Daily Cup Project
January 1, 2024- December 31, 2024
Ceramic cups, wheel thrown and handbuilt, one unique vessel completed each day, date stamped and photographed and posted on dorenequinn-artist.com.
The Daily Cup project began as a strategy to keep my hands in art-making while my focus and energies were necessarily diverted to completing the construction of my work space on my property in Morongo Valley, California.
Initially I was hesitant to embark on a daily practice and production that is so clearly tied to nurturance, intimacy and sharing, anticipating that 2024 would be a very fraught time for me and my country. I began the year with a sense of dread that a contentious presidential election was now just months away. I questioned my ability to be disciplined enough to follow through with this year-long commitment through the political instability that we might experience. The project now feels surprisingly appropriate in its expression of kindness and hope for a more civil exchange amongst my fellow citizens.
The labor involved in producing each cup has served to keep me centered in practice, my hands literally grounded in soil, creating one of the most elemental and ubiquitous objects in the human realm. Cups are tools that sustain our lives, they are for sharing and conversation, they bring warmth and refreshment. As I work I often imagine hands holding these objects, filling them with liquid, touching them to lips.
Wheel throwing is a technique that I have only recently acquired and I don’t consider myself a professional potter. The success of the forms and the glazing is widely variable but no matter the outcome, each day has its’ cup and remains as part of the project, flaws and all. As with any practice, my skills have improved over time with fewer unsuccessful results.
I am looking forward to presenting the 365 finished cups as an event/exhibition with tea and possibly other beverages, and I am interested in getting as many cups as possible into the hands and homes of people who will find them useful.
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
