JP Terlizzi

The Good Dishes integrates memory, legacy and metaphor with my response to loss. As I witness an early generation of family members pass, my cousins and I were each faced with the emotional task of cleaning out the family home. Sorting through the heirlooms, we would determine which items to toss, sell or preserve. Without fail, when it came to the family’s fine china, that item was always given to the person that most cherished its memory and sentimental value. Growing up in a large Italian family, everything was centered around food and the family table. I remember vividly my mother’s vintage marigold stoneware dishes that she bought at the grocery store back in the early 1970s. She used them every day for as long as I could remember, and they had a life of their own. Along with my mother’s everyday dishes she had one set that she kept on display behind glass that only she handled, only she washed, and only she hand-dried; these were deemed “the good dishes.” Whenever I heard, “I need to use the good dishes,” that meant one of two things in our household: the priest was coming over for dinner or it was a very special occasion. Either way, the food presentation, table dress and table manners all changed whenever “the good dishes” came out.

Eating is a physical need, but meals are a social ritual. Utilizing the passed down heirlooms of friends and family, The Good Dishes celebrates the memory of family and togetherness. It borrows the stylized rituals of formal tableware and draws inspiration from classic still life paintings. Background textiles are individually designed and constructed to reflect patterns found in each table setting while presentation, etiquette and formality are disassociated by using food and fine china in unconventional ways as metaphors for the beauty and intimacy that are centered around meal and table.

There is a strong emotional and social connection we all have with food and nostalgia. They can be viewed as coping mechanisms to navigate us through overwhelming stress and instability. They help us fuel the courage to confront our fears and tackle challenges while creating hope for the future.

Holding Arabesque investigates our relationship with food and nostalgia
and how both are used as markers to define emotions. The series captures the essence of an idyllic time in the past that is remembered as better than today. Created all in camera, I use keepsakes from my childhood along with food, patterns, shapes, forms, and colors as whimsical, playful, and nostalgic tableaux, choreographed in disciplined arrangements. These cheerful totems disrupt the frame with unrealistic ways in which we normally are accustomed to see food presented. They question the delicate balance between stability and uncertainty – but most importantly, giving permission as an adult, that it’s still ok to play with your food.