Who’s behind those quirky sculptures along River Road?

Zooming by at 45 mph, the sculptures that line the edge of David McGraw’s River Road property across from Sunset Beach in Forestville look like colorful totems.

Up close, however, the works are much more complex.

The multimedia pieces incorporate reused and recycled elements to tell one-of-a-kind stories about the 132-acre ranch McGraw owns in the Russian River Valley. One incorporates an old furnace, another the top of a wood-chipper. A third features the chassis of an old truck. A fourth — perhaps the most eye-catching of them all — comprises two rusted metal rectangles, suspended by purple-painted steel.

McGraw, 65, is the artist behind all this work. Over the last five years he erected nearly two dozen pieces in an old apple orchard and on other parts of his land visible from River Road. The pieces have names, but there’s no singular unifying theme.

As McGraw puts it, they just exist.

“To me the pieces are musical, they evoke nature, they represent living forms, and they bring together architecture and engineering,” he said. “I’m not trying to make a statement with this work. I like creating it from materials that have history. I like creating it and seeing what happens.”

With such a broad artist statement, it’s no wonder McGraw’s work delivers a sense of mystery — many are familiar with it, most have no clue what it is or why it’s there.

But who is this man and what is the story behind his eye-catching art?

Finding acreage, placing sculptures

McGraw goes by the name Davingy — a contraction of his first two names (David Ingram McGraw) and a witty and whimsical reference to Leonardo DaVinci. He has been creating art under this moniker since he was 25.

In that time, McGraw, a welder, has gravitated toward sculptures, mostly geometric pieces that vaguely take the form of other items, such as people or animals.

The sculptures are made with metal, fiberglass, wood, ceramics and other durable materials.

He creates almost all this work at a studio in San Francisco, where he lived since moving from his native Portland, Oregon, to attend the San Francisco Art Institute. Sometime around 2005 or 2006, McGraw and his wife decided they wanted a place in the country, so they purchased 44 acres of steep hillside just west of Mother’s Beach outside Guerneville.

McGraw still makes artwork from his San Francisco studio and after a piece is finished, he’ll drive it up to Sonoma County. When he finds items he wants to incorporate into his pieces, he drives them down to his studio. He’s in the process of working on an open-air studio on the property, too.

On the map, that original property was shaped like a shark, so they called it Shark Mountain. Almost immediately after purchasing it, McGraw began installing sculptures there — a drive from the gate on River Road to a meadow near the top winds past dozens of pieces, many suspended from the trees.

“These are a lot of the older pieces,” McGraw said on a recent tour of the private land. “Most of these have crazy stories about me setting them up by myself.”

McGraw and his wife Amy Lynn McGraw subsequently purchased another parcel of 88 acres — this one is closer to River Road and they call it the ranch. It connects with the original property they have. This parcel had a circa-1857 farmhouse they’ve since torn down and replicated over the course of the last few years. It also is home to the orchard along River Road, and the two-dozen sculptures now on display there.

All told, there are more than 100 Davingy originals spread out across 132 acres — rising from the ground, hanging from trees and looming like giant totems.

“Everything here is site-specific,” McGraw said. “That’s part of the experience.”

Davingy style of repurposing art

Wandering the Davingy property is like stepping into a Dr. Seuss book. Most of the sculptures are 10 to 25 feet tall and look completely different depending on your angle of approach.

McGraw’s style can be described as “sustainable.” He strives to repurpose old sculptures and old forms into new pieces whenever he can. He regularly gets materials from salvage yards; some of the sculptures incorporate old garbage pails that he bought in bulk.

He also has incorporated artifacts he has found on the ranch over the years — furnaces, wood-chippers, tillers and hay balers, to name a few.

Forms vary per sculpture but many artworks incorporate what he calls “pods,” lantern-like trapezoids and rhomboids made of rebar and fiberglass. Smaller pods are about the size of a lawn chair; bigger ones can stretch to 7 or 8 feet tall. In some cases, McGraw even stacks pods, creating towers with a distinctly ribbed motif.

Another common shape: asymmetrical spherical objects he calls “boulders.”

The largest of the boulders sits atop a piece with two giant wood platforms; he calls that one “the asteroid.”

Most of the pieces are emblazoned with brilliant colors: bright purples, oranges, golds and greens. Instead of painting the pieces a traditional way, McGraw sends them to an auto detailer in San Francisco, who uses a technique called powder coating that relies on an electric charge to ensure the powder sticks to a surface, rather than any kind of adhesive.

“I’ve found that this way the colors are more vibrant, and they last longer,” he said. McGraw added that the more colorful pieces often look like birds to him.

The colors certainly attract attention.

Opening the collection to the world

Wendy Gause, owner of the Russian River Pub across River Road from McGraw’s ranch, said locals and visitors alike come in all the time asking about the art.

“People are always asking, ‘What’s the story with those sculptures?’ and the truth is that I don’t really know that much,” she said. “I’ve spoken with him about them, and he’s mentioned that in some way they reflect nature, which I guess I can see. I definitely think it’s interesting.”

Gause isn’t the only local who finds Davingy an enigma. Up and down the Russian River Valley, locals are familiar with the art but know very little about the guy behind it.

McGraw said he is gearing up to open the orchard and other parts of his ranch to the public for tours of some sort. While he isn’t sure if the tours will be guided or self-guided, he is aiming to have them in place by the end of the year.

He also is working on signage that he’ll put along the property line that abuts River Road so passersby can see where they can go to learn more about the artist and his work.

(There is information at Davingy.com, but McGraw acknowledges he needs to rework that website, too.)

“I really want to cultivate a sense of discovery,” he said. “Come, look, and have one experience. Come again, look again, have another experience.”

Until then, the best way to take in McGraw’s creations is from a car or bike or on foot along River Road. No matter how many times you pass by, you’ll notice something new every time. And that’s exactly the point.