Quilted Mug

Kayleigh Jeannette

Interview by C. VanWinkle

August 2, 2022

Will you please describe the piece that you responded to?

It was a 2d visual piece, collage-like in that there were different pieces put together. There were two images that looked like they might be composite images, but the overall effect was a black and white photo of a woman. It looked like it was from a time a little bit before us. I'm not sure when, but you could tell from the hairstyle and whatnot that it definitely wasn't current. They also had these really vibrant strokes of blue vertically across the images, on both pieces. What grabbed me immediately was definitely the deep blues and the woman, who she was and when she was from, all of that stuff.

What did it make you think of?

This is very biased and very personal, but my knee-jerk reaction was that she looks a little bit like my grandmother. Like I said, it might be a composite image, so maybe it's not one real woman. Something about that hairstyle in particular looked like old pictures of my grandmother from when she was younger. And her *distinctly favorite color* was blue. There's a strong blue preference in my family for some reason. That was my immediate personal response.

So how did you get started on your piece?

Obviously, none of this was planned at all. It just kind of fell into place, timeline-wise. But my grandmother actually passed last summer, almost exactly a year ago. She and I were very close. My grandparents were almost secondary parents. I spent a ton of time with them: they picked me up from school, helped me with my homework, she taught me how to sew, how to knit, everything. So the first thing I thought of was her.

I made a mug because mugs are like potter's currency, you know? They’re the things that people trade. And there are identifying characteristics in the kind of mugs they make. Plus, I like them. I like making everyday objects. I like making things that people touch and use often. I like making the normalcy of day-to-day life a little nicer, brighter, comfier. The things you use all the time feel nice. So I thought, “Screw it. We’ll go the typical mug route.” And since she loved blue, it's going to be a blue mug. The night I got the prompt, I went online and purchased an entire array of blue underglazes. Paints for pottery, essentially. I stocked up on blue before I even really knew what I was doing.

I said she taught me how to sew. She was a ridiculous quilter. The woman could quilt like a motherfucker. I have a big New England family. My dad is one of seven, and for first cousins there are 16 of us altogether. She made every single grandchild a baby quilt when they were born and an adult quilt when they reached high school or college. That’s 32 quilts! And all of her children have their own big, quilted wall hangings that she made for each of them. So quilts are a strong thread throughout my whole family and my childhood. I hand-sewed my first quilt with her when I was seven or eight. Honestly, I'm not good at sewing now. I never got really good at it. But I figured that would be a fun texture to try to make clay do. Those are two very, very different materials. I wanted to see if I could get her quilty textileness shoved onto a mug.

I'd say you were successful! How did you pick the patterns for the quilt?

Part of it was practical thinking about what colors looked best together. You saw in some of the images I sent you that I made test tiles and played with them, moved around the little mini quilt squares to see what sort of patterns looked best. That, and just shapes that I could make consistently that small! So that was another practical piece of it. There is a little, I don't know, “etherealness” in there. Swirls and stars and flowers. Round swirly stuff also feels very much like my grandmother. There was nothing sharp about her.

This whole project just turned out to be such a lovely tribute to her. I noticed the colors and saw that there are some stars and also some spots that look like raindrops. I wondered if there was meaning to it being a night sky or raining.

Actually, when you said “night sky” it just lit something up in my brain. This was not conscious in any way, but she loved Van Gogh. She loved going to the Van Gogh museum, there was Van Gogh all over the house, particularly his very blue and very yellow pieces together. It’s totally possible that it was in the back of my mind.

And you’re just realizing that now? That’s wild! Quilts are cozy, and you were talking about making a mug because it's something you use. It’s something you drink something hot out of. Are you a comfy, cozy person?

Oh God, yeah! Everything I do is with comfort as a goal. It is my primary objective in almost every behavior. I'll be honest. I know everybody loves summer. I fucking hate summer. I think it's miserable. It's the most physically uncomfortable season of the entire year and I don't understand the hype. Fall is my favorite and I do really enjoy winter.

I suspected as much just from looking at the mug. I imagined you probably really like fall, and so this heatwave is probably pretty miserable.

Yes, this is hell. I'm dying. My boyfriend had to buy a second air conditioner just because of me. Before I lived here, he didn't even use air conditioners!

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

That's a good question. I started creating pottery when I was 18 or 19. My work study job was to take care of the pottery studio at my college. I learned how to make glazes, run kilns, all that jazz. I loved it while I was in school, but since graduating college, I've just done pottery in fits and starts. I’ve taken classes here and there, but nothing too consistent. So the past year or two is the first time that I've really been consistently able to sit down and make whatever I want, practice, develop an idea of what things I like to make. So far, I've really just made things that make me feel happy or comfy. Overall, everything is kind of cute and maybe a little creepy. [laughs] I love adorable, terrifying things! There are a lot of mushrooms involved. There's a lot of wood texture involved. This quilt mug seems to fit in with all of that earthy, homey, comfy stuff.

Very cottage core.

That’s something that I’ve felt embarrassed about associating with myself, but I've slowly come to swallow the fact that it's accurate and I need to be okay with that. Mildly gothy cottage core, I guess? [laughs] It's not always that cute and fuzzy.

Do you like cats?

Yes, I love cats! Housecats are arguably my favorite animal. And our cat is adorable and fucking terrifying. It probably took three years for him to stop actively hunting me. He loves me now, but it was a long time. Now he just bites me if I do something that irritates him. He's not actually stalking me.

I think most of us want to bite people when they do something that irritates us.

I understand the urge.

Are you going to keep this mug and use it? Do you have a lot of things around your house that you’ve made that you use?

I will probably keep it because it feels very much like my grandmother. If I don't keep it, I would give it to someone in my family. Honestly, the number of mugs that we've had to put in the basement because we don't have room anymore… [laughs]. Yeah, my mugs are definitely around. I have incense burners around, paint palettes that I don't use, Christmas ornaments. I’ve definitely amassed things.

That’s great. Often, people create things for Bait/Switch that don't have a practical use. I think it's special that you made something that you might drink coffee from many times well into the future.

Yeah, I had tea in it yesterday!

And what better to keep a drink warm than a quilt?

I'm saying! And this mug actually does retain heat a little bit longer. I had to make the clay slab somewhat thicker than I normally do in order to poke the texture out. For the clay to survive that and stand up to it, the slab had to be thicker. So it holds heat marginally longer!

It's insulated. Now that you’ve done this, what's your advice to someone else approaching this project?

I guess I would say to go with your reaction to whatever the prompt is. I definitely overthink, and I see potential in this dynamic for overthinking, for sitting there and staring at it and trying to find some deeper connection to the thing you're going to make. But it's probably best to just go with whatever hits you first upon looking at it, whatever your natural reaction to it is.

Call Number: C76VA | C78VA.jeaQu

Kayleigh Jeannette is a ceramic artist living and working in Boston. She first started playing with clay in her college ceramics classes (taught by the wonderful Megan Bogonovich) and has been mostly self-taught since then. She currently makes things at Village Clay in Brookline.