January 2024 - Mug Tour

Before I get to the kitchen cabinet where most of my mugs live, I want to let you know that, as I sit here on the couch, three mugs sit across from me. Two of them are vintage Campbell’s Soup mugs, designed to look just like a soup can with a handle attached. One of the Campbell’s mugs is full of short brushes that I use when I’m drawing with ink, gouache and watercolor. The other is holding an Exacto, a paper clip and some string. There are more of these throughout my apartment and I tend to use them for holding pens and things or plants, like the milkweed cactus that thrived and was never the same once I transplanted it. The Campbell’s mugs have their logo printed in slightly different hues of red. One is classic, almost deep scarlet. The other is more bright, toward orange. I prefer the classic version but I have a few of each. These particular mugs once belonged to my grandmother. She told me she got them for free with the purchase of some other thing. A lot of my grandmother’s dishware was collected this way - like her movie dishes, of which she had two full sets, gathered piece by piece each time she went to the theater. She’d tell me about it when I helped her dry dishes after dinner at her house, while my brothers and mother were in the other room watching TV. Using these mugs makes tangible the spirit of my grandmother and also Andy Warhol, which makes me laugh. 

The third mug sitting in front of me is a demitasse ceramic mug made by Ellen, an early friend of mine who I originally met when she and I were waitressing together in the Lower East Side at a restaurant where we served meatballs until four in the morning. She now runs her own ceramics business where she makes beautiful mugs like the one in front of me as well as dishes, bowls and more. When Lucky, my last dog died, I bought a plant pot from her in which I planted a memorial fern with fronds as furry as his tail. The demitasse came as a surprise in the box with the pot. It is two toned glaze, speckled like her dog Milly who, like my dog Lucky, now occupies a spiritual plane. 

Nine months after Lucky died, I adopted Cora and in my small front room there is a built-in shelf where I keep all of her dog gear, extra bags, brushes, cleaning cloths and a notepad for dog walker updates. On this shelf is a mug that my mother gifted me a few years ago. The mug is covered with photos of Lucky’s white furry face from different moments over the ten years we were together. The one where he is laying in the grass with his legs splayed out, freshly groomed and looking off to the side, is probably my favorite. For a while I kept this mug in the kitchen cabinet, which felt haunting every time I opened the door and saw his face staring back at me. So using it on the dog gear shelf is way better.

The rest of the mugs are in the kitchen, including a wide oversized navy blue mug with the name of my undergrad art school printed across the front in gold Times New Roman. My parents bought it for me when they dropped me at school for the first time. I remember being at the register with it. I remember choosing this one over the one that had graphic art school flare. The Times New Roman felt more like ‘college’ to me. I also remember using it for years to hold loose change, mostly pennies. Now I use it in the kitchen, as a scrap holder when I’m prepping food and sometimes for actual food and drink. It’s a mug that can be held comfortably in the palm of two hands. I have memories of drinking tea from it at the window in the morning in winter and seeing the reflections of branches through the steam.

The bottom shelf of the cabinet holds mugs that once belonged to Alice which she used in her house in Truro on the Cape. We used them together and every time I use them now, I remember. There’s a pair, each with an image of the Cape Cod lighthouse, and almost the inverse of one another. One is navy with white print. The other, a blueish gray with a dark blue print. When I have a guest over, using these mugs feels sacred and full.  

There’s another pair of Truro mugs that are shorter and by design fit perfectly when stacked on top of one another in the cabinet. The print on the them is black against the cream colored body with nature scenes that look like they were drawn in the seventies or eighties. They are graphic in the way they depict frogs, cats, fish and foliage covering the entire exterior.

There is a black mug with a lime green interior and a Flatbush Food Coop logo that uses vegetables in place of the o’s, a tomato, cucumber, pepper and what looks like a cabbage. Flatbush Food Coop is a small grocery near my house where I am a member. At the end of the year, members earn money back from the purchases they made over the year and one year I bought this mug with my dividends. Gram would be proud.

At least three times the size of the Milly mug is another from Ellen, an oversized mug with composition book splatter patterned black and white glaze. This is the mug that is most often in rotation because of its beauty and size. It’s a substantial mug. It reminds me of Ellen and how she grew her passion for ceramics into a thriving business which is utterly inspiring and something to take in one sip at a time.  

There’s another black and white mug which is from Espresso Royale, a cafe where I worked in college in my early twenties as a barista and store manager. It was a grueling but important job and I so appreciate that it lives in my everyday by holding drawing supplies on the metal rack in the kitchen. I also have an old espresso machine gauge that was removed from a machine I repaired. I keep it with my plants as though it were a trophy from that time in my life. 

I found the Mazel mug in a free pile while I was working in Julie’s studio making monumental screen printed paintings. The mug is royal blue with white lettering that reads ‘Mazel’ in cursive. The lettering is carved into the blue glaze and has a rough texture next to the blue that makes it fun to hold. It’s simple, joyful and perfect. 

There’s the Paris mug from the 90s that I rescued from my mothers garage when I helped her with clearing space and reorganizing, an effort to Marie Kondo. It’s cute with its graffiti inspired handwritten “Paris” and its cartooned landmarks scattered about. It’s too small for drinking but great for holding pens.

The last on the tour is the Japanese tea mug that has gold trim. Pink, green, black, yellow and gold, all against a white background, it’s ornate and delicate. The handle has an edge that makes it comfortable to hold. It once belonged to Alice as part of her collection of similar mugs, which all had lids to cover tea for brewing. I am missing the lid and missing Alice but having the mug makes me warm all the same.