This mug is one of a series of seven mug forms that Brenda decorated in faces and one mug in a leaf pattern. The mugs are delicately cast. The lip diameter is 2 inches. The body is 3.5 inches tall and wide..

Speculatively this series was designed on commission, corresponding with the making of the movie Carousel, filmed in Boothbay Harbor. During that time various actors and others associated with the filming stopped by The Andersen gallery to have their portraits painted by my mother on the ceramic forms usually designed by my Dad

However, this mug does not reflect my father’s design style. I believe that this mug was created as a commission and the person commissioning the work dictated the design of the form.

The Happy Face mug was created before there was the Happy Face that has become ubiquitous everywhere.

On the other side, the Happy Face closes its eyes to look within.

A decorative vine that winds around the ear and embraces the eye, making the face into a mythical personification of a forest spirit\

There is a chip is on the side of the mug

The mugs are artifacts from that rare moment in history when there was a large middle class.

Weston and Brenda set up production as an art form and targeted a middle-class audience. Later Warhol made production as an art form as prestige art objects for the wealthy, but producing handmade art for the middle classes is historically far more radical.

Brenda created repeatable decorative patterns to be individually interpreted through each artist’s unique hand. She also created one-of-a-kind decorative work. One-of-a-kind works were not planned, they just happened, but to have the ability to successfully execute artwork with such freedom, one needs to have an innate control of the medium, which comes about through repetitive practice.