di Rosa Preserve

On Saturday, Lisa, Elizabeth and I did a road trip up to Napa to visit the di Rosa Preserve. The di Rosa Preserve’s 217 acres feature three art galleries, an outdoor sculpture meadow and a 35-acre lake set in the Carneros region at the southern edge of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys.

The lake was beautiful and on one porch kind of section looking out at the lake, all these swallows had built little nests in the aluminum roofing and were busy going in and out of their nests and out over the water and back again.

We went on a 2-hour guided tour of the gallery, the main house (all chock full of art of all kinds), and the chapel building (more art, of course) and we loved all the unexpected sculpture scattered everywhere outside throughout the property.

I thought one cool installation was a pile of life-sized real statues, all thrown in a pile (as in the photo). But what I couldn't take a picture of was hanging high above this pile was a life-sized angel statue, glancing downward and slowly rotating in a wide circle. It was kind of cool.

Of course, everyone takes a picture of the unexpected car hanging from a tree.

There were just so many unexpected sculptures all over the place. Rene di Rosa collects art from northern californian artists (some pieces have become invaluable because he collected them while the artist was an art student at Chico State and they only later became well-known) and they refer to it as "funk art" but his tastes are really eclectic and cover a wide range of subjects and styles. There were paintings, and photographs, and electronic art and installation art and sculptures - everything you could think of (and a lot you never thought of!)

I thought it was a *great* experience for being inspired how creative artists can be using different materials to express different things.

Then we went and had a picnic lunch at a really small family-run vineyard I like to visit and support, called Arger-Martucci. I like quite a number of their wines and just love their small and family-oriented atmosphere. We ate a picnic lunch at their picnic table by their pool and sampled what was on the list for their wine tasting, talked with "Dad" for a little bit. It was hot and sunny and the wine was good and it was just a perfect napa kind of afternoon.




Technorati tags: art , painting , di Rosa Preserve