Saturday 10/29/2022
The thing today was a day trip with Jean and Patty (Dennis had to drop out) to the DiRosa Art Center in Napa. Patty and I drove down to MV and picked up Jean, and then off by 237 and 680 to Napa, about a 2-hour drive.
This art center was created by Mr. DiRosa, who was a writer who got tired of the city life in SF, and moved to the quiet hills of Napa, where in the 1960s he had a successful grape growing operation. Not a winery, he just grew grapes and sold them to other wineries. Then he inherited some money. He also developed an interest in art, particularly the work of various California artists who centered around the art school at UC Davis (who knew that a campus known for agriculture was also a hotbed of art?) With his money he started collecting, and eventually built two gallery buildings as well as filling a 30-acre field with outdoor sculpture. The art he focused on is called generically, “California Funk”. It’s full of jokes and outrageous combinations of images. I took a few pictures, see below.
After having walked the place for an hour we went for lunch. Following the suggestion of one of the museum people we went into downtown Napa to a Greek place, the Small World Cafe, and had lamb gyros. Downtown Napa was full of parents and kids in costumes, apparently they had just had a Halloween parade.
And so drove back, about 200 miles round trip for the day.
Codgerville 