Tiki mug colours....a survey.

I have a question and would also like the opinion, of anyone out there, especially those that collect Tiki mugs. I recently started making my own tiki mugs and i'm undecided as to what colour/s to do the final version. I'm just wondering, do people prefer mugs in bright colours or do they prefer them in more natural tones? Or does that also depend on the actual design of the mug?

I personally like bright colours myself, but also understand and accept that doing a Moai style mug in grey or black makes it look more realistic and would most likely appeal to the majority of people. The same as a Ku, Lono or Marquesan style mug being finished in browns to make it look more like an actual carving. Or does that not matter at all, provided you like the design itself you don't care what colour the mug is?

Although i'll most likely end up choosing what I like, any feedback would be much appreciated and certainly taken into consideration.

Cheers
swizzle

As a current creator you are part of the new design world-- not a recycler of nostalgia. So you should consider that not all collectors are bamboo/Poly-pop people. We talked about this on Ooga (trudeska), but I'll add one more thing to my personal view which is that the straightforward natural color glazes don't add enough interest and depth when the collection is viewed in total. No offense to anyone else who collects browns and vintage colors but to my eye a shelf full of them, no matter how outstanding the designs themselves, takes on a ceramics class identity. Remember most mugs are approximately the same size and scale. It's not just a bright vs natural stance. When glazes are multilayered with richness and depth implying texture and surface variation, and interiors are considered part of the overall design providing contrast and surprise when viewed at different angles, then a thoughtful grouping of interesting pieces together adds something special to the display environment instead of each mug standing alone in your mind's eye as an individual trophy. Take those wood-like designs a la Gecko and others: The very best among those pieces have colorful contrasting interiors with sometimes more than one color. I have several brown pieces-- even a few humble Tiki Farms-- but each and every one of them have some design element of color or contrast that makes them somehow more than just a painted piece of clay.

These rushed out-of-focus pics of some of my own mug groupings help to illustrate how color and contrast help pieces stand together as a unified whole. I also live in a sunny bright place and my environments are not Polynesian so that's probably why color appeals to me in general, but based on what I've seen since I began collecting, I am not alone out there.

Hope that helps explain the "color" idea a little better.

[ Edited by: trutiki 2011-05-24 07:21 ]

Just to go on a little more... Here are a few pics of one of my favorites. The great aqua blue color contrasts with the blacks and dark browns but what makes it really interesting to the eye is the high sheen of the clear glaze vs the matte natural moia teeth. So you see it's not just a question of color but of how the color and details work together.

[ Edited by: trutiki 2011-05-24 07:44 ]

[ Edited by: trutiki 2011-05-24 07:45 ]

That's a really good subject for a discussion here - and a difficult to answer one, because it is so subjective and dependent one one's personal taste. Trutiki's take is interesting. When I line up my mugs on a shelf for display, I certainly do not put brown next to brown, or yellow next to yellow. But would that influence the color I choose for a mug I design? Not really. Every mug should "find" the color that is best suited for it. For my Tiki Ti mug, I chose a CLASSICAL color because I wanted it to look like it could have come out in the 60s, when the bar was founded.

Another good point that Trutiki brought up is that it is not only a question of color, it's a question of complexity of the glaze. Sometimes a monochrome color is appropriate, but often a color with other color accents mixed in is the more interesting (I clearly don't know ceramicist vocabulary :) )

Granted, I am a traditionalist with my belief that Tikis should not be painted brightly, but with mugs, it's not as simple. For example, one of my faves in my collection is this Bosko one-off:

Check out those "exploding" lava particles!:

(this is one example where computer colors do NOT do justice to the real thing!)

Some of the Shag mugs look good in bright colors, because the mug design itself is so clearly modern. But in general, I like to quote foremost 20th century Maori scholar Terrence Barrow:

"Harsh color detracts so much from the sculptural quality of the carving that a sensitive eye is offended."

...meaning to me that a Tiki mug is first and foremost a piece of sculpture, and that the color should gently support the sculpture, not overwhelm it. I believe Munktiki are the masters of such tasteful glazes, and Johnny Velour's work has an almost monk-like austerity. But when the sculpt needs a little help, I would not be averse to bringing out the features with a little paint. as for example here:

I have come to the conclusion that there is a "best" color for each mug, but that what one sees as "best" is subjective, and other folks may like the same mug in some other outrageous color (case in point: The "Smurf" version of the Tiki Ti mug!)

I would think that when making mugs yourself, part of the fun would be EXPERIMENTING with the different glazes! Now how about some mug makers chiming in?

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2011-05-24 15:30 ]

Here is somebody to ask about colors...

I would say there were a significant amount of "test glazes" done for these!

PTD

Wholeheartedly agree that identity should lead to color choice whether you are creating ceramic vessel sculptures with the full creative license that implies or just satisfying a more narrowly defined market demand for tiki mugs. I don't aspire to create nor do I set parameters for my personal world of objects so it would be nice to hear from some established artists out there.

[ Edited by: trutiki 2011-05-24 10:41 ]

Trutiki, mahalo for posting up pics of Skoai. The pictures I take myself always stink!
As a mug maker, many times the design dictates my first choices for glaze color. As I make more of the same design I honestly get bored and the mug surface serves as a canvas where I attempt to regain interest in something I have done a number of times. This is why I generally do not do a certain number of any color anymore, except in the case of one offs.
If you're familiar with my mugs, you know I have a standard color palette, but ALMOST anything is a possibility if it makes me feel less like an assembly line worker. This is another reason why I have a low limit for the total number of mugs per design, by the time I make the 3rd mug I am already thinking of what I want to do next. Fun overrides everything else.

WELL RUNNING INTO THE PHOTO OF DAN AND I WAS A SURPRISE. I DID LEARN SO MUCH ABOUT THE GLAZES I HAVE DOING THESE TIKI CRATES. EVEN STILL I'VE JUST STARTED. I DON'T BELIEVE IT EVER ENDS. THERE WILL BE A MOMENT WHERE YOU SAY THIS COULDN'T LOOK BETTER IN ANY OTHER COLOR AND YOU GO FOR IT. WENDY

Well Wendy, you have simply made certain there is a color for EVERY taste! Looking at them in the photo, I can find good reasons for all to be the way they are - and they certainly must have kept you entertained (to go with Tiki Kaimuki's perspective). But what do the poor completist collectors do that must have every color variance!? Oy vey!

All GROG know is that every time GROG make a pink Tiki Bob shot glass, that sucker gets snatched up before it's even had time to cool down coming out of the kiln.

Very insightful TruTiki, you have obviously spent some time thinking about this.

There was another thread about mug colors too but I can't find it.