sarabaldwin

It gives me great pleasure to announce a sales tool upgrade–we have a new catalog! For years, whenever one of our dealers has desired to share more of the New Ravenna line with a customer, they have been forced to use unwieldy binders with mediocre print quality.  While better than nothing, I’ve never been happy with them. The new and improved catalog has a soft cover, 186 pages, and print quality that makes our old binders look sort of hung-over. New Ravenna Jewel Glass palette... Read Full Story

Well, not exactly. A few weeks ago, an idea that I thought was pretty, ahem, brilliant made it’s way into my Halloween skull.  Lately I’ve been fascinated by lights with designs punched into their shades… What if, I thought, I used a cordless drill to make hundreds of holes in a pumpkin for a really beautiful Jack-O-Lantern? So I went to borrow my boyfriend’s drill from his shop SouthEast Expeditions and shared this incredibly novel idea with my friend Lenore, who said, “Oh yeah... Read Full Story

Although some people would debate the sanity part. New Ravenna is a busy place, and although it can be exhilarating, sometimes the pressure of making sure the trains run on time  is, well, stressful–for all of us. One of my fall resolutions is to take more walks and spend more time with Mother Nature. Oh, and to learn how to use my vegetable juicer. This is a surprised ghost crab who lives on the beach that I frequent.  They are rather cute critters that usually disappear into their... Read Full Story

Or, Giovanni Barbieri +  New Ravenna One of the finest visionaries in the surfaces world is  Giovanni Barbieri . I met Giovanni at the Verona Fair (the Italian trade show for all things stone related) years ago and was seduced by his Lucido line. Through the use of a proprietary, carefully guarded secret machine, his studio applies a subtle surface undulation to Carrara, Bianco Antico and other types of stone tiles, transforming them into exquisite surfaces that you immediately want to... Read Full Story

Sometimes we fabricate a concept board in unique colors and it gets sent to a showroom, never to be seen again--by us at least. When we do this without photographing it or at least scanning the pattern, I call it "sending the intellectual property into a black hole". Duh. Take this board (our Jaqueline Vine pattern, usually shown in white), for example. Recently, one of our showrooms returned it in the hopes that we can match this lot of green. Seeing it in our offices by Sally's desk, I... Read Full Story

Sometimes we fabricate a concept board in unique colors and it gets sent to a showroom, never to be seen again–by us at least. When we do this without photographing it or at least scanning the pattern, I call it “sending the intellectual property into a black hole”. Duh. Take this board (our Jaqueline Vine pattern, usually shown in white), for example. Recently, one of our showrooms returned it in the hopes that we can match this lot of green. Seeing it in our offices by Sally’s desk, I... Read Full Story

Dietrich works in our shipping department. Today we are happy to announce that, after a stint in the hospital, Dietrich is back at work (yay!), gallantly shepherding mosaic projects to their future owners. Here he is holding a panel that a local client ordered (yet to be framed) for their stove back splash--they added sea creatures to our "Eddies" pattern. Maybe I'll be able to post an installation photo soon. It takes a village here at New Ravenna , to make your mosaic dreams a reality... Read Full Story

Dietrich works in our shipping department. Today we are happy to announce that, after a stint in the hospital, Dietrich is back at work (yay!), gallantly shepherding mosaic projects to their future owners. Here he is holding a panel that a local client ordered (yet to be framed) for their stove back splash–they added sea creatures to our “Eddies” pattern. Maybe I’ll be able to post an installation photo soon. It takes a village here at New Ravenna , to make your mosaic dreams a reality... Read Full Story

Or, Back in the UAE, part three Have you ever had an experience so glorious that you relive it almost every day? Just before Christmas of 2010, my boyfriend Dave and I went to the UAE along with my dear friend the amazing designer Tucker Robbins --you can read about how I met Tucker here , and about our Arabian celebrity friend and host Hussain Al Amry here . When Tucker was urging me to make a reservation to join him in the UAE, he listed a multitude of attractions: "There might be a date... Read Full Story

Or, Back in the UAE, part three Have you ever had an experience so glorious that you relive it almost every day? Just before Christmas of 2010, my boyfriend Dave and I went to the UAE along with my dear friend the amazing designer Tucker Robbins –you can read about how I met Tucker here , and about our Arabian celebrity friend and host Hussain Al Amry here . When Tucker was urging me to make a reservation to join him in the UAE, he listed a multitude of attractions: “There might be a... Read Full Story