Enough time has passed since I photographed Becky's tables that I am ready to look back and evaluate my work. While I'm making tablecloths or planning settings I get too close to the whole thing and can't tell after a while if what I am doing is good or has gone off track. The plan was to take Becky's preferred dish pattern and integrate it into seasonal settings. For most people their dishes are the least flexible element when it comes to adapting tablesettings to changes in time and occasion. It is my contention that making a table that refers to the natural world and the larger context of life (the seasons, the weather, the moon, sun and stars) grounds the gathering in shared experience and fosters connections between the hosts, the guests, the place and the reasons for being together. I think it collects filaments of memory, tradition and caring, and intensifies them into feelings of inclusion and happy conviviality for everyone around the table. It therefore makes sense to me to find linens and accessories that can make a set of dishes work in as many ways as possible.
Becky has had her dishes for many years; they are sturdy, handsome and casual. As I have mentioned several times, the dark banding made them less adaptable to the feeling of spring and summer than that of fall and winter. Looking over the photographs, I do think I was successful in integrating those dark brown bands into all the seasons. In none of the settings do they seem out of place or discordant. The evocation of each season is reasonably clear to my eye, although autumn (first pic) and summer 2 (orange lilies) don't work as well as the other three. Its hard for me to put my finger on just why I feel that way, but I do. In the case of the summer setting it could be the orange lilies, or the orange and black elements in the runner. I had planned (and made) black napkins as an accent and only decided when I had the table all pulled together that black was not summery. (Yeah, I know, duh.) I think the autumn difficulties have their root in the woolen scarf I chose as the base of the whole thing. It looks really good with the dishes, but I don't think it telegraphs fall completely. I also think the orange napkins are a little too strong given the subdued colors of everything else. I like the large scale floral of summer 1 (gray and yellow). I think it's color scheme is unexpected, but still fresh. The robin's egg blue, light green, brown and gray of the spring runner are quite successful in combination and proportion, but I'm not completely happy with its craftsmanship. Also, the setting just isn't finished.
The delicate balance of color, size, and proportion of all the elements on the table are the really hard part of making a setting that sings. I think all my settings for Becky are successful at a certain level, but winter is the only one that approaches a song. The cloth is not completely right (if I was making it again, and I might, I would change some things about it) but it's colors, its pattern variation and thematic appropriateness are strong enough to make its flaws recede. It took a really long time to make, but all of the effort made it comprehensible without overwhelming the idea; in fact I think it is almost abstract in its initial impact. The centerpiece is simple, but worked better than some of the ones I labored over. I am always hoping my settings will achieve a finely articulated expression without excess or apparent struggle and this one comes closest to that.
Overall, I have trouble with centerpieces, and I see that I am falling into a pattern with the napkins that maybe I should try to break. So, onward.