KC ceramicist’s porcelain, stoneware add elegance to any dish

In bread and pottery, less is more.

Tara Dawley’s ceramics work focuses on porcelain and stoneware pieces for the table that strip away superfluous layers and rely on the simplest ingredients.

Dawley’s most recent dinner pieces — both wheel-thrown and hand-built from slabs — feature arrestingly basic yet refined shapes. Milky porcelain dishes sit atop earthy brown stoneware chargers, perfect for showing off the ingredients in Aromatic Roasted Cauliflower With Tahini, Olives and Lemon, as well as a piece of Browned Butter Sweet Potato Pie With Spicy Pralines. An oblong porcelain casserole dish adds elegance to Carrots au Gratin.

Dawley got a good feel for working with food when she worked at Fervere, the artisan bread bakery on the West Side.

“That’s when I discovered bread and pottery have rather the same sentiment,” she says. “I think it comes from history. It was a communal effort to bake bread and make pots.”

Contact her at Hoop Dog Studio, 3308 Troost Ave. 816-804-4278. Pieces range from $40-$425.

This story was originally published November 15, 2016 at 8:00 AM with the headline "KC ceramicist’s porcelain, stoneware add elegance to any dish."