Dinner for Two

A collaborative project with Wayne Sutton, this work was completed during an artist residency at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Summer 2022. We set out to create every piece of the dinner setting, from the plates to the spoons, and to have the work reflect the environment of Haystack. In the end, all of the pieces were part of a dinner for two guests during the last day of the residency.

Forged Utensils

A year earlier, at Penland, I had made a forged spoon using a silver alloy that can be forged when red-hot. And have wanted to make more ever since. Each utensil is forged from a cast ingot. It’s fun to make metal utensils as if squishing them out of clay. The handles on two of these pieces have a dramatic twist, just to play with the flow of the object.

Forged Double Spoon

Inspired from a fern leaf, this double-ended spoon was forged from a pewter ingot. Initially, it was conceived as a cereal spoon, with one slotted end for fishing the cereal out of the milk. It turned out to work well as a serving spoon for salsas.

We gave ourselves daily assignments for the first week, and this was based on a leaf exchange, where Wayne and I each found a leaf for the other to use for inspiration.

Oyster Knife

A group of artist residents decided to have an oyster feast during the residency. We shucked over twelve dozen oysters with makeshift shucking knives. I forged the blade from stainless steel in the iron studio, and Wayne made the handle from scrap hardwood and brass. It worked beautifully!

Shingle-ware

The shingled walls of the buildings are a defining characteristic of the architecture at Haystack. I decided to press slabs of clay into the shingles, and make plates and bowls from the patterned pieces. The copper glaze really helped highlight the wood grain.

Snail Fork

Another impromptu feast during the residency was a snail-eating party on the shore, where we snacked on periwinkle snails. For that, I made molds of snail shells and sculpted snails to use their antennae as fork tines. Cast in Sterling silver. No snails were hurt in the making of the forks, though several were eaten with the finished utensils.

The Dinner

At the end of two weeks, we invited two guests to have a dinner using the items we made. It was a delighful conversation, and so enjoyable to witness the items being used.

The Proposal

There is nothing quite so satisfying for the soul as to share a meal with friends. As we emerge from a pandemic that kept us apart for so long, we seek to expand and amplify this social experience, as if making up for lost time. We are creating a dinner party like no other – an intervention in which the vessels and utensils share center stage with the food and conversation. Our goal is to design a bowl and spoon, for example, that challenge unconscious habits by engaging the users in a more polysensory, unexpected way. Think of Merit Oppenheim’s ‘Fur Covered Teacup’, but with a more palatable twist. How can the design of a spoon interact with the food to create a more sensory, thoughtful, and social experience? (abbreviated)