So you say you’ve grown roots here in Maine? Prove it.

Miles Perry will help you. Perry hand-prints artsy images onto rustic-looking burlap and frames them to hang on your wall. He’ll make you a black-ink image of Maine with scraggly roots hanging down. (Got cousins in Texas? He’ll make one for them, too, using the image of the Lone Star state.)

Perry, born in Damariscotta, spent four years working as a film editor and production assistant in Los Angeles before he decided he’d rather become an entrepreneur.

“I was just getting my feet wet in the industry, but it wasn’t for me,” he said. “I wanted a simpler, more organic lifestyle.”

Perry and his wife, April, moved back to Maine six years ago, and he took up screen printing, a job he had done before. But he hadn’t ever been satisfied with the designs he made for someone else. His wife suggested he try burlap as a background, he made up a couple of his own designs, “and we loved the way it looked.”

He started his own business, called Fiber and Water, and started selling his work at the Portland Flea For All. Then he jumped to trade shows in Boston and throughout New England. He now sells his designs in Nordstrom, Bed Bath & Beyond and L.L. Bean, as well as at fiberandwater.com.

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Perry still makes all the art at in his home studio in Cape Elizabeth.

“We still do everything by hand,” he said. “I still silkscreen every one at a time. It’s a lot of work.”

He now has more than 300 designs. In addition to the state “roots” series, Perry silkscreens city maps and skylines; nautical images such as an anchor, starfish or lighthouse; vegetables, herbs and farm animals, including chickens, cows and pigs; monograms for weddings and anniversaries; and sports images, including a map of Fenway Park.

An 11-by-14 piece of framed wall art costs $48.95; unframed pieces cost $19.95. Custom art and monograms are $10-15 more.


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