Manhood Mug

Manhood.  Original artwork by Julia Griffith.

From the tiny baby at the beginning to the older man at the other end, this artwork follows the changing stages of a man’s life.

It is not meant to be one particular person’s story.  It is simply a line of life depicting childhood, growing up, becoming independent, moving through adulthood and eventually into old age.  Look at the figures in order and you suddenly see an entire lifetime passing in front of you.

That is what I enjoy about this design.  We are so used to seeing ourselves as we are now that it is easy to forget all the earlier versions of ourselves that came before.  The little boy, the teenager, the young man and the older man are all the same person, just at different points along the way.

There is something slightly funny about seeing a whole lifetime wrapped around a mug.  One minute you are looking at a small child and with a turn of the cup, you have reached old age.  It makes you realise just how quickly the stages of life seem to move.

A Note from the Artist:

I created Manhood as a companion to Womanhood.  Neither design is intended to tell one person’s exact story; they are simply my way of showing the extraordinary journey from one end of life to the other.

Somewhere along that line, most of us will probably recognise where we have been, where we are now and where we are heading.