Live-Edge Design Trend Expands to Include Natural Stone

LOWELL, Mass., Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Designers and homeowners are moving away from the same old straight lines. The perfect arc, the predictable bend, oval and square staples seem to have lost their aesthetic pulse. Design trends have left these reticent shapes behind in favor of organic edges that are trending.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141119/159764

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141119/159765 

The new school flair of live-edge designs has been embraced by professional decorators, DIY homemakers, and everyone in between. Home interior magazines have swelled to include natural wooden counters, tree-stump end tables and reclaimed lumber floors. While wood gets a majority of the live-edge love, design lovers now have a new vehicle to bring organic lines into their home— Fieldstone!

One art studio has introduced this fresh medium to live-edge home artifacts. American Stonecraft transforms raw, New England fieldstones into unique serving and tableware. The studio creates stone food slabs, coasters, and bowls. They slice, polish, and seal each stone piece, but always allow their work to retain its raw edges and natural form. As the only design studio working with fieldstone, American Stonecraft has an unparalleled aesthetic. "We feature the nature's mold not only inside the stone in terms of color, but we also preserve the tumbled weathered shape and exterior," says studio founder Gerald Croteau.

Clearly this attitude has paid off. Stores and boutiques in 48 states and 4 countries resell the studio's work and prove the popularity of this live-edge design trend for stone. The home design trend of living edge artifacts from the outdoors is perhaps less surprising given that green, eco-friendly, and natural products have been so persistently popular for the past 5 to 10 years.

Collectors of American Stonecraft's artistry often seek out the most unusual shapes available. "We have had customers complain that their stones aren't weird enough! They will search for the most unusual outline and tell us they don't want anything 'too round,'" says Croteau. Fieldstones were tumbled in ancient glaciers before getting deposited in the Northeast topsoil approximately 10,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. The freeze-thaw cycle pushes them perpetually back up and out of the ground, giving them the name fieldstones. Farmers have removed so many boulders from fields that there are more miles of stonewalls in New England than miles from the Earth to the Moon.

About American Stonecraft

American Stonecraft is a Lowell, Mass. studio that shares the story of a land that grows rocks, and the farmers who battle them. We do this by making a line of serving wares: coasters, slabs, and bowls, from fieldstones gathered at rocky New England farms. We stamp the underside of each good we make with the name of the source farm where the rock came from. On some goods, we also add a link to our website where there are pictures and information about each of these sourcing farms. Our work is sold by Gift, Home, and Food retailers in 48 US States, Canada, Mexico, and Australia.

Contact:
Gerald Croteau III
978-254-7625
www.AmericanStonecraft.com

SOURCE American Stonecraft