tarleton

tarleton.

tarleton, half of the cool, authentic, and accessible duo behind garden party, invited us into her home beautifully decorated with pieces she had found and collected over the years. tarleton is a bubbly sweetheart and a true influencer in asheville - for her eye, for her cohesive & innovative branding (hello: instagram stories), and for her contagious big heart. 

she gushed to us about how much she loves what she is creating, continuously referenced the women in her life that have allowed her to grow and be strong, and opened up about the struggles that came along the way. 

—

how did you end up here? 

i ended up in asheville in a round about way. i grew up in ridgeway, virginia and i applied to go to unca. i got in and got a great scholarship but at 18, asheville wasn’t big enough for me. i ended up going to school in atlanta, and after 7 years there i finally i realized asheville was the perfect size. i had started to miss my small town so asheville bridged that gap. it will be 10 years in july. 

how did garden party come together? 

i was working for a company in town in the gift industry. i was running their operations — and i met seth. we met on tinder. he was my one and only tinder date! he works for blue ridge hemp, and cbd was completely new to me. i am not much of a smoker myself anyway, but seth comes from a different world and a different vibe in that way. we are both super business minded, and when i came up with garden party i had no intention of leaving my job. i came up with the idea in december. seth and i both thought it would be so much fun, and asheville didn’t have anything like it. we both had full time jobs but march came around and i just quit. i have to say it didn’t end in the way i would have wanted it to, but it was just time for me to be my own boss. so far so good!

how would you describe your roots? 

i always thought of my upbringing in two different ways  - there is the extended family and this sense of wealth. as a kid i rejected that, but now as an adult i appreciate the history more. and then my immediate family was really normal in a lot of ways. very loving home - to the point where my parents forewent their own lives and friends to make sure my sister and i were happy. 

my extended family in virginia owned a lot of property and had a real estate firm. for so long i rejected the extended family. they are very conservative, they dress really well, they go to private schools, and live that country club lifestyle. it was something i didn’t fit in with, ever. but as an adult i see how parts of that have come through in my own way. i have really fancy taste. i have champagne taste on a beer budget, as my mom likes to say. it’s interesting how for so long i didn’t embrace the family being in real estate — i love real estate and interior design. i love objects. those traits carried into my life in a way i really appreciate and i never thought i would before. you know, it ends up being something you are proud about. it’s the entrepreneurial spirit i guess. 

what was one of your favorite experiences in your life? 

college. two different parts of college. when i first moved to atlanta from being in a small town i was just mesmerized with the city. it was such an eye opening experience in so many ways. but then i partied a lot, oops! but by my senior year i had had such an amazing education - it expanded my mind in a way i had thought of previously. school was something you do and i did well in school but it didn’t require much creative thought, it was never a challenge. college was the first time i felt challenged to think differently and challenged in a way that was really exciting. 

what is a scent that triggers a strong memory for you? 

shalimar. my dad would give my mom a bottle of that every christmas in her stocking. it was her scent. my dad passed away 8 years ago so any kind of scent or visual that can bring me back in being closer to him. 

what is one thing that is abnormally special to you? what would you grab in a fire? 

i have a framed fish trophy that my dad won. it’s 3d on cardboard paper, and my sister once bent the tail. i remember my dad being SO upset about it, but i just love that piece. not only is it a memory of him, but my sister at that time in my life — staying connected with them. 

i also used to sell furniture at oddfellows and screendoor so there are random items in the house i would never get rid of because i love them so much. 

what is the best part of your day? 

my drive back to the house from after working out at well fit. you get a view of the mountains — we are all lucky to be here surrounded by the mountains. i personally forget that a lot, that we have such a wealth of beauty around us. so that drive! not only do i have this high from working out and it’s done and i don’t have to do it again for another 24 hours, but it’s also the least stressed i feel. working out is my time for me, especially when i am alone in the car afterwards. just reflecting on it, it just feels great. 

are you an early bird workout gal? 

i am! i go 4-5 mornings at 7am. it took me awhile to get used to working out that early. working out is not something that comes naturally to me, i am just not one of those people. but it is the feeling after and for my mental health - the stress relief and anxiety relief it provides. i wouldn’t do it by the end of the day. 

what are you working on or learning right now? 

with regards to garden party we are always working. we have a lot of big fun creative ideas, it is a matter of finding the time, capital, resources, and patience to execute on those things really well. on a personal level i am a big proponent of therapy. it took me a long time to feel comfortable about it, but i just happen to believe we can all strive to be a little better to ourselves and each other, and that would help us be better as people. therapy is part of that process for me. i am always trying to learn and understand and gain some perspective on whatever happens to pop up in life. 

garden party has been a great example of my own bias that i have been learning and understanding about myself. there is that highway exit right there, and there are a lot of transient people coming through town. i think because firestorm is a safe space for that — they have been coming into west asheville more and more. there are these two women in particular that stand on that corner of that exit every single day. rain or shine. snow even. they are there trying to collect money. when i first moved into the space i was like, “ugh why are they there, they are such an eyesore.” but they have taught me so much about myself and i think that is what is exciting about being open minded and trying to understand things you don’t automatically understand. there is nothing all that different about me and those two women. i just had access to more in my life. i have mental health issues that i deal with, anxiety and depression. i don’t know their backstory but there might be some of that for them too, and they didn’t have the resources to work on their mental health. that goes into another healthcare issue for our whole country. point being — those women have taught me a lot about my bias with addiction, with people living on the street and with what that means for our community in west asheville. i am just really grateful to be challenged every day in that way, to understand things a little differently. i don’t understand why we tend to throw negativity at these kind of things. we don’t understand it, and people have more access to those kind of emotions now that there is a leader that says that is ok.

if i don’t get it, i want to know more about it. i can constantly be improving and understanding and listening. 

what words do you live by? 

number one - definitely from the pages of the jen sincero book: no zero dollar days. i say it every day. i didn’t even mean for that to be what i repeat to myself but it has taken on more meaning than just no money in the till. each day is a new approach. start your day fresh. we just have so little time on this planet so make the most of it. i am never that kind of person, again that is something i have had to really work on - manifesting more positivity. 

…social media has everything to do with how we process our emotions now and what we do with our emotions, how we express them and share them.  there are times - if i am having a bad day or a zero dollar day - i just want to take my instagram and say fuck this, fuck trump and throw it against the wall. i definitely think being a southerner and a woman i naturally hide my emotions. but social media is throwing a wrench in that. 

what traits do you rate highest in others? 

i think a lot about friendships and relationships - trust is really important and honesty is huge. i am a year and a half after having separated from my husband. you can share or not, but he had an affair and lost his job and we separated after that. so of course, honesty and learning to trust people again. it’s actually not as difficult with seth, i feel really comfortable with him. but something that happened as a result of that separation was losing a lot of friends. i think the trust and honesty stuff is harder for me now going into friendships instead of romantic relationships. i didn’t anticipate so much loss when i made that decision.

and another is something seth always says that i really like which is: people that live by their values and have integrity. seth is quaker, so he applies a lot of that philosophy to his life and who he is as a person. through knowing him and his process i have come to value integrity - does what i am about to do or how i am treating someone align with my values? 

what traits do you struggle with with others? 

i am a virgo and an enneagram one so i struggle with perfection and judgement. i tend to think in black and white. those are personal things i struggle with, and as a result of those things that is where i struggle with others. i have been told that i expect a lot, but actually it is a judgement on myself and not being perfect enough. it ends up translating into my relationships with people. i am trying more and more to embrace that we do not live in a black and white world. it is all grey. everything. you can hate your ex husband and be angry with him, but you can also miss and love him. it doesn’t have to be one or the other. but that way of thinking has been difficult for me in understanding other people sometimes that are in my life and close to me. 

what was the most tragic thing that has ever happened to you? 

the loss of my dad was by far the hardest. ethan and i were not married yet, but we had been in asheville for about a year and things had finally started to settle in. we went to see my dad for his birthday and he was really grumpy. his girls - my mom, my sister, and i - can do no wrong. he just treated us like princesses all the time. we weren’t used to that kind of attitude from him. two days later he went to the hospital and they found out he had a tumor and pancreatic cancer. so.

up to that point when anyone would ask, “what is your greatest fear?” and that for me was losing my dad. when i was a kid he had some issues and had to have a lot of surgeries so i felt this weird sense of control if i was there and at home that he would be fine. then getting that news — he was going to have surgery and they thought they might be able to remove it, but it had spread and wasn’t treatable. i think they told him he had like 3 months? we had 6 months with him after that. i still call him daddy.

i think in a family of four there are these small alliances that happen. my mom and sister were very similar, and my dad and i were very similar. we experienced mental health in the same way and had this unspoken bond. he was the only person in my life that i can really think of that never really questioned me. i was always different and wanted to try different things. he was the person i felt the most aligned with without having to speak that. so yeah, that’s by far the worst, but also in a weird way part of the reason why i can’t hate my husband. we got engaged driving back from the hospital. we knew we wanted to get married, but i think ethan knew how important it would be to have my dad there. so it was also a happy time in many ways - there are some really great memories associated with that. 

what would you say helped you the most to cope? 

that is when i started therapy. incidentally that is when i stopped taking medication with the help of my psychiatrist and started to see a therapist, and you would think that it would be the other way around. i had been taking medication since i was 16. i don’t really remember the reason why, but probably because i couldn’t afford it. and just wanting to know what i would be like without it. 

and then having my therapist cindy. i cannot sing her praises enough. i almost cry every time, she is just my support. there is a small group of women that have no idea how much i value them - my obgyn, cindy, the trainer at the gym. they are my foundation. 

and my partner ethan was very supportive. he definitely helped me get through. friendships were a bit tricky at that time, because of my expectation thing, but also because people don’t know how to talk about grief. 

what do you feel like asheville is missing? how do you feel about asheville right now? 

i am just coming back from new york so i think asheville is great. not that i dislike new york but i think having some distance from asheville is really important in appreciating it. the day to day here can just be - and i think this is wherever you live - you experience an amount of boredom, lackluster and lack of creativity and inspiration. that’s not so much asheville’s fault, but the fault of how we live our lives. but i think asheville makes it tricky to live here. i think we have a lot of ways in which we can improve. i hope our government and our city officials to step it up — like, we don’t need another hotel. and us with garden party, our building is scheduled to be torn down. there needs to be some recognition — that little area of west asheville, specifically, has grown so much in the past year. whether they are being torn down or not, that highway is going to affect people. the walkability we love, walkable west asheville. there just needs to be some sort of shift in responsibility in how we approach all this. a superhighway, for example, in environmental impact terms - it doesn’t make sense. big cities are moving away from these things. i wish we would be a bit more open minded about that. 

i also think having lived in a small town that was much more racially diverse, and living in atlanta — that is definitely on my mind. recognizing systemic racism and how there is a lack of people of color here. why is that? well, we have to look back historically and see this city has not been taking care of people they way they should have. this highway is going to cut right through one of the remaining communities here. our city really needs to take a look at that. this is one way i tread lightly with my feelings because i know i am a white woman with a certain amount of privilege, and i do have thoughts about that. i have thoughts about racism in my industry with cannabis. and how are we going to be responsible allies and advocates in our industry for people that have been criminalized for things that white people freely and openly do without any consequence? i want to be the best ally i can, and for that it means taking a step back and learning and listening more. look before i leap, i think. but that can be applied to how i think about asheville. how can we all work together here? 

at the same time i will say that asheville has given me opportunities that i don’t know i would have had if i had stayed in atlanta. i don’t know if i would have stumbled upon my love of decorating and antiques if i hadn’t moved here. i definitely have had some interesting career moves that i am not sure would have happened in atlanta. 

do you have a living hero? 

well shannon at well fit. she is my spin instructor slash high intensity interval trainer. she is so amazing to me. she is a mom, she is the head executive baker at french broad chocolates full time, and she goes to the gym and works there 5 days a week. that’s inspiring to me. 

and of course my mom. growing up with a group of women - my mom had 4 sisters. so i grew up surrounded by women with a lot of opinions. i don’t know how to be in a relationship and not be a vocal woman, and not ask for things to be fair, because i grew up with these women that didn’t take anyone’s shit. i wish i could be more like that. but it did teach me a different way of being. a lot of that is my mom. she had a career while we were growing up, she got her masters while we were growing up. i admire that tenacity and drive. i tried to start an application for my masters, and couldn’t even finish it. so imagining her doing that with two children, at night, and getting up and doing it all over again. and seeing her now in her life without our dad in it - what that looks like for her. she cycled through a lot of emotions with that, that were probably uncomfortable. she has always been strong and taking care of the family, and for the first time i am seeing that my sister and i need to step up and take care of her too. but she is going to the gym — she just lost 50 pounds! she is retired and works at this community college part time. she goes to the beach with friends and sees plays in durham. to see her exploring that new chapter of her life, i really admire that. 

what would you say is undeniably you? 

my name. i think my name is interesting because a lot of people can’t pronounce it. i’ve heard it all. but i guess i say that because it is unique and therefore i have to live up to it in some way. 

and people always say that i am so sweet. so maybe that. my nickname at the gym is sweet-t and my dad used to call me that. 

do you have a power outfit or item? 

my dad gave my mom this necklace after i was born for christmas, it’s sapphire which is my birth stone. i almost always wear this, and i will rub it if i’m nervous. it’s my thing. 

i don’t really try with fashion. i feel like i go through phases of not being creative with my outfits. maybe because it’s winter. but i love accessories — definitely a source of confidence and power for me. 

i have this gold sequin wrap dress. i don’t usually show much cleavage, but my friend had asked me to dj for her wedding and it was also my 35th birthday. there were a lot feelings with old friend groups there and with my birthday, i needed a DRESS. i had a black dress for the ceremony and when it was time for me to dj, i changed. my dj name was dj dynasT-T and i got a farrah fawcett wig off of amazon. 

what was your walkout song?

it was jump in the line. it got a little weird from there. but yes that dress is like — ok. we are going to go out, and we are going to have fun. 

if there was a new two dollar bill whose face should be on it? 

my cat. or bell hooks, i really love her. a person of color. do we still value that? having a face on a dollar bill? what ever happened to that vote? but if that is a sign of power then it should be someone that really deserves it. we have a lot of bad karma to make up for. 

if you could spend the day with anyone alive or dead who would it be? 

rhoda from mary tyler moore. i think she is the coolest lady. first of all, her fashion sense is so great. her story resonates with me - she is a divorcee and just been fired from a job. that’s me! the whole last year of my life — starting fresh and doing it with some sass and positivity and valuing friendship. that character is just really interesting to me. i’m truthfully more of a mary tyler moore but i would love to be more rhoda. 

what is your best vomit story? 

i was 22 it was my birthday and i hadn’t had a 21st like many people do so i was determined to make up for it. i drank like half a bottle of tequila. it was bad. i went to mjq which is an underground bar, i think it was a wednesday night — it was brit pop night. i don’t even smoke, but i put a cigarette out on ethan’s arm, and i didn’t know him yet. that’s the first real meeting. apparently i professed my undying love for him, and left throwing up. julia, my friend, still loves to talk about how i owe her for that. this was back when myspace was cool and i woke up to a message from ethan like — are you ok? i had no idea why he was messaging me, like — who are you? i didn’t remember any of it, but that was how we started. 

what is one thing not many people know about you? 

when i was younger my eyelashes grew in instead of out. i had to go to a specialist and get these drops. for lack of a better word it was physical therapy for my eyelashes, to get them to grow out. the local doctor said we could either see a specialist or pluck them all out and just see what would happen. my mom was like, “i will not have this beautiful baby losing her eyelashes!” so we went to the big city in winston salem, and the only way they could convince me was to go to the mall after. 

how would you define confidence? 

for me it is really about trusting my instincts and my gut. listening to that. really knowing the decision i’m making in whatever way is the right decision for me. 

what is feeding your soul right now? 

garden party man! i am just all in. we are 6 months in to being open and it has become so much more than i thought. like great, we are going to open this boutique head shop it is going to be fun — but it has become more of a vehicle for me to practice engaging with my community, being more active, what kind of activism garden party can take on…and seeing that evolve and flourish, and people responding to that in such a positive way is really nourishing me. it helps me along in that confidence and the decisions that i make — that i am on the right path right now. and i don’t think i ever acknowledged that in my past or even have known to feel that way. i feel really confident in what we are trying to accomplish there. we are still very small, and all the memes about owning a business are true — we worry about bills constantly, i don’t pay myself regularly, and we have these a lot of big ideas and not enough capital to accomplish them. but each day we are there, put in the effort, and have people come through. it makes me feel like — ok, you are doing this. this can support you. all the doubts you can have about having a business can weigh you down, but i am trying to approach it in a different way.  

what do you need around you? 

i really enjoy downtime. i can talk to people and i can be really social but i need to have quiet time to recharge. so what that looks like to me is being here at my house and having the cats nearby - they are such great snugglers. and being able to just kind of veg out. i think that i think a lot. i am in my head a lot, so part of the reason why i love real housewives and things like that is that it takes no effort on my part to think about it. and then later i find myself intellectualizing about it. it’s just this stupid thing, but that helps me recharge. being quiet. being with myself. 

what does your ideal birthday look like? 

i want a limo birthday. i want to drive around town in a limo and have the people around me that make me want to cry i love them so much. there are just certain people in my life if i start talking about it i could cry, they mean so much to me and i don’t know if i could ever express how much they mean to me. so yeah i want them driving around in a limo with me on my birthday. there’s this thing my coworker told us, she is from mississippi, it’s called moondogging — where you are hanging out of the limo and you chug a cheap beer.

so yeah, moondogging in a limo with all the people in my life that it makes me want to cry i love them so much.

what are you proud of? 

i am proud of making the decision to leave my husband. that was a really hard one. it is a daily struggle. there was a lot of trauma in that relationship - as much as it could be good, there was a lot of bad, especially in the last year. i think old version of me would have stayed and maybe tried to work it out. maybe it is the level of empowerment that has been happening culturally — or whatever it was, ultimately it was me having found some sense of confidence that i didn’t have previously that allowed me to say, “you deserve better.” i am really proud of recognizing that, it is not my normal go to. 

what do you daydream about? 

having a kitchen with…a big wood butcher block. i want some really dope tile. i love in-concept white and minimal design but that is not me, i love color and i love my things. i want some really cool tile. i want to be able to lay down in there if i want. i also just think about my next home and what that looks like. i love this house, but it is a little small. i just went over to angela finney’s and was just blown away by her house. that’s exciting for me, i don’t get jealous of other people, i see the possibility of what i can do with design and feed off others’ creativity in a fun, positive way. 

also i daydream, again, garden party garden party garden party. what we look like in 5 years. we could have failed, we could have sold the company, we could have still be working and grinding and hustling, or we could be doing all kinds of crazy things - a delivery service…that too — with daydreaming comes with the legalization efforts. what does that look like 5 years from now? 

what are you scared of? 

i have this secret fear - i think because i am hyper organized and am a virgo and all that, i tend to just get shit done much quicker and maybe easier than some people that are guided by other things than perfection and organizing, so i sometimes fear like, “am i supposed to be doing this differently so i am complaining more?” “this should be hard. are you sure you are doing it the right way?” there are hard parts to it, hands down, we just did events two weekends in a row and i am exhausted and tired, but i also just had the best time. now that i am doing this, i see like - oh, this is what it is like to do something you love. i guess my fear is that i secretly don’t think it is that hard. 

what is one thing you are embarrassed to admit? 

i was in third grade and there was a talent show. my piano teacher encouraged me to play jesus loves me on the piano, and sing it in chinese. i don’t know, but i did it. i think we all have to have that moment as a kid where we have to experience a level of embarrassment. 

do you have a secret hunch how you’ll die? weird question but i think it’s interesting to ask yourself. 

i hope in my sleep. i would hope i am looking amazing in this silk robe and that i have farrah fawcett hair, my nails are done, and i write a really profound letter to my friends and family letting them know i love them. and i just close my eyes. 

what do you want to accomplish before your glam exit? 

i would really love to be 100% certain of myself without relying on others opinions. that is such a challenge, and i think it is not particular to me. i think we all struggle with wanting to impress our peers. other people’s opinions are important, and yet they are not. i really truly just want to be this ornery southern old lady who is just crotchety and does not give a fuck what anyone else thinks about her. if i can accomplish that then i think, ok i have really done my work with cindy. 

seth has this phrase - it’s the balance between giving all the fucks and giving no fucks at all. how to find that balance. that is definitely something i struggle with. you know, you want to put forth your best appearance, i want to live to be a good person. that is important to me that other people know that. i am sure as hell not perfect, i haven’t had a perfect life, i am just trying to get through it the best way i can. but i do value how i present myself and how garden party looks. i want the physical things around me to reflect somehow all the greatness inside of me. but i want people to like it. 

it’s funny how i have cycled through the comparing thing. there was a point in my life where, you know — we had just bought a house, i was married, we hadn’t had a kid. but there was this other woman in my life, a coworker, who had all of that and i was constantly comparing — just not living up to this standard that wasn’t going to happen in the way that it did for her. that has been so exciting for me, in embracing and rejecting this binary black and white thinking in how i define family and how i define relationships. part of me struggled at first with the whole divorce thing. that is not something i necessarily am proud about in certain ways, but again — in the end that has been a source of me redefining and reclaiming my power. so yeah. it’s giving all the fucks and none at all.