Introducing Studio Barndiva... almost

(originally posted march 27, 2010) For someone who’s pretty much obsessed with taste ~ the food and drink varieties ~ 
ironically that’s not the taste I’m asked about all the time. More than any single dish people have enjoyed in the restaurant, or single object they’ve purchased in the shop, it's been the overall aesthetic of Barndiva and the Studio ~ the way everything is put together in both buildings ~ that has generated the greatest force field of interest over the years.

With respect to the shop, we’ve even had clients who buy a whole mixed media wall to get what they call “the look,” or “the effect.” I know I have a talent for design, but the overwhelming response to the mise en place of our lives has lead me to suspect that something else is operating here beyond expansive admiration. A clue can be found in the oft heard refrain from those customers who don’t just look around and take a picture of Artists & Farmers like it's some Disneyland of Design, but actually step up & buy something: “I love it,” they will tell us, “now I just have to find a place to put it."

It's probably good to remember that we’ve only been at beautifying our surrounds for a few hundred years, though we’ve been foraging for a few thousand and are packrats by extension of the same primordial pull. Why then, is it so hard to know how arrange our surroundings so they truly reflect what we call our ‘taste,’ that material and very social manifestation we hope speaks to who we are ~ and where we hope we are heading?

Barndiva and The Studio define a very personal taste aesthetic, and it’s the personal part writ large that most people seem to desperately want. Unfortunately, it's something you won’t find in the dozens of home and design magazines who ply their trade by generating thousands upon thousands of images of (we are told) coveted homes filled with dream rooms of stunning art and fabulous furniture. We’ve all been trained to lust after the things we see in those rooms, which is fine ~ I love my Côte Sur ~ but at the end of the day they all beg a question they can’t answer for you. Namely, who would you be if you lived in those beautiful, seemingly perfect rooms? The answer has to start with: who are you in your rooms now?

The editors of Elle Décor or Dwell don’t know you ~ nor, really, does that decorator you hired (if you have the dosh or the inclination) that came so highly recommended. The talented ones have their own proven sense of what works together in a room, and general rules of thumb on how to arrange furniture and art to make rooms larger or cozier ~ all good ~ but trust me when I tell you ~ having worked on the periphery of this industry for years ~ that at the end of the day rooms that sing do so because whomever lives in them composed their own song. Great taste comes from writing (and rewriting) your own lyrics over time, and altering the melody so it stays relevant.

K2 asked me the other day, as we were waxing on where to place things in the new space we are creating in The Studio, what objects I still had around me from when I was very young. The question took me by surprise because as it turned out the answer was….not a lot. My Kertesz photograph lives wherever I sleep most nights; as does the small oil of two figures on a blue bed that Frane gave me the weekend I met Geoffrey; I still have the huge antique Guerlain cologne bottles I inherited from the first Tex Feldman, the sleepy doll I never cared much for until Beatrice crushed its face dusting it on a windowsill when I was 5, but besides photographs of my family at various stages of our lives, nothing around me is much more than ten years old. The truth is that even before the fire which wiped out most of what I’d collected in life, I didn’t hold onto things with the avidity of someone who seems to have a lot of beautiful, lived in things around her.

The fire taught me many things, the primary lesson being that with the exception of your personal words and images, everything else in a material life can be replaced. By letting go of things you once found charming, or amusing, you make room for the next step in your own definition of those attributes. There should not be a divide between the things you buy to impress the world and the things you collect because they speak to you on a personal level. Sorry. If the things you want to surround yourself with are stupid or silly, own it (that may not be a bad thing anyway). If they are made badly or the product of a calculated corporate mindset that does not value human labor or the environment, ask yourself why you have them around. Things, no matter how small, should add to the daily conversation you’re having with life (or should be having).

As the new gallery has taken shape over the past week ~ 14 hour days and sleep riddled with questions ~ but so much fun ~ I’ve realized that the one talent I really have isn’t what to pick up and put into my world, it's when to let go. Years of looking critically at art, architecture, literature and cinema informs my choices when I put things together that don’t at first seem to have anything in common. But at the end of the day, no matter what passion you’ve followed, even if it's light years away from a proclivity for art and design, you still live with things, pick them up and put them down on something, use them, sit in them, sleep in them, eat off them, look at them at odd hours of the day when you are really thinking about something else. If you are what you eat (and I believe that is profoundly true) you are also a reflection of your surroundings, like it or not. They can elevate the experience of life, or weigh it down. 
Thankfully, the choices really are yours. And the good news is that you can only get better and better at curating your own life when you start paying attention.

As things will happen in this cosmic joke we call life, a few days ago I received an inquiry from the New York Times Style Magazine to feature The Studio in the upcoming issue. To be in The Style Magazine ~ which only comes out a few times a year~ is one of the coolest compliments. The fact the call came the week we had just closed and dismantled Artists & Farmers might, for the faint hearted, seemed like the ultimate WTF.

The thing is, I’m so excited about what we are about to become that I managed to find a shrug and a classic 'whatever' about the timing. They will come around again or they won’t ~ whatever the case, they will find us in a our usual state of creative flux, a wonderful place that defines everything we do and keeps it all interesting for me, K2 & Dane here in the Studio and Geoff, Lukka, Ryan, Tracy, Tommy, Spencer and the rest of the wonderful gang at Barndiva who have thrown in with us.

All text and photos, Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)

Moving Forward

(originally posted March 17, 2010)

Time to tell you how we’re going to fill up our dance card this spring:

Next week we will paper over the windows at Artists & Farmers for a major systemic Spring cleaning. When we re-open, as Studio Barndiva, we will have lightened our load of small pieces, allowing us to deepen our connection to painting and sculpture and giving us enough room to use the gallery for live events. In April we’ll move outdoors and “finish” the gardens. In May we’ll throw a party to celebrate with Friends of Barndiva. We wouldn’t be able to do any of this without your support.

For the past three years Artists & Farmers has been privileged to represent some of the finest craftsmen and women in the world, many of whom had no previous representation in this country. That will not change. But our strength as a family, and as three individuals, has always been to follow our interests, and our instincts, even in the crazy world of food, drink, art and design, even as this recession rocks us all from side to side, up and down. You don’t get on a roller coaster unless you crave, at some level, thrill for the ride. And while uncontrollable forces can make you dizzy (or sick to your stomach) they can also make your heart beat a little faster, your creative juices start to flow. We feel a flow coming on.

Most of you know the history of the studio up to now. My friend Bonnie Z is fond of putting on what she thinks of as her Bella Lugosi voice (which in reality sounds more like one of her crazier chickens) to intone ‘first there was 3.... then there was 2… then there was…’ but as we’ve run through partners, eventually inheriting the entire space, we’ve used the time to study this extraordinary property. Building the herb beds and throwing down Sonoma gold on what was just a parking lot was a no-brainer, but we’ve never lost sight of the fact that this land, before the old auto-body shop was built on it, once housed Healdsburg’s first opera house ~ can you imagine the cultural optimism this town had two hundred years ago to have tried to create that scene when you still tied up horses at the front door?

We’re not advancing the notion that a frontier opera house is what’s missing in town (though we certainly wouldn’t mind one) merely that a little frontier spirit is never amiss, especially now. Our MO, the same one that built Barndiva ~ is to have fun, work hard, and build something that doesn’t exist yet in town. We want to be proud of the product we’re selling, whether it's an invitation for you to eat and drink in one of our spaces, entrust your wedding day with us, or buy an object of significance in the gallery and take it home.

So here’s our thinking:

• There are wonderful galleries in town, but there remains a need for art + performance.
• There is not yet a great space to dance after a wedding, then stumble safely back to your bed whether it's in a hotel or your own home.
• There is no small venue, no beautiful room, where a string quartet can play on a summer eve while you sip.
• The town could use a salon ~ the 18th century definition of one (look it up) where lively intellectual conversation in the fields of arts and letters and, yes, politics, are discussed with wit and verve (remember those things?) over a good cocktail.
• Finally, if all that weren’t enough (we will never be accused of doing things in half measures) we’d like to advance the notion that coffee is not the only hot drink we long for throughout the day (sorry Phil). I drink tea a lot ~ not least for it's suspected medicinal effects ~ black in the morning, white in the middle of the day, a lightly caffeinated green to get me to cocktail hour, after which my momentum seems almost pre~ordained. But I wasn’t always a tea drinker, even after many years in London. My friend Todd at Rishi never gave up on me, sending small elegant black sachets with every Barndiva order, with intriguing names like Iron Maiden and Ancient Moonlight White. The idea for an occasional tea bar came to me one afternoon during a very long walk across Paris. I must have passed two hundred great bars ~ you know the ones, zinc or marble counter, Godard pinball sounds in the background ~ where for 3 euro’s I could have walked up to the bar, slung my foot over the brass rail and had a moment to myself over a quick espresso. Jeez, even the Queen of England calls it a quick cuppa~ why can’t you get a perfect cup of tea, made and served properly (as befits a drink that goes back 2,000 years) the same way? In the new gallery space we’ll be working with our friends at Rishi, ~ who we believe source the finest organic, fair trade teas in the world, to redress this inequity.

Things will change slowly until the end of May when wedding dinners start beneath the arbors in the new Studio gardens. We invite you to come in and share the transition period with us. If you are on this list you’ll naturally be invited to our Salon Evenings and all of our opening night parties for art shows, the first of which will be Art of the Rind, with photographer Wil Edwards, working with Cowgirl Creamery, in June. In July the crazy talented (and just plain crazy) Frane of worldwide children’s book fame will be in residence. Frane is working big for the first time in years ~ this is fabulous work, work to make you dream, and we are so proud we will be representing her. If we play our cards right in Carmel next week, Susan Keifer will follow Frane in August.

But hey, listen, If you don’t collect art, have no interest in raising high the roof beams at a wedding, are uncomfortable with the idea of Salon Evenings, and would never be caught dead alone at a bar with a cup of rare tea, you still have something to look forward to after our upcoming zeitgeist at 237 Center Street…For YOU, dear reader, there is the great news that as we shift our wedding celebrations to the Studio, Barndiva will be no longer have to close to the public on Saturdays!

Gotcha.

All text and photos, Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)

Kitchen Life

(originally posted March 10, 2010) Sunday March 7th (the last day of Wine Barrel Tasting weekend) 12-12:30 pm Dawn Elise & Ari's Baby Shower brings the first day of Spring Co-hosts Lukka Feldman and Joy Sterling

6:30- 11pm Oscar Dinner Party: Homage a Julia Child

All text and photos, Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)

On the Road

(originally posted march 10, 2010) The newsletter this week comes to you from NYC, where we are unabashedly eating and drinking ourselves silly. When your baby turns 21 it’s cause for celebration. Besides, whenever you travel what better way to infiltrate a city’s cultural DNA than through its stomach? Several piping hot eateries opened to high acclaim here at the height of the recession and the prodigal son and I were eager to find out how they have they managed to make sweet lemonade in this sourpuss economy. Turns out it's by trading, very well I might add, on the authenticity of several bygone eras, specifically ones that target sation over pretension. For three nights we indulged in well-built cocktails, and ate food prepared for optimum taste, served in rooms designed to fall back behind the dining experience, rooms in which you were encouraged to flirt, sass the waiters, and gossip without restraint.

First stop off the plane was The Breslin, the new April Bloomfield eatery which cleaves more closely to her original concept at The Spotted Pig than the fine dining John Dory she also opened, and closed, last year. For those of you who have not been following the gastro pub invasion of America, when it’s a good thing, it’s a very good thing, with an emphasis on nose-to-tail dishes where less popular cuts of meat lend themselves (or should) to more affordable prices. I was living in England, feature writing for the Evening Standard, when the very first gastro pub, the Eagle in Clerkenwell, hit the scene. The article I wrote about it never ran ~ but therein lies a story that gets to the heart of why this particular form of dining has enjoyed such longevity. The night the photographer shot a full service turn for the article, he got a bit too carried away with the bonhomie of the staff, all of whom cooked incredibly fast, to loud rock music, “high” on life. The images he took were dreadful. In punishing us both by pulling the article, (suffice it to say we were together that night and I was not, in all honesty, an innocent bystander) I remember my editor saying not to worry, I would get another chance. “Gastro pubs aren’t going anywhere. What everyone really wants when they dine out is to have fun.”

The Breslin is attached to the new Ace Hotel, a Portland enterprise which pretty much air lifted its funky, reclaimed, techno-cool aesthetic (complete with an outlet of Stumptown coffee) and plunked it down in midtown. April has brought the pigs. Everywhere you look, on the menu, above the banquettes, hanging from the (authentically?) water-stained ceilings are pigs ~ Plastic pigs, cast iron pigs, flying pigs. It’s a sweet, lived-in room, subtly lit, with laid back service, an eclectic bar menu and great beers on tap. If we can pull it off I plan on stealing for our bar menu ~ with attribution ~ the warm scotch egg that arrived cooked spot on, oozing yolk. Ryan’s onion soup has a more refined veal stock, but I liked their idea of a bone marrow crouton, and the rabbit terrine and thrice cooked frites were delicious. We left the Breslin in exceedingly good fettle.

The next food stop was the birthday girl’s dinner at Minetta Tavern the following night. There is a reason that even the most jaded amongst us returns to Balthazar year after year to visit the shrine where Keith McNally has nailed New York in the 21st century as if it were Paris in the 19th. His latest fixation is on New York in the 30’s. Minetta recreates the original experience of a upscale tavern so well it's hard to know where the faux caricatures that line the walls of the ‘famous’ who once dined there leave off and the real cracks on the mirrors in the ladies room begin. Does not matter. You want to believe you’ve stepped back in time. I don’t remember the food as much as the remarkable scene of tout Manhattan four deep at the bar waiting for a table, happy just to be there. Birthday girl shared a dry aged cote de boeuf with her delightful friend Nate, Lukka had a trio of Berkshire pork which had been notably straw happy. On food alone, Breslin was better. On cocktails and ambiance, a table at Minetta, if you can score one, takes some beating.

The Crosby Street Hotel ~ A perfectly charming rendition of Miami Biannale meets English country house ~ upgraded us to a suite the next day based, I presume, on nothing more than a mild complaint that I had be unable to watch Crazy Heart at 3 in the morning. Ok, perhaps it had something to do with the fact that I had also mentioned the prodigal son had been asked to write a column for our favorite travel site, Tablet. Which is true. (Though as yet he hasn’t agreed to write & would kill me if he knew I’d mentioned it at all.) It was hard to leave the room after the upgrade, as all I wanted to do was sleep, waking up from time to time to gaze out over the incredible views of old Soho. I’ve been overpaying at the Mercer so long I forgot there were views in Soho. But we had one more food stop to make before I slept.

In wandering Nolita earlier in the day, Bgirl and I had passed Peasant, where I spied Goat Ragu on the menu. I also noted the deep candlelit room with firelight from a brick oven and a very cool open kitchen where a spit rotated half a pig, a lamb and several chickens. This is where we headed now. The snow, which had been threatening all day, fell in soft flutters, melting before it hit the ground. It was warm inside Peasant, and the room was done in just enough Trattatoria Rusticana to make you think someone involved really had lived and cooked in Tuscany. They had opera on the sound system, (do peasants listen to opera?) which even I’m not ballsy enough to do. It was just loud enough to hear a tenor now and then, and, if you waited for it, the orchestral thunder of armies gathering in some dark Italian forest. They brought us bowls of fresh ricotta, a bottle of young olive oil and bread from the wood burning pizza oven that would win in an Acme (though possibly not an Della Fattoria) thrown down. The wait staff was indifferent but the Italian Sav Blanc they guided me to was appropriately flinty with a soft floral nose.

For starters we devoured mounds of burrata and nicely aged prosciutto. Though the spit called to me, I was on a mission. My desire to serve goat at Barndiva strikes at the heart of the quintessential contradiction I have between giving diners what they want, and making them stretch. I won’t bore you (again) with my ecological reasons for thinking we should all be heading toward proteins that bleat instead of moo, what I sought from this dish was to find a tipping point between those good intentions and a flavor profile in a goat dish that would make me long for it again. I found it, but not on the first bite, or the even the second or third, it was mid-way through the dish when the happy din of the room, the good wine, and the extremely beautiful, articulate and scathingly funny young woman across the table distracted me long enough to forget I was eating goat. This is a new taste profile for most of us, but it's really interesting if you give it a chance. I liked the earthy sweetness that played against the softness of the housemade pasta. Unlike a fattier beef ragu, the flavor sat back on the palate, in a very pleasant way.

The rest of the trip was a blur. As I write this (from the plane) I can only remember too much money spent on exercise gear at Lululemon, boots that (thankfully) didn’t fit at Handmade, very expensive lingerie from a shop in the Bowery, pampered dogs everywhere, and, finally, a mad dash through MOMA an hour before they closed, after which we repaired to the bar in The Modern, which thankfully doesn’t. Bgirl and I spent two extremely animated hours drinking cocktails and talking about how I met her father, surrounded by a fur and diamond crowd waiting for the velvet rope to be dropped on some special event in Taniguchi’s coolly elegant honed granite hall just above us. We quickly discovered our bartender was from LA, where he had worked at Hals in our old Venice hood. When he found out our drinking qualified as ‘work’ for me, he immediately went off piste, creating delightful concoctions which paired perfectly with Gabriel Kreuther’s refined (borderline boring, given what we’d been up to) Alsatian small plates menu. If I knew I would have this much fun with this particular kid someday, I would never have stressed out during her teen years. Then again, knowing me…

My advice when traveling is to spend as much money as you can on food, especially when it supports the part of the dining industry you hope survives this recession. Great dining should be like opera ~ a company of performers using all their skills to create one transcendent moment when life as you know will seem capable of hitting all the high notes: when food and drink, music and ambiance fill your senses to the brim, and overflow. If you are lucky enough to share that moment with someone you love beyond measure, it's possible to believe that whatever the future holds, no matter how difficult these times ahead become, the things you love ~ all of them ~ will just keep getting better.

Tablet Hotels The Crosby Street Hotel The Breslin Minetta Tavern Peasant

All text Jil Hales (unless otherwise noted)