Introducing Layla Love, Artist in Residence at Gold Ridge Organic Farms

Dear Friends of Gold Ridge Organic Farms,

I write to you today with profound joy and gratitude. My heart is overflowing as I share the beginning of a truly extraordinary chapter. I am Brooke Hazen, owner of Goldridge Organic Farms, author, keeper of this land’s story, and now collaborator in a vision which I know will lift us all into something more beautiful and transcendent than we had dared imagine.

We are honored to embrace the year-long residency of the luminous artist Layla Love, an artist whose generosity of spirit is as radiant as her work, and whose purpose-driven mission shines through every gilded stroke and empathic frame. Layla has dedicated her art and her life to those most in need, to ocean conservation and to human dignity. Her voice is bold, her heart is open, and her imagination knows no bounds. I cannot overstate how deeply grateful I am to journey with her.

In this residency, we have set our intention high. Together, Layla and I are pouring our hearts and souls into transforming Gold Ridge into an epic wonderland for women, men, and children alike, a place where the everyday becomes extraordinary, where the land itself becomes a canvas, and where the visitor steps into a realm of awe and inspiration. We are not simply installing art; we are co-creating an experience of wonder, and a celebration of light and purpose, where our senses are awakened and our spirit is moved.

From the orchard paths to the edge of the olive groves, you will encounter forty original gold-leaf artworks by Layla—each piece shimmering and bathed in golden light, each piece evoking emotion, remembrance, and awakening, and each piece echoing the silent and pure promise of transformation. As the year unfolds, she will continually create new works, responding to the seasons, the soil, the breeze, and to our collective breath of hope. Our 3,000-square-foot glass house, just outside the farm store, will become a world-class destination; the walls alive with light, reflections of the orchard, golden halos, and the surreal harmonizing and resonating with nature’s rhythms. Sculptures of floating butterflies will drift among the trees and glass panes, each one embellished with stained glass and crystals, and surreal touches which call forth heavenly memories, childlike wonder, and adult yearning alike. Inspired by the grand scale of the fabric installations of Christo in Sonoma County, we will weave a Silk Road fabric canopy for our butterfly sanctuary, standing as a shimmering arch above a meadow, the fabric catching the sun, wind, and dreams, and inviting you to pause and to belong.

We are also deeply honored that legendary art-critic Anthony Haden‑Guest will mentor this residency. His insight, his vantage, and his brilliant mind will guide us, as we ensure that our art is not mere spectacle, but rather art with impact and integrity.

As the author of my own words, I appreciate the power of story. And so this residency becomes story, the story of land and light, of fruit and form, and of abundance, giving, and gathering. Layla and I share a commitment to fundamental human rights, sovereignty, and freedom, ocean conservation, and a profound belief that beauty is not frivolous; It is catalytic. It opens hearts. It shifts minds. And It invites us to evolve and awaken.

When you visit Gold Ridge this year, you will taste not only the finest olive oils, apples, and citrus, you will walk into a landscape re-imagined, a living installation of art and earth. You will sense the pulse of purpose, the whisper of transformation, and the invitation to be moved. My hope is that you will leave not just delighted, but transformed.

Thank you for sharing with us this art of living. Thank you for coming, for breathing this land, and for witnessing art made real. This is more than an invitation; It is a calling. And together, we step into it.