Make a slab mug that demonstrates connecting slabs securely, creating and attaching a handle, and illustrates a personal narrative. This should be done through the handle, textures, added-on features and/or glazing.

My narrative mug is an appreciation for a tiny “library” that was on a sailboat I lived on for a short time last year. We had all packed very lightly and only brought a book each, something everyone quickly regretted. My younger sister was poking through cabinets on the sailboat while unpacking and discovered what we think was a little bookshelf of books that were accidentally forgotten about by the people there before us. We called it the Alley Cat Library (after the name of the boat) and didn’t get bored for the entirety of the trip. I carved around/above the shape of books on a shelf around the base of the mug, which represents the library. I used underglaze in the most interesting colors of books that were actually in the library to color the books on the mug as a personal touch. Above the books, I carved waves that go all around the mug, and glazed them with layers of sapphire and transparent pearl to add depth. This is the way I glazed the bottom of the inside of the mug as well. Above the ocean are massive, beautiful hills dotted with plots of lavender. These are glazed with lavender. Finally, the top of the mug is very smooth and a shade of light blueish-green as the sky. This color is carried over the rim to the inside of the mug, where the color of the sky connects back to the color of the ocean on the bottom. There are definitely some areas of improvement for this mug, like finding a way to make the sections of water, hills, and sky more distinct, instead of having them all look like similar flowing lines with slightly different colors. To add to that, I would make the sky closer to a light blue color, including the interior. With more time, another thing I would’ve liked to add is more detailed spines of the books on the bookshelf. The books were much more difficult to create than I had anticipated, both with carving and glazing.