THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 4, 1996 TAG: 9602060478
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARCIA MANGUM, HOME & GARDEN EDITOR
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
PAT ROSS WRITES and lectures about country style and country entertaining, but ``cute'' and ``adorable'' are not in her vocabulary, and ducks and frilly curtains are not in her kitchen.
Ross is more likely to use the words ``funky,'' ``eclectic'' and ``comfortable'' in talking about the style she creates combining American folk art and handcrafts with more formal pieces.
Ross, who will be in Norfolk on Saturday for The Artful Setting festival at The Chrysler Museum of Art, believes in mixing and matching and using what you have. She coined the term ``formal country'' to describe the look made famous by the New York retail shop she owned for eight years.
Formal country is more spare and, well, formal, than traditional American country style, Ross explained. ``The emphasis is on easy elegance,'' she said. ``I think people were weary of cute country. The whole idea of collections and collectibles got run into the ground. I'd rather have three great-looking baskets on a shelf than 300 hanging from the ceiling of a dining room.
``I don't like clutter, and I think sometimes country can overwhelm us. Formal country does not.''
The popular author and entrepreneur will talk about ``Formal Country Style: The Best of Both Worlds,'' at the festival, which benefits the Chrysler's Changing Exhibition Fund. Ross will be featured along with two other nationally known speakers and 36 table settings created by local garden clubs, individuals, interior decorators and designers.
In keeping with the festival's theme, Ross will limit her talk to tabletop decorations, but the look is one she believes works throughout a household without being fussy or tiresome.
Ross, a former publishing executive with Random House, left the corporate world in 1983 to pursue her interest in American crafts and design. That soon led to the opening of Sweet Nellie, a shop on New York's Madison Avenue that specialized in upscale works of American artisans and hand-crafted things for the home.
The shop represented a variety of artisans across the country and carried everything from country antiques to pottery, mohair throws and little boxes, Ross said. It was an eclectic mix, in keeping with Ross' own style.
``I like very formal pieces, but I like to break that formality with things that are funky - things that are more comfortable,'' she said.
At the time the shop opened in the mid-'80s, most people were rigid about their decorating styles, she noted. They picked formal, country or contemporary and stuck to it.
``What the shop did was it relaxed the rules a bit and mixed styles,'' she said. ``People wanted someone to say it's OK to break the rules and do what you are comfortable with, which is exactly what I'd been doing in my home.''
Ross, who began writing children's books in the early '70s when her daughter was young, put her style in print with her first photographic book, ``Formal Country'' (Viking Studio Books, 1989).
She followed a few years later with ``Formal Country Entertaining,'' which took readers into the homes of people who entertained beautifully and with ease. Ross presented ideas for tabletop settings, flowers and food, with recipes from the homeowners and color photographs of their table settings.
That book, which encourages people to follow their personal comfort style and to be a guest at their own parties, recently was reissued under the title ``Country Entertaining'' (Wings Books, 1995, $25).
Ross said the purpose of her book - and all of her writings and talks - is to give people ideas and opportunities and allow them to ``go off on their own and take it from there.''
Which is what Ross does. She has no formal training in decorating, but readily pursued her longtime interest in American crafts and American quilts. The rest just sort of happened.
``I traveled a lot in the United States, and when you go through a town and see a little sign that says `Pottery This Way,' I always stop,'' she said.
She encourages everyone to rely on their instincts. ``There's no right or wrong,'' she said. ``Even in terms of color, your eye is going to self-select. You wouldn't pick a green you didn't like. And chances are the greens you pick will go together.''
To her way of thinking, you don't have to have money to have style. ``People stick things in closets and cupboards and forget what they have,'' she said. ``Go look there.''
A tabletop featured in her book was decorated by a woman who gathered a collection of old medicine bottles, popped single flowers in each and spread them around the table. Old pitchers and demitasse cups also make charming containers for flowers, Ross said.
``I love fresh flowers and always use lots when I entertain. I have gazallions of pitchers, and I never put liquids in them,'' she said with a laugh. ``Sometimes I'll do three pitchers of flowers.''
She prefers flowers like roses that open to glorious blooms that can stand on their own. ``I'll buy roses two days before (a party) and put them in the pitcher. Then you don't have to arrange flowers. By the time you have your dinner party, you have these roses that are just bursting open.''
Ross likes to set her table using lots of fresh flowers, various candle holders and whimsical tableware crafted by Texas potter Claudia Reese. Because the tableware has so much going on - with each piece a different color and pattern - Ross uses simple linen-and-lace place mats on a wood table.
She keeps the Reese tableware displayed on an iron plate rack beside her table and stores her other tabletop settings in a cupboard nearby, a trick she encourages others to adopt for easy entertaining. ``We're all pretty rushed,'' she said, so it helps to have flower vessels, table covers and candle holders all together and readily available.
She also recommends sticking with a good thing. ``If you know certain candle holders work with certain candles or certain vases, don't drive yourself crazy to do it all different,'' she said.
Ross realizes not everyone has the sources and resources that she has, but she said even young people, like her daughter, can pull together an attractive table without spending a fortune.
``She goes to flea markets and tag sales, and it's amazing what you can find for very little,'' Ross said. ``I think it's a matter more of being creative rather than affluent.''
Tops on her list of advice to young people is, ``Don't run out and get it all at once.'' Engaged couples tend to walk into a department store and try to pick out everything and register for things that match, Ross said. She urges them not to be in a rush, because tastes change, and mix-and-match is more fun.
She recommends catalog shopping and watching for good buys on tabletop items at shops such as Pier 1, Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Williams Senoma.
She and her significant other have been shopping for a year-and-a-half to find accessories for his new farmhouse in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. And they've done it little-by-little, stopping in small towns, shopping catalogs and keeping a keen eye for interesting pieces.
Small-town America holds a fascination for Ross, who was born in Chester on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. That is one of 10 towns across the country included in Ross' book ``Remembering Main Street: An American Album'' (Viking Studio Books, 1994). The book is a look at the towns in their beginning and as they are today, with a mix of historical photographs and contemporary photographs shot by Ross.
Ross now has 15 children's books to her credit and 20 books for adults and is planning the release of a cookbook in October titled ``Please Come to Dinner.''
Like her decorating style, her writing is eclectic, but the thread that ties it together is that everything is American. ``It's about American customs, American traditions and American heritage,'' she said.
So pull out your grandmother's old candlesticks, plop a few roses in a pottery pitcher, mix and match some dishes and sit back and entertain in formal country style. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
KEITH SCOTT MORTON
A tea cozy made of vintage fabric keeps Pat Ross' herbal tea warm.
The pale yellow mums in a pitcher match the honeydew melon.
Antique perfume bottles double as small vases, and the whole
collection makes an unusual table arrangement.
A farm-stand basket holds lettuce and nasturtiums for a picnic.
Pat Ross likes handmade quilts, which are among the many American
handcrafts that can find a comfortable place on the table (right).
Photo
Courtesy of The Chrysler Museum
The elegance of The Artful Setting is apparent in this tabletop
displayed at last year's festival at The Chrysler Museum.
Graphic
THE ARTFUL SETTING SCHEDULE
What: Presentation of 36 creative tabletop settings by design
professionals, private exhibitors and garden clubs, along with
lectures and demonstrations, to benefit The Chrysler Musuem of Art's
Changing Exhibition Fund.
Where: The Chrysler Museum of Art, 245 W. Olney Road, Norfolk.
When: Friday, Saturday and next Sunday.
How much: $10 to view exhibitions of settings. Other event costs
vary; see listings below.
Tickets and info: 664-6287.
Complete schedule:
Friday:
7 to 10 p.m., gala preview party, $50 per person.
Saturday:
10 a.m. to 5 p.m., exhibition of settings, $10.
10 a.m. in the Museum Theater, Jay Cantor of Christie, Manson &
Woods International Inc. lectures on ``Collecting Today With Dollars
and Sense,'' $25.
11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., box lunches by Palettes Restaurant, $10.
2 p.m. in the Museum Theater, Pat Ross lectures on ``Formal
Country Style: The Best of Both Worlds,'' $25.
Sunday:
11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., exhibition of settings, $10.
12:30 to 2 p.m. in Huber Court, demonstrations for entertaining.
2 p.m. in the Museum Theater, Marjorie Reed Gordon, an author and
authority on entertaining, lectures on ``Entertaining With More
Style Than Money,'' $25.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY DECORATING by CNB