Small Things Make a Big Difference
How 2 Cents Worth of Clay Became the most Commented Part of my Stoneware Pottery.
It’s sometimes awkward to say that I have a job, since during the days and many nights, I’m in full-time ministry. I don’t consider it a job, but a calling. I LOVE what I do, and it takes me some interesting places. I happened to be at one of our church’s campuses in Downtown Orlando one day when the campus pastor came out of his office with one of our mugs. The conversation as one that I often hear repeated:
“I really love the mug you made me but the best thing (Here it comes, I think to myself) The best thing is the little clay thumb rest you put on the handles.” I hear it time and time again… it’s the thumb rest... if they only knew the real story. It’s literally a little ball of clay that I smash with my thumb and put where the mug body meets the handle, and it happened quite by accident.
Early in my potting adventure, I fell into a routine that I still follow. I spend the evening in the studio throwing mugs or batter bowls or casserole dishes and the last thing I do is make a batch of handles in my extruder (like a giant play dough press) for the next morning. It’s sometimes challenging because you have to gauge the feel of the clay, the temperature outside and most importantly the humidity so the clay handles will be workable in the morning, not so wet they flop everywhere, not so dry they crack. It’s a balancing game and most times I win, but this morning, I lost. It was cool and wet. Not a great combination for the handle material I made the previous evening. The clay was almost workable, but the handles started to flop when I attached them and I didn’t have time to wait for the clay to dry some more, and by the time I got home that evening, they’d be too dry to work. Bummer.
So, I tried some good old-fashioned improvisation. I decided that if I could hold up the top of the handle while it dried with a piece of clay, then I’d just pop it off that evening and save the day. So that’s where the thumb rest began. I made all the mugs and took a small piece of clay and flattened it with my thumb and attached it like a bridge between the top of the handle and mug. Repeat about 20 times and get on the road to work. I had every intention of popping them off that evening and smoothing the clay out.
I forgot. It didn’t happen and by the time I returned down to the studio, the mugs were way too dry to attempt pulling the clay off. In the middle of being annoyed with myself, I thought I’d at least see how the handles felt (I’m really picky about how my handles ‘feel’ and how they look). I picked one up and my thumb just naturally went to the small ball of clay, and it felt GOOD! I don’t think I’ve intentionally made a mug in the last 15 years since that didn’t have a thumb rest. I made one slight modification when I started making coffee pour-overs, moving the thumb rest to slightly below the rim rather that above it so the pour over will sit squarely on the rim.
So, two cents of clay, put on a stoneware mug became one of the things people like about our Crazy Jugs mugs. Go figure.