The Ceramicist Whose Mugs Are All Over Queer TikTok

If you have spent any time on queer TikTok in the last two years, you have probably seen one of Juno Park‘s mugs. Maybe it was the one that says “my therapist and my tarot deck are in a custody battle” in uneven hand-stamped letters. Maybe it was the one with the tiny bisexual flag baked into the glaze under the handle. Whatever it was, you probably sent it to three people immediately.

Juno, 29, is a Korean-American ceramicist based in Portland, Oregon, and they are absolutely not over the fact that their work is a thing people know about now.

How It Started

Juno started throwing pottery during a difficult stretch in 2021. “I needed something that forced me to be present,” they say. “Clay is very unforgiving. You can’t be on your phone. You can’t spiral. You just have to pay attention.”

They started selling mugs on Etsy mostly for fun. The first viral moment happened when a mutual on Tumblr posted a photo of a mug Juno had made for them, a wobbly little thing with “diagnosed with yearning” stamped on the side. The post got forty thousand notes. Juno’s inbox exploded.

“I was not prepared,” they say, laughing. “I made mugs part-time. I had a day job. I had to call in sick and just throw clay for like five days straight.”

The Work Itself

Juno works from a studio they share with two other ceramicists in a converted warehouse in Northeast Portland. Each piece is hand-thrown, which means no two are identical. The stamps are custom-made. The glazes are mixed in house.

The mug designs come from a notes app full of phrases Juno has been collecting for years. Overheard conversations. Group chat messages. Things they’ve said to their therapist. Things their friends have said that made everyone go quiet for a second.

“The goal is that someone picks it up and goes, oh, that’s me,” Juno says. “That little moment of recognition. That’s the whole thing.”

Queer Joy as a Product

Not all of Juno’s work is funny. There’s a whole quiet series of pieces in pale celadon green, no text, just soft organic forms. But the pieces that travel on the internet are the ones that name something specific about queer experience: the particular fatigue of coming out repeatedly, the strange joy of chosen family, the chaos of being perceived.

“I’m not trying to make content,” Juno says, with some emphasis on the word content. “I’m just making things that feel true. It turns out a lot of queer people have the same feelings. iykyk.”

The TikTok Side

Juno started posting studio process videos in early 2023. Quiet videos. Clay spinning. Hands in glaze. Soft background music. They blow up regularly, often getting picked up by larger accounts and shared into feeds where people are not expecting to feel something about a mug.

The comment sections are, by Juno’s own description, “chaotic good.” Lots of “I’m not crying you’re crying.” Lots of gift wishlists being posted. Lots of people tagging their partners and saying nothing else.

What’s Next

Juno is working on a small collection inspired by queer mythology, pieces that reference Sappho, Achilles and Patroclus, and some figures from Korean folklore that Juno has been researching with their grandmother on Sunday phone calls. It’s the most personal work they’ve made.

“I want it to feel like lineage,” they say. “Like we’ve always been here. Because we have.”

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