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POTTERS
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COLUMBIA
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The Humble Mug

Some time ago, a small group of us were
visiting a fellow potter. After the meal, the
coffee came out with four different mugs. The
coffee went cold while we all discussed the
different aspects of the four mugs.

I make large ceramic sculpture and, before
this discussion took place, I can’t recall ever
having spent as much time talking about the
aspects of my work in such animated detail.
However, what is interesting to me is that
when discussion happens around the attributes
of either a mug or a piece of sculpture, the
language is just the same.

I am not quite sure what makes the mug
humble. In order to be successful, a mug has
to be functional while dealing with the same
sculptural issues of the parts in balance and the
parts of the form working together. Perhaps
it is the pretension of sculpture, standing
around saying “Look at me” that makes the
mug humble, while it sits waiting quietly to
be put into use.

A piece of sculpture has the possibility of an
ongoing dialogue and can transform a space
quite profoundly. The mug most likely lives
a lot of its life in a cupboard but its dialogue

By Keith Rice-Jones

can be quite profound when it is in use. ] am
sure that most of you have a favourite mug,
and it can become that for all sorts of reasons.
I don’t have a specific singular favourite mug;
I have many favourites for different qualities,
for different liquids and different times of the
day. Currently, when I get up and start the
day with a slice of lemon in hot water, it is one
of Celia’s Southern Ice translucent porcelain
mugs that I reach for. There is a big one for me
and a slightly smaller one for Celia. Before the

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Canada Council Conseil des Arts

for the Arts du Canada
cITy oF BRITISH COLUMBIA
SURREY ARTS COUNCIL
An agency of the Province of British Columbla

Top Row (L-R):
Celia Rice-Jones,
first 3, Mike
O’Donnell, Ross
Michel-Anyon, last
three.

Bottom Row (L-R):
Sandy Lockwood,
Wally Keeler, Toff
Milway, Ron Vallis,
Byron Temple,
Winchecombe, Ruth-
Ann Tudball.

porcelain, my first choice had been another of
Celia’s which is finished in our old house ash
glaze (when we renovated our house, burned
all the debris and saved the ash) and has a
flashing of fugitive copper on one side.

When we travel and visit potters, what we
often collect, as well as other work, are mugs,
usually in pairs. After the day has started, we
usually stop (actually it’s sometimes before we
have started...) around 10:30 a.m. for coffee,
It’s one-a-day and strong, with a breakfast top-
up of toast. The question is always, “Who shall
we drink coffee with this morning?” Today
it was Sandy Lockwood from Australia, the
day before it was Ross Mitchel-Anyon from
New Zealand, before that, Ron Vallis from
Vancouver, Wally Keeler from the U.K., Mike
O’Donnell from New Zealand and Sandy
again, I think. All the coffee mugs are smaller
than my morning lemon one and not ones we
would generally think of for tea unless it was
a fruit tea. In the afternoon it is Earl Grey tea
and other, slightly larger mugs come out.

I am not quite sure what puts a mug into a
particular usage category but the wide range
of solutions to mug design is evident in the
Gallery of BC Ceramics mug wall. When I
was in the gallery recently, someone was going
through a whole range of them, choosing one
that suited. It’s very personal. People at our
studio sometimes buy beer steins as coffee
mugs and I can't conceive of drinking that
much coffee! Once at home, a customer who
had broken her favourite Celia mug, had the
whole shelf of ostensibly identical mugs out
on the floor, trying out the balance and lip
edge, the slight nuance of each, that would
mark it as special for her.

Continued on Page 7, Energy

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - November 2010

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