Cathi Jefferson – Cups
This time a couple of years ago I did a post about Cathi Jefferson, and more recently another on a single one of her pots here. Cathi is a ceramic artist who lives in the Cowichan Valley not too far north of us here on Vancouver Island. The first post had photos taken at the annual Out of Hand craft fair which she sells at every year and I recommend that you check it out to see a wider variety of pots that she makes. This year’s craft fair was this past weekend and it was a pleasure to see her again, and to shop at her stall. I have meant for more than a year to do a post like the one today, which includes many yunomis, some wine cups and mugs.
These cups are all ones that live on the shelves of our house. We use them every day. All are highly functional, as well as beautiful. It did take a bit of learning how to drink from a really hot yunomi with no handle, but we have mastered that.
We see Cathi about 3 times a year at shows, or sometimes her studio. Somehow we always end up buying a piece or two as presents for each other, or other people and give them for Christmas, birthdays, that kind of thing. And thus, we have a lot of her pottery now, not just these drinking vessels. Most of these shots are of individual pots with 2 or 3 instances of two photos of the same piece. By choosing just one view I am doing Cathi’s art a disservice as these pots need to be looked at from all sides – the designs are very three-dimensional and carefully considered. Using pottery also means breaking it which is a tragedy every time it happens.
Cathi has a lot of good photos on her website, as well as biographical information and directions to her studio if you are within driving range. There is an interesting CBC radio interview linked there too, which she has made into a video featuring her pottery. I hope you enjoy filling your eyes with her cups as much as we enjoy drinking from them.
I would love to hear which ones you like best – if you can see the captions in the gallery, use the number at the beginning of the caption to state your preference – the gallery order is random and changes for each view and viewer.
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To open the gallery below for larger images, click on any picture, navigated with the arrows and escape to return to this page.
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Canon 5Dii, Canon 50/1.4 lens, f-2.8, shutter speed from 1/30th to 1/4 second as the natural light died during this session.
burnt embers 
Really digging the lighting, nice presentation of these cool cups (like others, can’t “pick” a fav)!
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Thanks David. The lighting was natural, with a reflector. The welders glass is an idea I got from you a couple of years ago – I think you use plexiglass for your macro shots sometimes and it seemed like a good idea to have a touch of reflection in these. The light in the background was really just good luck.
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Wow, beautiful cups!! And very good photographed!
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Thanks so much Malin, and for all the likes on individual images too! It is a real pleasure to use these cups. However, this morning I am using this cup: http://wp.me/p1R4lY-40B by Gordon Hutchens another wonderful potter from this area.
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My pleasure. 🙂
I envy you. Beautiful cup!
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Super photography and gorgeous pots. Very gorgeous pots in fact. Impossible to pick a favourite. The colours, designs and lines are all exceptional. We would have a house full of these if we lived anywhere near you.
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Thank you Andy. It is difficult to not fill a house with pottery like this. We fill our teacups from one of her teapots, have jugs, bowls, small plates, and so on. The best part is they are in every day use.
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Not only are the cups beautiful but the shots are gorgeous. Very well done! After going through the gallery several times I’m always coming up with a different favorite.
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Hey Ken – maybe you will just need to visit and give them a try to see which ones you like best.
I am glad you like the shots. They were taken with window light on one side and the silver backed card that comes under some cakes providing infill on the other side – tricky to avoid a lot of glare, so careful turning of the cups, most of which are slightly flattened on four sides was necessary. I used live view with a grid turned on to help align them from one shot to the next so that they were in the same place to speed up cropping and so on. I set the focus as near as the lens would allow then moved the cup into focus. This keeps everything at the same scale as well, which really speeds up batch processing afterwards.
I did much of the post work on one image and then synched it with the others. Unfortunately that first shot had a different alignment than many of the others (I must have shifted the tripod a hair) and it was only after I tweaked them individually and loaded them to WP (and made the gallery and the captions) that I noticed that the cropping was a touch off for most of them. I wanted the black glass they are sitting on to align in the corners. Easily fixed but I could not face the task by the time I noticed.
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These are wonderful pieces. I think my favorites are 8, 13, and 14, although I think I am fickle and would choose different ones every time I look at them.
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Good choices! 13 is very nice but it is quite fat and does not rest easily in my hand. Even so I use it a lot. I am fickle, and should have said “right now” when discussing my favourites in the comment below. They change.
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Our good friend down the street is a very fine potter. A few years ago, he told us our Christmas gift was that we could come down and select a piece of his pottery. I had to pick up and hold everything – the way it felt in my hand was an important part of the decision-making process. So I understand what you mean about #13 not resting easily in your hand.
(In the end, we never could decide on one, and ended up taking one as a gift and purchasing another piece.)
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The feel is a very important part of pottery, especially cups. Handles are something I pay a lot of attention too as well (there are so many poorly made handles out there, it is hard to believe).
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Today I like 16 and 19
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Right this minute I am drinking tea from 14, which is a steady favourite. 10 is another one I use a lot. I also especially like 6 (Wheat) because of the pattern and also because of the size and shape which feel very nice in my hand.
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Beautiful work!
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Hi Jane – it is very beautiful, such a pleasure to be able to use things that are this nice.
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