At a former Civil War-era schoolhouse in middle-of-nowhere Kent County, a glitzy international trade show was taking shape. An icy rain fell on the darkened fields of little Locust Grove as Joe Karlik sat designing a set in 3D for a springtime event that his client, MTV, plans for that sunny coastal paradise, the French Riviera.
"There it is," Karlik said. He referred to the outline of a virtual 105-inch plasma television he was dragging electronically onto the mockup emerging on his computer screen. In April a real version of that TV will entertain an assemblage of European broadcasters. "We're making it MTV cool," he said.
On the far side of Karlik's half-acre property, a former general store that also dates to the 1860s provided the setting for a different creative pursuit: illustrations for children. Karlik's wife, Nicole in den Bosch, is revising her sketches for a how-to crafts guide that will show kids clever ways to work with beads.
The two Maryland Institute College of Art grads make up what they call Locust Grove Studios, named after a hamlet north of Chestertown too small to deserve its own post office. Right between the individual studios, the couple lives with their 3-year-old son, Cy, in a 19th-century house they've painstakingly restored.
Jealous yet? How about this: The artists have transformed the house and each of their studios into a cozy attractiveness worthy of a magazine spread. Not that they're bragging, or looking for publicity. In fact, Karlik, who is 34 and has a bushy goatee, seems to enjoy the relative anonymity of living off the beaten path yet still very much on the grid.
"We're two crazy artists," he said with a shrug, "hiding in Kent County doing crazy stuff."
What began in 2001 as a quest for affordable space - to paint, to sculpt, to draw, to breathe - is a vivid example of the reach and ease of modern telecommuting. Have broadband, can travel.
She zings big files of drawings to a Minneapolis publisher with the click of a mouse. He remotely transfers intricate set designs to a software program so that crews anywhere can build them down to the inch. After nearly eight years in Locust Grove, they still need the FedEx delivery guy, but less so since the arrival of high-speed Internet.
To stave off isolation, the family takes frequent trips across the Bay Bridge to Washington, where they visit galleries and museums. Periodically they drive over to Baltimore or up to New York.
