Destination Art

<p>By the time visitors arrive at Bodega Bay's coastline art galleries, they've already seen some beautiful landscapes, framed by the car windows.</p><p>"We drive through beauty to get here," said Dan Rohlfing,co-owner of the Bodega Heritage Gallery, just off Highway 1.</p><p>Inside his gallery, there's a different kind of scenery: desert landscapes by some of California's most respected past painters. A big man</p><p>with a bigger smile, Rohlfing finds amusing irony in that.</p><p>"I tell people, 'Come out to Bodega Bay and look at the desert,' " he joked.</p><p>For anyone interested in a relatively short drive and a leisurely stay at a gallery, the scenery available is unlimited. The Sonoma County Gallery Group, made of up some 60 galleries, aptly titled its new map and brochure "Destination Art." No matter which direction you pick, you'll find good art, much of it local, often in galleries that are off the commuter corridor but still nearby.</p><p>The Graton Gallery is housed in a quaint storefront on the tiny town's central block, defined by a stop sign at either end, just off Highway 116, just north of Sebastopol.</p><p>"We're at this bend in the road on the way to Bodega Bay, so we get a lot of tourists," said painter and gallery co-owner Pam Lewis. "We're also a favorite destination for a lot of people who come up from San Francisco for the wine and stop to see art."</p><p>Run by eight partners, all artists, the gallery shows not only their work but exhibitions by others and a wide range of crafts.</p><p>The current "Invitational #2" show features paintings, prints and other work by 25 Northern California artists, including painter Craig Nelson, the director of Fine Art, Drawing and Painting at San Francisco's Academy of Art College.</p><p>"We're a hometown gallery but these are big guys," Lewis said. "We have a network of artists. We have criteria. And it's comfortable here. We make friends."</p><p>Visitors can linger awhile in the outdoor sculpture garden that runs along one side of the gallery.</p><p>"This becomes a really nice gathering place in warm weather," said Lewis, stepping outside briefly on a recent chilly morning. "It offers kind of a respite back here."</p><p>The rewarding part of any gallery hunt is the discovery that one might find a nice display of art almost anywhere in the area, even tucked away in the Ray Design Studio near Santa Rosa's Railroad Square. That's where Spring Maxfield's new Micro Gallery currently displays notebook sketches, maquettes and studies from the studios of internationally recognized Sonoma County artist Ned Kahn.</p><p>For a nice drive and a chance to see a lot of art in a short time, it's hard to beat Bodega Bay, home to three galleries: Bodega Heritage Gallery, and just upstairs from it, the Local Color Gallery, with the Ren Brown Collection not far down the road.</p><p>Rohlfing, a retired East Bay middle school teacher, and his wife and partner, Linda Sorenson, a San Francisco attorney, exhibit work by California artists of the past at Bodega Heritage. They live in Bodega Bay now, and opened their gallery last July.</p><p>"We sell mostly from our Web site, but we needed a place where we could show our paintings," Rohlfing explained. "Some of our clients fly out to see us."</p><p>Rohlfing readily rattles of background histories for the painters whose work he displays: James Swinnerton was a pioneering Hearst newspaper cartoonist, and Disney artist Joshua Meador crafted the animated, slashing "Z" for "Zorro" once seen on the '60s television series.</p><p>At Local Color, framer Gary Smith and six artist partners concentrate on work by current Sonoma County artists.</p><p>"The wonderful thing about Bodega Bay is that it really isn't that far away," said Smith, who commutes from Rohnert Park.</p><p>One of the partners, longtime landscape painter Florence Brass, is known for work that vividly captures some of the North Coast's familiar roads and corners. Visitors might see a pretty spot in one of her pictures and then recognize it on the way home.</p><p>The current show at Local Color includes paintings by Robert DeVee, partner with Ren Brown in Bodega Bay's third gallery, the Ren Brown Collection, which features contemporary Japanese art, California artists and antique furniture.</p><p>While the county's galleries don't limit themselves to local artists, homegrown work is very popular, particularly with out-of-town visitors.</p><p>"There are a lot of tourists who come here from all over the country, and they want to take a piece of California" home with them, said Jill Plamann, a conceptual artist who founded the Hammerfriar Gallery at the southern end of Healdsburg three years ago.</p><p>"There are so many artists in Sonoma County and many of them have chosen this area to live because it is beautiful," she said.</p><p>Plamann, one of the Sonoma County Gallery Group's founders, considers the organization's Web site and map a handy guide for anybody who wants to see some art.</p><p>"When I first came here from Wisconsin, I couldn't find art myself," Plamann said. "Some of the galleries are hard to find if you don't know where to look, so the map is great."</p><p>For more information, call the Sonoma County Gallery Group at 887-0799, e-mail art@scgg.org or visit www.scgg.org.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.</p>