Imperial Valley Press

Pottery Gains Favor

ONCE UPON A TIME every household had two sets of dishes one for Sunday best and one for everyday use. The chipped and cracked castoffs of both sets and their predecessors served in a practical but uninteresting manner for kitchen use. The best set generally boasted a conventional floral design, or a gold band trim about the outer edge of the dishes. The set in daily use was plainer still, selected more for utility than decoration.

Styles change in tableware just as they do in everything in which women have a hand. Color has become increasingly important throughout the household, holding particularly riotous sway over the dining room and kitchen. The dinner table blooms with bright and cheerful dishes and glassware, and even tablecloths have undergone a metamorphosis, displaying checks and plaids and brilliant colors.

This cheerful change is partly due to the example of leaders in the art of interior decoration who counsel us to be original and follow the dictates of our own desires. Credit must be given also to the recently developed Western pottery which comes in such fascinating shapes and such a variety of lovely clear colors. Because this pottery ware is such an asset in table decoration it is being used more and more in combination with the regular dinner set, departing from the traditional idea that everything on the table must match.

Clever women who pride themselves on artistic, colorful appearance of their tables are now choosing for an everyday set this sturdy Western ware, selecting dishes for each course of a different, though harmonizing, color. If the luncheon or dinner plates are a clear, sunny yellow, then the cups and saucers may be golden brown, and the salad plates orange. Bread and butter plates of turquoise blue and soup bowls of a darker blue complete the set with a rainbow-like effect. These, arranged upon a cloth of ecru shade, should make a meal composed of the most everyday fare an exciting eating adventure. Because this Western pottery ware is so modest in price, it is within the reach of all of us and can be safely used for everyday wear. since breakage is only a minor tragedy when replacement entails only a small expenditure.

Pure white dishes of domestic make, simple, yet artistic in design, are chosen for the set used for gala, best use. Fortunately, for the sake of our pocketbooks, we have grown away from the idea that dinnerware to be really smart, must be imported.