Cups 'n Stuff

 These mugs are by Chris Baskin and were thrown in 2007. There's a lot of aesthetic in these that could throw someone off when looking at them. The relationship between the cup and handle looks great at first glance but after you look for a while, you notice that the handle (while it is wide) is only half the height of the cup. It helps that the top is connected at the lip directly, it adds a big lift to the cup and makes it look bigger than it is. The hidden attachment with the handle helps slim it down and give more of an illusion of a lot of height.

These beach cups were made by Bethany Benson by throwing and altering in 2005. this is the first time I've seen this idea, to just put the cups straight in the sand. The utilitarian point of this is genius and the glaze on the outside in the shape of a butterfly only adds to the shape of these. They have a good balance between shape (holding it in the hand and creating grooves in the sand so it holds better) and the butterfly (using the wings as curves and the butt going down to the bottom). My only concern is the worry that sand will get kicked into it at some point but you could fix that with a lid easy peasy. 

 This peice was dated back to the 8th century and was from the Mayan culture. Despite the height of it (8.5 inches), I want to make most of my cups this shape. i just feel like it holds more and seems fuller. I didn't realize how detailed and almost cartoonish ancient pottery could be. The artist style looks like a cheesy Sunday comic.  ( http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1999.484.2 )

This "Monkey Cup" was found in the Netherlands and is dated back to the 15th century. The detail is just amazing on this, especialy with the metal work on the bottom. The foot of this is really interesting because i can't imagine the amount of work that went into shaping a non rounded foot when the peice is so tall and thin. Unless it was done in sections, which actually makes more sense now that I think about it. I really like the little triangle points that come out of the foot, they add a good balance between sharp and round. 

I pretty much just want my mugs to be kinda tall and wide so they hold more liquid. i'm not very good at pulling straight vertically, my walls tend to pan out a lot so doing all these cups like this will give me good practice and control with my pulling. When I shape my handles, I think I'm going to build some cardboard tunnels to keep the shape of the pointed handles while they dry. Also, if you can't read the small section there it says, "all dishonest handles, no more than 1.5 inches wide".