Table

COLOR-SATURATED DRAMA by Gianni Versace, satin pink flowers by Lacroix, spare black and white shapes by Calvin Klein, traditional silhouettes by Ralph Lauren. We're not talking frocks, my dears, we're talking dinnerware.Designers have discovered that a table setting makes a strong fashion statement that any hostess of kindred taste can achieve without dieting down to a size 6.Tabletop collections, as they're called in the crockery industry, are the latest creative outlet for high-profile designers, and new ones are entering the market with each season.

A new exhibit of ceramic table settings and servers made by 34 artists will be on display at Baltimore Clayworks in Mount Washington beginning tonight. The whimsical collection, intended to celebrate the theater of the table, features everything from a decorative piece called "Forbidden Fruit," to "Viagra Server." Among the more abstract and curious works is the earthenware "Encrustation 2000," a centerpiece arrangement of three green, rounded shapes, each adorned with a quill. "The flamboyance fits in with the whole millennium hoopla," says Leigh Taylor Mickelson, program director at the ceramics center at 5706 Smith Ave. "It's an exuberant vision of the future."

Wherever you look this holiday season, you will find a wealth of decorations inspired by nature. These offer irresistible opportunities for creating festive table settings that are as casual or elegant as your tastes.Start with the place settings: Woodland motifs dress up the newest fine china and ceramics.For example, Tiffany & Co.'s newest holiday pattern in bone china combines cherry-red ribbons with pine cones, acorns and pears. Herron Village Pottery has a stunning ceramic, hand-painted with a grapevine motif in rich yellow and purple.

The County Council will have light work tonight if, as expected, it tables four pieces of legislation contested at its Jan. 19 public hearing.Six other items, dealing with such things as interfund transfers and the semiannual update of the county water and sewer master plan, are routine and are expected to pass unanimously without debate.The council also is expected to make about 10 amendments to Volume III of the county Planning Department's revision of its design manual. The manual, which deals primarily with county roads, was tabled last month.

For Nadia Peck, the inspiration for her furniture business came in the form of something she couldn't find - a glass-topped table. Peck was looking for such a table in Harford County, with no luck. "That's where it started," Peck recalled, sitting behind her desk in the office of By Design, the business she started in 1994. She decided that if she wanted a reasonably priced glass-topped table, surely other people wanted one, too. "In Harford County, it's very traditional," Peck said. "If it wasn't antique, nobody had it."

Spare rib bones, stripped clean and stacked like cordwood. A pile of paper napkins, crumpled, greasy and red with barbecue sauce. That's what Lauren Groveman, mother, wife, cook and author, sees when she conjures the perfect family dinner. Her husband and teenage children adore her poached spare ribs and each has his or her own bowl of her homemade barbecue sauce for dipping. And the mess they make tells her that she has, once again, pleased her favorite people with food. "That mess in the middle of the table - it is just such a satisfying feeling," said Groveman, 46. Groveman loves to cook.

WASHINGTON -- The forces instrumental in the creation of the Martin Luther King Day holiday intended for it to be a day of reflection and contemplation, more than of holiday sales. In that vein, they will be pleased with an illuminating round-table discussion convened yesterday at Georgetown University by Turner Sports among four men who lived during the period in which the late civil rights leader fought for social change. The freewheeling, often humorous exchange between moderator John Thompson, who formerly coached here and is now an NBA analyst for Turner, and former NBA greats Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson and Wayne Embry, yielded thoughtful recollections about the civil rights movement and its impact on the athletes who played in the context of the massive upheaval of the times.

JD's Smokehouse, which opened about a year ago in trendy Canton Square, is more bar than restaurant. On a recent weeknight, members of a local softball team had stopped by for drinks, and some patrons were playing pool. There are also televisions, video games and Keno. The decor is strictly Neighborhood Bar, with wood floors, a brick wall and whimsical details, including several wooden statues of Native Americans. There is no separate dining area, and all the tables are tall, surrounded by bar stools with swiveling seats.

OAKLAND, Calif. - The phrase "back to school" has acquired new meaning here. It's time to grab the ballpoints, the highlighters and the 450-page binder of reading materials and head to the mayor's house for a little "Medieval Philosophical Latin: Part 1." Call it Jerry 101. Mayor Jerry Brown, former presidential candidate, former governor and former Jesuit seminarian, has invited the citizens of this city on the move to participate in the Oakland Table, a casual intellectual exchange over six weeks - a sort of Ivory Tower in a loft - in which two dozen scholars, headlined by the historian and philosopher Ivan Illich, have been brought in to ponder the city, citizenship and the deep meaning of it all. Part salon, part graduate-school seminar, it might be the Northern California equivalent of the Algonquin Round Table, frequented by Dorothy Parker, in 1920s New York, except that instead of whiskey and cigarettes there are tai chi and yoga classes in an adjoining room.

Two candles and a centerpiece: If that's how your dining table dresses for dinner, it may look a little too starched -- especially if there's an easy spirit to your friends, your cooking and your home. If meals are a time of family gathering and warmth, why shouldn't the table reflect it?Several books offer the tools and inspiration for what Metropolitan Home magazine calls table-scaping -- the art of setting an expressive table. The most inviting arrangements tend to be rich, layered and at times quixotically uncoordinated.