In the week since I set and photographed Lynne's seasonal tables in her dining room I have had time to think a little about what I made.
I was tired of viewing endless pictures of people's tables that were often beautiful, but unreproduceable. It seemed like the dishes were the stumbling block...too expensive to purchase willy nilly, too cumbersome to store in large quantities, and either plain to the point of dullness or highly dictatorial in style and color. I wondered: if I were restricted to one pattern, how would I use it to express the individuality of gatherings I wanted to make special? What could anyone wishing to use what they have make table settings that set the stage for specific occasions and made them memorable? I decided to reach outside my own collection of dishes and address the question with unfamiliar patterns. I am fortunate to have friends and family who support my experiments and so I planned to show how the very different plate styles of three willing participants could be adapted to reflect the seasons, which are exemplars of change. Lynne, my sister-in-law, was my first guinea pig; I used her Royal Doulton china as the common denominator in the four settings shown.
If you can't change your dishes, textiles are the obvious way to carry and vary color and pattern on your table, but full scale tablecloths have their own problems of fit, availibility and maintenance. Try shopping for affordable tablecloths of the right color, the right size and the right material to elicit the moods you want your table to express. I am always looking in person and on line and have despaired of reliably finding any but the most basic colors. My solution is to make or find a couple of plain colors that work well with the dishes as a base, and then design or purchase a series of smaller, more variable runners or squares to layer on top and set the tone of color or pattern, sort of like a scarf can change the tone of a simple dress or blazer. The accent cloths are easier to handle and wash, cheaper (unless you count time) and highly flexible.
Using the base cloth/accent cloth theory, I chose two colors of linen that I thought looked good with Lynne's dishes and made full size tablecloths that fit her specific oval table. (Ovals are all different.) They will always be useful with these dishes, no matter what Lynne chooses to layer on top of them. I know she already has some lace and eyelet pieces that will look great with either. Then, I made or collected the accents whose history and progress I have shown throughout the year.
So (...finally, what's with all the exposition?) how did it go? Overall, I feel like I succeeded in evoking the four seasons for Lynne. I liked all of the tables when I finally saw them put together and felt like my accent pieces worked the way I envisioned. Whew.
However....I am always looking for the visual combinations that open a space within my heart...the feeling hard to describe but so definite that invites a deeper response, a wider, more intuitive relationship with all of the threads and elements that underlie the scene. I think evoking this feeling works upon the hearts of everyone who gathers in the space, confirming their value in the group and encouraging the flow and interactions of the occasion. Of the four settings I made for Lynne I think only winter comes close.
Its a little ironic that the best table required the least work, in that the runner that set the tone was a purchased wool scarf. (Smaller cloths can be drawn from a much wider field than regular tablecloths.) It was a matter of luck, I guess, but the color was right, and the concentric circles of the pattern immediately evoked ice on puddles and the swirling of winter winds in my mind and those associations carried through clearly. The centerpiece was also very important. It took quite a while to find twigs with the right shape and fineness to make the transparent cloud of naked branches. In fact, it wasn't until the leaves fell this autumn that I recognized that the snowberry bushes on the path to the beach would work. I spray painted them gray and originally intended to add evergreens and maybe white roses, but once the lights were on it was clear that austerity would be more powerful. The other thing that I didn't really control was the size of the thing. I worried about the proportions of the vase (had to be white and opaque to hide the battery case for the little lights) but found no other good options and so it just became what it was and I think it worked better than any of the others.
So, now I know what I need to work on as I turn to Becky's table:
Better photography (depth of field, white balance, other photographic blah blah)
Better centerpieces (not sure what this means, but hopefully clarity will emerge)
Better control of proportion and detail (how much or how little of the various elements)
More storytelling.
Thank you so much for the kind comments and encouragement. I really appreciate having a supportive forum in which to work these projects out.