The Most Interesting Thing in the Cupboard: In Defence of Ambitious Pottery
Hi Laurie,
I bought one of your pieces and it’s virtually impossible to drink out of without poking myself in the eye or spilling fluid down my shirt. Is a cup still a cup if it rejects the human mouth?
From Marcus
Dear Marcus,
Is a horse still a horse if it won't let you ride it? Maybe the cup just doesn't like you.
It pains me to spell this out but, assuming that drinking is the most obvious and therefore the most unimaginative use for a cup, and (also assuming) that you are not a total cabbage and have simply misinterpreted the situation, then this is an opportunity for education.
Perhaps my cups reject being restricted to a singular function. Perhaps they succeed in being more than just drinking vessels. Who are we to place arbitrary, single-function limitations on a cup? On the aspirations of a cup, the dreams of a cup, the progression of a cup as a species. Can we not allow the cup to soar, to revel in its unexplored potential? Maybe this cup wants to expand the horizon of what a cup can be. It’s an ambitious cup, Marcus, a Martin Luther King Jr. cup with big dreams.
Perhaps it is your expectations that are the problem. Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot. What would the cup say about you? Are you up to the cup's expectations? Does the cup reject the human mouth or just your mouth? Let's not slander the whole species for one man’s poor oral hygiene. Perhaps it is your breath, Marcus. Perhaps you have foul-smelling breath. I can smell your goddamned breath from here, man. And if it's not your breath, then a fairy’s shit in my nostrils.
And spare me your bullshit eye safety concerns. What are you, a road cone? "Poor little Marcus got poked in the eye." Why weren't you wearing safety glasses? Eyes are massively overrated. What are they good for anyway? You don't hear Stevie Wonder bitching about his eyes while he's blazing on the keyboard. Helen Keller said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart.” And she had marbles for eyes. Marbles, Marcus! Little glass baubles where her eyeballs used to be. Jesus wept, man. Feel it with your heart!
A cup can hold far more than liquid. A pig is more than bacon. Open your mind. This cup isn't some lame old one-trick pony; it’s the most interesting thing in the cupboard. I won’t rob you of the opportunity to discover the true abundance of your cup by spelling out every evolution here, but needless to say, it’s physically and philosophically voluptuous.
That cup is the best thing about you, Marcus; buying it was the coolest thing you’ve ever done. You’ve tripled in value. So what really peeves you? Is it the financial cost or the gross expectation of function? Who cares if you bought it? Consumption doesn't mandate slavery. Look at the fucking thing. What did you think would happen? Does it look like a normal fucking cup to you?
I’ll tell it to you straight, Marcus, you've embarrassed yourself badly. Fashion isn't for warmth, and my cups aren't for coffee. If you want something submissive and without character, go to Kmart. I'm in the expansive ideas business, and so is my pottery.
Woah.
Relax, Marcus, I'm just fucking around. You thought you'd bought a cup. We all make mistakes.
XL
*Lon Chaney as Quasimodo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Universal Pictures, 1923).