The small gift of attention

The Discovery Moment: Why I Etch the Bottoms of My Mugs

There's a moment that happens with my mugs that I never get to witness, but I think about it all the time.

Someone lifts their cup to refill it or place it in the dishwasher, and they see it for the first time: a tiny California poppy etched into the bottom. Or a hummingbird. Or wave patterns from our Cambria coastline. And my signature, carved by hand into the clay before it was fired.

I wonder what they think in that moment. Surprise? Delight? Maybe a quiet recognition that someone paid attention to a place they didn't have to.

That hidden conversation - between my hands in the studio and someone's hands in their kitchen - is one of my favorite parts of being a ceramic artist.

How It Started

I didn't always etch the bottoms. Early on, I'd just use a pin tool and scratch in my name, quick and functional. But as my sgraffito practice deepened - as I spent more and more time carving native plants and coastal scenes into the exteriors - something shifted.

The carving itself started teaching me things. About patience. About commitment. About how nothing is really just a surface.

Sgraffito is unforgiving. You carve through layers of color to reveal the clay beneath, and every line is permanent. There's no undo button, no easy fix. You have to be present for each mark. And that presence changes you.

I started thinking: if I'm willing to spend hours etching a fern frond on the outside of this mug, why am I rushing the signature? Why is the bottom - the part that literally grounds the piece, that touches the table every single day - getting less attention than it deserves?

So I started carving there too.

What I Choose to Etch

The images change depending on the piece and my mood. Sometimes it's a simple botanical - a branch, a coast live oak leaf, lupine blooms. Sometimes it's more abstract: wave patterns, the curve of our coastline, the way fog moves through the pines. Sometimes it's just a small mark - a spiral, a few lines that feel right.

I’ve started to add some resist images now too. Quail, butterflies, hummingbirds. Recently, for fun, I’ve added a carrot in orange and green if there is a rabbit on the mug.

And always, my signature. Not stamped. Not printed. Carved, letter by letter.

This takes time. Each mug bottom might add 10-15 minutes to a piece that's already taken hours. It's "inefficient" if you're thinking about production. But I'm not thinking about production when I'm doing this. I'm thinking about the person who will eventually hold this cup.

I'm thinking: what if they notice? What if this small gift of attention makes their morning coffee feel a little more special? What if they lift the mug and feel, even for a second, seen?