The company ships over 600 orders each month and is constantly adding staff, inventory and machinery to meet demand. Under his leadership, New Ravenna showroom sales increased 200% last year, during a global pandemic.
When Baldwin tapped Richard Walters to replace her as CEO of New Ravenna in 2015, “I jumped on it,” he says, despite driving from his Virginia Beach home across the Chesapeake Bay. “But almost everything we do is made to order by hand in Virginia.” They order glass from the same company that supplied Louis Comfort Tiffany more than 150 years ago. The stones are sourced from Italy, Turkey, Iran, Spain or Brazil. Our attention to detail is impeccable, from materials to color variations,” says Irminger. “Our name has become known for premium quality mosaics. Soon, interior designers, celebrity clients and commercial projects followed suit. In 2000, interior design magazines took notice. The company has also started manufacturing its own line of ready-to-ship tiles.
Muse bar mosaic install#
The expanded space allowed them to tackle large-scale murals, add employees, and install water-jet machines to cut tiles into intricate shapes. When New Ravenna outgrew Baldwin’s home, it moved into a shopping center storefront before taking over vacant buildings, including an art deco theater and a former shirt factory, in Exmore. “So we thought New York, New Jersey- New Ravenna.” Champion of the Eastern Shore, Baldwin has built the kind of business she’d love to work for herself, in the place she loved the most. “We’re the new world version of this old world art form,” says Irminger. In search of a business name, she stumbles upon Ravenna, the Italian city famous for designing mosaic tiles. She began hiring mosaic artists to fill orders. And though they’ve made samples for Taylor Swift and Keith Richards and shipped palettes from Exmore to Paris, Dallas and Dubai, this company is local to the core.Įast Coast native Sara Baldwin started the business at her kitchen table after admiring Roman mosaics at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and wondering, Why doesn’t anyone do it anymore? A year later, in 1992, his first collection of small borders and decorative tiles aroused interest at a trade show. Today, she oversees a team of designers and artisans whose work appears in luxury hotels like the Raffles in Singapore and the Mandarin Oriental in DC and in the homes of clients Serena Williams, Tom Hanks, Madonna and Ozzy Osbourne. “Then I was scribbling on the community board at a local bar and one of the ladies said, ‘You’re good. “I thought I would apply to public schools and become an art teacher,” she says. Irminger was determined to return to the East Coast to find employment after earning a studio art degree from James Madison University. She landed this job in her hometown because, as she says, “I’m a doodler.” They can’t believe this business is thriving in an old railroad town like Exmore, Virginia,” says Irminger, who grew up in nearby Marionville. “Most people expect us to be in New York or Los Angeles. “Our processes and appearance have grown organically.”Ĭoveted around the world, New Ravenna mosaics are sold by high-end tile retailers like Ann Sacks and Waterworks, and are preferred by interior designers like Bunny Williams, whose customers can afford to cover their bespoke sophisticated murals. “We were pioneers,” says Cean Irminger, Creative Director of New Ravenna, of the company’s art style. Look closely and you will see the curves, nuanced colors and shadows you would find in a painting or photograph. Of these, 120 spend their days creating stunning mosaic murals for New Ravenna, a business that spans five buildings in sleepy downtown Exmore. In New Ravenna, East Coasters draw their inner artist.Īt last count, the city of Exmore on the east coast had a population of 1,348.
0 kommentar(er)
