“give ‘em what they never knew they wanted…” ~ diana vreeland
what i do / connect, collaborate, cultivate, curate, create….
why / as a trained anthropologist, fashion designer, writer and curator of ideas, people and experiences, i collaborate with friends and colleagues, companies and corporations to cultivate connections and create community.
when / the salon dinners began in 2012 (after a short cooking apprenticeship with chef Cal Peternell at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse) as a simple idea to bring together friends around a single table (my cutting table) whom i wanted to meet. A dozen dinners later I began inviting “fantasy guests” whom I or other friends thought would be a good addition to the overarching theme of the dinner. I began mixing disciplines, passions, and generations ~ occasionally brining in collaborators and co-hosts. Eventually the foundational 77 dinners I did in my atelier in berkeley became the moveable feasts they are today around “the art of gathering” in the bay area, los angeles and new york city.
who / my clients have ranged from non-profits to corporations, some of which are thematic or cultivation events ~
World Wide Women Women’s Funding Network Vital Voices
She-Can Let Girls Lead San Francisco Marathon
Toyota Innovation Hub Clorox / Hidden Valley Ranch Campari / Negroni Week
Oakland Book Festival Bay Area Book Festival/Goodreads Bay Area Book Festival/ Internat’l Authors Dinner
* other clients/themes/food only ~ National Novel Writing Month, Boston Review Magazine, Climate Change, Bay Area Innovators, Story/Art/Design, storytelling, wine dinners (makers, directors, distributors),
where / although the majority of the dinners were hosted at my atelier on 4th Street in Berkeley, CA they expanded as Moveable Feasts and have been held in wineries/Scribe Winery, peoples’ homes, studios and headquarters in the Bay Area ~ Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco and the Peninsula, in a garden in Venice Beach, Los Angeles, and in a gallery in Tribeca in NYC
how /
SOME PRESS
* San Francisco Chronicle / Cover Feature, by Tony Bravo
* California Alumni Magazine / University of California, Berkeley / by
RELATED SHOWS/GATHERINGS
“the art of gathering”/Converge: Winter Gathering at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF
“around the world with Oscar” / cari borja installation and BECOMING ME at De Young Museum, SF
FOUR WALLS visual collage for ArtHotel Sacramento / Spring 2016
REVERIE by cari borja / a film about gathering (originally made for YBCA show Dec 2015)
“This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully,
to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.”
~ Alice Waters