Mugs in Use
I’ve always had a thing for mugs. Before I was a potter, I was a frequent visitor to thrift stores in my hometown, picking up mugs and feeling the handles, the weight, and the textures. For a long time I refused to drink out of a mug that wasn’t a pale colour on the inside. I went through a gold mug phase at one point. I think I was anti-handle for a bit when Scandi coffee became really popular. Then, I started making pottery and the fixation really took off.
In the five years I’ve been making mugs, I’ve asked a lot of people about what they like when using one for their coffee or tea. What I’ve learned is that nearly everyone has a favourite mug, or at least some pretty strong mug preferences. There’s a lot of talk among potters on what makes a good mug, whether that’s the handle “balancing” with the body of the mug, or a light weight in the walls of the pot, or whatever, but I’ve found that there’s such variation in people’s favourite mug that there’s virtually no way to make one that will be universally loved. At best you’d come up with one that’s universally tolerated, and who would want to make that?
But there has to be some pattern to the mug preference madness, surely. This potter simply must know.
The project
This series is about mugs in use. Not necessarily about beautiful mugs, handmade mugs, or ones that were purchased from a fancy store, but rather ones that are part of our daily lives. It’s about the mugs that we choose over others in the cupboard, and that we pick out of the dirty dishwasher to hand wash specifically because we don’t want to use another. The chipped ones. The old ones. The stained ones. The ones that get left on our desks overnight and quickly rinsed again for coffee in the morning.
I want to know what kinds of people love what kinds of mugs, and why. Not so I can make some optimised mug to sell (though I’m open to new designs if I have a blind spot!), but because I’m endlessly curious about the objects people bring into their daily and intimate lives, why they chose them, why they keep them, and what they would do if they broke. I’m also curious about whether potters’ views on what makes a good mug form are what people find themselves drawn to every day, and if they’re not, why? Who are they for?
I’m hoping by documenting the details of those who will invite me to see, chat about, and measure their favourite mugs, I can paint a picture of the mugs that we use everyday and think through how a ceramic practice that’s focused on not making unwanted pots (!) fits into this little piece of daily life.
My own preferences are a little bit boring to me compared to the prospect of understanding what makes others tick in the world of mugs, but for the sake of an explanation on how I’ve landed on my current mug offerings, I figured I’d add my own mugs into the mix as well. I’m starting the Mugs in Use series in my own mug collection with the mug that I’d be the most sad to lose if everything in my cupboard was inexplicably smashed one day. It’s chipped, it’s blue (a colour I don’t use outside of commissions), it’s not even a shape I make anymore. It’s also my absolute favourite.
CJ’s giant blue coffee mug
Mug acquired in: 2019
Defining feature: Perfectly placed and shaped handle that can support a giant cup of coffee
The backstory
This mug is a wide-rimmed large mug that I made in October 2019 at Sabali Pots community studio in Oxford. I glazed it in a blue-grey glaze from Bath Potters which, when it plays nicely, is shiny and semi-transparent and lovely, but can very easily come out a boring matte grey if even applied the slightest bit too thick. This mug is perhaps the most beautiful this glaze has ever come out, and I continued to chase this high well into 2022.
This mug was also the first time I made a mug that I knew, somewhat objectively, was a winner. I’d been messing around, trying to figure out pulled handles for months, and this was the first time I’d got a mug out of the kiln that just felt right in the hand.
How, when, and why I use this mug
I use this mug nearly every morning, but exclusively for black pourover coffee. It holds a ton of coffee and I drink from it while I get ready every morning. I only use this cup for black coffee because the rim is so wide that coffee cools very quicky; if I added milk I’d need to chug the drink to finish it before it was cold. That said, it’s perfect for a purposefully-sipped cup of pourover, and when I’m at home, I feel “off” if I drink black coffee from any other cup. This mug has seen some things:
I drank coffee from this mug every morning on my balcony in the weirdly sunny lockdown of 2020 (see right);
Alex, my partner, has chipped it three times in dishwashing accidents.
I moved it to Margate and dug it out of a box early along with our V60 so I could drink some pourover while sitting on a stool in my empty flat.
The form
The mug holds 400 ml of coffee comfortably. While this mug is relatively large, I can hold and support its weight easily in my small hands with just two fingers through the loop and a thumb supporting on the top of the handle. I alternate between holding it by the handle and in what I call the cuddle position, holding the mug directly around the mug body.
My mug weighs 340 grams, is 108 mm wide at the brim, 70 mm wide at the base, and 80 mm tall. The handle is 62 mm tall, with 35 mm space between the handle and the wall of the mug at the widest point. It is a pulled handle so thicker at the top of the handle (25 mm) than the bottom (13 mm), and shaped in an ear shape with a slight upturn on the top.
The end life
If I broke this mug, I’d be heartbroken! I’d probably try to make myself a new one, but not in the same colour, and it would take a million tries because for some reason I find wide brimmed mugs difficult to get right. I’ve half-considered holding onto broken pots for mosaics before, and breaking this mug would probably convince me to actually do it.
