- Featured Topic: The Arts in Napa Valley
- Art Venues in Napa
- Art Outside
- Controversial Art
- Healing Art
- How CanDo Supports the Arts
- CanDo's Projects
- Spotlight: More Opportunities to Support Our Community
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Featured Topic: The Arts in Napa Valley | |
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by Kelly Renda (with Karen Garcia)
Art connects us in our expression, opens us to new perspectives, invites conversation, and unites us in appreciation.
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Isn’t it amazing how just an image can move us to tears? How a certain song can invoke a precious memory of a loved one, or relentlessly inspire us to get up and dance? Or how the written word can create an opening in awareness, forcing us to rethink all we once knew? This is the power of ART.
Wikipedia defines art as “something that stimulates an individual’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses.” Approximately 50,000 years old, a drawing of a “pig hunt” found on the walls of a cave in Sulawesi, Indonesia is said to be “the oldest known depiction of storytelling and the earliest instance of figurative art in human history.”
And in essence that’s what art is: Storytelling. Storytelling through a picture, a sculpture, a song, a performance, or really anything created by humans that stimulates the senses. Story is what connects us all.
Oh, I can only imagine the stories the wines created here in Napa must have! I encourage you to speak to the winemakers of the valley about “the story behind the wine” and notice how the story influences the taste, smell, and other visceral reactions you may have to the wine. Here’s a site where some local vintners have shared their stories.
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Art Venues in Napa
Art and Napa just go hand-in-hand. Some Napa wineries house incredible art collections, just to overwhelm the senses! Here is a guide to some of the most impressive collections.
The most comprehensive guide to local art venues that I’ve found is the Visit Napa Valley website. Updated regularly, it is where you can find all the current local happenings related to art and culture here in the valley. You can even find some available art classes to take, should you be so inclined.
The Napa Valley Museum in Yountville is the premiere destination for viewing and participating in a wide variety of inspiring and enlightening exhibits featuring the best of art in many forms: from painting to sculpture to photography to interactive installations. The world's best artists, including some from Napa Valley, are on display at the Napa Valley Museum.
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Art Outside
Perhaps the best way to explore the power of art is to simply walk outside. Napa, one of the most beautiful places on earth, just has a way of drawing us out into her beauty and bringing us all together.
You might stroll the Napa River, home to the new Monthly Arts Market at River Terrace Inn, or listen to music on a Friday Night in Veteran’s Park. The DiRosa Center for Contemporary Art, located on 217 protected acres in the Carneros region of Napa, features two large art galleries, a beautiful lake, abundant birding, walking trails with vineyard views, outdoor sculptures, and picnic grounds.
Here are some outdoor public art and event offerings in Napa:
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Controversial Art
Art is not without controversy, even here in idyllic Napa. Some may remember that back in 2002, Robert and Margrit Mondavi’s newly-opened Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts provoked a hubbub that made the national news when it presented an art exhibit of defecating ceramic figurines, including the pope and nuns. Museum officials justified the display by arguing that it is a long-standing tradition in Catalonia, Spain; the artist who was responsible for this work, Antoni Miralda, is from Catalonia.
Alan Shepp’s mosaic art fountain located at the Historic Napa Mill illustrating the history of Napa County (Ars Longa Vita Brevis, or Life is Brief But Art Endures) originally included images of KKK clansmen with a burning cross, harkening back to a dark and contemptible period in Napa’s past. Many local citizens wanted the images to be removed. Others felt that they belong in the mosaic, if we are to be honest about our history.
After years of discussion, the NAACP logo was superimposed over the images, an elegant solution to a difficult question.
So, with the changing of times comes the changing of the human perspective, and Napa is now writing a new story that embraces diversity and welcomes inclusion. CanDo is proud to be an active participant in the creation of that new story.
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Healing Art
Ten years in the making, the Napa Quake Mosaic is planned to be completed in 2024. This public/private artwork will soon grace the surface of a stationary railroad car donated by the Napa Valley Wine Train when it settles into its home in Napa’s Rail Arts District, a 2-mile linear arts area that runs adjacent to the Napa Valley Wine Train tracks and the Napa Valley Vine Trail through the heart of downtown Napa.
Kristina Young is working to complete the project in collaboration with several local non-profit, private, and public partners. It contains approximately 31,000 shards of glass and pottery from items broken during the 6.1 earthquake that shook Napa in August, 2014.
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How CanDo Supports the Arts in Napa Valley
CanDo’s Pro-Inclusion Napa: the Positive Poster Project
Should you need any more proof of the changing times, may I suggest you head to Napa City Hall. Available until August 8th, there you can view the Positive Poster Project. This is an art project I am personally proud of, being a founding member of CanDo’s Pro-Inclusion Napa, the group behind the project. The installation showcases positive messages in art form from the youth of our city. These powerful words of acceptance, kindness, and respect from our future generations will bring hope and inspiration not to mention - a few tears to the eyes as well.
| The author Kelly Renda, her daughter, and Napa City Manager Steve Potter at the PPP exhibit in City Hall. | |
And that is when I believe art exhibits its true power: The power to create deep shifts… starting within ourselves, and then creating a ripple effect out to all around us. When we are angry, a picture can make us laugh. When we are sad, a song can lift our spirits. When we are lonely, gathering together around food and wine connects us. When we feel numb and hopeless, the motivational or poignant words of others can bring us back to life, inspiring us to change or to take action. Art changes the story of our life, by adding song to it, color to it, beauty to it, nourishing it, and moving it by rewriting our lives into new stories that connect us all.
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CanDo supports the arts in the Napa Valley in other ways too.
Local nonprofits may advertise their events and requests for volunteers in the Spotlight section of the CanDo Connection.
In the past ten years CanDo’s Give!Guide has raised almost $5 million for 147 local Napa Valley nonprofits, including many that are focused on the arts, like those listed below.
Some local NPOs, governmental entities, resources and events involving The Arts
Annual Events in Napa Valley featuring visual and performing arts
Coming Soon
Want to become an advocate for the arts?
Download and read the Arts Council Napa Valley Advocacy Toolkit
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What Story Do You Want to Tell?
Maybe you will be inspired to express that story through art - and through your story, positively affect another’s.
If you have a story to tell, check out Napa’s Busking Program. This new program offers another way to expand the arts and community connection through downtown art-centric entertainment. This is an excellent opportunity for emerging artists to share their talents more intimately with the Napa community. We look forward to hearing your stories.
We are so fortunate to live in a community culture where art is embraced and dispersed abundantly throughout the valley, and where we are surrounded by such natural beauty. Thank you to all the artists in Napa and beyond that connect us and have made our lives and our valley rich with art and story.
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Art brings people together physically — at galleries, museums, performance spaces — and culturally, through its capacity to tell a community’s shared story, to inspire reflection, and form connections that transcend differences.
~The Knight Foundation
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You can volunteer for one of our dynamic projects, even for just an hour or two, or help one of the many local organizations we support. Each individual action connects to others. Together, we‘re making our Valley and world better. | |
More Opportunities to Support Our Community | |
Volunteer Opportunities & Events to Support Local Nonprofit Groups
Tell 'em you heard about it through CanDo!
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REFLECT & REJOICE - OUR 17TH ANNUAL GALA AND AUCTION
Sponsor: Community Health Foundation Napa Valley
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DAY/DATE/TIME:
Friday, September 6, 6-9PM
LOCATION:
Louis M Martini Winery, 254 St. Helena Highway S, St. Helena
FFI:
Email Jennifer.McConnehey1@providence.org, call 707.254.4166 or visit their website
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BUNNY ADOPTION EVENT
Sponsor: Napa Bunnies
at Pet Food Express
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DAY/DATE/TIME:
Last Sunday of every month, 2 PM - 5 PM
LOCATION:
Pet Food Express, 3916 Bel Aire Plaza, Napa
FFI:
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1-3 VOLUNTEERS TO HELP MAINTAIN YARD
Sponsor: Providence Community Health Napa Valley
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DAY/DATE/TIME:
Spring, early summer; no specific days, daytime hours
LOCATION:
1906 2nd St., Napa
FFI:
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If you represent a local nonprofit, you may submit a SPOTLIGHT EVENT or VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY by completing our online form. | |
Space permitting, posts run up to three weeks prior to your event. Flyer or image is required and must be sent as a jpg. | |
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SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, 6PM for the following Tuesday's edition.
FFI: Learn more and submit your event here.
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Looking for Local Volunteer Opportunities?
VolunteerNow.org, maintained by the Center for Volunteer & Nonprofit Leadership (CVNL) connects local community members with the causes they are passionate about.
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Upcoming Events, Volunteer Opportunities, and Other Ways to Support Our Local Nonprofits | | |
PO Box 855
Napa, CA 94559
Email: info@nvcando.org
Phone: (707) 225-8942
Tax ID: 46-2670379
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New to CanDo? Want to receive this nifty eNewsletter? It comes out bright and early the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, full of ways you can volunteer and connect with community. | | |
You Want to Help. We Make it Easy is a registered trademark of the Neighborhood Food Project. Used by permission.
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