studio dispatch no. 2: throwing mugs, finding coins
Hello from what is still my cold and grey studio, though less cold as the insulating we did has made it possible for the shed to hold heat and make it a few degrees warmer than the outside. I rewarded myself for so much studio and clay recycling maintenance over the holidays with my favourite mindless throwing activity: mugs.
I tutor casual sessions at Clayspace on Thursdays and this week a ton of students were coincidentally all working on mugs and attaching handles. I felt a bit jealous of them all so wanted to do a small batch to get back into the swing of making things for the year. My rounded mugs in particular are my favourite and most automatic form to throw, so they’re great when I’ve not thrown for a bit and, because everyone loves mugs, they don’t tend to linger around as stock for very long, either.
I usually throw my mugs with about 600 grams of clay, regardless of the kind of clay I’m using. These ones I made with freshly recycled, pretty soft buff clay which I know has a bit more water than usual, so I didn’t care too much if they were a bit closer to 625 grams. This lets me make relatively large mugs with thick enough walls where the heat doesn’t feel uncomfortable on the hands, and where I have enough working room to carve textures into the clay.
Sometimes I make my straight mug style in a smaller size than my rounded classic mugs, usually around 500 grams. These are nicer for people who make fancy coffees, but I don’t tend to use them in my own house as I’m partial to a giant mug of overly milky builder's tea (sorry everyone).
As it turns out, I’m actually pretty lazy at wedging clay (see left), as while I was throwing the first mug, I found a 50p coin in the lump of clay. Good luck, I guess?
Clay takes a lot longer to dry in the winter, so where in the summer and fall I’d be able to trim my pots, pull handles and attach them the next day, I’ll have to wait to mid week to finish these mugs off. Because I’ll be working on them during what looks like a busy week at my day job, I kept it to a cute little batch of six to make the lunch break handle sessions manageable. I have a lot of feelings about mug handles, at least with respect to how they work on my own mug forms, which I’ll share next week once all the clay is leather hard and ready to go.
It was too sunny to hole myself up in the studio on Sunday, so we walked along the clifftops and got some ice cream in Broadstairs at sunset. Morelli’s has the most incredible tile floors which have started to crack and crumble with age and I just love them. Thanet is full of incredible old flooring if you look enough at your feet!
I’ve always been quite into tiling without every feeling the need to make tiles myself, though I do admit to having fantasies about replacing my kitchen tiles with handmade ones. More realistically, I’d love to add some more interest to my fluted styles with textures like these while also avoiding things getting aggressively geometric; I think that’s why the cracks and marbling appeal here.
Colour, though, I won’t be adopting (sorry pink lovers): while I love the pink at Morelli’s, I’ve cycled through enough pink glazes to know they just aren’t for me long-term!
