A Press Democrat Blog

Arts

Dan Taylor on the fine arts scene.

Sonoma County Museum opens ‘Mail Call’ exhibit

Wednesday, at 12:00 by

For generations of soldiers serving overseas, the next best thing to going home was getting mail from home. “Mail Call,” a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., celebrates the history of this of treasured correspondence. The show opens upstairs at the Sonoma County Museum with a reception from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 9, and runs through April 21. The exhibit also is augmented with items from the Sonoma County Museum collection and… Read More »

New photo exhibit at Sonoma County Museum draws a crowd

Tuesday, at 7:00 by

The Sonoma County Museum’s “IMBY” exhibit is a hit. More than 400 people attended the opening reception last Friday, Jan. 25. A lecture about the show on Sunday, Jan. 27, also was well-attended, said Pat Lenz, one of the exhibit’s organizers. The exhibit’s title is new take on the old idea of “NIMBYs,” the folks who show up at public hearings to say they really don’t oppose the construction of the latest big facility of some sort, as long as… Read More »

Landscape paintings at Sonoma County, Sonoma Valley museums

Tuesday, at 7:00 by

Sonoma County art lovers who favor scenic vistas have two choices this month, with exhibits of landscape paintings on display at two local museums: (1) Sonoma County Museum’s two exhibits of work by 19th-century American master Thomas Cole — “Thomas Cole: Peace at Sunset” and “Wild Land: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Landscape Painting” — continue through Jan. 13 in Santa Rosa. “The California Landscape: Conservation & Collections at the Sonoma County Museum” is also running in conjunction… Read More »

Sonoma County Museum is both subject and site of coming art show

Wednesday, at 7:00 by

You’ve heard of NIMBYs. Those are the folks who show up at public hearings to say they don’t oppose the construction of the latest big facility of some sort, as long as it’s “not in my backyard.” Now it’s time for the “IMBYs.” “In My Back Yard” is a concept promoted by Sonoma County artist and curator Pat Lenz. What it means is that art photographers take pictures of arts display spaces, such as galleries and museums, from all angles,… Read More »

Enrique Chagoya exhibit opens at Sonoma County Museum

Thursday, at 7:00 by

A night at the museum needn’t be a stuffy affair. The Sonoma County Museum opens its new exhibit, “Enrique Chagoya: Death and Taxes in Fantasylandia,” with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 22, complete with live music and a tequila bar.     Tickets cost $15 at www.sonomacountymuseum.org. The exhibit, running through Nov. 4 at the museum, 425 Seventh St., Santa Rosa, is just as playful in spirit as the reception. The show presents works created by… Read More »

Painter Chester Arnold speaks at Sonoma County Museum

Wednesday, at 12:16 by

  Internationally known Sonoma painter Chester Arnold will speak about his work, as well as art and the world in general, at 6 p.m. Thursday, July 12, at the Sonoma County Museum. A longtime art professor at the College of Marin, and well-known for his own work, Arnold won additonal attention six years ago, when he and his students painted, from photographs, portraits of some 2,000 U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq War. Admission to the 90-minute talk costs $8.… Read More »

Chester Arnold paintings on display at Sonoma County Museum

Thursday, at 7:00 by

Sonoma painter Chester Arnold is on the quiet side, but he’s an interesting guy. Born in Santa Monica, the son of a career soldier, Arnold spent most of his childhood and adolescence in post-World War II Germany. “Munich was a great city to grow up in,” he once told me. “It’s full of art and history. There was a built-in contemplation in that life, or maybe I was hard-wired to be contemplative anyway. I was thinking about mortality while my… Read More »

Day of the Dead exhibit opens in Santa Rosa

Monday, at 1:29 by

This year’s Day of the Dead exhibit opens Tuesday, Oct. 4, at the Sonoma County Museum in Santa Rosa, with a public reception set for 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7. Working with local artists and others in the community, the museum presents five decorated altars commemorating the lives of lost family and friends, in keeping with the traditional Mexican El Dia de Los Muertos festival. The exhibit also features prints by Maria de Los Angeles of Santa Rosa and… Read More »

New shows at Sonoma County Museum

Tuesday, at 10:32 by

Two new exhibits open Saturday, June 19,  at Sonoma County Museum: 1. “Nobody’s Poodle,” an iconic sculpture, by Healdsburg artist Pat Lenz. Lenz also runs Slaughterhouse Space, an exhibition and program space for art annexed to Duchamp Winery. 2. “Gertrud Parker: An Artist and Collector,” featuring  the Austrian-born artist’s sculptures of gut skin, dyed and stretched over welded frameworks. Both shows run through Sept. 11 at the museum, 425 Seventh St., Santa Rosa. Admission: $2-5; 12 and under free. Information:… Read More »

Beer, bluegrass bash at Flamingo

Monday, at 5:00 by

The Sonoma County Museum stages “BOB3,” its third annual Big Oktoberfest Bash, from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 8, at the Flamingo Resort Hotel and Conference Center 277 Fourth Street, Santa Rosa. Taste locally made brews from Lagunitas, Moonlight, Russian River, Third Street Aleworks and others, as well as Ace Cider’s best.  The party also features barbecue, beer-making demonstrations and live bluegrass music by Old Jawbone. Tickets cost $40 at the door, and that price includes all tastings and… Read More »