Along Napa Town Center’s promenade, a familiar and yet utterly strange object has suddenly appeared: a freestanding white door like those found in any home.
Who placed the door here and what it might portend is its fascination. The brave pull on the handle. Many walk away.
Three other doors are situated similarly around downtown as part of Napa’s sixth annual Lighted Art Festival, which debuted Jan. 20 and runs through Feb. 18.
The festival features massive lighted projections on historic buildings, interactive art installations in parks, plazas and bus depots — even an “aquarium” inside a vintage Ford truck.
The white doors are perhaps the least obvious objects drawing attention.
Small signs that say “B!G ART” are the only clues that maybe there is something more to these portals than meets the eye.
Those curious or brave enough to open them are rewarded with one of 200 videos. Some reflect outer space or the natural world. In others, the viewer sees themselves.
According to Canada’s B!G ART studio, the project “explores the greater meaning of a door, and its ability to change our path in life when we have the courage to open it.”
After all, the studio states, it’s just a door.
Paul Magnuson, B!G ART’s “chief imagineer,” said he’s learned a lot about human behavior while observing people interact — or not — with the doors, which have appeared in festivals all over the world.
“We’re scared to open the door,” Magnuson said during a Jan. 19 artists’ reception at Napa’s River Inn. “Maybe it’s a door-to-door salesperson. Maybe it’s the in-laws. Maybe it’s food you’re having delivered. But even then, we have them leave it on the stoop.
“We don’t invite people into our homes,” he continued, “so the door is a metaphor of opportunity, and anxiety, and all kinds of crazy things now.”
He said small children are usually the bravest when it comes to opening the doors.
An outdoor kaleidoscope
Napa’s Lighted Art Festival appeals to all ages by its ultimate approachability. This isn’t art in a stuffy museum, but an outdoor kaleidoscope of color and sound evoking warmth on cold winter nights. It’s also free.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Department debuted the festival in 2018 to encourage people to visit downtown during the slower months. But rather than the usual holiday-themed events, the city drew up plans for a lighted art festival, which at the time were a rarity on the West Coast.
Today, the festival is eagerly anticipated, including by parishioners at the First Presbyterian Church on Third Street.
Artists love the historic church, built in 1874 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and its neo-Gothic facade to project lighted work.
This year’s project, titled “Biotechture,” was produced by Spain’s Hotaru Visual Guerrilla. During the lit display, brightly-colored tentacles reach across the church facade, striking both visually and for the emotional impact of melding modern and historic design.
Church members serve cookies and cider to people who come to admire the show. Visitors are also welcome to go inside the church, which is celebrating a 150-year anniversary, to listen to music.
“We just want to share God’s love, and it’s a great opportunity to do that,” Jane Roscoe, the church’s family ministry director, said of the festival.
A block away at the historic Native Sons of the Golden West building on Coombs Street, the stunning visuals of “Sound the Deep Water” flow across a stone canvas.
By using their smartphones and a QR code, viewers submit secret messages that alter the patterns being displayed. The private love letters, prose or inside jokes are translated into larger-than-life floral compositions tied to the messages’ meanings.
In the Victorian era, suitors presented potential partners with literal bouquets, each with a coded meaning, according to artist Josh Miller, an associate professor of art and design at Pennsylvania’s Kutztown University.
“The more emotions you use, the more flowers you get,” Miller said of his interactive project.
The other projected artwork, “A Journey Through Time,” illuminates Napa County’s historic Superior Court building on Brown Street. The piece was created by High Resolution Events, which is based in the United Arab Emirates.
All three projected art pieces will be on display for the festival’s first nine days — Saturday through Jan. 28. The other installations remain the entire five weeks.
Bringing people out
Katrina Gregory, Napa’s recreation and public arts manager, said the festival “broadens peoples’ horizons of what art can be.”
“It also brings people out during the coldest, darkest time of year and really helps stimulate our economy during that time,” she said.
The festival generates between $3 million and $4 million in economic impact by conservative estimates, according to Gregory.
She said roughly 60% of the festival’s $340,000 budget is underwritten by Napa Valley’s Tourism Improvement District, which assesses taxes on lodging businesses. Money also comes from Napa’s general fund, and from owners of properties where art is displayed.
The festival operates from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, rain or shine.
“The Heart and the Hollow,” a project of Reno-based artist Chad Rice, is a riff on technology’s increasing overlap with human nature.
Depending on where they stand, viewers of Rice’s project see a warm human portrait, or a cold, emotionless robot image.
Rice, who teaches high school art, said he created the piece five years ago, before artificial intelligence exploded into consciousness.
He said the theme of how technology and humanity are becoming more interchangeable by the day has now taken on a “deeper importance and urgency.”