CUP #1 Coffee Cup Collection

For 365 days—March 1st, 2021 through Febuary 28th, 2022— J. Balser Inc. concieved, designed, and produced, a coffee cup a day. The body of work is a sculptural timeline of public and private, mundane to monumentous, observations and opinons to be shared. 

Well...I've had crazier ideas. Starting March 1st, 2021, I'm going to design a coffee cup a day. Why? To create a sculptural account of my daily life and thoughts and ideas and hopes and the changing world around me that effects my daily life and thoughts and ideas and hopes. So, here we go...

CUP #1

04/01/2021 

Loud and Proud is 2021 motto for the year. It's fitting, I thought, to name the annual collection for the year's rallying cry. The reason I have deemed 2021 and thus this collection of cups “Loud and Proud” is simple: it’s to force myself to do what I’ve been taught—or thought I was taught—i shouldn’t, ever.

I had done all the sacrificing, the hard work, the building and dreaming, and fiscal planning, yet, my life didn’t reflect my efforts. I began years of brutal self-examination, third party affirmation and validation, then unrelenting personal accounting for what had gone wrong. Revelations and epiphanies mounted. The reality was those years proved more had gone right then wrong.

If at every juncture, I’d been Loud and Proud, I would have been coloring myself in all along and not going back through time to deconstruct events, extract gas-lighting, and find bits and pieces of myself manipulated, helpless, confused, terrified, ashamed, and looking for a protector, mentor, and savior—in me.

I was an enabler. To be pleasantly Presbyterian, graciously southern, lovingly ladylike, and wonderfully white, I’d abdicated actualization. 

Here's the sites plug: "Whether you're drinking your morning coffee, evening tea, or something in between – this mug's for you! It's sturdy and glossy with a vivid print that'll withstand the microwave and dishwasher."

• Ceramic
• 11 oz mug dimensions: 3.85″ (9.8cm) in height, 3.35″ (8.5 cm) in diameter
• 15 oz mug dimensions: 4.7″ (12 cm) in height, 3.35″ (8.5 cm) in diameter
• Dishwasher and microwave safe
• Blank product sourced from China