The Warehouse approached us and asked if we’d like to shoot a studio session with their upcoming house show headliners Big Sur.
Of course we jumped at the opportunity—we thought it would be a great video to add to Cult Tacoma and we loved the idea of being in the studio with the musicians as they created their sublime folk pop.
Here’s another video we created for Cult Tacoma. Nearly all this footage was shot by Sarah who wrote for the Cult Tacoma posting:
Before you hear him, you’re not sure you really believe Frank Fairfield. And it’s not his fault.With the momentum of a Dakota stampede, a slew of indie musicians has recently waded into the sweet river of folk salvation by the seat of their patchwork pants, ready to pledge themselves to a life of dirty long johns and homemade butter churning if only for a shot at a the cover of Spin. Why, throw in a washboard, some boxcar harmonies and a canteen of moonshine. Crickets and tarnation! You’ve got authenticity.
Doe Bay Festival is becoming one of our favorite weekends of the year. We spent most of it behind the camera and created this short video and collection of photos for Cult Tacoma. See below for the photos . . .
In October, Tacoma’s Broadway Center hosted a weekend-long arts and cultural festival in the heart of downtown Tacoma—the 2011 Fall Free for All. They asked us to shoot some photos of excellent music program curated by local Tacoma musician Aaron Stevens of Goldfinch.
Above is the first video—Seattle/Tacoma locals Concours d’Elegance blowing away the crowd with their tight new wave jams and captivating stage show.
Below is a look at Portland’s soulful and face-melting Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives:
And here’s some dreamy otherworldliness from Portland’s Laura Gibson:
Be sure to also peruse our gallery of photos from the entire weekend…
If you came here looking for Belle Creative, you’re at the correct corner of the internet—Belle Creative is now The Art Dept.!
The Art Dept. is a boutique creative firm comprised of an extended family of artists—designers, filmmakers, writers, photographers, typographers, musicians—pooling their creative talents to tell original stories. Since its inception in 2005 (as Belle Creative) by Sarah and Peter Berkley in Sonoma, CA, The Art Dept. has developed custom creative content for clients from the Brooklyn fashion industry to California’s artisan food and wine culture to the Northwest music scene.
Mary Berkley Shadley, Peter’s sister and an accomplished graphic designer, is a recent addition to the firm as Design Director. We also often tap our talented network of close friends and family—such as product designer (and brother-in-law) Karson Shadley and musician brothers Max and Ryan Lynch—to broaden our scope of work.
Now based both in the Seattle area—Tacoma, WA—and the Bay Area—Oakland, CA—The Art Dept. continues to develop a wide range of creative products with a focus on short videos, creative writing and print design.
Please browse the site to see work completed and please don’t hesitate to contact us if you’d like to work together!
We could spend days lost in the aisles of San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Market—exploring every nook and cranny from the gorgeous produce to the unique artisanal products. And we were able to do just that while creating this video. We love Bi-Rite’s emphasis on good food and food community—and we’re happy to help spread the word about their new book (below) with this video (above)!
Sarah was delighted to oblige Editor Bruce Kelley when he asked her for a brief write-up on the bohemian wonderland of our friends’ Scribe Winery for the latest edition of San Francisco Magazine’s Best of the Bay Area:
“Rarely have backwoods and bohemian gone together so well—or with such underground notice—as they have at Andrew Mariani’s two-year-old Scribe Winery. There’s scarcely more than a crude wooden sign to it off Napa Road in Sonoma, but rampant word of mouth among the city’s celebrity artists and artisans has generated a following that thrives not only on the wine but also on the loose party scene. The 256-acre property has a checkered history spanning everything from turn-of-the-century winery to bootleggers’ brothel to industrial turkey farm…”
To read the rest, be sure to pick up a copy at your local news stand or click here!
Why tour when you can DETOUR?
Gundlach Bundschu vineyard excursions get you off the beaten wine path to taste wines where they are grown. And we were excited to join them on the tour with our cameras in hand to capture the experience—car bingo, hawaiian bobbleheads, African watusis, wine and all.
Enjoy the video above (produced by Sarah + Peter) and be sure to take the tour next time you have the chance—see the flyer below (designed by Mary)!
We recently had the distinct pleasure to work with the gals at Wine Country Chocolates to help them create a new logo that better expressed their unique, gourmet, hand-made chocolates.
You can see the tasty new logo above on their brand new sign outside their Jack London Village location in Glen Ellen, CA. We look forward to seeing the logo take over their boxes, packaging and other materials.
Our design director Mary found a way to carry over their yellow and black checker pattern used in their previous logo (see the image below:)
However, she freed the checks from their formalized placement by giving them an imperfectly-edged, handmade look just the way their one-of-a-kind chocolate truffles appear. She also made “Chocolate” the focus of the logo while (with the help of Ms. Esme Johnson’s handwriting) giving it an almost drizzled look—almost as if it were written in chocolate sauce. Don’t you just want to take a bite out of it?
If you haven’t tried their truffles before, be sure to stop into one of their locations for a mind-blowing treat. We highly recommend “The Elvis” in all its peanut-buttery and banana-y goodness.
And if you have tried their truffles before, don’t you think it’s time for a second helping? Or a third? Or a fourth . . . ?
Since our very first summer living in Sonoma nearly a decade ago, we’ve developed a tradition of attending the Tuesday night Sonoma Valley Farmers Market for farm-fresh picnic dinners with friends and family. We were delighted to document the opening night of the 2011 Tuesday night season for Sonomanews.com.
