Lonely Palm Ranch Artist Profile
Lonely Palm Ranch calendars are part of a collaborative, family effort by the Pfleegers, a most inspired family.
Eric and Christa met at the Art Center College of Design in where Eric studied advertising and Christa photography, but it wasn’t until they re-met in NY that they started dating.
After working and living in New York, Eric and Christa decided to move first to LA then to Arroyo Grande where Christa had grown up. They’d been talking about living in a small town, devoting themselves to living the simple life and really exploring their creative sides. Christa was pregnant and she wanted to make sure their children grew up surrounded by nature and close to family.
The opportunity came for them to take over an old ranch from a family friend, a place they could make their home with their two children, daughter Wesley and son Oscar. Not really having any idea of how much work it would be to take over an old ranch into something productive the Pfleegers have worked really hard and made Lonely Palm Ranch a home, a productive homestead that is beautiful no matter where you look. Buildings include home, art studios, barn, tack room and a refurbished Airstream. The Pfleegers have also planted a lot of fruit trees and olive trees, all in keeping with permaculture practices to help prevent erosion and beautify the landscape. In addition to landscaping there are pigs, horses, sheep, goats, alpacas and chickens. This is a lot of upkeep and a lot of chores. Anyone who homesteads knows how much time and effort this takes. Suffice to say the family has transformed the farm into a beautiful property, and making their family closer. Future plans include hosting events and inviting chefs to cook the organic foods harvested at LPR.
All the Pfleegers are very creative. Christa is a commercial photographer who travels (less now) all over the world shooting marketing campaigns, Wesley -like her mother- is a really talented photographer, Eric is a printmaker and the artist for the calendars, and Oscar is starting Little Palm, a children’s line with a portion of the proceeds going to type 1 diabetes, which he has had since he was two years old.
Eric wasn’t always a printer. Early in college he had fun silk-screening t-shirts with a friend. He developed a passion for the art when he studied under, and became the assistant to, one of his college professors who was a printer for artists such as Rauschenberg, Hockney, Jasper Johns and others. It was when the family moved to Arroyo Grande that Eric got serious about printing the calendars, always encouraged by his family to pursue his artistic passions.
The calendar is truly a family project that takes all year. They all help in the artistic process as well as packaging and sales of each calendar. The images are inspired by local scenery and the Pfleeger’s travels around the world. The process and decisions of what makes it to the calendar are lengthy and involve many steps, from photos to sketches, to scanning the art and figuring out the layers for different colors, to making the silkscreens, and that’s just to start! Then there is choosing the actual colors (100% Christa, Eric says), and fonts, and hand screening each of the 12 pages that makes each calendar, color by color, aligned and layered with extreme precision. Every single sheet of the calendar is silk screened and each print hand pulled, making every page a work of art in itself. Production is limited to 600 calendars in 2023, more this year than ever before. It begins shipping on a first come first served basis in October.
You can purchase your calendar on our Saffron Shoppe starting now. These make great holiday presents, every month is different and it adorns any wall with color and images that bring a smile to your face every time you look. They’re very, very cool to boot!
