Southern Sonoma Country Life

Petaluma Arts Center Pop-Up Exhibition Celebrates Eclectic Eye of Warren Davis — Paintings from the Vintage Bank, July 21st to August 4th, 2018

The Petaluma Arts Center is proud to announce a pop-up exhibition – “Warren’s Eye: Paintings from the Vintage Bank,” which opens Saturday, July 21 with a reception from 5 p.m -7 p.m.

Warren Davis had a good eye. The entrepreneur extraordinaire spent a lifetime collecting paintings from all over California. He could be found up and down the state, scouring estate sales, scoping out auctions and sifting through antique stores. He also bought from pickers who came to him with paintings to sell. Warren collected just about everything – seascapes, portraits, still life, Asian art, nudes and the occasional abstracts.

Warren’s love of interacting with people, combined with his passion for art, led him to purchase the American Trust Building at the corner of Western Avenue and Petaluma Blvd.  Vintage Bank Antiques, as it was known, grew to become a magnificent mainstay of an antiques collective.  For decades, patrons were attracted to Warren’s eclectic collection – and his storytelling personality.

“Like many art lovers in Petaluma, I have been wandering through Vintage Bank Antiques for years, admiring the picture galleries and marveling at the diversity of styles and techniques reflected in the paintings,” said curator Jude Mooney. “When I learned of Warren’s passing, it dawned on me that the best way to honor his passion for art would be an exhibition featuring a slice of his vast collection. I wanted to show some of his personal favorites along with my own and display them like you see them in the store, salon style and somewhat haphazard, with equal importance given to legendary California painters and to lesser known artists. “

Warren passed away suddenly in January. He is survived by Judith, his wife of 38 years, his son, Grant Davis and over 2,000 paintings. Judith is continuing Vintage Bank Antiques as an anchor in historic downtown Petaluma – and the Petaluma Arts Center is proud to commemorate Warren’s eye and his art collection with this special pop-up exhibition.

Click here for more info on the Arts Center. 

Click here to register for the July 21st reception. 

Rivertown Revival — Heritage, High Jinks & Hootenanny —Southern Sonoma County's Annual Great Slough on Earth Extravaganza July 14th 2018

Friends of the Petaluma River bring you the 9th Annual Rivertown Revival, July 14th, 2018.

Rivertown Revival is a festival to celebrate our town, community and the mighty Petaluma River. Enjoy live music, activities on the water, delicious local food and drink, a Curioddities Tent filled with breathtaking creatures, creative Sonoma County vendors, a large Play Area for kids and kids at heart and all sorts of interactive art.   

Every year the RR crew is dedicated to creating an unforgettable and eco-friendly event decorated with as much re-used, re-cycled and re-purposed materials as possible. 

Dress as yourself or any zany, odd, beautiful, eccentric or avant-garde character waiting to let out for the day and evening.  

---

What's it for, other than fun? 

Rivertown Revival is a Benefit for Friends of the Petaluma River (FOPR), a local non-profit dedicated to celebrating, conserving and educating the community about the Petaluma River and its watershed. Throughout the year FOPR hosts river clean ups, free boating on Sundays, a nature camp for kids, barn dances and much more. 

In 2014 FOPR implemented a Watershed Classroom Program which enables teachers throughout Petaluma City Schools to teach common core curriculum through the lens of our River and watershed.  Please stop by the FOPR tent at Rivertown Revival to learn more.

No way could the folk who produce this fabulous event make this home-grown show possible without a talented team of volunteers. If you have the time and the inclination, sign up for another fabulous day on the River for a shift that brings you into the heart of the fundraiser. Special amenities include a unique Volunteer T-shirt, a free beverage, and lots of snacks in the RR VIP Tent (Volunteers are Important People) to keep you fueled for a day of merriment and adventure. 

Click this link to go to Volunteer Local and see the variety of available shifts.

Petaluma Transit is offering free rides to the revival this year. A free bike valet service will be set up once again at Steamer Landing. 

Check out the full website for music schedule, weddings, photo both and all the bells and whistles that make this one of the most enduring and unique annual outdoor events in the Bay Area. 

 There's still time to design your own vessel for the not to be missed annual Nautical Mass on the Petaluma River. 

 

 

Cook with Sonoma Spice Queen — Culinary Spice Summer Cooking Classes in Petaluma

"Since it was all Geography, History, and Sociology I was able to infuse my lifelong love of learning about different cultures, cooking and spices to develop Sonoma Spice Queen," says Petaluma's Wind McAlister, aka Sonoma Spice Queen, who is offering a series of small group cooking classes this summer.

"I like how different societies celebrate life and family through their own food traditions," says Wind. "It is interesting how these traditions influence our cooking here in America."

Culinary Spice Cooking Class Schedule July/ August: 

• Sunday July 1^st 3:00 PM 4^th of July Greek Style. Learn how to make chicken and lamb kabobs, spicy eggplant salad, tzatziki and Greek county salad

• Wednesday July 11^th 6:30 PM Spanish Tapas

Make several small plates using the best of summer’s ingredients and Spanish spices such as saffron, Catalonian herb mix as well as Spanish smoked paprika.

• Wednesday July 25^th 6:30 Healthy Mexican

Make easy and healthy Mexican food using local ingredients and wonderful spice mixes. Participants will create several different salsas, make interesting and flavorful taco mixes and  learn how to prepare and cook heathy beans from scratch.

• Sunday July 29^th 3:00 pm Basic Spice Class

Learn how to use basic spices and spice mixes to make everyday cooking more fun and flavorful.

• Wednesday August 8^th 6:30pm Indian Cooking

Learn how to make authentic Indian cuisine as well as learn about the spices and flavors of the different regions of India

• Sunday August 12^th 3:00 pm Middle Eastern

Learn how to make savory and lite dishes bursting with flavor utilising local ingredients as well as some from the Middle East.

• Wednesday August 22^nd 6:30 Spanish Tapas

Create several small plates using the best of summer’s ingredients and Spanish spices such as saffron, Catalonian herb mix as well as Spanish smoked paprika.

• Sunday August 26^th 3:00 PM Provencal /Mediterranean

Learn about the lite side of French cooking using lovely herb blends, lemons, olives, and olive oils. Also make a sweet and easy desert using lavender, vanilla, and lemons.

Please request a vegetarian or vegan class. Sonoma Spice Queen will easily accommodate you. All classes can be easily adapted for GF. 

• Call 707-776-7678 or email sonomaspicequeen@gmail.com to register
• Prepayment Required $85 per class
• Please indicate food allergies
• 

 

The Future of Local Food — Join The Conversation, Tuesday, June 26th, 7 - 8.30 pm Della Fattoria Cafe, Petaluma

The Everywhere Travel List — Summer Trips Inspiration

Passion for adventure is never more infectious than during the summer months. I've been thinking a lot about the U.S and how incredible it is to me that there are so many countries within a country, so many cultures, landscapes, histories, peoples. As I flew to New York and back on a recent trip to pick up my 2018 Silver IPPY (Independent Book Publishers Award) for my writing on our Northern California micro-regional Southern Sonoma County and coastal West Marin, I was more aware than ever of how much more of this beautiful country I must see.

I'm intent on finishing up the next round of my new book, a contemporary novel set in the familiar coastal surrounds of Sonoma County, the Russian River and the Emerald Triangle to the north. I won't be traveling too far from my desk and my backyard for a few months, but knowing that it's all out there, so much to explore and experience, is one of the main things that keeps me going in my work.

I hope that many of you will be taking to the road, the air and the great outdoors this summer. I found some fun and inspiring literary quotes to share along with these lovely vintage posters from Pinterest.

In the words of the 8th Century Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta: "Traveling, it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller."

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” 

Mark Twain - The Innocents Abroad

“See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security.” 

 

Ray Bradbury

 

"To move, to breathe, to fly, to float,
To gain all while you give,
To roam the roads of lands remote,
To travel is to live.”

Hans Christian Andersen

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” 

Gustave Flaubert

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” 

Anaiis Nin

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” 

Jack Kerouac - On The Road

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” 

Marcel Proust

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” 

Robert Louis Stevenson

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”

Lao Tzu

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” 

Terry Pratchett

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

Augustin of Hippo

“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.” 

Anthony Bourdain

Art That Unites — Petaluma Based Henry Washer's Monument of Indecision — Bringing our Community Together

Southern Sonoma County-raised and based classical artist 27-year-old Henry Washer has raised almost $10,000 towards his substantial $18,000 goal to take his fantastic Petaluma-designed and crafted scultpture-installation Monument of Indecision all the way to the desert for Burning Man 2018.  

It has been wonderful to experience Henry's thought-provoking work take flight in our art-loving community, uniting friends and neighbors and creatives from all walks of life in supporting one of our own most talented young visual art emerging stars.

When art brings people together in collective awe and applause, it's a wonderful thing. This is no small task that the artist is undertaking, the man that is the Monument would be about 13 feet tall if he stood up. 

Henry has been making art since he was a little kid and making it his life work since his late teens. After furthering his art education in Europe, Henry brought his classical sculpting skills back to Northern California and has been making waves in the art world these past few years.  

There is substantial cost involved in moving a piece of work of this weight and magnitude out to the desert and back. Please join me in helping Henry Washer take his work to the Playa to stand amongst the sorts of world-class art installations that provide a young artist a global photographic stage. 

Check out the cool rewards for pledging and know that this week there is a matching funder for whatever Henry brings in up to $1,000. A few dollars from many makes the art world go around. 

Click here for the artist's full hatchfund page.

The Monument of Indecision is a sculpture-installation for Burning Man 2018. A monument to the power and weight of individual choice. A place for reflection and self empowerment. "Everyone has the capacity for good and bad," says the artist "and I want this piece to inspire the contemplation of one’s own decisions. This is a sanctuary for the individual to seek out their own wisdom and truth unique to themselves."

 The structure is a place to reflect on the decisions we’ve made or choices we will have to make. The man is sculpted as a physically strong figure to remind people that making a choice takes strength and courage and should not be taken lightly. "In the day time, the viewer can come take refuge in the space and look at the sculpture with natural light to see the starkness of a situation," says Henry. "At night they can return and see the space lit up with the dancing lights of his potential, showing that with strength comes beauty, kindness, and the possibility of a better world."

The Main structure consists of 4 large wooden columns that stand vertical by use of guy wires, creating a 12’x12’x12’ central room. Jutting out in all directions are smaller auxiliary spaces. Shade cloth covers all of the spaces.  In the center of the room is a larger than life size cast concrete sculpture of a man sitting hunched over. The robust physicality of the man illustrates the severity of contemplation as a physical and mental struggle. A 7’ fiberglass orb ominously floats above him, with the top peaking out of the shade cloth. From the man’s open hands, strings of light spiral upwards around the orb. The lights form a series of tracks that are filled with illuminated schools of swimming fish, flying insects, and dancing geometric shapes. The objects are LED illuminated laser-cut acrylic. The space above him is a cloud of glimmering decisions and possibilities represented by a cacophony of lights, that expand throughout the room with an ungoverned natural energy.