Ceramics students are adding colorful artistry to the dining hall’s boring, everyday community coffee mugs.

Using an ancient technique called slipware, Marko Biddle’s Advanced Ceramics I students are turning everyday coffee mugs from the St. Stephen’s dining hall into happier works of art. It was an interactive and creative way to give their final exam.

Biddle introduced his students to the idea and technique from a video at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The video highlighted slipware pots from the 1650’s. Biddle wanted his class of young artists to understand the importance of certain materials and their symbolism. 

“This is a version of slipware and slipware is hundreds and hundreds of years old,” says Biddle. “We were talking about how clay endures time and clay is used to commemorate moments and places and events.”

The technique inspires the use of dots and different sizes and types of lines like squiggly lines, wavy and even zig zag lines.

“It's a way for [students] to learn the technique without being super attached, and use their skills to put their work out to the community,” says Biddle. “It's a nice way to combine it all and give back.”

The project encouraged students to think of teachers as inspiration for their own design.

Oscar Whiteley Bermeo ’27 designed a mug with the word “Cowculator” and a picture of a cow with numbers on it. He made it with math teachers in mind.

“I hope they chuckle,” said Whiteley Bermeo.

After the students finish painting, they apply a commercial grade, food-safe, dishwasher and microwave-safe glaze that fuses to the commercially made mugs — something Biddle says should last for another 75 years, unless the mug breaks. After the glaze is applied, students sign the bottom, then the mugs are fired in the kiln. 

Biddle’s hope for the project is two-fold: to teach students a traditional artistic technique and to promote greater sustainability on campus by encouraging the community to use fewer disposable cups.

Riley Furlong ’27 based her mug design on her electronics teacher, Mr. Lanier, and the final exam he gave them. The exam had three different LEDs in it and the combinations made magenta, yellow and teal.

“I occasionally get coffee in the morning at the dining hall, and at home I have a lot of super fun mugs with a bunch of colors, and I'm always a little disappointed when I see these mugs and they’re so plain and boring,” says Riley. “This will definitely bring some color to the everyday morning.”

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