China Series (2010-2015) - As a child I spent my summers on Fire Island in my grandfather's four-story Victorian "cottage" on the ocean front.  He bought it at the turn of the last century in Edith Wharton's time. When my grandfather lived there, even though it was summer, dinner was a formal affair. By the time my generation took over the dining room table, the white linen suits were long gone, replaced by wet bathing suits and bare feet.  I sat next to my dad and on the other side of the table a built-in cabinet was filled with formal pink and white china and cranberry glassware.  We never touched it.  Then one summer my mother packed it up and took it home.  That winter, in a storm, the "cottage," a monument to a bygone era, was washed into the ocean.