P R OF I L E
MARK MARESCA & KATHRYN FAULL IN CONVERSATION WITH The Urban Electric Co.
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TWO MEMBERS OF A SUPREMELY CREATIVE FAMILY, MARK MARESCA AND KATHRYN
FAULL ARE A FATHER-DAUGHTER DUO WHOSE INDIVIDUAL PURSUITS HAVE IMPACTED THE WORLDS OF DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE. MARK IS A RENOWNED ARCHITECT
WHOSE TALENTS EXTEND TO EVERYTHING FROM INTERIOR CONCEPTS TO PRODUCT DESIGN. KATHRYN IS A GIFTED ARTIST WHOSE MARESCA TEXTILES FABRICS AND
WALLPAPERS ARE INCREASINGLY SOUGHT AFTER BY INTERIOR DESIGNERS. THEIR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESSES ALONE WOULD MAKE THEIR STORY WORTH SHARING...
But it’s only the short version.
MARK MARESCA & KATHRYN FAULL
To us, their story is a more personal one, dating back to the beginning of Urban Electric. Mark designed one of our earliest collections and has remained a constant collaborator ever since. Along the way, he has introduced us to his family—even naming some of his collection in their honor. As a result of that intimate and ongoing relationship, we have witnessed up close the creative talents that have emerged from the next generation of Marescas. Which is where Kathryn comes in.
IN CONVERSATION WITH The Urban Electric Co.
Though she is now based in Chicago and Mark remains in Charleston, we connected with them over the course of four interviews spread over as many months to gain a deeper insight into this family of creatives and designers we’ve come to know. We plumbed childhood tales and early sources of inspiration, unearthed stories at the heart of their respective approaches to their work, even enlisted Kathryn’s sister (and Mark’s other daughter), Lauren, a fine artist, for the illustrations at right. The result is a portrait of a family whose enduring creative legacy is poised to influence the budding generation yet to come.
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Illustrations by Lauren Maresca.
“I’D BE IN MY FRIENDS’ COOKIE-CUTTER DINING ROOMS AND THEN COME HOME TO OUR PURPLE ONE. BUT EVEN THEN I RECOGNIZED ON SOME LEVEL HOW COOL THAT WAS.” -KATHRYN
MARK MARESCA & KATHRYN FAULL in conversation with UECo.
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athryn: Dad, I remember hearing stories about
point, I always had a room that was beautiful and it
your childhood but tell me more about what you
had to stay beautiful. As a child, I found that really
were like as a child, because I know you were not like
difficult because I wanted to just put crappy posters
everyone else.
of kittens or something on my wall and that was not
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allowed. I could do whatever I wanted in my closet, ark: (laughs) Well, we moved to Greenville,
though, so I had the entire thing wallpapered with
South Carolina, from just outside of Princeton,
posters that I had gotten from a Scholastic catalog at
New Jersey, and my sisters and I were all allowed to
school. That was my way of self-expression, I guess.
decorate our rooms. I did mine dark brown—the entire
So, yeah, it was a little bit harder for me to be original
room. I went to Sherwin-Williams and painted every
in my space as a child (even though, again, it was a
surface dark brown: the ceiling, the walls, the trim,
beautiful environment to grow up in).
the shutters. And my father worked for this carpet company, Bigelow, and I found the same color for the
U ECo : Mark, was that a reflection of wishing
floor. I even had an accent wall, which was all dark
that someone had helped you cultivate your
brown grasscloth. And that room was where every little
room in a better way or a different way? Or once
bit of money I would get would go. I joined this art club
you finally got a taste of the power of design, you
that was advertised in the back of The New York Times,
found it difficult to release those reins?
which would send you this little piece of art every two months for $10 or something, and that started my art wall. I also had an old brass bed that was real sleek
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ark: Well, I was a very precocious child, and when my parents moved to Greenville I actually
looking. I polished it meticulously. I was a very strange
helped them design their first house. I was only a
child in the sense that everything had to be a certain
10-year-old kid, but I would go to the job site every
way. I found a gigantic white ginger jar and made a
day, and I was just mortified at the decisions they were
lampshade out of wreaths. All sorts of things. When my
making—things like the shutters on the house that
sisters would come by the room, they were like, “Uhhh...
weren’t actually operable—and it made me crazy. Like,
what’s going on in there?,” but that was the first
why would you build a house without operable shutters!
environment that I was able to sort of create.
And when I got exposed to all of the details that go into creating a house, I just recognized how wrong it all
So that was my first recollection of a room. Katie, I don’t
was...the hardware, the finishes, all just wrong. So even
know if I allowed you to have your room the way that
in the first house that my wife, Melissa, and I moved
you wanted it…
into—and thankfully she is also a trained architect
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so I have a very like-minded partner—it was very athryn: I think it’s interesting this discussion
important that everything be reflective of what we were
we are having about creativity being something
all about.
that’s innate, and I think that is very obvious in my dad’s childhood. You know, he grew up in an environment where his parents weren’t very interested
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athryn: Which brings me to another story I remember as a child in that home. We had an
in architecture and art, and he figured out a way to
eggplant-colored dining room, which I’m sure was a
incorporate that into his lifestyle anyway, whereas I
custom color, and it was a space I only appreciated in
was raised in an environment that was bursting with
hindsight. As a kid, you want to be just like everyone
creativity. My home was always filled with beautiful
else, and I’d be in all of my friends’ cookie-cutter dining
things and I always had a beautiful room. But, to that
rooms and then come home to our purple one. But even
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then I recognized on some level how cool that was.
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and all over the world, and my parents were able to experience that with me, which opened us all up to
ark: And mom had dyed her hair that color,
new possibilities, new people, new experiences.
remember?
U ECo : How much did you also draw from
athryn: It wasn’t totally intentional. She wanted
watching your parents build their careers as
her hair, which was really short at the time, a bit
you were growing up?
darker and I guess her stylist put some kind of purple tint in it and she came home and was camouflaged in that room and it was really funny. And even though it
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athryn: I think when we moved to Charleston, it was kind of that next step in expanding Dad’s
was totally unintended, it was the kind of punk rock
influence, because Charleston is such a different place.
style that somehow just worked on her.
I mean, right, Dad? How do you feel about how the move affected your business?
One more thing, Dad. I know you and Mom got a kick out of stenciling, which definitely influenced me, both in my work and in just having a general
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ark: Well, I think as far as moving to Charleston, the exposure to such beautiful
understanding that as long as you’re creative and
architecture and details was important. It’s one of
resourceful, you can make your home look unique
the few cities in the United States where you could
without a lot of money. And if you do spend money,
live comfortably and still be informed and inspired
like my parents did on art and textiles, you buy the
by everything you see. And I think that to live in a
one expensive thing that you keep for the rest of your
very old 1800s house, to go through the restoration
life. My sister, Lauren, who is a fine artist, was clearly
process we went through, to have the opportunity
influenced by that, too.
to enjoy what’s good and what’s bad about it and to
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understand that just because something is old doesn’t ark: And Mom was always that way, very, very tuned into what could be beautiful in
the simplest of ways. Like that time we went to this black tie thing and we couldn’t afford to really buy anything. I had this borrowed tux and, well, no one really looks at a man during a black tie event, but... Melissa thought, “What am I going to wear?” So she
mean it’s well designed, was really impactful.
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athryn: Yeah, it was designed for a different time, a different person. ark: Being able to live in a house with such history makes you think differently and your
made some kind of slip and took an old sari from our
perspective changes, it just does. I think all the houses
collection and wrapped it around her. No jewelry or
that we have lived in have shaped our life in one way
anything, just that sari and her gorgeous dark hair
or another.
and she was the most amazing-looking woman there. She walked in and people were like, “Oh my god…that woman’s got style!” U ECo : So, Kathryn, the spirit of all of this great expression was clearly impactful.
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athryn: And for a long time, Dad had his office in the house, and so he was around and even though
Mom stopped working when I was in the second grade, she always had creative projects going on, and so it felt like we were all kind of in business together.
How did you find your own creative voice?
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When I look back to starting my business, one athryn: I think it blossomed for me slowly,
component of that was being able to make my own
through travel and being exposed to cities like
schedule—especially now that I am starting a family
New York and Paris, going to museums, and then it
of my own. My parents worked really hard, but they
sort of crystallized when I went away to college and
were able to be self-sufficient so I never doubted my
had a place of my own to decorate and appreciate. I
own ability to have a career and a family. I know that
was at Yale, meeting people from all over the country
it’s not always going to be easy, but I love the idea of
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integrating my child into my work life, too, having her
is to have that opportunity to share what delights her.
come with me into the office. I hope that I can teach
And I think about our past experiences, when I would
her things there that she will be interested in—and if
be down in my little studio and she would be sitting
she’s not into it, that’s fine, but the idea of having her
at the drawing board right behind me and drawing
in the studio and being engaged in the projects that I
her own picture of what she thought the house should
am doing and teaching her to sew and block print just
be. Later, she would start coloring, and maybe I’d
seems really exciting to me. That prospect of seeing
design a house and make a blueprint of it, and she
how my lifestyle and our family’s lifestyle is reflected
would color it in various colors. And we would be up
in her and how she expresses her creativity is—I’m all
listening to music loud and those sort of experiences
in it for that.
were pretty strong and powerful and very joyful. The
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idea that she will get to see that same sort of light in ark: I think about Katie, and about the
her own children is very satisfying. No, it’s more than
daughter she is expecting and how amazing it
satisfying. It’s everything.
Maresca family foyer.
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THE MARESCAS’ GARDEN T H E B AT T E R Y F R I D AY, O C T O B E R 3 0 , 2 0 2 0 5:52PM