The Elegance of Eva
An inspiring client's ethos of stillness, refinement, and birdwatching
The best clients pay their invoice but also pay you in big ideas. One such client of mine, Eva Schreier, called me up last fall to inquire about my painting a hummingbird for a holiday card. The card was to be the finishing touch for an extraordinary birdwatching gift package sent to friends and clients — Eva is the Founder and Creative Director of two impressive hospitality businesses: Hacienda los Milagros and Smithfork Ranch, and co-founder of the much anticipated, soon-to-open Little Mountain in Montecito along with Graham Duncan. We honed the little Allen’s Hummingbird (rendered in gouache), tweaking the colors to match what Eva observes every day in her regular birdwatching ritual at home. The final kit included a National Parks Pass, a copy of Sibley’s Birding Basics, Faber-Castell colored pencils, a sketchbook, and the Merlin app all wrapped elegantly in a tied bandana. Can you imagine the recipient’s awe in receiving such a soulful gift? All fruit baskets are rocking in the corner with insecurity.
True refinement is a dance with nature
I have learned from Eva that her particular language of elegance is always a dance with nature. The linen napkins in spring are chosen to correspond to the buds on the fruit trees in the garden. The wildflowers in a vase that are left intentionally raw and untamed as if to highlight their riotous pleasure in blooming. Her specific eye bespeaks an urbane earthiness that to me is quintessential Beachtown Bohemia. Eva is a Northern Californian, like me — and also raised by iconoclast culture-vultures. Her view of the world is to study and revel in nature, and then create something beautiful that responds to it. I would put Eva’s gift in this arena (via her hospitality projects) in the same sentence as the great landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (respond to the climate and topography) or the artist Ruth Asawa (respond to the organic shapes of the natural world.) The eloquence of this point of view is that however outrageously gorgeous the outcome is, the real star is Mother Nature. There is a deference in this ethos that I find both moving and emblematic of the California motherland.
A Practice in Stillness
As it happens, last winter after the birdwatching kit was mailed, Eva fell and broke her knee cap. For as busy a businesswoman and mother, this was as much a psychological setback as a physical one. Because she practices what she preaches however, Eva’s ritual of daily birdwatching at home proved to be medicinal and calming while stuck for weeks in a cumbersome leg brace. The stillness and absorption in another creature, she explained to me, helped calm her nervous system, offer a bit of mystery, and ground her in the world outside her head (and leg). I love when a creative person offers themselves to me through their work. I see Allen’s Hummingbirds and other birds everywhere now, in a way I never really did before. This past spring, found myself flinging the windows open upon waking, eager for their birdsong with my morning coffee. The birds’ duet with the nearby 6:00am Mission Bells (and coinciding wafts of orange blossom) created a heady mix saturated with California belonging.
Today’s feature from the Studio
I love creating bespoke holiday cards for clients. Please send me a note if you or your business would like to create one together for 2025. Accepting submissions through October 15.
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Who wouldn’t love to be the recipient of a birdwatching ritual gift and your beautiful card!?!? 😍
So clever and creative.
Nature is the inspiration. 🌿