CALIFORNIA WINE COUNTRY
Napa Valley is hoping visitors will sample local arts scene
Alongside the fine vintages are the fine arts. Now, visitors just need to take notice.
Napa Valley art: Luring wine-country tourists
Napa Valley, Castello di Amorosa
Ghost wineries of California's Napa Valley
Napa's new Oxbow Public Market
Yountville, Calif.
Every time my husband, Kevin, and I visit the Napa Valley, we leave with a newfound appreciation for the local arts: the art of wine making, the art of wine country cuisine, the art of wine-and-food pairing.
With so many temptations, we've never put down our wine glasses long enough to appreciate the other local achievement: the fine arts.
On a recent visit, we made a concerted effort to push away from the tasting-room bar and ponder the next Picassos. But finding the fine art was a bigger challenge than we had expected.
"The arts have always been here, only a little hidden," says
The real trick is getting tourists like us (read: wine fanatics) into these public art spaces, museums, galleries and art-filled wineries. Many established nonprofit institutions, including the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville and the Di Rosa Preserve in the town of Napa, are regular stops for locals and schoolchildren. But they receive only a small part of the more than 4.5 million annual regional visitors. (The museum's average annual attendance is 12,000.)
For local arts advocates, it's time for a change. Two years ago, Williams and a handful of Arts Council board members formed the Public Art Committee to address the absence of a public-art plan for Napa County. After studying the cultural plans of similar-sized cities nationwide, the committee received approval in January for its Community Cultural Plan for Napa County, a four-year public-art plan that will serve as a road map for promoting and expanding the arts.
It's a laudable victory. But with county funding approval still pending (a proposed "percent-for-art" ordinance would allocate 1% of new public or private construction costs to public-arts programming), it probably will be several years before its effects on cultural tourism, including an arts-marketing campaign aimed at tourists, are seen.
Until then, the best approach for finding the county's hidden -- and not-so-hidden -- art gems is not unlike the best tactic for discovering a little-known winery: Ask the locals.
"We're really a regional museum with a clear mission to provide regional art and explore the environment and history of the valley in ways that interest the local community," says Ann Mosher, the Napa Valley Museum's interim executive director. "But we also have a caveat to provide a window to the world for residents, to give them the opportunity to see art they might not otherwise."
This year, that caveat is the traveling exhibition "The Art Books of
Luring those millions of wine country tourists to the recently renovated Yountville museum is a challenge, even with exhibitions by big-name artists. Mosher hopes this year's third annual Festival del Sole, a summer music fest that brings
"The pre-concert wine receptions at the museum get them in the door to see the art," says Mosher.
Where are all the people?
Across the valley at the Di Rosa Preserve, Kevin and I expected a packed house. It was a glorious sunny afternoon, an excellent day to explore this unusual 217-acre nature preserve with more than 2,000 indoor and outdoor works by a range of Bay Area artists, including Robert Arneson, Lewis deSoto and Peter Voulkos.
But the property was empty, save the resident peacocks fanning their feathers as we passed. So we hopped on the open-air bus and enjoyed a private two-hour "discovery" tour, content to spend a little time inside the mind of eccentric former owner and avid collector Rene di Rosa before returning to the tasting rooms.
The tug for wine country tourists isn't limited to nonprofit arts organizations.
"People are up here on a wine country vacation for that gourmet experience," says Oliver Caldwell, co-owner of private galleries in San Francisco,
The brightly colored, life-size scrap-metal horses by artist Doug Owen are the reason Kevin and I ventured inside. Caldwell also turns to live music to bring in the crowds. An early-May charity fundraiser and gallery reception for Rusty Wolfe, a Nashville artist and former songwriter for
"Hey, if you rock out, people will come," Caldwell says.
Other local gallery owners have taken a more direct -- and quieter -- approach to attracting wine country travelers: If art collectors won't come to you, go to them.
Ira Wolk, one of the seven Public Art Committee planning members and owner of St. Helena's I. Wolk Gallery, converted the former beauty salon of the exclusive Auberge du Soleil resort in Rutherford into a gallery five years ago. Wolk also procured the 80 sculptures by
The catch? The public is welcome at the beauty-salon-turned-gallery, but only resort guests or serious buyers may visit the Olive Grove Sculpture Garden. But as Kevin and I discovered, the term "serious buyer" is loosely interpreted. When we called to ask about the garden, the gallery assistant said simply to make a dinner reservation at the restaurant and she'd arrange a private pre-dinner tour. Food and wine for art's sake? We were happy to oblige.
GEHRY-DESIGNED WINERY
The next morning, Kevin was eager to hit a few wineries, but I still had the art bug. We compromised by choosing a few of the gallery-lined tasting rooms.
At Artesa Vineyards & Winery in Napa, we were drawn by the museum-like architecture, but it was the glass and installation pieces by resident artist Gordon Huether inside that kept us there all morning.
At Mumm Napa in nearby Rutherford, Kevin toured the rotating exhibition in the hallway, glass of wine in hand, while I checked out the 30 original
We capped the day at the Hess Collection in Napa for a tour of owner Donald Hess' private collection of works by Magdalena Abakanowicz,
After a long weekend of art-filled wine tastings, it was the two markedly different properties owned by Craig Hall, founder of
"When we bought the property in 2003, I had eyes for incorporating art into the redevelopment -- it's something I always try to do," Craig says. "But it was Kathy who felt the person best suited to carry out the vision was Frank Gehry."
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