Sonoma County's garages, barns and backyard sheds are about to swing open their doors again as the 42nd Annual Sonoma County Art Trails tour gets underway this weekend, giving visitors free admission into the working studios of 160 local artists. The self-guided tour runs over two weekends, Saturday and Sunday, and again the following Saturday and Sunday, with studios open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day.
According to the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, this year's tour features 160 Sonoma County artists, each opening a studio to visitors across both weekends. The Sebastopol Times has reported the figure slightly differently, describing it as more than 160 artists opening their studio doors to the public, so the exact count varies depending on the source. Either way, admission remains free, and the arts center is encouraging visitors to meet the artists, explore their studios and map out a route using the directory at sonomacountyarttrails.org.
Among this year's participants is Petaluma artist Maggie Parr, whose creative path began far from a Sonoma County studio. As The Press Democrat reports, Parr spent 30 years working for Disney theme parks, designing concepts for rides and attractions after landing her first job out of college at Walt Disney Imagineering. Her own account of that career, posted on maggieparr.com, notes that she eventually left to deepen her painting practice, later returning as an independent contractor with Imagineering as her biggest client.
From Theme-Park Concepts to Whimsical Portraits
Parr's business today spans murals, portraits, illustrations and architectural elements, a natural extension of the sprawling creative range built during her Disney years. Her own site notes that work eventually grew to include book illustration, comics, and writing books and scripts for television. The Press Democrat reports Parr created a piece titled Renaissance Rabbit, depicting a rabbit dressed in elaborate Renaissance costume, and that she describes her work as whimsical, built on learning the rules of art just well enough to break them.
Per the same Press Democrat report, Parr plans to demonstrate portrait painting for visitors who stop by her Petaluma studio during the tour, giving attendees a chance to watch her technique firsthand rather than just browse finished pieces on the wall.
A Sebastopol Painter's Birds and a Santa Rosa Artist's Hidden Code
Also participating is Sebastopol artist Celeste Duffy, who retired from a career in graphic design before turning to painting in oil on canvas, according to the Press Democrat. Duffy, who has taken part in Art Trails for three years, builds her compositions from computer stock images that she manipulates before painting, and the Press Democrat reports one of her paintings, featuring a woman with a bird on her shoulder, appears on this year's Art Trails catalog cover. She told the paper that her west-county surroundings inspired her focus on nature, and that birds in her work symbolize resilience and hope.
In Santa Rosa, retired federal architect Steve Scavo brings a very different sensibility to his studio at the Fulton Crossing gallery and studio complex. The Press Democrat reports Scavo, who worked for the General Services Administration, builds three-dimensional collages out of lumber scraps, old packaging and discarded objects. His own site, studioscavo.com, describes his mixed-media collage and assemblage work as incorporating graphic art and architectural imagery, with braille worked in as abstracted visual patterns forming hidden messages within each piece. Scavo's studio is located at 1200 River Road, Studio E, in Santa Rosa, and the Press Democrat notes that most of his pieces contain a secret message encoded through visual references to braille and Morse code.
Decades of Open Studios, Rooted in the 1980s
Art Trails itself has deep roots in the county's arts scene. The tour was started in 1983 by a group of artists connected to the Arts Council of Sonoma County, according to the Sebastopol Times. The Sebastopol Center for the Arts took over administering the program in 2014 after the Arts Council ran out of money, and it now runs two annual open-studio tours, including Art at the Source, which was held in June 2026 and is set to return in 2027.
The Sebastopol Times has reported that Art Trails generated almost $700,000 in sales in 2023, according to center director Serafina Palandech, and that the organization provides marketing support and mentorship for artists new to the program. Visitors looking to plan a route this year can consult the collector's catalog or visit the center's Art Trails Exhibition, the outlet notes, while a preview selection of work by participating artists was also on view in the town of Sonoma from August 27 through September 24, according to the arts center.
