In September I went to Flagstaff Arizona and ran a fifty mile race in the mountains surrounding the town, and the following day I went walking around the turn of the century downtown en route to MotherRoad Brewing, just across Route 66. I walked into a shop filled with all sorts of paintings and ceramics, kachina dolls and jewelry, all made by local artists. I handled a beautiful Japanese-looking cup decorated with cherry blossoms resting on a glass shelf in the center of the store, and it felt just right. I set it down and perused the rest of the collections, but this cup sang to me so I bought it. At the register I asked about the artist and the shopkeeper told me her name, Natalie Reed Goehl. "She used to live in Flagstaff but she recently moved to a place called Broken Arrow, Oklahoma." And the planets aligned.
I went online and found Natalie's Instagram page, and sent her a message. Upon returning to Tulsa, we arranged a meeting at the DoubleShot, and commissioned a set of similar cups drawn with coffee trees poised for harvest, red cherries dotting their leafy branches.
We've decided to call these the Campesino Cup, in honor of all the farmers who produce our coffees. I find it so fitting that Natalie can take a glob of clay from the ground and use her skill and imagination to turn it into such an elegant piece of art, much like the fertile soil that is tended with so much care and intention to produce elegant coffees.
Every cup is hand-made and individually decorated, so each one will vary slightly in its size, shape, and appearance, as you might expect. And now we have a limited run of similar mugs with handles. If you're into that kind of thing.
