to repeat the technique of leaving parts of speckled buff unglazed whose rough surface is so pretty in contrast to the white gloss.  Next time I plan to use tape resist on the flat slab to get a cleaner line and maybe just use the texture roller on the bottom.

A lot of the mugs I've sold have this wave surface I make from a commercial texture roller, and it contains my favorite Isak Dinesen quote (“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.").  I'll make more of these sea mugs because I love 'em so much and continue to refine my underglazing of light blue, sky blue, royal blue, and marine blue.

With these two mugs I played with stencils.  I pounced the color on this reclaimed Bmix with a little bit of Sculpture and a tiny bit of Speckled Buff slab in the body when the clay was not so soft, but more suede in order for the color to not smear and then dry enough to leatherhard in order to construct the cup.  It's all about timing and curbing impatience.  I'll probably price these two mugs kind of high because I like them so much and sometimes feel unsure that I can repeat the sharpness of detail.  I'm also thinking too of adhering decals on them.