When artist and designer Sara Baldwin founded New Ravenna in 1992, she wanted to create unique, handcrafted mosaics for both residential and commercial installations. Since then, with the help of over 100 artisans, New Ravenna has become a world-renowned destination for custom stone and glass mosaics, offering a range of decorative borders, murals, field tiles, and medallions. To celebrate its 30th year in business, New Ravenna is offering a trip down memory lane with its Heritage Collection.
“We designed the Heritage collection to be a journey through our design styles and innovations, decade by decade,” explains Cean Irminger, the brand’s creative director. “Our beginnings are reflected in Heritage by using the hand chopped and handmade techniques and textures we developed in those early years.”
A collection of 14 mosaic designs, Heritage pays homage to the small details that New Ravenna has held close for the past 30 years. With heavy inspiration from Roman African tradition, the brand’s first decade focused on historic texture and pattern. New Ravenna honored the 1990s look by highlighting the individual mosaic pieces, or tessera, as well as the adamento, which is the overall shape. “With Calamus (pictured above), we recreated an ancient Tunisian plume mosaic but with hints of gold Aurum added to catch the light and give the design a glamorous edge,” Irminger shares.
The early aughts played with texture, applying pops of metal as well as waterjet finishes and Venetian honing. “We use this process of softening stones to both emulate those ancient mosaics and to soften the feel of stone and mimic the feel of woven crafts,” Irminger says of the tumbling process, which is seen in Heritage mosaics like Oxford Weave and Dawn Mist (pictured below). “This is a fascinating development in texture because we are literally creating soft and pliable textiles in stone. We can also tumble our glass to bring the fresh and silky feel of seaglass into the home.”
Though New Ravenna has primarily stuck with an “Italian palette”—which Irminger characterizes as gold, cream, brown, and terracotta—the most recent decade welcomed pops of colors with jewel glass and glazed basalto. “Color is back and unique and inspired palleted mosaics seem to be the current trend,” she says, citing the vibrant hues used in the collection’s glazed basalto offerings like Avenue and Amulet. “Long may it reign; insane color is my favorite.”
Heritage might mark New Ravenna’s 30th anniversary, but Irminger says the brand is just getting started. From finding creative uses for by-products and scraps to collaborating with guest designers, New Ravenna’s future is poised to be just as bright as its past. “Mosaic is one of those rare art forms that has equal footing in the realms of form and function,” she shares. “It’s a strength of our company to pivot fast and elegantly toward any design ethos that might come along.”
Learn more about the Heritage Collection at newravenna.com.
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