We are pleased to be located in Bodega Bay, a uniquely beautiful place in its own right, where the constant rhythmic percussion of the surf blends with a mixed chorus of barking sea lions, squawking gulls and fog horns, a setting well suited for brisk windy walks through waving dune grasses, glorious vistas of the sea, a well deserved bowl of warm clam chowder, and some well spent contemplative moments in art galleries.
Our dream is to promote California's historic art, to tell the fascinating tales of the artists and exhibit examples of what they created. Many of these artists were trained in Europe or the best American schools such as the Art Student's League in New York, or the Art Institute of Chicago. They came to the new exciting land of California, using their talents and training to interpret a new vibrancy they encountered. Their artistic efforts have now become California's historic art, a family of genres encompassing a wide variety of traditions and styles, but together, forming the core of California's artistic heritage. To appreciate what these artists accomplished is to renew for ourselves what these artists felt and sought to convey; the seductive horizon of California's beauty, promise and potential. Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery, both online and small fine art gallery (in Bodega Bay), is a proprietorship of husband and wife team Dan Rohlfing and Linda Sorensen.
California native Linda was a painter and commercial artist early on, but back then she learned that women were not often successful in major artistic endeavors, and women were welcome in relatively few types of jobs. After High School in Summit, NJ, and Elmhurst, IL, she attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, graduating with a major in English and a B.S. in education in 1967. Her teaching credential wasn't enough for California, jobs were scarce, and she worked as a secretary at the University of California at Berkeley. Times changed, and she attended Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, when women were finally being admitted in significant percentages. She has had a successful thirty-plus year career focusing on business bankruptcy law in San Francisco, and continues there on a part-time basis. But Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery has given her an opportunity to expand upon lifelong art education and connoiseurship. She attends to the needs of our paintings as they come to us, for example to find suitable old frames. She is often "assisted" by one of her four attending cats. And she has picked up her brushes again, as she always promised herself she would one day do, and would welcome opportunities to paint plein air with others.
Dan was born in Indiana and raised in Illinois. He received his education at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and then attended a Lutheran seminary in St. Louis. After graduation, he was a parish pastor for a brief time, but preferring to work within a wider circle of people, made his way into public education. For twenty years, he taught the U.S. Constitution and introduced Shakespeare to eighth graders in El Sobrante, CA, finding the thrill of teaching in that electric moment when students' eyes brightened, and the light went on. After retirement from the classroom, Bodega Bay Heritage Gallery is providing him with new opportunities to learn and to teach, and he enjoys bringing the talent and vision of California's historic painters to a new audience.
Bodega Bay is a fishing village and tourist destination on the California Coast about one and a half hours North of San Francisco, and about one hour from the Santa Rosa airport. From the South, the fastest route is on an angle from Petaluma on Bodega Avenue through Valley Ford, meeting up with Hwy 1 near the Coast. From the North, cutting down on the West side of Santa Rosa to Hwy 12, through Sebastopol onto the Bodega Highway until it meets up with Highway 1. Bodega Bay and inland Bodega were both used in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." Bodega has the schoolhouse, but Bodega Bay has the coastal scenes and businesses - much changed due to "progress". Because of coastal protection zones, there is much farmland but not many commercial buildings in Bodega Bay. The nights are dark with few streetlights, and you can see the stars and hear the seals barking and waves crashing. Doran Beach county park, Bodega Head and Campbell Cove, and Salmon Creek's State Park and other park beaches to the North are the town's surroundings. There is an inner bay and an outer bay, and when the weather is clear you can see the tip of the peninsula on the other side of Tomales Bay, and even the long Pt. Reyes with its lighthouse flashing regularly. The Cordell Banks are out there to the Southwest, and we're told that the geology of Bodega Head shows that it was once connected to the Los Angeles coastal lands.
There are currently three art galleries in Bodega Bay, all within a very short walk on the North side of town. See our Location link or our Newsletters for more information.
