The Innovator

Sara Baldwin mosaicist & furniture designer

For Sara Baldwin, it wasn’t enough that she’s built a multi-million dollar mosaic company, started single-handedly in 1991 with a $5,000 loan from her parents.

Or that her client list reads like a recital of Oscar recipients, or that she produces private-label lines for the world’s most exclusive bath and tile companies. Unable to rest on her laurels, this past year, Baldwin decided to launch her own furniture line. “I was originally attracted to mosaics because they have function as well as form. And furniture, to me, has similar appeal; it’s a combination of the practical and the artistic.”

Her line of mid-century-modern-inspired pieces range from acrylic-based coffee tables topped with three-inch slabs of walnut to vanities that incorporate stone details. Hers is a fruitful endeavor born from necessity. After unsuccessfully searching for bases on which to mount her established collection of mosaic tabletops, she decided to create her own. “After I started designing, I was taken with the whole idea of furniture design in its entirety, even without the mosaics.”

The results are clean, sculptural pieces, with just a hint of art deco appeal. “It’s not just about the end product but the beauty of the materials that go into it,” says the Cape Charles, Va., resident. What’s next for Baldwin? “I’ve always wanted to design sterling silver flatware,” she says. All this in addition to building a 3,000-square-foot home on the sand dunes overlooking the Bay on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Alas, a woman’s
work is never done…(757-442-3379 or http://www.newravenna.com)—K.B.

The Colorist

Fiona Newell Weeks interior designer

For Fiona Newell Weeks, the delight of interior design is in the details. “I like my rooms to be creative, with something that attracts the eye,” she says. “I try to create a space that keeps you entertained the whole time.”

Weeks, who recently moved her business from Potomac to Easton, is best known for her fearless use of color. Take the wall-paper in her own dining room, for example: a flirtatiously electric peacock blue damask print. “It’s what people most recognize about my work,” she says. “Color can absolutely change someone’s life and affect their moods.”

In her fourteen years in the business, Weeks has designed everything from beach houses for Washington politicos to a movie producer’s Watergate penthouse.

“I try and understand the person and how they live and make it best for them,” she says. “I have the most fun when a client says, ‘Go ahead and get a little daring. I’ll trust you.’”

Weeks’s scope is wide-ranging, from English country to modern. “I’m always trying to figure out what the next trend is going to be,” says Weeks, who often takes her cues from the natural world, paging through old gardening books to find powerful combinations of colors and textures. “There’s usually something out of nature that becomes the big thing.”

Her style forecast? “The next big anchor color is going to be charcoal, which looks great with pale coral or lemon.” (410-763-7940. http://www.web.mac.com/fnweeks)—K.B.

The Viewmaster

Chip Bohl architect

“There’s always been a continuum between traditional and modern homes, and, in some ways, there’s no way that a home is purely modern,” explains Annapolis architect Chip Bohl. “Every home still has beams, columns, doors, walls. When we build today, we are building somewhere between the past and the future.”

A devotee of early modern architecture, the Ohio native has created everything from a Green-wich Village loft to a completely green residence in Hawaii. Although he focused his early career on restoration and preservation projects, his signature look has evolved into what he calls
“art houses,” innovative structures comprised of glass and natural materials that command respect for the way they bow to natural light and the surrounding landscape. “Much of the work that I do is about creating interior spaces that capture a view,” says Bohl, whose firm also provides interior design. “I create rooms that are as intimate as they are explosive. You can be in a space and feel comfortable, but, at the same time, it dramatically captures the view.”

For Bohl, the evolution within his craft is constant. “We’re doing a lot of sustainable building with geothermal heat sources, photovoltaic electric systems, and innovative insulation. From an ethical point of view, I feel a responsibility to building that sustains the earth and creates healthy houses for my clients.” (410-263-2200. http://www.bohlarchitects.com)—K.B.

The Craftsman

David Iatesta furniture & lighting design

“When I was a little kid, my dad set up a workshop for me, with every tool you can imagine,” recalls furniture and lighting designer David Iatesta.

“I remember making a mahogany plant stand that looked like a small ladder. It was the first thing I ever made. It was unknowingly my future.”
Iatesta’s father still has that plant stand, but now Oprah has several of his beds, Elton John a pair of consoles, and Madonna took home a mirror.

After restoring furniture for Marston Luce Antiques and Cote Jardin in Georgetown, in 1998 Iatesta set out on his own, designing his first line in a defunct Annapolis greenhouse. “While I was restoring, I’d see container loads of antique furniture from France and Italy and would sketch the neat details I saw in them. I’d always had in mind to do a small collection of my own, but I never thought it would get this involved.”

“Involved” soon transitioned into fully committed, and in 2004, Iatesta moved his Annapolis operation to a Stevensville studio, where, today, he employs thirty-five craftsmen to produce his line of 150 furniture products and 50 light fixtures. His trademarks are his finishes: from ebonized to shagreen to artfully worn patinas, achieved by meticulously hand-rubbing, painting, and distressing wood and metal. “Our twist is bridging the gap between traditional and contemporary styles,” says Iatesta, whose ten retail showrooms now stretch from San Francisco to D.C. “We take beautiful, classic elements and clean them up, so that they fit in with modern pieces and antiques.”

Iatesta’s new outdoor line, a collection of wood, bronze, and teak furniture, is due out this spring. “It’s fashion. You need to have something new out there to keep the community interested.” Wonder what Oprah will pick out next… (410-604-0360 or http://www.davidiatesta.com)—K.B.

The Explorer

Carol Ann Minarick artist

Carol Ann Minarick’s studio is in Easton’s Brookletts Building, a defunct circa-1920s furniture factory that’s funky and edgy, words that could just as easily describe her artwork. Minarick constructs abstract large-scale room screens, paintings, and sculpture that incorporates a mix of media: concrete, acrylic paint, black ink, and raw materials (oyster shells, straw, leaves from the Wye Oak). “What I want to do is explore ideas in the work,” says Minarick. “My work is definitely contemporary, and I’m very into explorations and the juxtaposition of materials and ideas.”

Trained at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in the 1970s, Minarick explains that her inspiration comes from history, war, the sea, horses. While she doesn’t consider her art to be revolutionary, it boldly stands apart from the predominantly traditional artists’ canvases in the region. “I think the contemporary artists working in the area are bringing something into the present that’s necessary in the future,” she says. “But contemporary art is the mind of the time,” she explains. “It’s fearless.”

For those who balk at the idea of hanging modern art in a traditional home, Minarick uses her own life as an example. She lives with her husband in a circa-1890s house that creates a beautiful backdrop for her artwork. “If you have wall space, you can put something on it,” she quips. “Wallpaper we take for granted, its just pattern, pattern, pattern. But a good piece of artwork is always going to feed you something.” (410-822-0636)—C.M.

The Gatekeeper

Miles Barnard landscape architect

Landscapes around the region have found a friend in Miles Barnard. The thirty-four-year-old Chestertown-based landscape architect relies on a palette of native plants to create his scenes. “It just makes sense to step back and see how the project fits into the larger ecosystem,” says Barnard, who named his four-year-old firm, South Fork Studio Landscape Architecture, after his family vacation spot on the south fork of Colorado’s San Miguel River.

From intimate, elegant poolside gardens to sweeping meadows lush with warm-season grasses, Barnard’s designs all have one thing in common: precise detailing. “For me, it’s all about the garden gate, the masonry structures, the paving patterns,” he says. “I think not
only about the texture of plants, but the texture of the stone, the steel, or the brick. I enjoy merging together those finely tuned details with the softness and imprecision of native plants.”

While development continues to encroach throughout the region, Barnard’s antidote is creating untamed, natural landscapes. “When it’s appropriate, I try to introduce some amount of organized chaos into my designs to make things look like they evolved naturally over time,” he says. “Everything needs a little bit of a patina to look right, and I try to create spaces that look like they have always been there and aren’t over-designed. I love to create subtleties where, individually, things seem a bit off, but when you step back and take in the scene as a whole, it works.” (410-778-1098)—K.B.

The Purveyor

Jane Keller interior design boutique owner
When Jane Keller opened her Coastal America home furnish-ings store last November in Chestertown, she tapped into a niche of homeowners living the high-end waterfront lifestyle, but dreading the kitsch associated with nautical-theme design.

“The look is classic, antique timelessness juxtaposed with a new sophistication,” says Keller. “My personal style is eclectic and high end, which is the exact theme of the store.”

A twenty-five-year interior design veteran, Keller is “inspired by the sea” when selecting for her home furnishing, accessories, and design store, though you won’t find coasters sporting lighthouses. In fact, there’s nothing overtly nautical about the place. Consider the dining chairs with antique kilim carpet backs or the Lloyd Buxton inlaid chests.

Keller, who lived in Micronesia for two years, collects her pieces during frequent trips to seaside-destinations, from Capri to Maine, as well as epicenters of interior design, from Paris to New York.

“I shop in unusual places all over the world to find unique antiques, art objects, antique jewelry, sculpture,” she explains. “I’m trying to make a wonderful mix of antique and new items that offers just a hint of the coastal.” (410-810-3044 or http://www.coastalamerica.com)—C.M.