Category Archives: about
about alexis
My name is Alexis Swanson Traina, I am a wife, mother of 2 young children and also creative director at Swanson Vineyards, where I have worked with my dad since graduating college. As a child, my family lived in a small town in southwest Florida, where my after-school friends were the elderly ladies of the neighborhood who taught me everything I know about dark chocolate, cards, port wine cheese, housecoats and men. I could often be found “doing business” at my roll-top desk, shuffling papers and stamping voided checks; flipping through Harper’s Hideaway Reports researching my parents’ travels; or at my mother’s knee in dusty antique shops, that always played quiet AM radio. Being curious and eccentric was normal.
In my awkward teenage years, I became obsessed with Lady Diana Spencer and insisted on having her same hairdo, eagerly spritzed with several bottles of Sun-In… Not a good look in tropical climates, with braces. By boarding school, things had started to come around: I’d found a new hairdo, zip code, Benetton, whole new set of friends, and pool of suitors. And then one day, the pay phone rang in the hallway of my dormitory—it was my Dad calling, with news: “We’re moving. We’ve just bought a vineyard in the Napa Valley.” As we hung up the phone, I wondered just how far Falcon Crest was from this new vineyard????
And the rest was history.
Footnote: I did marry the boy next door, save for the highway that passes between us.
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people ask me all the time, “who takes your photos…”
Nicole McIntosh Bruce is an old friend and someone who has worked with me on + off for YEARS.
I met Nicole through my sister Veronica, during their high school days– and later she worked with us at the Salon during some very formative years: the years of Jazz Hands + hourly tarot card readings. As one of my favorite authors, Zora Neale Hurston once wrote, “there are years that ask questions + there are years that answer…” Nicole worked for Swanson during a time where everyone in my employ was asking lots of personal questions!!
Nicole started out in 2002 as the Salon Coordinator– and that means she dealt on the front lines with all of our guests, booking their appointments, coordinating orders, and corresponding on our behalf. She was hired on account that she simply “gave good phone.” I typically hire based on that criteria alone, truth be known. First impression is everything, especially on a telephone– and Nicole had an ingenue way about her. After several intriguing + unique years at Swanson, Nicole fled our doors for a career of stability, in real estate, and later started her own extra-charming blog, called iheartnapa.com, chronicling her life/ loves/ interests/ the heart beat of Napa. While away from our world, she fell in love with the camera and discovered her deep + dormant talent. I loved her photos that would find their way on my computer, and figured it was only a matter of time before Nicole would be entangled in our web again!
During the winter of 2010, I emailed Nicole and told her I wanted to start a blog called Napa for the Curious + Eccentric…. and asked if she had the time to set it up for me AND provide photography??? Within weeks we were back in business + last summer we launched this blog. My most popular posts are ALWAYS those that are packed with Nicole’s scrumptious photos + details– and if you wonder why there are so few these days– it is because Nicole just had a baby boy, named John, and she spends her days taking pictures of him, and laying her Jazz Hands on him.
Should you miss her, check out her blog: www.iheartnapa.com and stay tuned, there are a few juicy posts with her photography this month..
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