The right mug for the job
I made a new friend a few years ago. She's married to a very old friend, and I spent a delightful weekend staying with their family in the heart of rural Shropshire. As we got to know each other, we swapped anecdotes and ideas in the way that women often do, cutting right to the important stuff within a few hours of meeting. Which is how we found ourselves one morning exchanging a warm understanding about mugs (of the drink holding variety, just to be clear).
Her mug cupboard was a riot of different shapes, sizes, colours, and designs. I asked her, “Are you the kind of person for whom the choice of mug is really important?” and she immediately knew what I was talking about. “Ah-ha!”, I thought to myself, “a kindred spirit”. She totally understood that choosing my mug is an important part of the everyday ritual of drinking tea, occasionally coffee, and a selection of other hot beverages. For me, the choice of mug can make or break the drinking experience. In the “wrong” mug, the drink “tastes” wrong, even though on another day that particular mug might be perfect for the job.
You have to feel sympathy for my husband. The handmade mugs with a shiny blue glaze can be just right for a mug of rooibos one night, but on the next night I really would prefer the pure white ceramic with a sculpted bird perched atop the handle. And it has nothing to do with mood, or choice of beverage, or anything else that might be vaguely predictable. Even I don’t understand it to be honest. I just know that my selection of mug is emotionally important, directly impacting my enjoyment of the drinking experience, every single time.
Today’s mug of choice
One of my absolute favourite memories from my University days is sitting with my girlfriend at college, chatting about the events of the day whilst we sipped Earl Grey Tea from her enormous tea cups. On the tea cup versus mug debate (where I fall firmly into the latter camp), these receptacles caused a significant definition problem because they were without doubt cups, that came with saucers. Boldly coloured, you could mix and match the cups and saucers for an even more pleasing aesthetic effect. But the drinking experience was much more like a mug. They were very large and had that weight that made them perfect for cradling in both hands. If I see a similar shape or boldly coloured cup today, I am immediately transported to her college room, where typically there was a litter of art materials all around us as she worked on her latest creation whilst we chatted.
By contrast, on my teaching trip to the USA last year I was bewildered by the lack of mugs in every single hotel where I stayed. All the drinking receptacles provided thus far were disposable paper or plastic, and most of them were individually wrapped in even more plastic. The waste bothered me deeply, but so did the lack of care it showed for such a simple but important daily ritual. I had been on the road for over two weeks when my frustration reached breaking point. I had just arrived at a delightful boutique bed and breakfast in Bloomington, Indiana. As the friendly proprietor showed me through the beautifully decorated lounge area, and up a lovely wooden staircase to my exquisitely appointed room, I was supremely confident that I had finally found a place that would recognise the importance of a decent porcelain cup or mug. So you can imagine my disappointment when I spied the now familiar stack of individually wrapped paper cups.
My poor husband got an earful that evening and he gently suggested a possible remedy. "I know you are short on space in the suitcases, but what about finding the nearest outdoors store and buying a collapsible camping mug?" Brilliant idea! Why hadn't I thought of that? Next morning found me downtown where a very kind young man in JL Waters showed me their very limited selection. It looked like I was going to have a choice of brown or brown, but importantly it wasn’t paper and the clever design combining metal and silicon intrigued me. I can't tell you how good that first cup of tea in the “thank-goodness-it-is-not-paper” cup tasted. Still not my favourite ceramic, but so much better than the sad alternative I had endured thus far. It genuinely felt like my body sighed with relief.
The collapsible cup that saved my sanity
So what is going on here? Why does such a simple everyday action - like having the right mug for the job - have a small yet profound impact on my daily enjoyment of life? How else does the same principle show up in my life? And why do I think it sheds light on our connection to our hands and creativity?
Soetsu Yanagi, author of "The Beauty of Everyday Things", wrote about the importance of the objects that fill our everyday lives. "It is truly amazing that such beauty should permeate these humble objects", he said in an essay first published almost a century ago. "There is no tool as astonishingly creative as the human hand…The hand is nature's greatest gift to humankind". His words were prompted by a response to the march of mass production and a desire to preserve the unique domain of Japanese folk art, objects characterised by a simple yet beautiful aesthetic and still deeply grounded in utilitarian purpose. He noted that the makers of these items were humble and anonymous, making multiple copies of an object, but imbuing each with everyday beauty borne of their highly developed craftsmanship skills. As I wrote a few months ago, it's yet another example of the hands of the maker connecting to the hands of the user, bringing a small but vitally important dose of beauty into their life.
Our world is filled with even more mass produced stuff than it was when Yanagi was writing, but I still get a tiny thrill when I look around my house and know that every single object in my house started out as an idea in someone's head. Somewhere early in the process, they sketched out the concept - the shape of a mug, or a bookshelf, or a sofa, or a spoon. Even if it is mass produced, there is still a designer, a creator, behind it somewhere. And if it's not mass produced, then it is so much more precious.
From where I sit as I compose this post, I can see a broken mug that we bought from a country pottery over two decades ago. It's hand thrown, so I know that a skilled craftsperson sat at a wheel one day churning out multiple copies of the same design. We bought a set of six and only this one is broken, but it's beauty is not lost because now it holds a selection of my pens and pencils. The latter includes a recent obsession - meticulously crafted wooden pencils. After reading the book "The Pencil" by Henry Petroski, I decided that life was too short not to write with really lovely pencils. My collection now includes a selection of Blackwings with their distinctive eraser on the end, and my personal favourites: Gardens of Portugal scented pencils. They're made by Viarco, Portugal's only pencil producer and a fourth-generation family business. I know that the latter are still touched by human hands in their fabrication because this photo essay shows the process in all its gritty detail. The feel of the wood, the gentle scent, the smoothness of the writing - all of these combine to make the humblest of notes more pleasurable to record.
The view from my desk takes in our outdoor couch where an assortment of cushions includes two from Namibia, hand embroidered by a women's collective. They are somewhat faded by use and the harsh Australian climate, but I trust that the women in that village, perhaps sitting together and chatting as they stitched, meant for me to use their work and not hide it away. Similarly, four shell necklaces hang on a nearby door handle. They are not fancy, but they are souvenirs of a treasured family trip to Fiji in 2012. And I know that the simple 3-star resort where we stayed for two weeks had a deep connection to the neighbouring village, so I can imagine a group of villagers, probably including some of the children, sitting together one day and making these simple gifts of welcome for our arrival. We don't know them any more than they know us, but I can still appreciate the time and skill that went into the simple construction.
A nearby shelf holds a handmade leather journal, a gift my daughter found for me several years ago. As a bookbinder myself, I really appreciate the craftsmanship in this one - the handmade paper, the graceful curve of the leather cover, and the symbolism of the key. My plan is to use it to record a selection of my favourite quotes (I really need to start on that!), and I will most likely write them with a lovely turned wood pen that my son made for me many years ago. These objects are not just precious for being unique, but because they come imprinted with the love of my children.
Some of the everyday things that bring me joy
It's difficult to write about material things positively in a world where consumerism is rampant and precious earth resources are being depleted to produce so much more stuff than we can possibly need. I've had occasion to visit our local hardware store a couple of times in the last couple of weeks and the boxes and boxes of cheap, poorly made Halloween decorations make me cringe. I exercise my limited economic power as best I can by choosing not to buy them. But in the way I approach many of the worlds big intractable conundrums, I hold to the belief that there is a middle ground.
Some of the material things we have in our lives, that we hold and touch with our hands every day, bring something extraordinarily precious into our lives. They are not high art, and they are not designed to thrill or impress. But they contribute small moments of joy that create so much richness in our lives. As Yanagi wrote, "Even the common articles made for daily use become endowed with beauty when they are loved".
I visited a friend recently and he made me a cup of tea in the mug he knows to be one of my favourites. It seems like such a tiny gesture, but at the end of a tiring day of travel, choosing a mug he knew would make me smile really encapsulated the power of a material object to hold and convey emotion. How privileged are we as humans to have the capacity in our own two hands to design and make such beautiful things, to experience the having and holding of them, and to share them as gifts of everyday love and beauty. Life, I've learned, is far too precious to spend drinking tea out of paper cups
This Week’s References
The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi, Penguin Classics, 2018.
The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance by Henry Petroski, Alfred A. Knopf Inc, 1989.
How to comment
I love receiving your comments and hearing your ideas! Making a comment is easy. Just type it into the box below. If you test it with “Preview” first, the name field will show “Not Logged In” (which is a system thing I can’t change). Never fear though! When you click on “Post Comment”, a dialogue box will come up asking for your Name, Email, and Website URL. The only field that must be completed is “Name”. It can be anything you choose - full name, first name, initials, nickname. So go ahead. Let me know what you think :)
