di Rosa

The girls and I decided to take advantage of last few days of their Christmas break with a trip to the Sonoma region. We started the day at the di Rosa. When we arrived, we were told we could look only in the Gatehouse Gallery as a tour reservation was required to see the rest of the property. We were a little bummed but began looking around the gatehouse. A few minutes later, the attendant came over and told us some of the tour goers hadn't shown up and we were offered their spots! We hopped on the tour bus and drove up to the main gallery.

Artwork from the Gatehouse Gallery

The Main Gallery

As soon as you set foot in the main gallery, you're surrounded by works described by Rene di Rosa as "divinely regional, superbly parochial, wonderfully provincial, an absolute native glory. Considered the most significant holding of Bay Area art in the world, di Rosa houses more than 2,000 works of art by over 800 different artists. I wasn't sure what the girls would think about this type of art and so I was interested to hear their thoughts. Kids are so wonderfully honest and I tried to remember to appreciate that fact as Anna told the art docent that she thought the "Dry Lake Briefcase" piece wasn't that special. To her, it just looked like  a briefcase full of parched earth. We talked about the possible symbolism of it and after that Anna was busy looking for the meaning behind the work. Her favorite piece of all was the angel flying in circles over broken statuary at the exit of the gallery. She said it looked like there had been a war and the angel was flying over the fallen and taking the good souls back to heaven with her.
 

 

The House

Lauren's favorite part of the tour was the house. It was a lot of fun. There wasn't a free space to be found. Every wall, ceiling, nook, and cranny were filled with art. I loved the small galleries lining the walls near the ceiling. There was so much to see that it was almost hard to take it all in....and keep up with the girls. They're fast viewers. They look and they're gone. I feel like I'm always playing catch-up!

The girls loved all of the peacocks on the property. Lauren found a feather to add to her growing feather collection. When we saw the "man car" in the lower right hand corner, I began to wonder about the symbolism. Anna, however, just asked, "Where's the gas?" She's so funny!

When the tour was complete, we were given the option of riding or walking back.  We chose to walk and take a closer look at some of the artwork along the lake.