Archives for category: drinking

Cookies and milk? Rye and cashews?

CIMG2577

Small vessel and plate in Pinnell’s Red and gunmetal.

Words have meanings.  For almost anything you might want to think about, a word — or in English, likely more than one — already exists to apply to that concept or object.  A term of art for a stemless and handleless glass used for drinking is a “tumbler.”  At the pottery studio, “tumbler” would be used for a clay thing to drink from, since it’s not a glass “glass.”  But why is this a tumbler, when that’s exactly what you want it not to do?

one cup -- green

Thanking all that is holy, I have on my shelf a hand-thick (look up “hand” as a measurement) unabridged dictionary, which tells me that originally this drink holder had a “rounded or pointed bottom and could not be set down until emptied.”  I get it now.  The word still applies, but with a shifted meaning.

Here at the greenware stage is one of a set of tumblers, close matches, as measured by my fingers and other handy tools.  Should this be a watershed logo?

All of her sisters will go in the kiln with her.  I hope to show the later stages in due time.

tumblers - greenware