Alicia has a lot of titles in the company – President, Principal Designer, and she is also our Founder! When she’s not busy doing all the things in the office, you can usually find her reading the latest book on her list or cooking!

Here are some other fun things about Alicia:

 

What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?

Basically just the chance to NOT have a plan, an appointment, somewhere I HAVE to go or something I HAVE to do – totally happy to just read a book, cook a nice dinner, relax

What was the best vacation you ever took and why? 

Peter and I spent a month in Italy with our (then) 15-year-old daughter who wanted to go to art school.  We worked our way from Milan south to Palermo, Sicily, where my brother-in-law lives.  It was an immersion in Italian culture, food, and art.  I love doing non-touristy things when I travel internationally, especially things like shopping in local food markets and then cooking with fresh, local ingredients (still not exactly sure what that cut of pork was at the butcher shop in Siena – but cooked over an olivewood fire at our Tuscan Airbnb, it was delicious!).  I also like to read historical fiction that takes place in the locations I visit, because it gives every location a historical background that is based not just on dates and events, but the details of everyday life in that place at another time.   Read “The Daughter of Siena” by Marina Fiorato before visiting the Piazza de Campo in the center of the city, and it will give you a unique depth of understanding of the place and its importance to the city and culture.

It was not our first trip to Italy, but it was the best because we could take our time, go to an opera, linger in town squares buying watercolors from street artists, explore whatever caught our eyes.  One of the most memorable things was visiting the tiny village of Prizzi in Sicily on Easter Sunday to experience a centuries-old tradition blending pagan revelry and early Christian theatrics called The Dance of the Devils.  People in elaborate devil costumes run up and down the main street, drinking and dancing, capturing hapless victims and hiding them away until the Madonna statue is paraded down the street by “Roman soldiers” who free all the captives. A few years later, our daughter based her NC High School of the Arts senior thesis on a similar costume concept and film that eventually garnered her a full scholarship to a prestigious art institute for college.  So that trip paid for itself in many ways!

What are your hobbies, and how did you get into them? 

Reading/traveling (see above), cooking/traveling (see above).  Cooking because I enjoy good food, I enjoy the creative process of cooking, and because cooking is love shared with others.

Would you say you’re more of an extrovert or an introvert?

Introvert

What was the last TV show you binge-watched? 

The Cook of Castamar – OMG I am sensing a theme here…

What’s your favorite board game? 

Trivial Pursuit, because who doesn’t need to retain useless bits of information to have fun?

What’s your favorite part about a project? 

The beginning, and the end

What’s the best thing you’ve learned in your current position? 

Listen more than you talk