Pigeon Roost

This is a bespoke porcelain dinnerware set I made in 2016. Titled “Pigeon Roost” for the location of the vacation mountain house for which the collection was made, it consists of twenty-six pieces including plates, mugs, drinking glasses, shot glasses and decorative tiles.

Each piece is hand-painted with a custom image of a pigeon coming to roost on a branch in which the spring blossoms are just giving way to the summer leaves.

One thing worth noting is the mugs and their handles, for a couple of reasons.

First, I generally don’t make drinking vessels other than ones I’ve made for my own home — as you might imagine I drink and eat from my own work every day. So to make a set of drinking glasses is a slightly special arrangement.

And second, I never make handles. Ever. Never ever. I don’t like to use handles. If you give me a pint of beer in a mug with a handle, I will hold the mug itself, fingers inside the handle, rather than holding it by the handle. Personal preference, through and through, and perhaps because of that I never make drinking vessels with handles.

And yet in the Pigeon Roost collection you can see that I indeed made drinking vessels and I indeed made handles on the four coffee mugs.

You’ll notice a wide and flat handle with a sloping curve, a wider spot for the thumb at the top with an ornamental callout of leaves and blossoms, and at the bottom the handle merges into the profile of the vessel.

And here’s the funny thing… I liked it so much when I was done with the collection I made a drinking mug — with handle — as a Christmas present to myself.

Never say never.