What is more joyous than setting the table. This action triggers such a great feeling — the anticipation of a shared dining experience with family or friends. And now during the pandemic of 2020, inside dining at restaurants isn’t wise, and large groups gathering indoors is strongly discouraged even in one’s own home. Whether safely dining solo or with a partner or the children, one can still create memories, especially if the meal is served on specially selected dinnerware.

One Table Oodles of Dishes, a virtual exhibition presented by IMoDD at our website www.dinnerwaremuseum.org, builds upon this premise of setting the same table, over and over, with a curated selection of beautifully designed dishes. It is left for the viewer to determine which place setting to select and to imagine what food might enhance the dining experience with each.

Without giving away any secrets concerning our virtual exhibition, have fun selecting a thumbnail image of a unique cup from a variety of eras and styles and designers. After you click on the image you may read the caption before or after you either recall or guess the maker, designer, era, style, or pattern. A “Still Life” image of the vignette will also appear after the little movie, as will possibly other images and information that may be of interest. The brief essays were created by Scott A. Vermillion, Judith Schwartz, and myself. If you think our descriptions are too brief, then please supply more information and we’ll credit you and add your information to the exhibition experience.

A special thanks to those who offered support for this exhibition including Anna Clark who served as the main editor for this project, as well as Mary Cole Rack. Additional research materials and scholarly information were provided by Christopher McPherson, Scott Hamblen, Subie Brown, and Jim Drobka. The exhibition was technically and artistically designed for our IMoDD website by Bill Walker. We are forever grateful to the donors of the selected dinnerware who are credited in the photo captions.

Margaret Carney
December 14, 2020