Raven and Sparrow

A serious case of the uglies

Well.....I dyed my triangle cloth and de-waxed it. I hate the color. I was going for gray, a warm gray, and got this pinky beige. Yuck. I do like the pattern in general and the break up of color on the waxed triangles. The value is what I was going for too. Its just the blah-eige. Shall I re-wax and try again? It will get darker if I do, but this color just isn't what I want. I need to think about this.

A mess of triangles

This fall I had just drawn out my simple geometric design for winter and had my work table all set up for waxing when Mike got sick and everything fell by the wayside. Now I have other projects that I'm more interested in pursuing, but the triangle cloth is in the way. Taking it down now would result in lots more work when I got back to it. So for two weeks I've been diligently waxing away, and now it is done....well, the back needs touching up, but the pattern is complete with only the usual number of bloobs and mistakes. I have a high tolerance for repetition (a strength sometimes), but this was very tedious. Half of the cloth is waxed, which is a lot of wax. I dread removing it, but first things first. I plan to dye it gray, like my painted plan. I haven't marked either side as the "right" side...I am wondering if the back side, where the wax hasn't penetrated the cloth completely, will be more interesting. We shall see.  

White and off-white

When I was younger I always preferred high contrast to low, and usually chose bright white over off-white when non-colors were needed. As I got older low contrast colors that melted into each other began to draw my eye and I felt more comfortable with cream, ecru, gray and other off-whites. I attribute the change to a growing recognition and appreciation of shading and variation of all kinds. I used to like everything to be very clear, and now I know that mostly they aren't. At any rate, most of the dishes I have collected over the years are off-white and I always use off-white cloth as a basis for my textiles even when I have to dye white cloth to get it that way. Now that I am working with Lynne's dishes, I need to consider what non-color I should start with, and it turns out to be kind of tricky. Against the ecru lace runner her saucer looks very white, but against true white it looks creamier, especially with the gold banding. It isn't necessary to match exactly, but I don't want to fight with the basic tone of the dishes as I consider what to put with them. Subtle variation is one of the most fascinating things about using color and since adjacent colors change each other it is often surprising how they look together.

Since I favor runners and square tablecloths I often need an undercloth. I originally thought that I would just buy one off-white cloth and layer the colored things I made over it to change the look of the table. That actually worked pretty well, although my interest has led to an accumulation of other colors too for dishes, tablecoths and napkins. I would still recommend starting out with a white or off-white cloth that fits your table with a generous overhang. Then you can add any sort and shape of textile you want on top of it for color and variation. It may be the only one you need.

What about you?

My hard drive crashed, so I am fumbling about with Mike's laptop, trying to get my photo out of my camera and into this post. Looks successful so far.

I have been thinking about this blog and all of the pictures and talk I have expended on my tables, using my stuff. I hope it is interesting, but I know that it can only have a general relevance to anything that you might do, because the settings rely so much on my dishes and tablecloths, none of which you would have. My collection of plates, linens and decorative items is highly personal, as yours must be. I would like to encourage place-making at the table for all the reasons I have droned on about in post after post, but I realize that people are unlikely to acquire the variety of stuff that would make it easy for their tables to respond to the season and the occasion. Dishes are usually the element of the table that are most expensive and therefore least flexible. I thought it would be interesting to take a dish pattern not my own and see if I could use it in four seasonal settings.

For my first project I borrowed a saucer from my sister-in-law, Lynne. She likes to use her Royal Doulton (Princeton pattern) dishes when she sets the table for guests. It is very high quality, pretty china with navy blue banding, restrained gray blue ornamentation, and gold accent bands.  It is much more formal than most of my dishes, and quite traditional. It will be fun to see what I can come up with.

 

Wretched excess

   Even in this day of electronic reading I still like a good book and continue to accumulate actual volumes. This Christmas I received a fat little book called dishes*, by Shax Riegler. It is a full of pictures of dinner
plates, ranging from early Chinese porcelain to current designer ware, and is irresistable. One of the first gifts I can remember receiving was a toy tea set and ever since then I have loved dishes. According to the book, I'm not alone in my infatuation. Dish collecting has been the preoccupation of many people since the invention of porcelain, and the vast variety of patterns is truly astonishing. There apparently can never be too many.

    Reading the short historical notes in the book reminded me of the trip Mike and I took to Dresden, Germany a few years ago. Mike had to attend a supercomputing conference and took me along. While he was working, I wandered through the many elaborate museums in the restored heart of the city. I learned that in 1710, August the Strong, Elector of Saxony, founded the Meissen porcelain works nearby, the first European source of porcelain that previously had to be imported at huge expense from China and Japan. August used the massive profit from the sales of his Meissenware to finance a very over-ornamented lifestyle. A whole museum in Dresden is devoted to porcelain, which was used for many decorative items besides dishes, some of it truly ugly. Judging by what I saw in several of the exhibits I attended, August and the designers of the time were masters of wretched excess. Partly it's a matter of changing taste and fashion, of course, but how many items of daily use really need to be encrusted with gold and jewels? Can you imagine smearing gravy over your rubies and diamonds? It was fascinating to observe how something as common as plates are today could ever have been objects of such intense interest and elaboration.  

   
  Since the days of Meissen's monopoly, ceramic dishes have proliferated across the Old and New Worlds. Plates haven't varied much in size or shape since the beginning, but the tides of fashion, influenced heavily by culture and economics, have washed over them endlessly. A plate makes a perfect canvas for artistic expression, which echoes and emphasizes the effort of making the meal served upon it. Its no wonder there are so many.

 

*Riegler, Shax, dishes. New York, Artisan, 2013.