Susan Preston book Launch at Barndiva Healdsburg: Take a Bow

The gift of perspective with age

We don’t talk enough about the upsides of old age, which is a great shame. While we go on and on about getting as much as we can from every minute of our lives, devote books and podcasts and practices on how to ‘hold the moment,’ when it comes to aging, too often fear replaces reverence for the lives we can still live as we age. The truth is that all of life, not just youth and middle age, is a blink and you miss it experience. And unlike those other phases of our time on this planet, getting old brings with it the potential of illuminating perspectives, especially if you have been paying attention. Another huge plus- there is a palpable relief in allowing yourself to finally let go of the insatiable need to fill your life with things, and diversions, all that ‘stuff’ you come to realize with age - thanks again to that hard won perspective - do not in themselves bring resonant joy or happiness.

The obsession to deny our aging minds and bodies their agency ignores the fact that our mental and physical health can be fragile at any stage of life- none of us really knows what’s coming. Resilience is the skill set we should be focused on, not clinging onto being young, which is monetized non-stop starting from an age when we are in fact still biologically young! Learning to accept the inevitability of age with intelligence, with grace, is what could be driving more of us to live meaningful lives… before and certainly after we get there.

Towards the end of our lives there is great relief to be found in sitting back on your heels, and basking in the glow of your life’s accomplishments.

It helps, of course, to have accomplishments you can be proud of - even better if they are acknowledged by the tribe.

Gathering Healdsburg’s Artists, Farmers & Makers

On Sunday Sept 14, a very special tribe gathered in Barndiva to celebrate the publication of “In Ghost Time, The Art and Stories of Susan Preston, her remarkable compendium filled with joy and mischievous humor that could only have come out of a long and glorious life, lived with intent. Much has been written about Lou and Susan Preston over the years, their farming life in Dry Creek Valley where they raised glorious vegetables, fruits, nuts, animals, made olive oil, bread, organic wines, all while supporting the growth of a Sonoma County regenerative food shed. Less known is that for all those years, quite a bit before, and while raising a family, Susan Preston never stopped writing and painting, accumulating a remarkable body of work that is now gathered between the pages of this new book. ‘In Ghost Time’ is a record of a life lived fully, infused with kindness, wit, few regrets, no apologies. It is also a heroic endeavor, as the making of the book was the lifeline she used to pull herself out of a very difficult couple of years when her health, indeed her life, was precarious. That she has come out the other side with this magnificent accomplishment was cause for celebration.

Celebrate she did, with her family and a very special community —a veritable who’s who of artists, farmers, and visionaries who have helped make Healdsburg the celebrated destination it is today. Legacy leaders mingled with those still shaping the town’s creative spirit: Bonnie Z of Dragonfly Farm and Floral; Carrie Brown, founder of Jimtown; Cindy Daniels and Doug Lipton, founders of the acclaimed gathering place The Shed; Yael Bernier of Bernier Farms; Dawnelise Rosen, formerly of Scopa and Campo Fina and now executive director of FARMpreneurs; Manok Cohen of Gallery 205; Carol Vena-Monte of the 428 Collective; Laura Parker of Laura Parker Studio, (who exhibited at Barndiva’s opening alongside Susan); Jessica Martin of Jessica Martin Art and the 428 Collective; Barbara von Wollner of BVW Art; Colleen McGlynn and Ridgley Evers of DaVero Farms & Winery; Marci Ellison of Art Farm; Ray Dagischer of Country Industrial; Suzanne & Chris Blum (Blum Box Art); Christina Hobbs of the 428 Collective; Kirsten Petrie of Yarn Paper Print Studio; Marcia Brauer of Preston Family Farm; and of course Francesca Preston, poet, and Maggie Preston of Maggie Preston Studio, Susan’s beloved daughters.

Susan floated through her opening on Sunday with self assured grace, signing books until it was time for a mesmerizing reading to the group assembled beneath the Mulberry Trees in our garden. On this sunny, perfect summer afternoon, in the heart of a splendid community we all helped foster, there was profound admiration for this singular woman. For her art, her honesty, and her resilient spirit.

Working on this book with Susan for the past two years I’ve taken away a great many lessons- not least that old age can be a season of abundance. Would that we all lived lives as fully as she has, with purpose and rootedness. To have an abiding passion for something so fully that when we look back we feel the quiet satisfaction of having become who we were meant to be.

Buy the book! You can find it on Susan’s page @PrestonFarmandWinery.com.

racing the bears

It’s that time of year when it’s a race to get all our ripening fruit off the trees before our ursine ‘neighbors’ pull down the perimeter fencing like lowering a window shade and have at it. We have no complaint. Sharing fruit with the bears, the birds, all the smaller furry four legged animals that still thankfully roam the forests surrounding the farm is an act of kinship. Your care for the land can also be the land caring for you. It would be nice if they only ate what was on the plate (ground) instead of pulling whole branches down from our very very old trees, but you know, bears? Not gonna happen.

Family lore has it that once enough apples fall and begin to ‘marinate’ in their own luxurious juices, the bears become intoxicated from the heady fumes and begin to cast about like drunken sailors. Do all nighters in the orchards, dancing to a mysterious playlist. One of our most infamous cocktails ‘why bears do it,’ speaks to this love affair with the apple. This is a Heads-up time in the orchards as bears don’t mind their manners, sober or tipsy, and what they eat goes right through them - its wise to watch where you walk.

Why Bears Do It and a new cocktail garnished with our Pink Lady and Macintosh will be on the menu this week; Connel Reds in late summer salads; Bartlett pears, in deserts. We plan to keep a basket at the door of different varietals as we pick them so guests can take some home as they leave.

Apple farms are an increasingly rare thing in Northern California - the reasons why, which we’ve written about before - make for a longer and frankly depressing post - suffice to say what we have up here on Greenwood Ridge is a museum of antique flavors that have all but disappeared. But oh, the variety of fruit being grown in old orchards like ours is subtle and astounding. Each tree, depending on its slant on the hillside, has a distinct flavor profile. These varietals all had a place in family recipes once upon a time, and the families who tended these orchards would be jamming and canning all summer, when putting up food for winter was necessary to sustain them. The world of three or four varities you see all year at the super market that has been dulled by months of refrigeration speak to a dumbed down world of apple flavors and textures. It’s a dumbed down world in general. There is no fighting the lost cause of disappearing varieties across the fruit and vegetable world. We knew this decades ago. Yet still we care for the orchards, prune them in spring, thin and prop in summer. If we can get enough hands on deck we will juice at The Philo Apple Farm on ‘community day,’ a break from their non-stop harvest as one of the remaining full production organic apple farms around.

Organic apples that have been dry farmed like ours are rare however. They have sun-blasted concentrated juices - not perfect looking by any means, not pumped up (flavors watered down) from irrigation. They have thicker skins, the better to protect the flesh, and you will sometimes find critter litter near the core. All 24+/- of our heritage trees, many grafted to very old wood by master orchardist Vidal Esponosa, have flavors that speak to the weather up here on the ridge; a medley of textures and aromas, faint but redolent. Close your eyes and you get a hint of eau du ridge- top note of carmelized fruitsugar, middle notes of early morning fog from the Pacific filtered through the redwoods, base note of umami mountain funk.

Summer is almost gone, shouts from the pond have faded, our back aches linger longer in the mornings. But it is worth it all to wake and see autumnal fog blanketing the trees, breath in the perfume of all these apples. To savor the completeness that satisfies the dreamer long after she’s forgotten the dream.

The California Grizzly that features as our state symbol has been extinct since the 1920’s, extirpated due to habitat loss and overhunting. But bears play a continuing role as ‘ecosystem engineers’ up here - their nutrient ‘recycling’ programs contribute all across our orchards, as well as a thing to behold, I mean these guys eat and defecate all night long people. But their size, which can be quite large, belies a shy and non-aggressive nature.

The wild California Black Bears - though they come in many shades of brown - that roam these mountains are gentle souls. In the over four decades we have been here we’ve yet to run into one face to face. These images, courtesy of our thoughtful neighbor Dennis, whose family was one of the earliest settlers to Anderson Valley, looked out his kitchen window earlier this week and came face to face with one of the midnight marauders in his orchard. They had a brief staring contest. Then the bear took off before Dennis could say boo.

The Best Wine Country Parties

CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAYS WITH BARNDIVA

Healdsburg may well be a small town with a glittering international reputation these days, but in the run up to the holidays we’re reminded that the celebrations that truly sparkle still come from the heart of what it means to ‘live’ in wine country

They start when the grapes and apple harvests are all in, early morning fogs begin to roll over the valleys, garden lights cast longer shadows. It’s the time of year our love of landscape comes alive and we’re able to celebrate the year that’s just about over and toast the one ahead over tables resplendent with the fruits of our labor.

For us, the restaurant’s move into the Studio this year fulfilled our desire to host more public and private events. Now, as we begin to book holiday gatherings of all sizes, we are able to stretch out into all our rooms and gardens, filling them with candlelight, seductive florals, and homegrown treasure.

We hope you will have many invitations this Holiday Season - from family, friends and people you work alongside all year. We’d love it if you would consider joining us - In the Barn or the Studio - for one (or more!) of those memorable evenings.

Studio Barndiva reservations, here

Dinner Parties of guests 8+ contact orders@barndiva.com

Dinner Parties + Cocktail Parties 20+ contact susan@barndiva.com

We were thrilled when STAY HEALDSBURG asked us to co-host their kick-off week-end of  ‘A Season to Sparkle.’ Their only request was that it capture the ‘sparkling’ joie de vivre of Barndiva’s Pink Party and Fête Blanc, our signature spring and summer events. Both these annual-sold out collaborative events showcase remarkable wines, and this is what our Holiday Sparkling Soirée on November 17th will most certainly do, with a stellar list of producers hand-picked by Barndiva Wine Director Emily Carlson. This being Healdsburg’s official launch of the Holidays, we’re putting on the dog with live music, elegant hors d’oeuvres, and interactive taste and aromatic experiences that capture the ineffable spirit of sparkling wine. This being a Barndiva Event, there will be holiday florals and decorations galore. Join us for an unforgettable evening of delicious surprise and sensual delights. Tickets available here.

We fell in love with Kathryn Philip’s incredible passion for cinema years ago when she and her merry band of cinephiles from Cloverdale and Healdsburg were still The Alexander Valley Film Festival. Incredibly, they rode out those early years, which included a lock-down the film industry has yet to recover from, and this year broke ground on an audacious film center right here in the heart of Healdsburg. True West Film Center will include three screening rooms with a plethora of offerings to the public that will include children and Senior programming. It will showcase international and short films, both sorely served since the closing of Summerfield Cinemas in Santa Rosa. There will even be film editing suites above the screening rooms open to young filmmakers, many on True West scholarships. And yes, there will be food and drink available for film goers before and after the shows. While no one could have predicted AVFF would grow into a cinema juggernaut, True West Film Center shows what passion and dedication, with great community support, can do to move the dial when it comes to vital but underfunded cultural goals.

We’ve had a lot of fun helping them fundraise over the years - see the film noir flyer above - and we are thrilled they have chosen to host their ground-breaking year fund-raiser as True West in Studio Barndiva, on Saturday November 16. Come raise a glass to the future of film culture in Healdsburg! We will eat, drink, enjoy short films together, and as a very special treat honor the wondrous career of this year’s True West honoree, actor Steve Zahn. Tickets available here.

The Makers Market has been a beloved community event for many years and we are thrilled that its founders Kim Dow and Karin Tredrea have invited Conversation Worth Having to participate this year by expanding the market to include Barndiva and the Studio. This will be an all day capstone to our year-long CWH community series that focused on how to achieve a sustainable future by making different choices in what we eat, wear and use. We’re calling it a ‘Cradle to Cradle Xmas’ or C2C Chanukah (which happens to start on Christmas Day this year) and it will showcase local innovative ‘makers’ in multiple fields that only use sustainable materials and ingredients in the production of their wares. You can pay it forward with an array of gift certificates, fill your Holiday Larder or gift one, find incredible art, textiles, ceramics, and clothing. Everything will be discounted on the day- and everything on offer will have been produced with care, talent, and sustainable materials here in the Sonoma County.

The original Artisan Collective will once again be at Moore Lane so be sure to allow enough time to visit both locations! Workshops on how to throw a cradle to cradle holiday will be offered throughout the day, food and drink abundant to fortify you for a mind blowing holiday shopping experience. Here in the studio Scottie will be batching speciality cocktails, Emily pouring her favorite wines and Jordy Morgan- resident sculptor - will be grilling up a storm in one of his own creations in the garden. Stay tuned for WHO the makers will be at both venues- some surprises here - mark your calendar for December 8 now and plan to make a day of it!

AFTER HARVEST COMES A SEASON TO SPARKLE ✨ Join us to raise a glass!

Barndiva + Near Future

Barndiva Gardens, Sunday August 11, 2024

Ah the youth of it all: four gorgeous Ask Me What I’m Wearing models, above, rocking it in great thrifting outfits. We also saw original crocheted creations, lots of classic tees and pretty summer frocks, Stella McCartney, and head to toe prima alpaca from a cradle to cradle company a stone’s throw from where we all gathered on Sunday. When we asked everyone to ‘dress in your happy’ for our third Conversations Worth Having, The Future of Fashion, we had no idea what to expect. How delightful that style and comfort merged into an elegant insouciance -  If a chorus of 'I feel pretty" had spontaneously started up in the gardens, no one would have been surprised.

Clothing is performative on so many levels, but for anyone who remembers early childhood dress-up it can be a simple reflection of joy, and that's what most of us felt on Sunday. Clothes are our second skin, after all. The interest in this event would seem to indicate that many of us are curious how to continue to feel at home in that skin, without doing harm to the planet through our clothing choices.

Conversations Worth Having is the brain child of four friends who have deep ties to this community: Jil Hales, Dawnelise Rosen, Susan Preston and Amber McInnis. It is a labor of love for the four of us, and it is with love we would like to thank Near Future Summit’s brilliant Zem Joaquin for choosing and moderating our panel of game changing speakers. We’d also like to thank three artists who generously shared their talents and time: Maya Eshom, who brought her fascinating Textiles on Fire to the garden; Naomi Mcleod, who carved the large rubber stamp for our ‘Animal, Vegetable, Oil’ game, (without which our clothesline would have looked like a slightly psychotic garage sale), and Manok Cohen, who ‘dressed’ our mannequin in antique handkerchiefs (remember those?). And thank you to prima alpaca designer Sandra Jordan for bringing multiple samples from her showroom on Eastside Road to give away. Jennifer & Jeanne Marie - cheers for donating an entire case of your Rue de Réve Rose Apéritif for our cocktail.

And most of all, Thank You, gorgeously turned out community! So many beautiful mothers and daughters! Not all our ‘green room’ images made it into this blog but please contact us if you posed for Chad - we will send you photographs!

Barndiva weddings are the norm in the gardens this time of year; we have built our business around and love hosting celebrations of all kinds. But gatherings like Conversation Worth Having strengthen our mojo in a most crucial way because they build community. Future of Fashion has been quite a journey, so it was especially gratifying to see that all the time and research we spent wrapping our heads around how best to engage with that community played out so beautifully on Sunday. There is a nominal ticket price for CWH, but no one is ever turned away.

Above: Zem Joaquin with Marci Zaroff of EcoFashion Corp; Lewis Perkins of The Apparel Impact Institute; Garrett Gerson of Varient3D, and Liam Berryman of Nelumbo. 

Lewis Perkins, above right, is the president and CEO of the Apparel Impact Institute whose mission is to verify, fund and scale new fashion programs that can help decrease carbon emissions.

Marci Zaroff, above left, has been a leader in supporting regenerative farming practices in the production of clothing with a lazer focus on understanding the impacts of chemically grown cotton. Though less than 3% of the world’s agriculture is cotton, over 20% of the world’s harmful carcinogenic chemicals are used by the cotton industry producting them. Her numerous organic, toxic-free fabric and clothing companies produce beautiful, durable, zero waste fashion. Above, she is previewing a Tee Shirt she developed in creative partnership with Billie Ellish for Target. Next up for Marci is seeking funding to turn pineapple waste from Costa Rico into fabric.

Garrett Gerson, center, is founder of LOOP, a flat bed knitting softwear-driven production system that is hyper-local, zero-waste, and customizable, making it a financially viable option for new designer start-ups. Among his many projects with LOOP are 100% post waste trainers which I can attest - as I was wearing a pair - are beyond comfortable. Next up for Garrett is exploring how to use LOOP fabrics on furniture, with the hope of bringing zero waste furniture production currently off-shored back to the US.

Liam Berryman, above right, is Founder of Nelumbo, a locally based start up that relies on a platform technology that applies morphology, shape, and structure to surfaces. Nelumbo’s use of materials science - Metamaterials - uses only ‘clean ingredients’ to design ‘coatings’ for a variety of different materials - metals, textiles, fabrics. This micro nano texture surface acts as water or oil repellency, has anti microbial properties, and contains NO PFAS or ‘forever chemicals, which shed into the environment and onto anyone wearing clothing that has been sprayed with them.

The range of ideas and projects our panel shared were by turns mystifying, exciting, technologically complex. In thanking Marci, Lewis, Garrett and Liam on linkedin and IG for making the journey to Healdsburg, Zem wrote: “While there is still clearly never-ending work to be done in materials, textiles, and the manufacturing industries, the four bad asses from last night’s illuminating discussion give us hope.”

Continue the conversation by following them: @nearfuturesummit; @ecofashion.corp; @varient3D; @nelumbo.us; @apparelimpactinstitute. We also highly recommend @ellenmacarthurfoundation.

CWH is about engaging with information in ways that make them memorable and hopefully habit changing. We presented two interactive installations for Future of Fashion that focused on touch and smell for their impact. The Animal, Vegetable, Oil game was about testing one’s fabric knowledge through touch. We know from having emptied out the furtherest reaches of our closets for this ‘game’ that all our wardrobes hit the oil bleeper more often than we had thought possible. Which means if we can’t pass those items on someday they are destined to end up in landfill or incinerated, contributing to all our Co2 nightmares. This game was to address how obtuse labels can be, as well as misleading. Even if accurate, the fabric content label will say nothing about the labor used to make an item of clothing or the use of resources - think water - needed in its fabrication. And don’t get us started on synthetic color, or PFAS’s sprayed on to finish any item that needs to combat weather or water.

Our other interactive experience by local artist Maya Eshom was called “textiles on fire.” What a gift this woman is to this community! Maya is fabric obsessed - but the object of her interest is not making or wearing clothing but setting it on fire, one small piece of it at a time. In learning how different materials smell when they are incinerated, we were curious if it might affect the way we think about what we put on our bodies so close to our skin. We know….we don’t shop with our noses any more than we make clothing decisions based solely on touch but both installations brought physical sensation and memory into play. What do you base your clothing purchase decisions upon?

Above, left: On the bar with Buck a mannequin ‘Dressed’ by local artist Manok Cohen in handkerchiefs from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s found shortly after the death of a beloved aunt years ago, neatly folded into a small satin covered box ready to be lifted out one by one and carried with her into the world. Handkerchiefs have a long cultural history of use by men and women. Knights tied their lady’s handkerchief on their helmets before jousting or going into battle, ladies used them to assess romantic intent, for hundreds of years they served humankind mopping up sweat, staunching blood, absorbing tears. Whether elegantly embroidered or simply made they were a useful, reusable part of everyday life. Within one decade they were gone.

The mannequin and the feather and fedora hat display on the bar made the same nostalgic point: styles change, as they should, but our currant race to the bottom in producing clothing and fashion accessories cheaply, with no thought to how their production may affect the health of the planet, doesn’t reflect craft, durability, or personal style the way it once did.

Above, right : the Susan Preston painting ‘Woman as Verb,’ graced the wild grasses behind the panel.

Dawnelise Rosen, Jil Hales, Amber Mcinnis, and Susan Preston thanking the panel, contributing artists, and last but never least, the community who came our for CWH3.

All Images in this Eat the View, Chad Surmick