So many things go into a dinner besides the food. A wine writer said that who your share your table with can make a remarkable difference in how you taste a wine. The company, the setting, the music all have an effect. And so it is with what you put the food on before you bring it to the table.

Serving Bowl with Resist Brushwork
Decoration made with a homemade deer-tail brush

Serving Bowl with Leaf Pattern
Slab-constructed bowl with stenciled black slip under copper matt glaze

Five-Piece Hors D'Oeuvres Set
This was a delightful fluke, a discovery emerging from a failure. I'd made a bowl like the one above, which I elbowed while it was still soft and it fell apart. The five – now separate – pieces suggested a different piece altogether. I made a new extruder die (see the "Tools" page) that gave me a ribbon with an out-turned lip, which I could attach to the edges of the former bowl.

Serving Platter with Leaf Pattern
These platters are great for providing a canvas for larger-scale decoration. This oblong form is big enough that you could serve a small turkey on it. Stenciled black slip and copper matt glaze.

Long Tray with Multicolored Leaves
Sometimes I venture toward the brighter end of the spectrum, here with slips pigmented with inclusion stains that offer high-fire potters colors of yellows, oranges and reds that before were only available to the low-fire folks.

Long Tray with Seaweed Pattern
Resist brushwork with copper matt glaze