Rome: If you want to

People often ask what inspired me to found New Ravenna. A part of the answer lies in a trip to the Metropolitan when I was in graduate school (for painting) at the University of Pennsylvania in...sheesh--1989? I looked down incredulously at an extraordinary ancient mosaic installed on their floor and thought, "Why isn't anyone making these anymore?"

That was the beginning of my love affair with mosaics and my quest to not only re-create the feel of the old ones,

but to use the tesserae like paint, and create new designs and textures that are suitable for any style of decor or architecture. However, this post is about the old ones--specifically my favorite Tunisian mosaics that stayed when the Romans left.

Here is an excerpt from James Duncan's blog on the history of mosaics: "Mosaics were one of the first forms of decorative art. As early as the second millennium B.C., geometric patterns in colored stones and shells decorated temples in Mesopotamia. It was in 4th century B.C. Greece where pictorial mosaics were first created. Thereafter, the genre spread throughout the Aegean, east into Persia and the Romans then diffused the art form throughout the Mediterranean basin. Some of the finest examples have been found in the North African city of Carthage and can now be seen in the Bardo Museum in Tunis."

In 1997 I was lucky enough to visit the Bardo Museum in Tunisia (which is where most of the featured mosaics live, even the top one). On that long ago honeymoon with my now ex-husband, I literally burst into tears of joy in the middle of the museum. Curated there is possibly the most extensive collection of ancient mosaics in the world. It goes on for room after room, wall after wall. Acres of mosaics. I was in heaven. The above mosaic is my favorite, the "Navigation of Venus". We adapted our logo from the cherub/peacock in the upper left hand corner of the below image:



Here is a photo of the complete installation, courtesy Brian McMorrow.

Check out Neptune at the top--he looks a little worried. If he knew about the state of the oceans today, he'd realize that feeling was completely justified.

I've always adored peacocks which is evident if you look at my header and logo, and apparently the Romans loved them too:

We once made a beautiful floor for a client in Chicago (through Kim at The Fine Line, one of our favorite dealers of all time) based upon the pattern below:

The modern look of this Tunisian mosaic was actually made in the 4th century AD--it's tesserae are laid to mimic the look of marble slabs.

I came home from Tunisia and was re-inspired to duplicate the aged texture that we began to call "Roman-African" at New Ravenna. It consists of hand-chopped tesserae (not perfect squares) that are slightly tumbled to give them an aged look.

Above was one of our first attempts at this style, using the mosaic at the very beginning of this blog as inspiration. What do you think?! I will share some more of the results in a "part b" to this blog soon. In the meantime, Happy Holidays everyone! I am off for some much needed R and R, and am wishing you and yours much joy and prosperity this season and in the New Year.

James is the Man

My friend James Stuart Duncan is a truly talented product developer who works with New Ravenna. It's one thing to be a good designer, it's another to not drive your manufacturers nuts while they are developing product with you. A true gentleman, it's always so easy working with James--a quality of his that is very much appreciated.

The son of Cambridge professor, James' room-mate and best friend in college was Thom Filicia and James worked with Thom out of his Chelsea loft in New York for several years before deciding that a warmer climate was where he wanted to raise his beautiful children. Now, he and his gorgeous wife Miriam run James Duncan, a source for furniture and rugs of James and Miriam's designs.


No design slouch herself, Miriam grew up in Morocco, where her mother worked for the architect to the king. She and James speak to the children mostly in French, Miriam's first language, and have lived in Asia, Africa, and Europe in addition to Key Biscayne, Florida where they now reside. James' blog, "A Well Traveled Aesthetic" is featured here on Decorati. Tile and bath aficionados will find last month's post particularly interesting because it's on the history of the bathroom. He also wrote a wonderful blog on the history of mosaics here.

Tucker Robbins of furniture design fame introduced me to James at the New York antique show, and we immediately hit it off. Before long he was ordering carpet samples using some of my patterns, and New Ravenna had translated several of his rug designs into a line of mosaics. Here is one of his rugs ("Twiggy") featuring a blown-up tree-of-life motif:

If you think this is attractive, you should see it in person. It's a knock-out. We translated his tree-of-life into a seven foot tall stone mosaic panel that we recently showed at "Coverings" and ICFF:

Can you imagine this on the floor of a bathroom or in a foyer?! And what a classic, profound motif--it won't ever go out of style. We've never sold it in stone, probably because there are only a couple of sample boards out there, but I'm dying to obtain installation photography because it's so graphic. Any ideas?

I know you're probably sick of me saying "we can make it for you in any size or colors you like" but, there you go, I'm compelled to mention it just in case you don't know us at New Ravenna very well yet.

Here's another pattern we developed with James--it's called "Ikebana" and is based upon a classic Japanese print of pine needles which, Georgia O'Keefe-like, he again enlarged:



For "Indus" below, we experimented with bronze inlay:

"Indus" was used as radiator covers in one of the rooms at Kipp's Bay this year (through Studium, a terrific distributor of ours in New York) but I didn't get to see an installation photo :(

More fabulous designs, but they're scans and don't do the textures justice--simple, understated, and sophisticated:

Above is "Eden Rock" and below, "Vela". All of James' mosaics employ what we describe as "hand-chopped and tumbled" tesserae as opposed to mosaics originating with perfect squares. Extremely labor intensive, mosaics employing this process have a more organic, hand-made, authentic feel.

We used our water-jet capabilities to combine solid elements with a striated mosaic background in "Simone":

The actual rug shows how one can group several sets of birds to create interesting compositions which of course we can make in mosaic as well. It also causes me to wonder what our mosaic version would look like in more of a tone on tone colorway:

James is not only easy to work with, he's a lot of fun too. Recently we asked him and Miriam to partner with us on an entry in a product design contest for a local non-profit-applicant called "Central Green" (which Tucker Robbins started). Central Green is an "active model of sustainable living", and includes rural economic development in its roster of initiatives, along with green energy, agricultural best practices, etc. James designed a long, low coffee table that we fabricated for him out of water-jet cut glass:

Based upon an Indian prayer rug, in my humble opinion the translation into glass is pure genius. Thank you James. Here's to more synergy in the future!

Show Us Some Skin

Or, Lions and Tigers and...Zebras!

This is one of my first mosaics a la 1992. It was made from porcelain tiles from the local American Olean distributorship in Philadelphia. I must have driven general manager Rick Odorico crazy--wandering into his shop with a baby on my hip, asking for "two square feet" of about fifteen different colors that were all on the top shelf. Last I heard Rick had been promoted inside Dal-tile to a very stratospheric level. Rick, if you're out there, a big THANK YOU.


It is entitled "A Mutually Satisfying Relationship" which gives you a glimpse into my psychology at the time. "If only I can find someone to swish flies off my nose, I'd gladly..." you get the picture. Come to think of it, what exactly is wrong with that philosophy? In any case, this was my first exposure to the joys of animal prints. Today, New Ravenna goes on safari regularly in both literal and abstract ways:


These are some of the more literal translations...Check out this incredible bar top that New Ravenna fabricated for a penthouse apartment. We not only made the mosaic, we mounted, grouted, and put a gorgeous finish on it as well:




Now we come to one of my favorite patterns--it's part of the "abstract" category of animal skin translations, and is part of the "metamorphosis" collection by Sara Baldwin Design. Several years ago, I was fascinated by a piece of zebra wood veneer that I kept on my desk. I scanned it in and blew it up to about ten times it's normal size, thinking I'd make it into an actual rug, made out of wool. I can't find the entire scan, but here's part of it:


Here are some wool rug samples I had made up--if you look closely, they're half loop, half cut-pile:


Then it occurred to me that we should be using our tatami stalks to fabricate a stone mosaic design in the same style and here's what we came up with:

The above panel is seven feet tall and obviously can be custom-made into whatever size panel you like...always with a random non-repeating pattern. It's especially popular as a back-splash . Below, see what happens to the pattern when it's turned in the vertical direction:

Studium, one of our favorite showrooms in New York (hi there David, Berna and Lucio!), originally suggested we recolor "zebrano", and a clever suggestion it was.

We also have a lovely two-shades-of-blue and white combo and a celadon green/gray/white combo which I have yet to post. Then again, you know us, we can't ever say "no", so you can order it in virtually any color you want, even in GLASS if you like that texture better. So go crazy. Show us some skin.

P.S. If you live anywhere near Denver (Oct. 13), Aspen (Oct. 14) or Vail (Oct 15): this week yours truly will be giving mosaic seminars at the Decorative Materials Showrooms. I look forward to meeting you!