Can a good mug change your life?

Wow, nothing quite like setting myself up for writing the blog of my life eh!

Writing in a typically ‘professional’ manner has never been a string point of mine, but let’s just see how this goes.

So can a mug, or cup, vase, even a good suit change your life? That’s a really bold statement, but to be even bolder, I think it can.

Let me explain. Remember during covid there were people putting their bins out in their ‘best’ clothes. Wearing those items they would typically ‘save for best’ because, at that time we didn’t know if what we were living through was the ‘best’ it was going to get.

Strange to think back to those times, back in 2019. The meaning and thought behind those actions are what led me down the ceramic space I’m in now…oddly I’ve had to have other people point that out to me so I can understand where my inspiration comes from.

Let me take you on another tangent (Hopefully I can tie all this together to make sense by the end)

I have a cupboard FULL of mugs! I’m sure like many of you do. I have the shelf an eye height which has all the mugs we use on a regular(ish) basis. There must be about 20 mugs there. Right at the top of the cupboard are the mugs we’ve been brought, purchased on a whim from a holiday or event – something that reminds of things/places…but we never use them, we rarely look at them. They may come out if we have those unexpected (and not massively popular visitors)

But even with all these mugs I have two, maybe 3 at a push which I use all the time. Everyday. One which is my staple tea/coffee/hot drink mug, I love it and won’t let anyone else use it.

At the time it cost me £45…I gulped when I purchased it but I loved it, I wanted to put it on display and never use it as it was ‘too nice’ or something just for a hot chocolate on picturesque  a snowy day, like all those festive postcards at Christmas.

I admit when I first started using it, it was on the rare occasion but each time it made me happier, I felt a little more special that I had this beautiful mug and was only mine to drink from..no one else was good enough for it.

After a few months of regular use its effects trickled into other purchases….if there was something I saw and loved but thought ‘that’s too expensive’ I remembered back to my beautiful mug. After all these years and all the use, it was completely worth the money.

I’ve had this mug for at least 20 years, it’s outlasted friends, boyfriends and jobs…I still love it as much now as I did then, it’s stained, chipped but still makes my drinks taste better.

This is where my work and hopes for other people come in.

We all have those things which make us feel better when we use or wear then, so why are we just saving them ‘for best’, who do we not feel we can wear/use them everyday…why do we feel not worthy of wearing it out? I’m sure that’s for a much bigger discussion and a much longer blog post.

I love what I make, it connects me with a better feeling from the past, but it saddens me with people say ‘oh that’s too nice to use’ or ‘that’s only be for best’. I want my work to be that thing this is used until it’s worn out but makes you feel better about yourself, the world or even just that morning cup of tea. We all deserve those things that make us feel good and if we’re not going to get them for ourselves why should anyone else?

I want my work to connect with people so much they feel it’s an investment, not just in a mug, vase or whatever but also it’s that thing that reminds them they are worth it, they deserve nice things and to treat themselves, not because it’s a birthday, to have no reason at all….

oh a sad note....after a coffee machine accident, my beloved mug is no more...but I have the exciting task now to make my own perfect mug...eek!