The Development of My Personalized Aesthetic Perspective (page 3/4) The objects are intimate, personal, and meant to communicate in a non-verbal manner, my touch, care, concerns and sensibilities the essence of my being to the user during use. They are intended as offerings for human communication. Having moved to New York City to establish my first studio, I wanted to make contemporary porcelain dinnerware that accurately reflected the distinct feeling of the city environment in which I lived. The tray pieces gradually metamorphosed from a beginning grounded in making functional formal dinnerware for upper class New Yorkers. I began in the late 1970’s to place objects such as creamers and sugar sets in a staging space to give them an environment of their own in which to live. These simple arrangements were followed by tea and coffee service and became more complex environments. Early sets were arrangements of specific forms derived from wine and liquor bottles designed for specific purposes, and from studying the history of bottles forms both ceramics and glass from various cultures through the world in the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection. Made in white porcelain, they were originally functional and meant to be used as decanters for before dinner drinks, or for after dinner liqueurs while entertaining guests at formal dinner parties. Each form was distinct and to be used to store scotch, gin, vodka, or bourbon. The form and its contents could be remembered by the dinner party host while serving without having to identify the contents with a specific tag. At times when the bottle arrangements were not in use, they could be positioned as a centerpiece for the dining table, or placed on a sideboard. They were intended to remain part of the dining or living room environment and function as objects for contemplation. As I begin to travel, I found the bottle arrangements to be the perfect vehicle for recording my memories of those events. Color use from the liqueur bottle arrangements became more intense and specifically identified and meaningful as recorders of time of day, the specific location being experienced and the color relationships that I observed in my immediate surroundings.