Chinese Coffee Mugs (2005)

Nothing less complicated than a coffee mug

Yet how complex it truly is

I know nothing of its beginnings

How it was made

How it can be so smooth

Or how it got so white

And those beautiful designs placed on that same smooth white surface

What are all those colors made of

What gives them their majestic brilliance

What’s the substance of any of it and where did it come from anyway

It was simply placed in my hands

I never really have much choice

Only know that I’ve used it and many others like it

Never anything more…and never anything less

Nothing less complicated than a coffee mug

If I can’t understand that…well how can I possibly know the world

Someone whispers in my ear –

It was made in China

Oh well that’s a start I say

What do we know about China and her people I ask

Someone whispers that they drink a lot of tea

Oh I say I think somehow I knew that

Yes but they’re steadily switching over to coffee

Really I gasp and how do we know that

Because they’re making a lot of these mugs

Hmmm I say tasting my coffee

Nothing’s as simple as all that I suppose

In the end the Chinese may turn out to be the coffee baron’s biggest customer

Amazing I say truly astounding

I continue to sip my coffee in my Chinese mug

Someone whispers I believe the stool you’re sitting on is made in China too

All of a sudden I’m nervous and it’s not just the caffeine

Nothing more complicated than the Chinese I say

Feeling as though the only one astonished in the room is myself

Why do I know nothing of their beginnings

Or how they got so white

Or what gives them their majestic brilliance

Or how we became so Oriental in the first place

The stamp is on the bottom the voice whispers again

Hmmm I say turning the smooth white mug upside down

The coffee spills all over the table but the stamp is indeed clearly visible

The voice chuckles as someone tosses me a rag

I make a grab for it but a yellow finger is pointing at a little snippet of white sewn to one corner

I choose not to read it

When we turn everything upside down there we’ll find the Chinese

I stare at the coffee mug and those colors still so vibrant

The voice whispers one last time

The coffee is also Chinese

(© 2005 Gary Gunter)

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Excerpt from this piece's description:

I’m old enough to believe that I will remain ever amazed by the digital nature of so much that surrounds us now, artwork being no exception.  To know that such imagery resides within the pixels, like a statue resides within the prison of the marble slab….well, for me, it all dwells just this side of magic.  The only force lacking when all these things are there—waiting to be brought out from hiding—is the creative energy of one human being to grant their freedom.

...Something to consider - So here's a scene conveying the idea of hurried and frenetic activity that must go on backstage, behind the showcase that is the runway.  Yet, to keep the psyche somewhat guessing, the question as to where the other dolls might be hiding is posed to the viewer.  Perhaps she’s not a super model at all, but, rather, some eccentric worldly type playing dress up in one of her many “off the main corridor” playhouses waiting anxiously for her jet set husband to close his latest deal.  Boredom, loneliness, and prescriptions drugs simply do not make good bedfellows.