Raven and Sparrow

Becky's table....summer again

When I first considered Becky's dishes I was worried about finding or making cloths that would evoke summer, but surprisingly quickly I found two that I thought would work. Since they were so different I got them both and did two summer tables. This second one is based on a printed cotton kantha scarf from India. Its gray background and black lines linked it to the dishes, while the splashes of orange, blue, and green in the design lifted it into summer. I immediately thought of orange lilies and since Tim grows gorgeous lilies they would be appropriate, although by the time I got around to photographing the table the season for lilies had passed and I had to rely on the grocery store. I combined them with madrona leaves, whose size, substance and shine make me think of the tropics, in a blue glass vase that went with the blue wine glasses. Black napkins looked very chic with the runner, but when I got the whole table pulled together the combination of black and orange looked too Halloween-y and at the last minute I switched to green. To liven them up I threaded bright ribbons through a ring sewed to the napkin rings, trying to make the plates more light-hearted. I don't think it really works in this case, but I do like the fact that the ribbons could be changed for other color schemes in the future. 

Becky's table...summer

Becky's summer table is built on a piece of printed upholstery fabric I found at my local fabric store. Its large flowers made a nice change of scale and the prominent use of gray made me think it could work with Becky's dark banded dishes. I also used a dark vase to repeat the dish colors and filled it with buttery echinacea and gray artemisia. The yellows in the cloth look bright and light-hearted, but are actually too muted to look good with most yellow flowers, so finding compatible ones was hard. I actually bought them in pots at mid-summer and had to keep them alive and healthy until September when the pictures were taken....definitely a gamble with my potted plant track record. I added my stemmed votive candle trios and my Fostoria tumblers and that was all. 

 

 

 

 

Becky's table...autumn

To recap The Grand Tablecloth Project briefly: my plan was...is...to take semi-random dishes belonging to my friends and family (everyone gets asked in the beginning, although it takes so long that most of my victims forget) and make them work in settings for four seasons. I work with the seasons because linking one's gatherings with the time flow of the natural world is a way to hint at the deep roots and myriad unseen branches our connections form between us, our loved ones, and the world at large. I make some of the textiles and find or purchase others, depending on the demands of the dishes, devise settings and then photograph them. The dish owner gets the tablecloths, etc. and I get the pictures.

About a month ago I finally got my act together and transported all of my tablecloths and accessories down to Seattle to the home of our friends Becky and Tim. We have been happy recipients of their hospitality and willing participants in their plans since the seventies. They figure prominently in so many of our favorite memories, it made all the sense in the world to include them in this tablesetting project. With Mike's help, I set and photographed five different tablesettings in Becky's dining room, using her dishes and silverware and some of her glassware.

Becky's stoneware is named Keralia, from the Finnish manufacturer Arabia, made in the seventies. It features heavy black and brown bands (with a faint green tinge between) on a grayish ground. It is casual in style and high in quality. The dark banding made it work easily with autumn colors. I found a wool scarf with black, orange, plum and green elements  and layered it as a runner over an olive-ish green linen tablecloth. The burgundy elements in the runner made grapes a choice for a centerpiece, with orange leaves, gold and plum colored votive candles and orange napkins. For this table, the brown wineglasses Becky got years ago (wedding present?) looked just right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dream of a world.......

 

Mo Orkiszewski from Sydney Australia (itscrowtime.wordpress.com) sent me a pennant cut from an old wedding gown. She plans to use it, and over forty others, in an art installation next year. The theme of the piece is "I Dream of a World Where Love is the Answer". I was so surprised and pleased to be included in her work, which is routinely beautiful. 

So, what to do? I started by carrying my scrap around, fingering it. The dense satin feels so good to touch. (It reminds me of the heavy ribbon binding on one of my childhood blankets. I fell asleep every night rubbing my fingers over the wrinkles....a purely tactile pleasure.) However, I couldn't tell what the fabric was made of and that matters a lot to my usual ways of working. Mo described the wedding dress as vintage...over sixty years old. That works out to 1957, which is before polyester took over the world, but maybe "sixty" was just a ballpark thing and I need natural fibers for my natural dyes. Determining the fiber content of mystery fabric can supposedly be done by burning it and examining the ash, so I cut off a little bit off the bottom and set it on fire. The ash was black and crumbly, not melted beads of plastic, so I think it is natural, not synthetic, but I couldn't tell what kind of natural. 

I was at least encouraged to go ahead with plans for waxing and dyeing with natural dyes. I had been thinking of what images to use and suddenly came up with this cartoon. I'm still not sure if I will be able to wax this accurately, or if the dyes will take well. but as of this moment, this is my dream of a world where love is the answer. Yeah, I know....literally.