Orange Magazine

Digital Decor

Call it a reinvention. Call it a new direction.

 

Whatever you call it, this is the tale of one artisan rewriting his business plan to take advantage of technology while weathering the economic storm.

 

Mark Fowler began his craft painting houses, working his way through Ramapo College. The environmental science major from Jersey City spent summers painting the big houses of Bergen, Westchester and Tuxedo. He liked the work.

 

While on the job, he saw a decorative painter and heard a calling. He took classes in Soho and a career was born. Mark began his own business, Martin & Fowler Studio Inc., in 1986. “There weren’t a lot of us back then,” he says.

 

His specialties were tromp l’oeil, Venetian plaster, architectural finishes and gold leafing. But, “my passion was mural work,” Mark says.

 

Martin & Fowler in Wayne, N.J., grew to 10-15 employees, including classically trained artists meticulously hand-drawing and painting intricate oil murals that graced the walls and ceilings of homes throughout the area.

 

Murals could range from an Old Master reproduction that wrapped a library or a Chinoiserie of birds staring down from the ceiling over a formal dining table.

“A lot of clients are builders, interior designers and homeowners,” he says. “More and more over the years, builders are more interested in the decorative arts.”

 

Business was good for more than 20 years, but murals are expensive. It takes time and talent. Each mural begins as a hand-drawn original sketch, is turned into a grid and then enlarged to whatever size the client wants. Add in the repeats (like with wallpaper) and the intricacy it takes to wrap an entire room’s nooks and crannies with these

original panels. This is a job of painstaking hand-painted time and painstaking hand-installed precision.

 

Mark’s work got noticed. He was featured in Architectural Digest. New York Spaces. Design NJ. Veranda. His decorative work can be seen in homes throughout the

region.

 

His work came to the attention of Stark® Wallcovering, which asked him to create designs for the company’s Americana line. Martin & Fowler began producing individual designs just after 9/11. Each was produced in the old method like the murals. It was time consuming. So, Mark looked into going digital, producing the designs on computer instead of by hand.

 

“I never thought digital would hold up,” Mark admits. “But you can get a beautiful piece of digital art to wrap around a room.” After all, a computer has the ability to perfectly match colors and textures.

 

As Mark began to investigate digital, the economy started to sour. One-of-a-kind, handmade murals “became a tough sell,” he says. Digital has advantages: lower cost and faster reproduction time. The recession made the foray into digital a necessity. And a new company, Copia Solutions Inc., was born. Copia (Italian for “to reproduce”) is a partnership between Mark and Christine Reidinger, who handles marketing and research.

 

Copia takes Mark’s beloved ages-old European craft and turns it high-tech to embrace today’s modern production methods. “I think we’re the only one who does this,” he says.

 

Copia will mostly design fabrics and wallcoverings. Each panel, which can range from 3 feet to 4 feet wide and from 4 feet to 12 feet high, can be done as wallpaper or as canvas. One mural usually consists of 10 panels. The scene is then repeated as often as the client needs. A full design averages about 30-35 feet of wallpaper. Wallpaper has the advantage of being easier to install. Designs can be ordered from anywhere; it doesn’t matter if the client lives locally. The papers can then be shipped to the interior designer or the client and can be installed by any wallpaper professional. Designs are available in many colors. A client may love a French pastoral in greens, but want the design for a blue-themed room. Mark’s color expertise comes into play here; he can suggest hues that will work and gently dissuade a client from choosing colors that won’t work well in a particular scene. Products are also available in a variety of finishes, from the aged look of antiquity to a modern sharper image.

 

The pair also created Fowler Lé Maison, which offers hand-painted scenic murals. All are branded and the company owns the originals. Fowler Lé Maison is concentrating on the Chinese, Italian and French scenic murals that have been Martin & Fowler’s mainstay. The goal is “to provide a product at an affordable cost, while still creating a chic, timeless and sophisticated environment,” the Web site states. Each high-quality wallcovering is a reproduction of hand-painted scenic designs created by the company’s artists. Mark is also looking at public domain art to expand the company’s offerings. Inspiration may come from vintage materials that aren’t copyrighted.

 

The company is also in talks with several internationally known design houses. Mark has a new deal with Stark, which will showcase six of his original designs (www.starkwallcovering.com) under the Fowler Lé Maison brand. And in case he isn’t busy enough, Mark, a Tuxedo Park resident, writes a monthly artist’s perspective column for the Tuxedo Park Business Portfolio.

 

And while the pair looks to the past for visual inspiration, Christine has been looking to the future in terms of production. She has researched eco-friendly odorless inks, new printing papers and the latest machinery so that the company has been able to reduce costs up to 50 percent to the trade. That means that builders and interior designers can pass the savings on to the homeowner.

 

“What we offer is affordable luxury,” says Mark.

 

Martin & Fowler Studio, Inc.  www.martinandfowler.com
Fowler le’ Maison www.fowlerlemaison.com