For the last five years Kasandra Weinerth has been immersed in the Napa River.

What began as fairly straightforward commission for the Napa artist — to design a logo for the six-mile long River Trail — turned into a fascination, then series of art works, and now a show at St. Supéry Winery.

“I began taking walks along the trail for inspiration,” Weinerth said. “Initially I was disheartened by the amount of junk I found washed up on the river banks … I soon realized this junk was part of the fabric of the valley and the life we live here.”

Weinerth said she began collecting the “found objects” — an elegant term for trash — and long after the logo was completed, she was at work on a series of paintings that now comprise “River2: Transformed by Water.”

Trash — a bit of bent wire, a scrap of mesh, an aluminum can top — has also been transformed to become part of works of art that are literally glowing with warm bronzy colors, copper wires and gold leaf. “It’s the process of making something precious out of something ordinary,” Weinerth said.

Possibly the signature work of the collection is “Meditation, How the River is Reflected in Water,” which harkens back several years to when a group of Tibetan monks visited Napa, and as part of their activities here, created an intricate sand mandala, which they then carried to the river to cast into the water.

Weinerth retrieved a small bag full of the colored sand, which now hangs at the center of “Meditation,” suspended by copper wires with in a circle, in a square inside the larger canvas (48 inches by 48 inches), and surrounded on either side by images of red-garbed monks.

In another image, “River Transformed,” the painted canvas is covered with ripped wire to “show the river breaking free, to return to its original state,” Weinerth explained.

Looking ahead, Weinerth painted “River Dreams” a haunting, shadowy image, which, she said, “is a look into the future when all is serene.”

“I see the river as a metaphor for creative expression,” Weinerth said. “At times there’s a flood of inspiration, at other times it appears stagnant. Yet it keeps flowing as it carves its way into the creative soul.”

“I’ve always lived by water,” said Weinerth, who grew up in Puget Sound. She studied both fine and graphic arts in Southern California and New York. After moving to Napa 14 years ago, she not only became active in the Arts Council of Napa Valley, but became a winemaker, and as a member of the Valley Girls is a fixture at the annual Home Winemakers Classic each year.

As a graphic artist she specialized in logos, but now she said she is focusing on painting in her garden studio. Her work has been showcased at the Vorpal Gallery in San Francisco, as well as juried exhibitions around the country and is in many private collections.

“River2” will be at St. Supéry through Oct. 30. The gallery is upstairs at the winery, located at 8440 St. Helena Highway in Rutherford. For information call 255-8835.