A Glazed Stone Collection at New Ravenna

The pandemic has created an unintended consequence at New Ravenna:

A bright, midcentury-modern palette.

“We’re seeing an uptick in requests for color,” says Cean Irminger, creative director. “People want to see life and vibrancy these days, because they’re working from home.”

So for the Glazed Basalto Collection, Irminger focused on materials, rather than the usual patterns. “This stone is quarried in Italy and then glazed,” she says. “It’s a true stone with a manmade glaze – a perfect marriage of the two.”

It’s a stone so durable that it’s used to pave roads in Italy. And the artisans at New Ravenna implement distinctly different processes for it. “When you fire it, it hand-nips beautifully,” she says. “There are nippers for ancient-style mosaics, where every piece is cut like tesserae to shape the stones the way we want – but it can also be water-jet cut.”

And it can be tumbled for a more natural look – or to seem to have been in the ground a thousand years. “It comes out brilliantly colored, and the glaze doesn’t crack or come off at all,” she says.

Irminger’s reached back into three decades of product design to create two story lines. “One is midcentury modern, with bold, bright colors, like textiles interpreted in stone,” she says. “And then a lot of patterns we’ve have had in our portfolio for years – they’re more neutral, but now we pop the colors out through patterns.”

Three color palettes are now available – the original neutrals, then earth tones, and now jewel tones. “The first nine colors were jewel tones, hand-applied glazes so there’s opacity that reminds me of velvet,” she says. “We’re focused on earth tones too, like terracotta, pinks, and greens – less jewel tones and more like what you find in pottery – and we added grays and blacks and whites.”

As for installations, Glazed Basalto can be used on swimming pools with bold terracotta, or on backsplashes, showers, or foyers. “They can be small mosaics, and grand ones with the water jet,” she says. “The sky’s the limit.”

And the palette runs the gamut.

For more, go here.

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