An object on a pedestal can be seen from a variety of angles.  It can be smelled if one is brave enough to get that close.  We can hear it if it can generate its own sounds.  But we have been trained not to touch.  We are so often deprived of an entire sensory experience when we enter a gallery or a museum.  This might be for the protection of the object’s life.  However, when a functional object is deprived of touch, we are negating that object’s purpose.  We are potentially destroying the soul of that object.  Some objects are meant to sit on a pedestal.  Some are designed to never be held or touched by man.  The objects in this room are not like those other ones.  They want to be picked up.  They want you to experience the shifts in temperature as the metal conducts the heat generated by a human hand or the liquid it is containing.  They need to have their textures caressed by fingertips.  They want you to feel the strength of their weight.  As a craftsman, I recognize my ability to enter people’s lives.  I know an object has the potential to tell a story, and that its story doesn’t always have an ending written yet.  As these cups are shared from person to person, the story gets longer.  As the patina darkens, it shows its evidence of use.  And if the cups are damaged, their dents and scars will add new chapters to their tales.  I am not the author of these stories.  By making the object, I am simply writing the preface.  It is up to others to fill the pages.

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