Cool cups
Stories flow from ceramic vessels in LSU’s 8 Fluid Ounces
The coolest part is when the rabbit’s face becomes your own.
It happens when you lift the cup to your mouth for a sip of coffee or tea or whatever it is you’re drinking at the time.
Figuratively speaking, of course, because you can’t really fill Jacqueline Merserau Lincoln’s rabbit face cup with any kind of liquid while it’s part of 8 Fluid Ounces 2012.
That’s the title of the national juried/invitational ceramic cup exhibition at the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery in the Shaw Center for the Arts.
The show is a biennial hosted by the LSU School of Art Ceramics area in conjunction with the gallery and features some 100 cups by 79 artists from throughout the country. It runs through Saturday, Feb. 25.
The installation features ceramic vessels that literally or conceptually address the idea of “cup.” The show’s juror was artist Kristen Kieffer, who gave a gallery talk at the show’s opening on Jan. 28.
Back to Lincoln, one of her cups was accepted to stand among the chosen entries in the 2010 show. And it sold.
“I think an LSU faculty member bought it,” Lincoln said. “I threw it on a potter’s wheel and etched in the designs.”
The result was something beautifully crafted, yet practically functional.
But Lincoln’s bunny cup for 2012 is a little different. No, that’s an understatement.
It’s very different.
The rabbit’s ears serve as a handle, and the cup serves more as a dipper or scoop.
“It’s like this,” Malia Krolak said, taking the cup by its ears and demonstrating.
The cup is designed to stand on its side, allowing the ears to point upward and the rabbit’s face to look out at exhibit viewers. It’s one among several cups along a shelf that Krolak says has a story.
Krolak is the gallery’s director, and she installed this show.
“I think of each shelf as having its own story,” Krolak said. “I like to arrange the cups by themes and colors and shapes. This shelf has cups with animal themes.”
And among the animals is Andrew Cho’s hand built cup featuring a painted stag. It’s a scene Cho imagined while hiking near his home in Rochester, N.Y.
Cho moved there from Atlanta in recent months, just as Lincoln moved from Baton Rouge to New Orleans within the last two years.
Lincoln earned her master’s degree in fine art from LSU in 2010. Cho was working on his graduate degree at Georgia State University in 2011.
Now he’s the resident artist at the Genesee Center for the Arts in Rochester.
“It has a small-town feel and a strong sense of community,” Cho said. “I started thinking about a smaller community and how relationships change and the past.”
And among the results are two cups in this show. One is the stag, the other is a cup titled “We and Us.”
The cup is hand-built, meaning it wasn’t thrown on a potter’s wheel. So, the flaws in its proportions are actually its fine points, providing opportunities for three-dimensional type work.
For instance, a man stands in front of a portrait on Cho’s “We and Us.” The man appears to have been sculpted on the cup.
“I usually put 20 cups in the kiln at one time,” Cho said. “When I took this cup out, I noticed the bump on the outside. I thought it would be a good opportunity to paint a man there, and the bump would make him stand out among the portraits.”
The idea is the man connects with the cup’s user. He’s here now. The portraits behind him and on the opposite side of the cup depict people from the past. “It’s a look at how we connect to the past,” Cho said.
But it’s also a way of looking at how people relate to the present. And for Cho, this cup represents his celebration of the present.
“I’m so happy to be in Rochester,” he said. “It’s everything I’ve ever imagined in a city. It’s the right size, and it’s northward and it’s community minded.”
Lincoln, too, is happy living in her new community. She spends her nights teaching at Hands in Clay Gallery on New Orleans’ Magazine Street and her days working at Learning Express Toys.
“Yes, I have to have a day job,” she said. “But I love working there. The toys keep my young side active.”
And then there are her two bunnies, Emmett and Little Miss Clementine. They are her inspiration.
Lincoln loves rabbits, especially the idea of them. Different cultures and religions have incorporated rabbits into their stories and beliefs through the ages.
Lincoln’s master’s thesis was based on a rabbit theme, featuring 3-foot sculptures. Now that theme carries over in her cup.
She titled it “Drink the Rabbit Wisdom,” the idea being that when the liquid flows from within the rabbit’s head so do his thoughts. And now, when the user lifts the cup to his or her face, they become the rabbit while taking in his wisdom.
“I’ve carved it so that the lower part of the cup fits easier on the lip,” Lincoln said. “And as you’re drinking, the rabbit’s face becomes yours.”
And that’s the coolest part of all.