“A Painting a Day from Napa Valley”

Cort Sinnes, Napa Valley painter

In these calamitous times, it’s important to have an anchor to ground you daily, something to bring tranquility into this crazy, depressing, financially challenging time.

My daily anchor is an email from Cort Sinnes, a Napa Valley painter, who e-blasts to announce his next new “Painting a Day from the Napa Valley.” These are hand-drawn, painted landscapes, or close-ups of fruit, or images of vines, or the sky, or the Napa Valley horizon. His art pleases my eye, and pleases my soul.

Since September, Cort has hunkered down almost every day to produce a finished painting and email out a photo, which he also posts as “A Painting a Day from the Napa Valley” on eBay, with auction bids starting at $75.

Most images are auctioned for 72 hours; most fetch final bids in the $115 to $125 range, though a few have sold for as much as $325, says Cort.

This guy is multi-talented

“Lemons,” from Cort Sinnes’ “A Painting A Day from the Napa Valley” series.

For the record: I have admired Cort’s artistic talents for some time; when we first moved to Napa Valley, 12 years ago, we were struck by the stunning collage called “Mangia,” (an oversized fork, knife and spoon), which hangs at Bistro Don Giovanni in Napa town. Cort painted it.

Years later, in the late 90s, I found myself writing articles for a magazine called 2nd Home Living. Cort was the managing editor. The magazine fizzled, but our respective passions to celebrate the best of Napa Valley did not.

“’A painting a day from the Napa Valley’ is a kind of love letter to Napa Valley. I’m trying to spread the joy of living here,” says Cort. The very same goals of napaman.com – my own attempt to celebrate life in this special community.

“A while back, I received an email from my sister with a link to a New York Times article describing two artists – one in France and the other in Virginia – who were posting a painting a day on their blogs,” recalls Cort.

“I can do that,” he told himself. And thus was reborn his painting career.

Cort is a Napa native. While a student at Redwood Junior High School, he took classes from the late, and legendary, art teacher, Madilyn Windweh.

“Her classes were like college courses. She taught art seemingly forever and was heavily schooled in the basics,” remembers Cort.

Portrait of the artist as a young man – only 56.

After attending U.C. Berkeley, where he majored in English, Cort turned his back on art for nearly 20 years, becoming, instead, a writer. Over the years, he has written more than 36 gardening books and five cookbooks. He has been editor-in-chief of three national gardening magazines.

Although Cort has a good-sized studio in his house, he usually paints at his kitchen table, while dinner cooks on the stove.

“Everything I paint is ‘of the day.’ I usually try to capture something I have seen that very day in the vineyards, or in my home. I usually start to paint at 6 pm, and work until 10 pm. Then I finish the image the next morning,” Cort explains.

Is this demanding? “Keeping up with ’A painting a day from the Napa Valley’ is like being married to a nymphomaniac,” jokes Cort. “You can’t walk away very far because you know that shortly, you’re going to be called back to repeat the act!”

Cort’s small (usually in the 5” x 7” range) oil, or gouache (non-transparent watercolor) paintings appear five days a week on eBay. The way to learn about these images – and to get your own Joy Meter registering in the “RED ALERT, I’M HAPPY! ZONE” – is to subscribe to Cort’s daily email alerts, each which includes a photo of the painting to be auctioned.

There is no charge to sign up to receive Cort’s emails. And who knows, you might even decide to bid on one of the images.

To sign up for the email alerts, go to Cort’s website, www.cortart.com.