Come closer. Try not to look away. Be confronted, be comforted, hold the question that has arisen between two bodies.
Artists are revered for their emotional vulnerability. Solorio takes it a step further as her chapters evolve from form to form: the outpour of feeling into a journal instigates a ceramic that holds its weight; the finished ceramic asks to be casted into a story; the performance ties all the messages together. By working in different dimensions, Solorio layers the weaknesses of one medium under the strengths of another.
In 2020, Solorio published a performance titled Fruit of Knowledge. In the video, she stands alone in a cage. Naked and blindfolded by choice, she has invited her own body to join her mind in exploring a question together: What if Eve’s choice to eat the fruit was favorable? Above the cage hangs an apple—the symbol of freedom, awareness. At the sixth hour of performance, Solorio reaches up and eats of the forbidden fruit.
What an audience perceives can spark a beautiful exchange of prompt and perception. And yet, what the audience rarely sees is the labor for the art to exist. For her seven-minute video, Solorio received three days of migraines from dehydration and exhaustion. Yet, when the time comes to channel another question through performance, Solorio will gladly do it again. “I don’t feel protected while doing my work,” she shares. “I get stronger from doing it.”
She is driven by the intrigue of self-discovery. Strength grows through the pain of shedding the social constructs pressed upon us since birth. In another performance created during the pandemic, Perpetual Cycle, Solorio filmed herself again. The video shows her running—which, true to life, is a practice she keeps six days of the week. The following scene shows her eating, but chewing away at excessive amounts of food. Then, a toilet: Jackelin heaves and vomits orange liquid into the bowl. At long last, she stands, sucks in her stomach and smiles at the mirror.
The idea for this performance came during a run: “I asked myself, ‘Why am I running so much? Am I addicted to it?’ ” After all, when she started running at 13, her goal had been to lose weight, pressured by unrealistic expectations. Though her daily run evolved into a life-giving ritual, she continues to hold herself accountable through her art. “This came from a real space,” Solorio emphasizes. “I really did binge. It was hard, but necessary.”
Solorio challenges the male gaze and the patriarchal arm of religion in her physical art forms as well. The body, bare under the gaze of other eyes, speaks of attraction as much as it does repulsion. Sculptures of clay and human hair, such as Solorio’s ceramic vagina collection, are as wondrous as they are shocking. In a recent series, a photo documentation of The Last Supper creates an alternate history: The female body, recast as the pope or as Jesus Christ herself, reminds us all to ask why. Why are things the way they are, and what keeps them that way? “I researched,” Solorio says. “I found that a woman could be pope, but the current pope needs to declare it. And no one will go against tradition.”
What once protected now provokes. Solorio was about six or seven, living with her grandmother in Mexico, when she was first punished by gender tradition. Her grandmother chastised her for playing on the soccer field—a place for boys and men, not girls—and sent her to her room. There, she kneeled and prayed to the Virgin Mary and Jesus while her grandmother disciplined her. “She left some welts. Then I had to go to catechism school.” Solorio went, but she purposefully donned a pair of booty shorts that revealed the marks.
Before arriving fully in her role as artist, Solorio taught preschool for 10 years and served as a preschool director for five. Currently, she is a caregiver of three girls under five years old. “I give it my all. Being around children so much, you can become like them,” she laughs. “I lack a social filter sometimes; I don’t want to be contained. I want to be childlike and free.”
The common threads of playfulness and honesty are woven through all her endeavors, especially her artmaking. Solorio rejects a strictly linear approach to self-reflection. “I’m always connecting to my old self,” she says. “We’re all intertwined.” The first version of herself, the dreamer, holds hands with the pessimist born in hindsight. “My very first love was murdered, and I was trying to find this lost love,” she shares. “Looking into the past…I grew up very poor. With not a lot of great male figures in my life. You start thinking about all the bad things, you know?”
But she has also opened herself to hope, which frames her defiant spirit. “I’m in a good state of life where I know myself,” she smiles, “And I will not stay quiet now.”
René Lorraine Schilling-Sears, a graduate of San Jose State with a BFA in Pictorial Arts, has moved from oils to watercolor and pen, giving a voice to what she sees.
Was there a time when you had that “aha moment,” when you released your voice?
Yeah, absolutely. I had an instructor when I was at San Jose State who really got through to me. It was one of those things where you’re working on a painting and you finally see something that you hadn’t felt for decades. It finally just happened on the canvas.
Do you remember what that painting was?
Yes, I still have it too. I was working on my BFA show. My whole series was about body art, tattoos, piercings, things like that. That’s what I had been working on for the last two years at that point. It was a single fingernail. I was working on painting a hand. It was a single fingernail, and it was like, “Oh, this is what I want to do forever.”
When you look back at that piece, what’s your feeling about it?
I am in love with that piece so much that I feel like I’ll never be able to top it for myself. I’ve been offered a lot of money for it. There’s no way. It feels like my firstborn child, because I had such a connecting moment to it. It’s going to stay with me forever.
What was that about? Was it the type of technique that you used?
That’s hard. That’s a hard thing to put into words. At that moment, I felt I finally believed in myself with the title of “artist.” I was satisfied with the work that I’d done to the point where I felt like I could finally own the title artist, because that is always a struggle.
When you grow up in the Bay Area with a lot of amazing artists, you see so many paintings and artworks and people really making it happen. You think, “How am I ever going to compete with them?”
You have three different styles in your portfolio: oil, pencil, and watercolor. Which is your favorite?
I prefer watercolor and ink, which is crazy, because when I started painting, I never thought that I would do watercolor or watercolor portraits. It was the furthest thing that I thought I would ever be interested in. I was always just an oil lover and a canvas lover, but I think there’s something very intimate about sitting down with watercolor and ink, something that seems more personal. I like that. Oil is fun, too, but at this point to me…I’m just not personally as connected to it anymore.
Your watercolor ink portraits have a very unique aspect, with the subjects’ faces missing. I hear it is because of a degenerative eye disorder, is that right?
I have neurological issues. I have a cyst in my brain that causes balance issues and visual disturbances. The left side of my temporal lobe fires at half the rate that the right side does. There’s some disconnect there. Also, I have holes in my vision.
Some days, it’s like I’m looking through a wheel of Swiss cheese. It started in 2011. The doctors still are not really sure what it is. The holes in my vision, they’re not really sure where it stems from. They think it’s related to the other things that are happening. It’s really difficult to explain to people and hard to convey what I am going through, so I really wanted to put that on paper.
Why are you choosing this particular medium—pen and watercolor—for these portraits?
One of the reasons I do pen and watercolor in the same piece is because I feel a lot of times when I can’t see very well, it’s hard to feel grounded. I use the watercolor to show and convey that whole feeling that things are happening. When you work with watercolor, things will just happen that you can’t pick up off that paper. You can’t wipe it off. That’s how I feel with these spots in my eyes. They’re not going away. I can’t wipe them away. The hard lines that I use, that are more pencil or Micron pen, are my way of conveying those moments that are calm, that say “Everything is in place.” That’s how I’m trying to meld both of those together.
How does it feel then, when people are attracted to your work and find out your story? Is there a little bit of insecurity or concern? Are you wanting to share it?
Personally, I feel that things are less scary when you talk about them. On the one hand, I wouldn’t put the story out there, but on the other, when I did the show here, I titled it with the condition that I have. It gave me the chance to talk to 30 people—strangers—about it.
Putting it out there is easier because when I talk about things, I feel like they’re less scary. They don’t seem as crazy. At the same time, I don’t want my work to be all about my condition. I don’t want people to only pay attention to it because the story has a really personal health issue involved.
I imagine you don’t want your health issue to be the reason people notice your work, but it is part of your story. I was very attracted to your work, knowing that you had neurological issues.
It’s hard. It’s a hard balance. I think, for the most part, people…like you just said, you liked it before you knew the story. I hope that continues, but at the same time, it’s also really cool. I’ve met some cool people who have similar conditions. They can see that within the art. They can relate to it.
You’ve had this current series. What are you working on now? What’s next for you?
I’m still expanding this series, but I want to bring more medical devices and machinery into it. I have a show coming up in the fall in San Francisco, so I’ve got about eight months or so to finish this body of work, or at least a couple new pieces. That’s what I really want to do. I want to bring the medical equipment side to it, just to evoke more of those feelings, and get more people to be able to connect with the pieces. A lot of times a portrait is a portrait, and you need something else in there to show or help along the thought process. I think the juxtaposition might be just right.
What’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned in life through your painting?
What I always come back to is a moment in college, where a professor told me to eliminate something from a painting, and I did it without even thinking. I hated that painting from that moment on. I could never get that piece back to what I wanted it to look like.
I always go back to that moment, in all sorts of experiences, and remember to always stop and think and not take somebody else’s opinion without really figuring out if it’s right for you. It’s interesting that I learned that through painting.
Matt Kelsey, Printers’ Guild Member & Jim Gard, Chairman of the Printers’ Guild
For twenty-two years, volunteers at the San Jose Printers’ Guild have kept the art of printing alive.
In a world where books can be downloaded in digital format and sending messages is as easy as tapping on a phone screen, Jim Gard, chairman of the Printers’ Guild, and guild member Matt Kelsey, shed light on how the printing press serves as a reminder of the days when communication required a concentrated effort and skilled craftsmanship.
Jim, you have been with the Printers’ Guild since the beginning. Could you share a little history on how the Printers’ Guild came about?
Jim: The Print Shop exhibit opened in the ’70s, and although the San Jose Historical Museum had some volunteers, they worked independently and lacked organization. In 1992, the museum staff, as well as some of the printers, met and formed the Printers’ Guild to provide consistent printing demonstrations to the visiting public. From then on, the group has met monthly, maintaining a shop volunteer schedule, creating, printing exhibits, and repairing and acquiring equipment.
What types of equipment are used in the Print Shop?
Jim: Letterpress. We have small, table-top Kelsey presses, a Chandler & Price Pilot press, and some cylinder proof presses. But our main attraction is the F.M. Weiler Liberty press, circa 1884. This heavy floor model press gives visitors a close-up look at the workings of a treadle-powered “jobber.”
What are demonstrations at the Print Shop like?
Matt: Members of the San Jose Printers’ Guild continue to practice the skills mastered by printers of old, using some 200 cases of metal and wood type, including many rare and antique designs. The best experience, though, is when we put the Pilot press right up to the railing and let visitors operate it themselves.
Matt, you are the lead organizer for this year’s Bay Area Printers’ Fair, an event that celebrates letterpress printing and related arts. Does this event bring us back to the roots of graphic design?
Matt: Yes, the Printers’ Fair takes us back to the time when the printer was the graphic designer. The printer knew what sizes and styles of type were available in the shop and knew how to combine them to create the right look for the customer. A lot of graphic designers today really enjoy getting away from the computer and getting back to the roots of handling handset type and impressing ink into paper instead of manipulating pixels on a screen.
For visitors and Guild members alike, I am sure there is a bit of nostalgia that one feels when observing and participating in the printing process. What do Guild members and visitors take away from this shared historical experience?
Jim: The Guild brings together these enthusiasts with a purpose, which they can share with each other and the public.
Matt: Guild members enjoy keeping alive the “black art” using the same basic technology pioneered by Gutenberg over 500 years ago. I have taught a number of workshops at the Print Shop, and I am always energized by the enthusiasm and creativity of the students. In one day, they learn to handset type and arrange a short poem or quotation into an attractive layout. Everyone goes home with a feeling of creativity and accomplishment.
With technology constantly advancing, what does the art of printing serve as a reminder of?
Matt: The museum Print Shop replicates a typical print shop of the early 1900s, where local businesses would go when they needed flyers, stationery, business cards, labels, and myriad other forms of ink on paper. Now we think of a “printer” as a machine connected to the computer, that quickly produces copies on command; a hundred years ago, a “printer” was a skilled craftsman who consulted with the customer about their printing needs, found the right sizes and styles of type to design and compose the text from handset metal type, printed a proof for the customer’s approval, and then carefully prepared the job for press.
Jim: The art of printing serves as a reminder of the labor that was once involved in communication. With all this handset type, there used to be a lot more people involved: specialists in typesetting, press operation, proofreading.
Matt: It is a reminder that, back then, printing was an act of freedom. In the words of journalist A. J. Liebling, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 6.2 “Device”
Print Version SOLD OUT
Wisper’s life resembles an uncanny stack of page-turners. Conversations with him dredge up metaphors, tuned specifically to the relationship between identity and outcome. Subjective as art and truth may be, the sublime coincidences within his experiences hint at more.
As teenagers, Wisper and his best friends—Sno, Poe, Shen Shen, and Bizr—formed the intersection of two arts groups: Together We Create, a collective of muralists (est. 1985), and LORDS Crew (Legends of Rare Designs, est. 1986), a graffiti crew whose members grew out of San Jose and drew international attention. For this tight group of young, talented artists, the potential for fame was palpable. But certain threads split the chapters of their lives into unraveled dichotomies. For Wisper, a path of criminality handed him a prison sentence of 26 to life—ultimately, an unknowable length of time for truth, beauty, justice, and their rivals to battle through his mind like restless gods.
He vividly remembers the first time he caught injustice red-handed. As the middle sibling in his mother’s home at the time, it baffled him that after his father’s death, social security payments owed to his mother—$300 per child—couldn’t bring the family clothes, food, or rent installments. He and his brothers were eating rice every day that summer. Then one night, as he performed his usual chore of cleaning his stepfather’s car, he found Burger King wrappers. Claims didn’t match the evidence.
“If you can learn how to operate from a place of peace while creating art, you can learn how to operate from a place of peace in all aspects of your life.” _Wisper
There was little he could do about it, other than rebel. As a creative kid with a knack for detail, Wisper looked for his identity in spaces where originality shined. In the world of hip-hop, among b-boys, DJs, and rappers, Wisper was hooked by the wave of graffiti that made its way over from the East Coast, bringing with it a culture that admired innovation. As the LORDS Crew formed and grew its membership, some of his friends and fellow founding members went to vocational school to pursue graphic design.
But for Wisper, gang membership stood out as the most attractive option. “Everything I was seeking—unconditional love, loyalty, recognition, notoriety, reputation, education—they were giving it.” His gift for teaching was cultivated by their discipline. He could come up with illustrations and analogies to help someone else learn and memorize the codes of membership, without having to write a single word.
The last year Wisper did graffiti was 1988. The following year he was arrested. Once inside prison, faced with a life sentence, he found no reason to change. To survive, he leveraged his street education and climbed the ranks until he was running the yard. The attention and his gang affiliation eventually sent him to solitary confinement in 1994, with other men in solitary confinement “deemed incorrigible.”
In the monotony, Wisper contemplated the value of his life. His path into crime had been a gradual progression of “becoming more and more empty.” As he explains today, “People who commit crimes don’t understand value. If I steal from you, if I vandalize your house…I don’t value you as a person. If my life doesn’t mean something, no one else’s does either.” Even a cup, he reasoned, had worth. It was created for a purpose. Yet like a cup left on the shelf, here he was, a human being locked away in sensory deprivation. If his life had purpose, it couldn’t come from this environment, not from his upbringing, his heritage, or ideologies—which he had been willing to die for. And which he was still affiliated with.
He knew he wanted to change, but change only began when he mustered the courage to revoke his prison gang status, fully aware of the punishment to follow.
Wisper credits supernatural intervention in the events that actually occurred once he lost his status. By the code, he should have died in prison—killed by his own cellmate to protect the rest of the gang. But his life was spared. By the law, he should have been rejected for parole. Involvement with prison gangs was deemed a greater offense than the crime that sentenced him in the first place. But the inmates who would have reported him had been removed from the yard weeks before his arrival.
By the time Wisper came home in 2013, nearly 24 years had passed. His former collaborator, Bizr, had written “FREE WISPER TOUR” on every art piece until Bizr’s passing in 2013, eight months before Wisper’s release. Of the friends who had kept in touch with him, Mesngr was the only one still in San Jose, doing art shows. As he slowly readjusted to life back in society, Wisper decided his goal was to “get my art out, make some money, provide for myself and my family.”
Wisper began looking for opportunities, at times initiating them by reaching out to connections and bringing plywood for the artists to live paint on. As he formed the groundwork to revitalize Together We Create, he also accepted opportunities to speak at high schools and colleges. There were youth who wanted to learn graffiti, and Wisper saw the chance to share about his mistakes so they could make better decisions.
“That’s where I developed a curriculum of teaching peace,” he explains. Acting from a place of courage is revered, but in that state, fear is still present—“you’re acting in spite of fear.” He teaches his mentees to accept responsibility for where they’re at and to apply a faith-based practice until they can believe in themselves. “If you don’t know who you are, you can’t create unique art.”
There are still threads to unravel. To this day, he fights to control the blaze of anger that slices through at injustice. Just like in his youth, he feels the pressure to stay on guard, to secure himself and his safety. “After 24 years of living like that, you don’t just come home and start expressing emotions.” But he knows himself, and he values his life. That deep sense of peace is unshakeable. Hanging around Wisper, friends might not notice how calm and collected he is until he laughs—then, they’re caught by the irreversible, unforgettable belly laugh flying out of him.
This year marks nine years since his release—nine years of using his freedom to help youth secure their self-identity. Often called on to speak and share his story, he is in the final stages of publishing three books that he hopes will aid their discernment. Wisper believes that all people hold a sense of justice, beauty, and truth—but an absence of self-identity spawns a perilous emptiness. “If you’re empty your whole life,” he says, “you don’t know what full is.”
His mission now is to inspire others to create art from a secure sense of identity, free of the pressure to fit a label or hide under a mask. “If you can learn how to operate from a place of peace while creating art,” he promises, “you can learn how to operate from a place of peace in all aspects of your life.”
As is the case with many a music fanatic, Kia Fay’s intimate relationship with sound stretches past the point of tangible memory. She remembers learning rhythm (and math) from beating on pieces of cardboard as a child, of singing practically her whole life, and the music of Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, and Beastie Boys being her first musical totems.
Coincidentally, it was her love for the immortal MJ that first got her on stage with Ash Maynor and Ghost & the City (GATC). They needed a singer for a Halloween show, and with “Thriller” on the set list, Fay jumped at the chance to sing her idol’s music. “I was like, ‘I get to wear a costume, I get to sing MJ. This is all golden,’ ” she fondly recalls. “I didn’t realize that was an audition of sorts.” That guest spot was the first collaboration in what’s now been a six-year journey with the group, whose sound features a brooding musical stew of soulful, jazzy, and electronic components.
The Time EP—which earned the band accolades from Afropunk and Bust magazines and slots opening for Hiatus Kaiyote and the Internet, has brought the brightest attention yet to GATC, whose latest album is the result of, in Fay’s words, an “executive decision to do only what we wanted in its pure form.” It’s their first work to feature Fay’s full creative input and the most direct outgrowth of her “mind-fi” with Maynor, the term for their near-telepathic musical connection. “I don’t fit specifically into one box or another in a lot of respects, so it’s cool to finally be able to make music where I don’t need to try to anymore,” notes Fay with a laugh.
Accepting authenticity rather than fighting it is a huge theme in Fay’s story. Despite years in choirs, she noticed that she never got to solo until she was at UC Berkeley singing with the female a cappella group the California Golden Overtones. It was a refreshing change for her voice—full-bodied, emotive, and powerful—to take the spotlight. Her voice feels like GATC’s secret ingredient, with the music seemingly shaped around her distinct delivery.
Yet music hasn’t been her only outlet for authenticity. Since relocating to San Jose, she’s also established herself as the Curl Consultant, advocating for clients to celebrate their hair in its natural state rather than modifying it to conform to societal standards. “I joke that it’s driven by stubbornness, but it seemed unacceptable to me that in a space as diverse as San Jose, with as many different permutations and beautiful combinations of humans that we have, there weren’t more folks dedicated to encouraging people to exist in their natural state as it relates to their hair,” says Fay.
“I don’t fit specifically into one box or another in a lot of respects, so it’s cool to finally be able to make music where I don’t need to try to anymore.”
She first started working with hair out of necessity. Fay spent time doing theater, where she became the de facto stylist because no one could properly style her hair. However, she never saw the trade as a viable career option until her move to San Jose propelled her to be the change and to establish a space the city desperately needed. “The bulk of the feedback I’ve received has been that the work I do is liberating,” admits Fay. “That’s the best-case scenario for me: freeing anybody from a restriction they thought they had that was only an artificial restriction. Hopefully I can plant that seed for other folks, and they in turn will stand as beacons wherever they are.”
As a person of mixed descent who struggled over the years with where she fit in, Fay’s now using her two creative pursuits to help others recognize and celebrate their own unique tastes and identities through communion and connection. “We have to stop being so wedded to [the idea that] ‘This is what beauty looks like. This is what music looks like,’ and just accept beauty when we see it and hopefully foster what comes naturally to people and stop encouraging them to resist their more authentic selves, in any capacity,” she says.
Not many folks can say they have evolved—if not created—a new type of art. But starting in 1973 when Roy Hirabayashi cofounded San Jose Taiko, a professional performing company, Roy and PJ Hirabayashi have cultivated a new Asian-American art form. Taking the traditional rhythms of the taiko—a type of Japanese barrelshaped drum—and infusing Western and other musical influences, San Jose Taiko pioneered the American taiko sound, which has since been met with traditional Japanese approval. The Hirabayashis have performed around the world, receiving countless commendations both for their efforts in cultivating and showcasing a new art form and for consistently advocating for San Jose’s Japantown. These awards include arguably the highest arts honor awarded in the United States—the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in Folk and Traditional Arts, in 2011—as well as the highly prestigious City of San Jose Cornerstone of the Arts Award, in 2016, for enduring and effective leadership in the arts.
“In the early ’70s we worked with the Buddhist temple in San Jose, and the minister there was really interested in doing something to bring more youth back to his temple. He suggested we look at using the taiko—the Japanese drum—as perhaps a way to do that. So we started with the intention of involving the youth, but it rapidly became more of a community group because people in the area heard about what we were doing and wanted to come check it out and participate. We use the taiko as a tool to organize people, but it has also given us a chance to learn more about our heritage.”
Episode #103 Carman Gaines, Associate Director of Local Color
When asked to describe the San José art scene, Carman Gaines uses words like ‘passionate, diverse, obsessive, and community oriented.’ One could argue that those words also best describe Carman’s life view and journey to the present. Born and raised in San José, Carman tries to squeeze the most out of life for herself and in honor of her ancestors. Carman has an intentional approach to spending her time and the opportunities she pursues but balances those things by focusing only on what she can control.
Carman studied art history and photography in college, learning its potential to impact lives and document history. However, she accepted early on that photography was not how she wanted to survive in a capitalist world, opting to use it as a form of catharsis and personal growth. That realization did not stop her from popping into different art spaces, dropping off resumes, taking unpaid internships, and commuting to a gallery job in San Francisco for a few years before tenaciously pursuing a position at Local Color that would bring her career in arts administration closer to home.
In the years since Carman began working for Local Color, she has taken on the role of associate director. Although her work often requires trips to what she calls ‘Grantland,’ a destination of administrative paperwork and potential funding, she relishes the opportunity to provide artists and organizations a platform to impact the community through art.
While Carman supports the art community through her career, she is also working towards a future that involves a farm, airstream, dismantling capitalism, and mutual aid. In her new podcast, ‘Plan and Story,’ Carman sits down with folks in the community to discuss their visions for the future and the sometimes unforeseen road that will take them there.
In our conversation, we discuss Carman’s journey to working for Local Color, her experiences as an artist and arts administrator, and her inspiration and approach to life.
Join Carman this Friday, October 27th, for Local Color’s annual 31 Skulls fundraiser. This fundraiser supports local artists and helps fund this woman-powered organization, fostering connections between artists, people, and places.
It is a bittersweet moment for SVCreates as we celebrate the legacy and retirement of our fearless leader, Connie Martinez.
Connie Martinez has courageously led SVCreates for the ten years since its formation when 1stACT San Jose & Arts Council Silicon Valley merged.
Before then, she had held several leadership positions in various industries. While her introduction and education in business came out of necessity in providing for her children as a young single mother, her development as a leader has been an intentional process of learning and letting go.
Connie believes excellent leadership comes from providing the right people with a framework and resources for success. As CEO of SVCreates, she has provided resources and direction to countless arts organizations, working as a culture capitalist, investing in the potential of a multicultural Silicon Valley that can work harmoniously with big tech.
As Connie moves on from SVCreates to spend more time with friends and family, we honor her legacy and impact on Silicon Valley’s creative culture. In our conversation, Connie shares the experiences that led her to SVCreates, her thoughts on leadership, advice for budding entrepreneurs and cultural influencers, the fundamental intentions she lives by, and even touches on the foundation and business of arts and culture in Silicon Valley.
Connie Martinez has been named the recipient of this year’s Cornerstone of the Arts Award.
Brandon “BQ” Quintanilla is a San Jose-born entrepreneur of Nicaraguan descent who founded media company EMLN (Early Morning Late Nights) to produce projects such as Any Given Bars YouTube Channel, San José’s Culture Night Market, and FeastMode. BQ has created a business and brand around his vision for San José.
In this conversation, BQ and introducing Content guest host Troy Ewers, @trizzyebaby, discuss BQ’s rise as an entrepreneur, the development of EMLN, organizing events, and personal growth. Listeners gain insight into what it takes to start and scale a business, difficulties with organizing events, and how to hustle through adversity.
Follow BQ, @bqallin, and EMLN, @emlnexclusive , on Instagram to keep up to date with what he has cooking for Silicon Valley.
Growing up in Eastside San José, Andrew Espino loved both Hip-Hop and oldies, graffiti and lowrider culture, and football. He carried all of these inspirations through college as a St. Mary’s football linebacker and into his post-college career in real estate. Andrew frequented art galleries during business travels but found the art that spoke to him was in galleries off Main Street and on back streets. He started buying art representing the streets that told stories about an urban environment.
Andrew, a businessman by nature, realized that the mainstream market for the artwork he appreciated was limited and considered assisting artists he met at street markets to sell their work. He began a journey as a traveling art vendor, popping up and selling work he curated on commission. He quickly realized that he needed a brick-and-mortar gallery to elevate the experience of purchasing art that represented his experience as a Chicano kid from the city.
Andrew opened 1culture Art Gallery & Collective in May of 2022. The gallery rotates shows every six to eight weeks. Andrew is working more with guest curators to increase his impact on the scene. This year, he coordinates trips for San Jose Artists to display at the Bedstuy Walls Mural Festival and Art Basel Week in Miami. Rooted in originality, creativity, and unity, 1culture hopes to provide a platform for artists and add to San Jose’s artistic culture, making it a destination for experiencing art.
Andrew Espino was also featured in Issue 15.1 of Content Magazine Issue 15.1 “Discover”
Experiencing Angela Johal in person—hearing her talk, watching her paint—is like experiencing her work. She seems, as her work does, to conjure up and harness energies that have been waiting for just that moment. Order and intensity, color fill and negative space, control and free flow, all emanate from and embody her and her work.
“Restrictions give you freedom, organization empowers creativity…Negative spaces are important because they create an opening,” explained Johal. “There aren’t very many exits in my paintings,” she said of how she always aims for a continuum of color, line, and thought in each of her works, welcoming the viewer on an endless journey.
Johal’s relationship with color started early at the age of five, when her mother gave her Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color, by Mary O’Neill. Her penchant for hot pink and yellow is nostalgic, from a similarly colored bedspread. She also remembers pushing nasturtium seeds into the moist soil with her finger and watching them sprout, grow, and blossom into bright orange flowers with a light peppery smell. The color orange appears in many of her paintings.
Fear is the artist’s worst enemy…I also have learned that the more mistakes you make, the better artist you become. This in turn makes you a master at problem solving.
The most unexpected of the several surprising aspects of Johal’s work is that she anticipates people will hear her paintings or experience sound. “Everything has sound, but you don’t always hear it…You don’t hear the refrigerator unless it’s broken,” she said. While many listen to music while creating, Johal works with it. When working on a series using dots, for example, she saw them each as having a specific size and sound. The artist statement for her work The Stars Collide No. 2, on exhibit at the de Young Museum in 2020, states that her “chromesthetic paintings may evoke a visual sound, where new and unpredictable colors emerge intuitively.”
The most immediate aspect of her work is the geometry, which is intended to be accessible. Johal has followers among women, men, and even children. Johal believes that geometric shapes are universal archetypes that communicate a visual language without referencing any one particular culture. She explained further, “Colors are loved by all. I see geometry and design in everything and how it impacts your life. I see how when people sit at a round table, they rarely have a good time, but when people sit around oval or rectangular, shallow tables, they feel closer, can hear, and often have a better time. How you move about spaces and the furniture and art has a profound effect on one’s well-being.”
She continued: “Color and shapes have a direct effect on your mood, and I have found that I am most satisfied when I see a whole rainbow of colors, but with the calming qualities of the black, white, and grays. I think that geometric and colorful art may have a similar effect on the brain as psychedelics.”
Johal is not kidding when she says she sees geometry everywhere—a word puzzle book was her inspiration for a time. Indeed, she always looks for lights and shadows first. And the same way a letter reveals more in a word puzzle, she believes that a single color has the power to change the entire work.
Johal’s purposeful approach has a backstory, starting from when she used to be a photorealist painter. However, those “illusions of reality” seemed false to her, while the geometric, flat color shapes felt more honest. For five years, as fascinating proof of how she inhabits the paradoxical realm of restraint and movement, she stopped painting but allowed herself to craft using only reclaimed, found materials. It was during this time that she found geometry and abstraction as her medium. Paint slowly started creeping into the collages and then she decided to go back to painting, using only flat planes of color to achieve three-dimensional effects. City Trees and Intersections were her first real geometric paintings with flat color planes, and she loved the way they gave an illusion of transparency.
When asked about her process and how she determines what her next work is going to be, Johal shared that it’s important for her to wait to see how the painting will emerge. She explained that when she creates art, she is actually spending time playing, like a child. “Fear is the artist’s worst enemy. Children are fearless when they create, where adults are always battling fear, which hinders the creative process. I also have learned that the more mistakes you make, the better artist you become. This in turn makes you a master at problem solving.”
Ultimately, Johal believes that “the artist actually becomes what they paint.”
I f you truly want to get to know someone, ask them about their favorite music.
Take a stroll through their Spotify playlists, listen to the burned CDs from their teenage years or have them share about their most memorable concert experience. Nothing bottles up our memories, then vividly retells our joys and fears and loves and losses, quite like the sounds that lived through those moments with us.
With Digging Sound Collect, photographer Abraham Menor honors that very idea, utilizing his masterful eye for the moment to elevate the seemingly mundane exercise of collecting records into a celebration of culture and heritage. The series, which now spans two volumes, welcomes viewers into the passionate world (and, in most cases, homes) ofvinyl collectors.
“I’m there to listen to them,” shares Menor when describing his process. “What I’m trying to do is get them to feel comfortable, not only with sharing their story but with being in the moment where I can capture it through photography.”
What started as casual snaps of close friends extended to documenting collectors from Hawaii, St. Louis, and even South Africa, where Menor captured a man named Solomon who appears ready to be swallowed up by the stacks of records looming directly behind him in a six-story vintage shop in Johannesburg.
As for his craft, Menor shares that his journey with film began on San Jose’s East Side, where his love for graffiti served as his entry point to shooting.
“If you’re familiar with graffiti culture, when you did pieces or if you were going around looking at other pieces, pictures were the way you collected [them],” he shares. “It was like collecting baseball cards.”
Though he began shooting purely to document, he fell in love with the process, thanks to a film photography course at De Anza College. The street photography zine Hamburger Eyes proved a revelation when he found a copy at the now-defunct Alameda Archives, its raw black and white photos much more relatable than the landscape books he was finding at the library. Yet even as he continued to document and refine his approach, he admits that he was still hesitant to call himself a photographer.
A 2003 trip to London changed that. His time in the UK happened to coincide with a series of worldwide protests in opposition to the pending Iraq War. He captured the massive demonstration, shooting so much film that he had to ask strangers for more cash to buy extra rolls. When he showed his friends the results, they were amazed.
“I come from an old school background,” he explains. “You’ve got to put in the work and gain the notoriety and respect from those who came before.” Armed with the validation he’d long been looking for, he finally stamped himself a photographer.
His studies in sociology first educated him about issues of social justice. It’s a topic that continues to be a through-line for much of his visual work. Last year, he released “San Jose Uprising,” which provided an up-close look at San Jose’s summer 2020 protests in the wake of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Compared to his work documenting protest, Digging Sound Collect is much more subtle, with his subjects proudly displaying their most treasured finds. The series also works to show the diversity of the record digging community. While San Jose’s native son Peanut Butter Wolf may be casually looking back at the camera in front of a wall full of vinyl, Melissa Dueñas, co-founder of the weekly radio show Lowrider Sundays, is seen sorting through a small collection of prized LPs in record cubes near her bed while a 45 sets the mid-day soundtrack.
“I was intentional not to say I want the biggest record collectors,” he points out, stressing that the series is more about capturing a passion for music than displaying the breadth of someone’s collection. “I don’t care if you’ve only got a crate or if you’ve got ten thousand [records].” To him, a respect for the tradition and an appreciation for the music they collect is all someone needs to qualify.
While COVID paused his initial volume two timeline, forcing him to scrap planned trips to Washington DC, Chicago, and the Philippines, he was able to keep shooting in a limited capacity with those who were okay with him filming as he took all proper precautions. He was finally able to release his follow-up in early 2021.
As he writes in the foreword to his latest volume, “I don’t know how many records I listened to and how many new discoveries have been added to my own collection or that are permanently engrained in the playlist in my head, but I do know that I did my best to share what I was able to capture through my camera.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.3 “Perform”
Nationally acclaimed poet and public speaker Yosimar Reyes is no stranger to San Jose’s spotlight. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in Eastside San Jose, Reyes draws much of his inspiration from his experiences as an undocumented immigrant and member of the LGBTQ+ community. Between his rich, illustrative language, sharp wit, and thought-provoking messages, Reyes leaves a lasting impression as he navigates subjects like migration, sexuality, and socio-economic struggle.
As a performer, Reyes has a playful, charismatic personality combined with a dynamic stage presence; he performs with exuberance, drawing in the audience with the steady rhythm of his spoken word style and clever use of Spanglish. The stories he shares are full of vibrancy and dimension at their core, celebrating the resilience of marginalized communities.
Now Reyes finds himself starting a new chapter as MACLA’s first-ever Performance Artist in Residency (PAIR). With this new role, Reyes will curate performance programs, workshop material, and showcase featured artists—actively shaping the San Jose art scene while cultivating an inclusive creative space designed for Chicanx/Latinx narratives. But most importantly, it’s a “full-circle moment” for both him and his artform.
Reyes himself started performing poetry at MACLA when he was just 16 years old. Back then, his work was rooted in survival. “I grew up in this rich community with all these immigrants that would just hustle,” he shares. “I started writing poetry because I [needed] to make money to help my family, and it so happened that people found out [about it] and it took off.”
In school, Reyes was a self-proclaimed nerd who excelled academically, in part because of his love for books and reading, but also to compensate for the insecurity he felt as a closeted gay teen. With some encouragement from his teacher, Reyes started using poetry as an outlet, then dove into doing live performances with institutions like MACLA and San Francisco’s Youth Speaks nonprofits.
When the May Day marches took San Jose by storm in 2006 as the largest political demonstration in the city’s history, Reyes saw it all firsthand. “A lot was happening in the country,” he says, recounting his high school years. “This [was] the beginning [of when] a lot of people were coming out as undocumented…they [would] go on TV, tell their stories, then they get pixelated, or they alter their voices.” He was particularly compelled by the younger people galvanizing the movement, coming together to amplify their stories in solidarity.
Reyes’s first collection of poetry, For Colored Boys Who Speak Softly, published in 2009 with the support of musical legend Carlos Santana, serves as an archive of this emotionally charged period in Reyes’s life. And while he admits the collection would be received differently now due to its outdated language, publishing it ultimately convinced him to pursue his passion as a storyteller.
In the beginning, Reyes didn’t mind being called an “undocumented writer,” but as he got older, he felt the need for distinction. “My work, yes, deals with that theme but it’s more about a human element,” he states. “I always tell people, I’m a writer that happens to be undocumented. That informs the work, but it does not define how I view myself.”
When Reyes was confronted with the pandemic, he chose to pivot from his career in LA and move back home to San Jose to be with his grandmother. Among his many projects since then, Reyes takes extra pride in the creation of the Yosi Book Club in 2020, promoting a variety of Latinx authors and the premiere of his renowned one-man show Prieto in 2022—an adaptation of Reyes’s own coming-of-age story in the Bay. For him, the writing process for all his work, including Prieto, is intimate and cathartic. “What I’m living is what I’m writing,” he says. “It forces me to be a little more honest and confront things that I don’t want to.”
When he leads his creative writing workshops, it can be especially nuanced for Reyes. “I work with a lot of college engagement, first generation college students. Most of the students have left their families [so] I think that’s why we connect,” Reyes explains. He recognizes a familiar resilience in his students—a desire for economic stability that could potentially trickle down and help their family, which Reyes knows all too well. “They know this [part’s] temporary and it’s gonna pay off in the long run. We want to thrive, we don’t want to [just] survive.”
Wherever Reyes is involved, it is guaranteed that he will be outspoken and authentic, willing to share the spotlight with anyone with a story to tell. Undoubtedly, Reyes will bring this and more as he sets the stage as MACLA’s newest addition. He additionally anticipates Prieto on tour this fall, premiering in Chicago and Miami.
alk into the room like the presence of God when they see me.
Walking through life with a committed purpose, 23-year-old, San Jose–raised singer and rapper Ervin Wilson displays the self-confidence and conviction of someone much older. He sums up this purpose with the motto, “The Authentic Speaks,” which represents all facets of his life, from his music to his spiritual conviction, to the way he walks into a room. It also connects him to his name, meaning “friend to many,” which drives his outlook on daily life. As he explains, “I try to live my life emulating my name’s meanings and try to represent God the best ways I can.” Ervin presents his best possible self to others through his interactions, his relationships, and most importantly, through his music. He relates, “I’ve committed to spark emotion and connection through music. Whenever I walk into the room, I’m taller and vibrant. I want to convey hype [and] fun, but with honest lyrics from my life experience in an attempt to relate to the people that hear it.”
Ervin’s life has been centered around and driven by the Church, but his musical trajectory wasn’t immediate. Ervin actually pushed back when asked to sing by his worship team, instead opting to play drums. Finally, he gave in. His first time singing on stage in 2019 made him feel like he was home. He never went back to the drums and has since hustled to release over twenty singles.
It’s not religion, I am telling you it’s relational.
While he admits his church upbringing made him sheltered musically, it provided him with a strong foundation of support and inspiration from his family, mentors, and his relationship with Christ. This carries him as he traverses new musical territory and slowly lets in secular influences such as YONAS, Travis Scott, and Post Malone, in addition to Christian hip-hop artists Aaron Cole and nobigdyl. Ervin even had the chance to release “Rings (Remix)” with Cole in 2022. While it may be easy to simply apply the label “Christian hip-hop” to his music, Ervin’s lyrical prowess puts him just outside that box. As he puts it, “I am not the typical ‘Christian hip-hop artist.’ I am a rapper/singer who has a relationship with Jesus.” At first listen, you wouldn’t know he was considered a Christian hip-hop artist until you listened very intently and also knew his personal approach to music making.
I am a teacher and doctor, every day I be testing their patience.
Ervin’s lyrics put his relationship with God in perspective, as he experiences the vicissitudes of life. He strives to be real with his words without compromising his morals, which means being able to rap about the hard things in life, even if it may make him sound more secular to his Christian listening fans. “I don’t want to be boxed into the Christian hip-hop box, where I can’t really say what’s on my mind,” he says. His song “My World” explains to those questioning his faith and intention that it is his world the listener is stepping into. Even when he addresses his naysayers, however, he still displays humility and the acceptance that he is still learning.
He raps:
“Never traded all the truth for a lie
Ask the day of, I’ll meet you there tonight
Always ask The Lord to tell me which way
Knowing damn well I’m never doing right”
Ervin puts a great emphasis on his experiences in life and connecting with those around him. He says, “I’m here to relate to real people going through real situations, people that want to be real with themselves.” You could say that people are what keep him going and inspire him to do what he does. If he can lift up others around him with his presence and his music, then they in turn can lift him up. For Ervin, however, the beauty of life is appreciating the present that God has given him and having faith that, as he says, “It will all make sense soon.”
With only roughly five years of music making under his belt, Ervin has managed to independently release a healthy catalog, showing off his range, lyrical artistry, and musical growth. He straddles both R&B and hip-hop, giving us singles like “Dream” and “Out of Luck” on the melodic side and then coming in hard with infectious, unbroken flows on tracks like “My World” and “The City Don’t Care.”
What is striking about Ervin as an artist is how much his music and approach to life are one and the same. He lives for moments of inspiration in his everyday life, which means he is content releasing singles as he is inspired. He has faith in God’s timing, releasing music when the timing and resources come together. “I lean on God’s promises, and I trust that He’s going to lead me and work everything out in His timing. I don’t know what my future holds at this point in time, honestly, but I know that everything will work out if I just keep strengthening my relationship with God and focus on serving others.”
There is no doubt that Ervin’s talent and fortitude in his beliefs will bring some great accomplishments in the future. For Ervin, however, the beauty of life is appreciating the present that God has given him and having faith that “it will all make sense soon.”
Episode #99 – Athenna Crosby, TV Host/Journalist, Actress, and Model
Athenna Crosby devotes her time to inspiring young women and positively impacting the world through modeling, acting, and entertainment journalism. Her San Jose roots keep her grounded in her mission. She recalls, “[San Jose] is just a bunch of hard-working people who go to their nine to five and put food on the table for their families.”Pageantry called to Crosby after she discovered the significance of pageant competitions in her mother’s native Venezuelan culture. Venezuelan women often utilize pageants to guide their families out of poverty. Crosby began participating in pageants at 14 and later won Miss California Teen, Miss Teen San Jose, and Miss Congeniality. Her experience in pageantry enabled her to create long-lasting friendships and connections.
Currently, Crosby is the spokesperson for San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival. Her initial encounter with Cinequest was through a summer camp in high school hosted by the company, which resulted in one of her proudest successes. As Cinequest spokesperson, she spreads the word about the festival and the importance of film.Get your tickets and passes on cinequest.org and enjoy food, drinks, and entertainment at Cinequest’s summertime film festival.
For those considering continued education, whether for career or personal development, the return to instruction and registering for classes is upon us. At the Cilker School of Art & Design, classes return on August 26th, 2023. In this blog, we are looking back at the students at the top of their course in photography, fashion design, and architecture who shares the impact West Valley College has had on their growth as creatives.
Psychology/Studio Arts Iris Zimmerman
Iris Zimmerman is no stranger to adversity. Born in El Salvador, she watched her family struggle to immigrate to the US and start life in the Bay Area with literally nothing. Hard work allowed them to stay, and Iris became a wife, mother, and successful businesswoman in one of the most affluent areas of the world. Iris has always been drawn to the creative. She became a hairstylist and recently retired from an impressive 25-plus year career, learning, teaching, and creating modern looks. Now as a returning student, she is working on her psychology and studio arts degree. Her work with portraits complements her psychology major by teaching her to see all sides of a person and help them and the world see their true beauty. She hopes her work will teach people how vital it is to love themselves and how challenging it can be.
Instagram: zimmersnaps
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Fashion Design Nyr Acuavera
Nyr Acuavera, born on April 17, 2002, is a Filipino fashion student at West Valley College. Immigrating to the United States at a young age, Acuavera experienced social isolation from his peers as a result of his personal identity. To flee from the troubles of reality, he turned to escapism in the form of clothing, a theme woven into the breadth of his work.
“I’ve found relief in using fashion as my armor,” Nyr states, “impenetrable by judgment, and unchangeable by others. It’s the truest form of my inner self.” His work contains a broad scope of references, ranging from ancient Roman literature to early 2010s internet culture. Still early in his career, Nyr Acuavera will be part of West Valley’s graduating class of 2023, aiming to transfer into a menswear design program. He hopes to open a menswear label one day, showcasing Filipino talent on the world stage.
Instagram: notnyr
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Architecture/Landscape Architecture Onna Keller
Onna Keller moved to California from Thailand after finishing her PhD in demography from Chulalongkorn University. Prior to this, she earned a master of public administration and a bachelor of education degrees. In fall of 2020, she enrolled in landscape architecture courses at West Valley College, which captivated her interest as a new pursuit. Her first classes were architecturally focused, though, and she fell in love with this fascinating field, deciding to double major in architecture and landscape architecture. This natural fusion is embodied in her holistic designs, which have rich connections between indoor and outdoor spaces and constructs while also fueling her passion for sustainable design. Onna has taken classes in other fields also and continues to do so, since she believes that inspiring ideas are all around us. She will be graduating this spring and plans to apply for internships and a master of architecture program.
Instagram: onna.keller
Each year, the San José Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA) recognizes the need for art on a day-to-day basis. Through public art, programming, and grants, San Jose’s OCA aims to give back to the community in heartfelt, intentional ways. This year they have brought back the Creative Ambassadors program, recognizing a range of artistic disciplines practiced by locals who share a deep commitment to San Jose’s cultural community. The 2023 Creative Ambassadors are Yoon Chung Han, Patron Paule, Suhita Shirodkar, and the artist collective Together We Create.
Creative Ambassadors are selected through a competitive panel review process that considers the applicant’s artistic track record and their history of community engagement. Emphasis is also placed on artists deeply rooted within the San Jose community. Practicing artists of all disciplines are invited to apply. The role of the Creative Ambassadors is to champion the power of creative expression and engage residents in finding their own creative voice. Ambassadors serve a one-year term, during which they produce an innovative project that invites active participation from residents and celebrates the diversity of the city’s cultural communities.
This year’s Creative Ambassadors are producing a series of events where locals can participate in their city’s history, experiencing the arts as a vital means of connection to themselves and others. Participants will elevate their creativity and celebrate its role in their everyday lives. Through these projects, each Creative Ambassador will demonstrate their love and passion for the city and its community. Support for the 2023 Creative Ambassadors is provided in part by grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Yoon Chung Han brings together two building blocks of San Jose—art and technology. Her project allows residents to record their stories verbally and then use that recording to create a 3D-printed artwork using recycled materials. Yoon aims to raise awareness about sustainability and cultural heritage by interviewing under-served, multi-ethnic community members in San Jose and the region. “San Jose is a really cool, interesting city. With San Jose being the heart of Silicon Valley and having a multicultural community, I thought it was important to highlight the sounds of the city and its community. The sculptures are like a time capsule,” she says.
“I hope people will better understand how art and technology can live symbiotically.”
“We should take a moment to listen to one another, listen to our surroundings, and understand one another on a deeper level.” As an attendee of Yoon’s workshop, residents can participate by verbally sharing their stories or a meaningful memory of San Jose. She will then convert the sound into a 3D-rendered sculpture. The San Jose community will have a physical record of these audio memories. “I hope people will better understand how art and technology can live symbiotically. Public art workshops are essential to give local residents access to technology and gain inspiration for their future careers and to challenge themselves,” Yoon explains.
Yoon is an interaction designer, multimedia artist, and researcher. Her research includes data visualization, biometric data visualization, and sonification—a new interface for musical expression—and mobile user experience design.
Oakland-based artist and SJSU digital media professor Rhonda Holberton grew up in the Dulles Corridor, referred to as “The Silicon Valley of The East.” Holberton saw technology’s impact on society at an early age. She recalls, “I watched farmlands get steamrolled over, and subdivisions pop up.” Holberton’s work investigates technology, history, and modernity through research-based digital media and interdisciplinary art.
In a piece entitled ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ currently on display at The San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, Rhonda created 3D scans of her body practicing yoga framed by a digitized desert. The piece contrasts peaceful yoga practice with 3D technology developed by the military while presenting the human form in a cyborgian context to expose a world where humans and technology are fundamentally intertwined.
In our conversation, Holberton talks about her interest in engineering and its influence on her work, what it means to be a steward of creation and the digital world, and her moral obligation to ‘leave this place better than it was when she arrived.
Catch Holberton’s show at ICA San Jose until August 13th, and prepare to ponder the modern world and your role in it. @icasanjose
With every show Derrick played with his band Sine Wave, he transformed tension into a story for justice.
Whether you met Derrick Sanderlin at an open mic four or five years ago or saw one of his bands performing onstage or met him as a barista at Roy’s Station Coffee and Teas or read about him in the news last summer, this post-COVID season finds him in coalescence with all parts of his identity—art, Black culture, and his calling.
Heading to his hometown of Phelan, off the I-15 exit, you can’t miss the house displaying a Confederate flag underneath the American one. When he was young, Derrick learned to assimilate to make friends.
“When I started seriously playing music, I was not super aware of my own Blackness.”
Throughout his teenage years, a tension fluttered in his chest. He had a yearning to resolve something unnamed. With his father a pastor, Derrick had grown up singing hymns and spirituals with his siblings. Here he forged his own creative space. Listening to hardcore metal and playing in punk bands ultimately brought him his first guitar, gifted to him by his group’s lead guitarist.
Derrick became obsessed. Any fingerstyle, any scale, “I wanted to learn everything there was to learn,” he said. He played it till it broke. After moving to Riverside, where he lived in communes for a few years, he began to write his own music. Widely inspired by “ridiculous writers and feelers” such as Iron & Wine and Bon Iver, he entered Riverside’s tightknit open mic scene. One day, Derrick sat with his friends discussing the sparsity of venues for musicians to play at for free. He voiced an idea to boost Riverside’s creative ecosystem: “What if we just, like, throw a show…and make a documentary?”
So he organized it. Leveraging a personal connection to a movie theater located inside an art gallery his girlfriend worked at, they packed out the theater. Their documentary illustrated the value of elevating relationships for any music scene.
“Oftentimes musicians can think of the scene as the industry, so it becomes a very competitive space,” Derrick explains. “The only reason I had friends for the documentary is because…we would invite each other to play at our shows.”
Cayla, his girlfriend, had moved up to San Jose for an internship. Every time he visited, he caught a glimpse of the work she did with her organization, such as fighting the building of charter schools in the Washington neighborhood and visiting the Jungle homeless encampment before it was shut down. Back in Riverside, Derrick struggled through his daily grind. He had “No real good job. Was barely paying rent. Not eating every day,” he remembers. He was taking college classes for the opportunity to dance. Then, through a sociology course, he read statistics that showed how educated Black males make 50 percent less (sometimes 80 percent less) than their white counterparts having the same amount of education.
“I looked at those statistics, like, ‘Whoa, that’s me. I’m in those statistics.’ It put words to something I already knew.” He realized Cayla was going to stay in San Jose to continue her work as a youth mentor— and that work resonated with him.
In 2014, Derrick moved to the Bay Area. His first job in the Bay placed him in downtown Oakland during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. “Pretty much every day I was working, there was a protest at the end of the night…I
started slowly dipping my toes into some action.” In San Jose, he began volunteering with People Acting in Community Together to boost police accountability and lessen the involvement between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the county. Derrick also started working part-time at Roy’s and married Cayla in November of 2015.
“Riverside was a place where I fell in love with the idea of organizing,” he says, “but San Jose is the place where I learned what it means.”
The next few years were a blur for him: He had begun attending open mics, and his performances impressed scene connectors like Mighty Mike McGee and with Grizzly Rob, who invited him to play more shows. In the summer of 2019, he landed an artist residency at Forager Tasting Room & Eatery, where he formed his band, Sine Wave. Just like in Riverside, he brought other musicians and poets onstage with him to tell the stories he wanted to tell.
Sine Wave allowed him to express the latest progression of his internal journey. Despite half his family heritage coming from Louisiana, his social mold had consisted of mostly white, Republican, desert towns.
“When I started seriously playing music, I was not super aware of my own Blackness,” he reflects, but the ever-present tension of racial identity—crossed with uncertainty in his personal life—reveals itself in his lyrics. An early recording of “Drapes,” buried nine years back on Derrick’s SoundCloud page, dresses the same raw lyrical poetry in a very different sonic atmosphere than on his 2018 Ghetto EP. Over fingerpicked guitars, Derrick’s voice fills the sonic space with mournful confession. As layers of vocals build towards the song’s climax, the blues overwhelm whatever lightness filtered through his delivery of the first lines. With the newer recording, punctuated with syncopated claps and shakers, “I think I was feeling the sadness in a different way,” Derrick reflects. “It just felt like the pain was the pentatonic scale—bending and snapping more than it was floating or sounding like a harp.” With every show Derrick played with Sine Wave, or with his other project, Rhythm & Folk, he transformed this old tension into a story for justice.
Then, in June 2020, he faced an even greater pain to transmute. During the height of last summer’s protests for Black lives, Derrick was shot by an officer while defending a group of young protesters from close-range rubber bullets. He was alone in the hospital when he was informed his injury could prevent him from having children. When he heard that, he only wanted to go home, rest, and “just stay off on the sidelines.”
But instead, Derrick was uplifted by the relationships he had forged—teaching implicit bias training, serving coffee at Roy’s, and elevating other musicians and poets. A mural was painted in his honor, along with the message “Don’t Hurt Our Friends: Demand Accountability.” A resolution to defund police presence in schools cited Derrick’s story and name and publicized the proposals in an open letter to San Jose Unified School District.
He felt overwhelmed, but it was a feeling of love. “It has, in some ways, made me more fierce. And honest. Because it’s easy to edit yourself when you’re a Black person in America and you don’t wanna be labeled as angry. But I was tired of being afraid of that, and it feels really good not to be afraid of that. That’s a part of, I think, the Black tradition—which is being able to channel my rage.”
Now, as a community organizer for Sacred Heart, Derrick helps others who feel unsafe to strategize their demands for permanent housing, alternative responses to police calls, and better funding for programs that center their livelihoods.
He has found himself deep within his calling, where the hunger of this world and the gladness of his heart coalesce.
Kung Fu Vampire is a genre-bending rapper and performer born and raised in San Jose, California. He has spent the last 20 years curating a sound and image that has gained international interest among fandoms, including horror and hip-hop. His interests in Gothic style, music, and rap converged around a film concept conceived in conversation with friends. This concept has since led him on a career path that includes national tours, high-profile performances, and, most recently, a feature at the 2023 Gathering of the Juggalos in Thornville, Ohio, where he performed for a crowd of 8,000.
In our conversation, Kung Fu Vampire shares his origin story, the development of his image, and his relationship with San Jose.
Be sure to catch Kung Fu Vampire Live at the Ritz on July 14th, as he returns to his hometown for the first time in four years to perform with Chow Mane, Cola!, & Yo.Izz.
(Additional images by PARIS of Billion Dreams @OfficialBillionDreams)
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Following is our 2018 feature from issue 10.4.
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San Jose’s preeminent horrorcore rapper—who rightfully thinks the horrorcore label is inaccurate—Kung Fu Vampire is a legend in the Bay Area hip-hop scene. Born and raised in San Jose, he first came up with the name in 2001, then spent the next decade building up his rap reputation, playing shows around the Bay and then the state. In 2009, Kung Fu Vampire took his unique brand of rapid-fire delivery and dramatic personage all over the world, touring with such legendary acts as Tech N9ne, Dirtbag Dan, and Brotha Lynch Hung. Originally, he was known for his dark material and even spookier look—pale face paint and glaring white eyes. As he’s matured, Kung Fu Vampire has toned down the look while building up the positivity transmitted through his lyrics, with many of his songs focusing on living a healthy life with a healthy mindset. Going forward, Vampire plans to remain an independent artist, while fully exploring his music as the man, the myth, and rap legend—Kung Fu Vampire.
“Back in 2001, some friends and I were messing around and talking about making a low-budget vampire movie. And then it kind of came out, mixing kung fu and vampires. But all my friends were like, ‘Yo, you’re the Kung Fu Vampire.’ I just loved Asian culture as well as vampires. It’s like a yin and yang, with kung fu and vampirism as that dynamic. You hear it in my music, which can be bright and cheery, but also really dark and edgy. Ultimately, I’ve always been inspired to bring live instrumentation to hip-hop without it sounding like rock-rap or sloppy. I want to create liveband-backed hip-hop that still sounds like hip-hop.”
kungfuvampire.com
Instagram: kungfuvampire
Article originally appeared in Issue 10.4 “Profiles”
Some places have such big personalities that they almost seem alive. Take, for instance, stories such as Alice in Wonderland or Howl’s Moving Castle with settings so colorful that they become their own character. On rare occasions, you may find a location like those in real life. San Jose’s K-Café is absolutely one of them.
If K-Café Patisserie and Tea House were a person, it would be a hardcore girly girl—dressed to the nines with a fierce devotion to all things sparkly and pink. When a first-timer encounters it, there’s a noticeable doubletake. Almost reflexively, patrons’ phones pop out to document every last inch of the room’s blush pink furniture, glittery wall art, and, most importantly, the ceiling—a Sistine Chapel of ornamentation awash with silk flowers, gilded birdcages, golden branches, and no less than ten crystal chandeliers.
“When people walk in, they need to be wowed,” says owner Kayla Dinh, adding that the décor contrasts drastically with the aesthetic of the previous owners. “When we got this space, it was empty. Everything was gray colored so we painted the whole interior and exterior pink… I always wanted to have a really happy place.”
You might not guess it by looking at it, but despite the café’s charm and substantial female following, the shop was not an overnight success. K-Café has undergone significant obstacles in order to keep its doors open and become the thriving business you see today.
The Shop’s Early Days
Seeking to bring a taste of Vietnam’s outdoor café culture to the Bay Area, Kayla opened K-Café’s doors back in December 2019. When the 2020 shelter-in-place mandate brought the world to a screeching halt just months after her café’s grand opening, Kayla found that her shop hadn’t been open long enough to qualify for government aid. After temporarily closing the café’s doors for six months, she reopened—only to close again when the smoke from the 2020 wildfires made Santa Clara County’s outdoor dining requirements unappealing to customers.
“We only had three people working here,” Kayla recalls. “All our employees left because they could see the business going down.” Fortuitously, K-Café’s owner has tenacity in spades (after all, she launched four successful businesses by the age of 30…and she did it without the support of her family, who thought she should find a more secure job). Determined to keep her new shop alive, she worked for free, eating tens of thousands of dollars in costs without any revenue potential.
On top of everything else, the storefront has been broken into on more than one occasion, with ransackers cutting the electricity and destroying equipment. “Not going to lie, we almost had to declare bankruptcy two years ago,” she says. “But we passed through. When we reopened at the beginning of 2021, people supported us.”
To make her comeback, Kayla worked tirelessly to expand the menu, doubling their list of offerings—from beverages like the brown sugar latte and honeydew milk tea, to fusion brunch items like the bacon benedict and almond amaretto cake.
She also introduced three-tiered trays, and guests jumped at the chance to layer them with petit desserts (alongside cherry blossom tea in delicate teapots). Complete high tea service is now available for private events.
Today’s Little Patch of Paradise
Today, Kayla watches over her patch of paradise with an air of satisfaction, savoring the lively atmosphere. Flocks of friends in floral dresses and lacey tank tops flow in and out. From time to time, their number is joined by a young couple, a dad with his little princess, or a cosplayer in a frilly Lolita costume.
In feast or famine, K-Café’s silk flowers keep this space effortlessly springtime. “It’s going to be happy all year,” Kayla says of her design choice, but adds that her arriving guests don’t necessarily have to be. “If you’re not happy, it doesn’t matter—you should come here too!” she invites.
Take her up on the offer. Come as you are and find a window seat underneath the floral canopy, or opt for a patio table out in the garden courtyard with the Greek statues. Because if San Jose’s girliest café could withstand its gritty underdog beginnings, all guests are more than welcome, no matter their season.
Congratulations to the K Fam, Inc for the opening of their laetst location, K on THe Go in Milpitas, 261 W Calaveras Blvd!
(Side images from the Grand Opening. Shot by Zea Huizar @monetinspring)
For singer-songwriter Jess Sylvester, growing up in the Bay Area and discovering Mexico has allowed him to create music that brings together diverse and seemingly disparate influences that reflect on chicanx realities. Jess grew up listening to artists such as Malo, Santana, and Trio Los Panchos, yet his musical world expanded into artists like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. He began playing in local punk and hardcore bands like Tiger Uppercut!, Violet Change, and Crisis Man. Then, Jess co-founded Francisco y Madero after meeting new friends on a destined trip to Guadalajara, which gave him new ways to articulate his own experiences, exploring chicanx and pochx perspectives with the group’s “cholo-fi” sound. His newest record, Tròpico de Càncer (on San Jose’s own Needle to the Groove Records), recorded under the solo handle, Marinero, is a further composite of all his musical influences and experiences, including a love for Brazil’s Tropicalia movement. More so, however, he says this is the first record where he turned more inward and is his first honest cry for what is going on with him.
“Before I even picked up a guitar I wanted to be a songwriter. I don’t know why, as I didn’t have [role] models or friends that were songwriters. Spending time in México really helped me grasp my own concept of identity, both musically and personally. It allowed me to make latinx music and pull from influences that I grew up hearing in my home.”
J
ared Kauk is a classically trained violinist, and his sister Shiloh learned to sing listening to the radio. Together this brother-sister folk-rock duo creates poignant, delicate melodies braced by lush orchestral soundscapes. To pay the bills, both brother and sister work day jobs: Jared is a violin and viola teacher, and Shiloh works at a coffeeshop. In the last year, Bird and Willow have made their presence known through internet releases and copious live shows around the area. This summer, they released their first extended play, Place to Land, which features brothers Bryan and Kevin Valko on bass and drums. As for the future, the brother-sister duo hope to embark on a West Coast tour and are currently writing songs for what will be their first full-length release in mid-2017.
“We started recording songs before we had a name or a plan or anything. We figured we’ve been playing these songs for awhile, so let’s try to make them into something bigger. And then when we named ourselves, we decided on Bird and Willow. Those are the cross streets in Willow Glen where we were both born. We could have used just our names or whatever, but I think Bird and Willow is significant because a lot of our songs tell stories about our lives and reflect the place where we come from.”the brother-sister folk-rock duo known as @birdandwillow creates poignant, delicate melodies braced by lush orchestral soundscapes.
MIKE! Beware of the Monkey (10k) Release date: December 21, 2022 Written by Demone Carter
I am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I’m a slow learner. The best new rap records don’t always catch my ear immediately. Such was the case with Michael Jordan Bonema, better known to rap fans as MIKE! Despite the critical acclaim of releases like Weight of the World and Disco! I had filed MIKE! away with a glut of rappers working in the shadows of Earl Sweatshirt’s genius. I am somewhat ashamed to admit it was a Tommy Hilfiger advertisement that changed my mind. The fashion brand commissioned a four-song mixtape which features MIKE! spitting alongside the New Jersey sidewinder Wiki on tracks produced by the Alchemist.
Perhaps Alchemist production brings out the best in everyone, but all of sudden I was locked in on MIKE! and his unorthodox approach. His style is both drunken and precise. He doesn’t flow so much as sway, entrancing the listener with a pendulum-like cadence. As a recent MIKE! convert, I went into his latest album, Beware of the Monkey, with somewhat high expectations. And this record delivers.
The thing about MIKE! that jumps off the track, is his tone of voice—low and penetrating. There is a sadness in his voice, but it also seems like he is rapping with a smile. The production is handled by DJ Blackpower, whose beats seem to form and disintegrate at will. MIKE weaves in and out of each track with melancholic ease. Songs like “nuthin I can do is wrng” and “Light” (rivers of love) showcase MIKE’s talent for evoking nuanced emotions that exist between joy and sadness. Subjects like grief, sibling bonds, or fear of failure are dealt with in a way that feels heartfelt and authentic without being overly sentimental. The standout track is the song “Wake Up,” which is a collaboration with reggae legend Sister Nancy whose 1982 rendition of the song “What A Bam Bam” continues to echo through pop culture. Beyond the sticker shock of the Sister Nancy feature, the song “Wake Up” really works as MIKE! is somehow perfect for this ’80s-inflected reggae tune. Overall it’s a great album and hopefully a harbinger of great things for one of my new favorites.
Favorite Track: “Wake Up”
store.10k.global
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KENNY BEATS Louie (XL Recordings) Release date: August 31, 2022 Written by Brandon Roos
Since 2018, Kenny Beats has proven himself a relentless creative and pliable producer with a list of collaborators that includes rappers Rico Nasty, Vince Staples, and Freddie Gibbs as well as rock groups Trash Talk and IDLES. Despite keeping busy behind the boards, he had yet to officially craft a solo project.
Kenny contends that he had nothing to say. That changed when he discovered in late 2021 that his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Louie is his creative response to a trying time.
The beats begin in earnest with “Parenthesis,” where crisp snare hits merge with soulful, pitched vocals. Understated horn stabs, string section samples, and quick weaving synth leads add lushness without weighing down the composition. “Hold My Head” is a clear standout, dealing in the currency of current rap sonics while utilizing a rhythmic framework indebted to golden era greats.
Knowing the inspiration behind this album, the sampled lyrics on “Eternal,” taken from Shira Small’s “Eternal Life,” feel poignant: “Eternal life is the intersection of the line of time and the plane of now. We live forever.” Coupled with contemplative keys, the song feels like a meditation on existence and mortality.
“Still” may just be the most soulful beat of the bunch. Kenny sends the song into the stratosphere by adding moody supporting vocals atop simple, punchy drum programming, all in service to a tasteful flip of Linda Kemp’s gospel tune “I Can’t Stop.” JPEGMAFIA’s energetic, amended verse somehow adds another emotive ingredient to the musical stew, an obvious instance of Kenny’s magic touch in action.
There’s no established style or sonic touch point that reigns supreme. Instead, what shines through is Kenny’s keen ability to stitch together the old and new, the sampled and supplemented, the humorous and heartfelt, in thoughtful, organic ways. Though Louie never feels like it’s drawing too much attention to itself, when the notes finally die down at the end of the slow burn intensity of “Hot Hand,” it becomes quite clear why Kenny is so in demand.
Favorite Track: “Still”
kennybeats.bandcamp.com/album/louie
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Homeboy Sandman 12 Days of Christmas and Dia De Los Reyes (Dirty Looks) Release date: January 6, 2023 Written by Demone Carter
Homeboy Sandman is one of underground rap’s true eccentrics. A master craftsman with words, he has released a deluge of albums over the past decade. What separates Homeboy Sandman from his contemporaries is his uncompromising weirdness. A contrarian’s contrarian, the New York rapper has made a point of going against the grain in a way that feels true to himself.
Case in point is the title of his latest album, 12 Days of Christmas and Dia De Los Reyes. Released on January 6, 2023, via Dirty Looks Records, the album name references the “Twelve Days of Christmas” carol and the Dia De Los Reyes (Day of the three kings) which is observed in much of Latin America and Spain on January sixth. Given the album’s release date, the title kind of makes sense. But also making an album named after Christmas, weeks after the holidays, and having nothing to do with Christmas or Dia De Los Reyes content-wise is just the type of head scratcher one would expect from Homeboy Sandman.
Each track is named after a different day of Christmas (and of course Dia De Los Reyes) but the track titles are merely place holders for the Sandman’s handy work. Each beat feels like an experiment in rhythmic cadence, the boy Sand (as he often refers to himself) proving his mettle on different tempos and syncopated samples. Seemingly mundane everyday observations are mixed in with motivational self-help themes and of course emcee braggadocio. One of the standout tracks is “Third Day of Christmas” where Homeboy Sandman makes the following observations: “Made it to the farmers market / From the days of the farting armpit.”
The production duties are handled by a collection of beat makers, including Peanut Butter Wolf, Illingsworth, and Mono En Stereo (to name a few). The beat palette is sufficiently quirky. The song “Dia De Los Reyes,” in particular, demonstrates how Homeboy Sandman bars really sound great over almost anything, including an up-tempo Salsa sample.
The only thing this album leaves me wanting for is cohesion. Despite the title and theme/non-theme, there isn’t much to make this feel like an album as opposed to a collection of tracks. All that said, the album is enjoyable, and the song titles may allow me to put it on some Christmas playlists next year. Maybe that was Homeboy Sandman’s plan all along.
Favorite Track: “Third Day of Christmas” homeboysandman.bandcamp.com
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Makaya McCraven In These Times (International Anthem Records) Release date: September 23, 2022 Written by Taran Escobar-Ausman
In a way, drummer Makaya McCraven’s new LP, In These Times, completes a cycle. Always a bedroom beatmaker, McCraven started taking recordings of live performances of his band in Chicago, chopping them up, stitching different snippets together, and adding some magical post-production flourishes to create a new sound that he calls “organic beat music.” This resulted in his first aptly-titled release, 2016’s In the Moment. With his second LP, Universal Beings, he played live studio sessions with various collections of musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, similarly rearranged the recordings with his own brand of hip-hop production, but took it a step further by going on tour to play the new rearranged versions live. In These Times is his first release with deliberate compositions, which are now, however, infused with the techniques, slightly off-beat time signatures, and head-nodding complexity developed from those past live shows.
The magic of finding new rhythmic patterns within the sea of improvised music changed McCraven’s drumming style as he now seamlessly and subtly shifts between off-kilter hip-hop beats and polyrhythmic jazz flourishes. He straddles so many musical worlds that it would almost be sacrilege to simply call his music “jazz,” a term which he states is “offensive at worst and insufficient at best.” Instead, his organic beat music lives in its own musical multiverse, pulling from different genres and eras without garnering any trite labels such as “hybrid” or “fusion.”
“Dream Another’’ sounds like a lost track from Donald Byrd’s Street Lady. A flute, harp, and baby sitar flutter in and out of the melody over a soul-inspired bass line and hypnotic 7/4 hip-hop–like beat. Somehow the track “This Place That Place” simultaneously plays as a funk-jazz piece and hip-hop influenced chamber music. A personal favorite, “So Ubuji,” lulls you in with a gentle, meandering harp and marimba before breaking way for a rare 4/4 head-nodder. You’ll undoubtedly be making your best stank face. The highlight of “The Knew Untitled” is Matt Gold’s guitar work that pulls from the Bill Frisell school of tonality and angular phrasing.
As McCraven develops and refines his approach to making music he has become an alchemist and enchanter of sorts. There will always be magic to be found in his creations.
Favorite Track: “So Ubuji”
makayamccraven.com
Content Pick-Up Party and West Valley College’s Cilker School of Art & Design Graduation EXPO
The second annual collaboration between West Valley College, Content Magazine, and SVCreates brought together students, career artists, and art enthusiasts with three attractions; The Cilker Graduation EXPO and Annual Fashion Show, the Content Magazine Pick-Up Party, and the SVCreates Content Emerging Artist Award ceremony.
The evening started with a pre-party for those instrumental in supporting the missions of each organization and a private celebration of the three Content Emerging Artist Award recipients. Guests were served Portuguese cuisine from San Jose’s Petiscos Adega restaurant. The party began when students, community members, and artists streamed into the college, accompanied by music from DJ Velmalicious. Guests viewed the graduating student showcase exhibition that lined the walls and interacted with artists featured in Content Magazine 15.3, “Perform,” including Carlos Pérez, Dan Fenstermacher, Renée Hamilton-McNealy, and Rubén Darío Villa – Mr. Fuchila, who displayed their work for an in-person magazine experience. Beverages were supplied by Sunnyvale’s ShaKa Brewing and Downtown San Jose’s first natural wine bar, Goodtime Bar, and served by Filco Events.
The exchange of inspiration between students, emerging & established artists, and the broader creative community was palpable. Something about gathering in an educational environment encourages students to look forward with promise and former students to look back with nostalgic inspiration. That feeling culminated in Cilker’s annual fashion design showcase, a fashion show hosted on the college’s lawn with over 300 guests surrounding the catwalk.
The show opened with the Content emerging artists award ceremony that recognized Dan Fenstermacher, Davied Morales, and Keana Aguila Labra for their commitment to their practice, working intentionally to share their vision, and rigor in their approach to creation and production. Once the fashion show ended, guests flowed back into the building for a final look at the exhibition and to enjoy a musical performance by the chancellor of the West Valley-Mission Community College District.
Thank you to all those who attended and helped support local South Bay creatives and Cilker Art & Design students’ boundless inspiration as they progress in their careers. We plan to continue this collaboration among creative community members and hope events like this inspire continued learning and support of the arts.
The West Valley College’s Cilker School of Art & Design Graduation EXPO is a maze of creativity – classrooms filled with sculpture, photography, fashion design, architecture, or digital design projects and students making final adjustments to their pieces. The college’s emphasis on arts education is apparent in its wide range of offerings, disciplines, and talented educators. The development of West Valley’s new art complex, scheduled to open this Spring, hopes to draw the community onto campus while providing more resources for art and design students. This keystone event motivates us and demonstrates that the future of South Bay art and collaboration is bright.
Thank you, Event Partners & Collaborators! The Cilker School of Art & Design, Filco Events, Goodtime Bar, Petiscos Adega, ShaKa Brewing, SVCreates, and West Valley College.
Hypnotized by the dark shapes tattooed just above the knee of his grandfather, a four- or five year-old Sefa Samatua sat discreetly with a brown paper bag and crayon. He and his cousins had spent the day picking fruit in the orchards of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight. As they always did at the end of those days, they had just finished massaging Grandfather’s legs. It was the only time Samatua could clearly see the subject of his childhood obsession: his grandfather’s Pe’a. Consisting of small dots, dark lines, and stark geometric shapes, the Pe’a tattoo traditionally spans from the mid-back to the knees. Receiving a Pe’a is an ancient rite of passage in Samoan culture, and it typically remains hidden out of respect.
Samatua could hear the television droning in the background as his cousins played and grandfather rested. But play and rest were the last things on his mind, as the Pe’a sat audaciously exposed below the ruffled hem of Grandfather’s lavalava. Samatua slid the tip of the crayon across the paper bag and began to copy the mesmerizing figures.
Now, nearly 50 years later, Samatua puts a modern spin on those same shapes and has made a name for himself as a prolific tattooist in the process. “There’s maybe five patterns that you see that everyone has on their body that does tribal,” Samatua says. “I would see [those] patterns and then I would see the flames on these guys in the gym. I wanted to put our patterns into that,” he explains.
Following one of the key tenets of tribal tattooing, Samatua believes strongly in the importance of following his subject’s muscle structure. To achieve this, little to no design work is done before the client’s arrival. Samatua free hands every tattoo with a marker directly onto each client’s skin. He explains, “It’s like Tetris. You don’t know what’s coming until you see it. Well, I don’t know until you sit down and the block is right in front of me.”
Samatua differentiates his style by constructing his own “blocks” with unique twists on traditional tribal patterns. “You look at the spear,” he says, referring to the term for a triangular shape. He continues, “Zoom in on it, and ask ‘How do I change this in 10 different ways?’ ”
The result is what Samatua has coined as “Kava Flow,” or unique variations of traditional tribal shapes following the form of each client’s body. Samatua claims he cannot replicate his tattoo designs on paper. “I can’t draw it. It just comes naturally. It’s one line at a time for me and it’s got to have flow.”
When Samatua began elementary school, he barely spoke any English. A rambunctious and talkative kid, his teachers often disciplined him by telling him to sit in the corner. To Samatua’s delight, there were often paper and crayons in those corners. He recalls, “I thank the teachers that sent me there, which was probably every teacher that I had from first to fourth grade. I was drawing tribal the whole time.”
Fast forward about 30 years; Samatua is married and a father. Humble Beginnings Tattoo, a tattoo shop on San Jose’s Alameda, began to make a name for itself in the world of tribal tattooing. Orly Locquiao, the shop’s owner, encouraged Samatua to pursue the craft he was passionate about.
“He gave me a machine. He gave me a few pointers. And I just went from there,” Samatua recalls. He began tattooing people where so many other artists get their start, in his garage. His clients would lay on cinder blocks with a pillow as he tattooed them with his daughter by his side. Soon, Samatua quit his nine-to-five and joined Locquiao at Humble Beginnings.
The root of Samatua’s inspiration traces back to that fateful summer examining his grandfather’s Pe’a. The first time his grandfather noticed Samatua eyeing the body art, he covered it to prevent Samatua from seeing it. But that didn’t stop Samatua.
“When he’d sleep, I would lift his shirt up a little bit so I could see his stomach,” he shares. “Then he would turn sometimes on the side or on his stomach and I would see the back. The inside is the best part,” Samatua says, recalling the insides of Grandfather’s thighs. He continues, “It’s where the teeth are. It’s all black and all you see are these spikes. That’s what I love. That’s where I got all the elements, from his body.”
Eventually, Grandfather empathized with his grandson’s curiosity and began to deliberately pull up his lavalava and allow Samatua to draw. “It was like suffocating …and then finally, you could breathe,” Samatua explains. “That’s what it felt like. All this weight came off my shoulders trying to draw this,” he describes.
In 2016, the artist moved from Humble Beginnings to Japantown’s State of Grace. Fifteen years into his career, Samatua has never looked back.
#96 – Jonathan Gomez, Cofounder of Asiel Design and the Midtown Immersive Night Parties
Owners of Asiel Design, Jonathan Gomez and Linnae Asiel, have gone through many iterative seasons over the past two decades. Founded in 2003 as a floral design business, the company developed to include event design with intricately themed experiences. Their recent endeavor to renovate the James Grain Warehouse in Midtown San Jose, originally home to a mid-century grain wholesaler, provides a vessel for uplifting, connecting, and serving the community.
Initially used to store their antique event rentals, Jonathan and Linnae converted the warehouse into an event space during Covid lockdowns. Jonathan shares, “If we were going to have a warehouse just storing stuff and not serving the community, we would not be around forever. But if we could transition into a place that brought artists together and created a place for connection, I believed we could be a service to the city and the community.” That vision of serving others and fostering connection is tied deeply to the faith and spirituality that guides Asiel Design. Jonathan describes that guidance as a ‘heavenly blueprint’ that allows the business to stay nimble and ultimately leads to their upcoming event series, Midtown Immersive, from April 28th through June 16th on eight consecutive Fridays from 5-9 pm at the James Grain Warehouse.
In our conversation, Jonathan details the evolution of Asiel Design, the importance of spirituality and faith in his work, the rippling effects of Covid 19, and an invitation to Midtown Immersive.Visit James Grain Warehouse any Friday from April 28th to June 16th and experience Midtown Immersive. The series will celebrate the historic location, close the street to cars, and feature artists, vendors, food, drinks, and music.
The James Grain Warehouse for their MIDTOWN IMMERSIVE ART PARTY happening for eight consecutive weeks.
The event series brings the community together to eat, drink, dance, shop & hang out with local artists.San Jose’s art scene will be on full display.
Brought to you by the James Grain Warehouse Event Productions.
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic (https://instagram.com/jackpavlinamusic)
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Daniel Garcia is the founder, Cultivator, and creative visionary behind Content Magazine, a photographer, and San Jose Native, who has an upcoming photo exhibition at Art Ark Gallery, opening on May 5th, 2023. This exhibition will be his first solo show and display a body of work documenting 30+ years of photography.
Garcia’s interest in photography began while taking yearbook photos in Silver Creek High School. It led him to study the art form at the Academy of Art University before dropping out and becoming a freelance photographer shooting model portfolios. His flexible freelance schedule allowed Daniel to shoot street photography around San Jose and San Francisco, refining his craft, experimenting with format, and documenting a range of subjects. The energy Daniel receives from interacting with others has been foundational in his life and eventually led him to begin Content Magazine in 2008 to give honor and respect to local creatives in a way that would feel international. His work provides a glimpse into the lives of others, stealing moments from everyday life to give viewers a sense of the diversity and scope of his subjects.
In our conversation, Daniel shares his motivation, development as a photographer, and a sneak peek at what guests can expect from his upcoming solo show.
Visit Art Ark Gallery on May 5th, part of South First Friday San Jose Art Walk, to view a retrospective collection of Daniel Garcia’s photography. The show will display 100+ pieces and mark a transition into new long-term projects that Daniel is planning.
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic (https://instagram.com/jackpavlinamusic)
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Alyssarhaye Graciano is a San Jose Native, practicing fiber artist, and current visual arts curator at MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana. Having learned to crochet and knit in her teens, Graciano founded BlackSheepMade with plans to fund a college internship abroad by selling beanies, scarves, and woven garments. She later moved to Portland, Oregon, to pursue a post-college tech career before deciding to make BlackSheepMade her full-time job. During that time, Alyssarhaye grew the business to include teaching workshops, public art installations, and writing a book called ‘Chunky Knits.’
The publication of her book in 2020 proved to be a turning point in Graciano’s career. Having moved back to San Jose at the start of pandemic lockdowns, the grind of producing inventory began to weigh heavy on her aching wrists and sense of creative exploration. Over the following years, Graciano found work at local arts nonprofits and made time to experiment with fiber-craft, sculpture, and assemblage. Alyssarhaye’s experience as a business owner, creative, and nonprofit community curator led her to a role as visual arts curator of MACLA. She is currently preparing for MACLAS’s upcoming Latinx Art Now! Exhibition and auction.
In our conversation, Alyssarhaye shares her development as an artist and business owner and her experience as MACLA’s visual arts curator.
Come to MACLA on 4-07-2023 for the exhibition opening of 2023 Latinx Art Now!, part of South First Fridays, and return on 5-20-2023 for the live auction and a chance to take home a piece from the exhibition.
As far back as she can remember, Sarah Williams has been fascinated by art, both making and experiencing it. Born and raised in Vallejo, California, Williams had always drawn, but it wasn’t until a high school art class opened her eyes that she really started pursuing art. She also credits the class with giving her social cachet, if not a way to sidestep her otherwise bookish and teacher’spet personality and discover an otherwise hidden world. “I was very academic and a bit of a goodygoody in school,” Williams recalls. “But through art, I was able to gain the respect and friendship of a few graffiti artists in my class. I was exposed to this whole creative community.” Soon she was going on graffiti missions with the boys, learning about the etiquette, hierarchy, and canon of the street art/graffiti world, as well as making her own mark. Williams credits the experience with supercharging her ideas about art, saying, “This was the first time I felt community, as well as competition, through art, and it was all wrapped up in this adrenaline rush.”
As high school transitioned into college, Williams followed the art that had enthralled her as a teenager, albeit in a bit more formal, structured environment. She attended the University of California Santa Cruz, where she earned a bachelor of arts, specializing in printmaking, as well as english literature. “I changed my major too many times trying to convince myself to do something more practical than graduate with a degree in art. But I couldn’t resist,” Williams remembers. It was then she realized that she wanted to take a shot at surviving in a creative industry.
College also gave Williams her first professional art gig. During her senior year, she won a competition to design a wine label for Bonny Doon Vineyard. “Designing wine labels or labels for microbrews had always been a goal of mine,” she says, adding, “I showed up with about a dozen hand-illustrated designs, determined to win, which I did.” The reward? Three months of work with the vineyard’s creative team and her first experience with the digital medium.
After graduation, Williams stayed in Santa Cruz and Bonny Doon Vineyard took her on as a design intern. This, along with a gig at Broprints, a printmaking shop in Santa Cruz, gave Williams outlets for refining her style and aesthetic. Williams’ current work finds a subtle spot between cartoons and impressionism. Rendering objects she sees around her—like buildings, streets, and trees—with a structured but equally loose linework, she evokes a vivid but hard-to-place nostalgia for the simple harmony found in the forms that make up the everyday.
Composing things like Victorian houses or city streets, Williams expresses the familiar with an illustrative style that is both elegant and casual. Her work is divided into different themes, like “California” or “Black-andWhite,” each with a unique but cohesive style. To create her work, Williams often sketches by hand, usually in her kitchen next to a “fluff-ball dog” or in bed, then cleans the drawing up in Illustrator. Later, she runs to Kinkos, where she gets a high-res scan to “digitally develop the piece with color using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator.”
“It feels like I’m finally starting to carve out a niche for myself. This is rewarding even in my tiny little beach community.”
– Sarah Williams
As for what she’s trying to say with her work, Williams points to the little things, the physical mundanity that makes up all of our lives. A front yard with a car, a random street with an apartment complex, a fading Victorian; Williams takes all of these otherwise ignored dynamics and infuses them with the beauty they’ve always had. On a deeper level, Williams says, “The work attempts to discuss the sacrifices we make in order to live in this paradise [of California].”
Currently, Williams works three jobs, including her art practice, which only allows her to squeeze in art at night or on days off; but she’s not discouraged. “It feels like I’m finally starting to carve out a niche for myself,” she says. “This is rewarding even in my tiny little beach community.”
As for the future, Williams shows no sign of slowing her creative output. Her dream is to design for beverage or alcohol companies, but she shares, “Regardless of success or failure, I’ll never stop creating.”
# 93- Bree Karpavage – Collage Artist and Director of Santa Cruz First Fridays, and Downtown Santa Cruz Makers Market
Born and raised in an island community off the coast of Maryland, Bree Karpavage sought to experience the world outside her small town. Taking a break from college, she took to the road crafting jewelry, starting a family, and ultimately setting roots in Santa Cruz, where she has lived for 15 years. When the grind of sustaining her family by crafting jewelry became tedious, she sought ways to implement her experience selling at makers’ markets in supporting the creative community of Santa Cruz and began creating a new body of collage artwork. Bree received a degree in advertising design and began coordinating events at The Santa Cruz Mountains Makers Market to bring more regularly scheduled programming to the area. The connections she made through the makers’ market led her to a role as director of First Friday Santa Cruz in early 2020, the beginning of Pandemic lockdowns. Bree stood fast despite turbulence and worked to maintain a platform for artists to share their work. As the world recovers from the pandemic, Bree has created a new website, artist directory, and trip planning map for First Friday Santa Cruz to encourage folks to come out and support local art.
In our conversation, Bree shares her experiences creating art of her own, producing events, and the evolution she has gone through in various phases of her life.
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic (https://instagram.com/jackpavlinamusic)
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
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Haley Cardamon first connected with the South Bay art scene in her teens when her family moved to Cannery Park in San José Japantown. Local purveyors such as Shorty Fatz Bicycles and Breezy Excursion exposed Haley to the vein of creativity that runs through San José. While taking courses at De Anza College, she found ways to combine class assignments with her interest in art. Those projects inspired her to start a magazine that could serve as a platform for underground art in the Bay Area. The publication was called B.A.C.K. (Bay Area Creative Klub). The connections Haley made through local art and curating the magazine led her to Local Color, a woman-powered arts nonprofit with a mission to build equitable opportunities for San José artists. Beginning as a volunteer, Haley would later earn a position on Local Color’s staff that deepened her connection with the community. Energized by the impact of San José’s creative culture, Haley launched an event named after the city. Initially called ‘408 day’, now called ‘San José Day,’ the event fosters community by curating an authentic representation of San José’s creative culture.
In our conversation, Haley shares her experiences curating B.A.C.K. magazine, connecting with the arts community, and finding her own path in the art world, her city, and her life.Make sure to come out on 4-08-2023 for San José Day, hosted by the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza from 12-6 pm.
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic (https://instagram.com/jackpavlinamusic)
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
In the world of graffiti, elements of typography give way to the movement of calligraphy, which are elaborated on within the lettering of a simple tag or the abstract styling that adorns large mural pieces. The fundamental rules of typography and calligraphy may be adhered to in graffiti, but they are also broken, creating a more intimate expression of experience and existence. Author Robert Bringhurst says, at the heart of typography is the “dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand.” While Bringhurst was in no way referring to graffiti, he inadvertently summed up the ethos of graffiti with the phrase “speaking hand.” Tracy 168, pioneer of wildstyle graffiti, bridges this connection between typography and lettering in graffiti when he succinctly, yet enigmatically, states, “You don’t want to lose the basis of the letter, but you want to lose the letter.” The very fabric of graffiti is a dichotomy between established form, practice,
and rebellion.
This is where we find Mesngr, who, as an adolescent, began spraying the names of punk bands behind an Alpha Beta grocery store in San Jose. He viewed the city as a living canvas: seeing art in cars, buildings, signs, and the people within the community. Like so many at that age, Mesngr’s rebellion consisted of the need to be seen, and he made art and graffiti his vehicles of choice. “When I discovered graffiti, I could say, ‘fuck you,’ or I could say, ‘Look at me—I exist!’ ”
A San Jose native, Mesngr is a self-taught illustrator, street artist, mentor, and teacher. The rebellious start to his journey blossomed into his work becoming part of the visual landscape of San Jose. Large mural works in Japantown, a high school mascot mural for the Yerba Buena Warriors, and his large bus and character piece in the Alameda Artworks parking lot are just a few works bearing the Mesgnr handle. In addition to seeing his many murals, characters, and tags, typical San Jose residents going about their day may not realize how many times they observe Mesngr’s work. The Ike’s Sandwiches logo or the Diamond Cleaning Services billboard are examples of Mesngr’s love of letters and design in a commercial setting. The quality of the crisp, clean lines apparent in all his work, something he has always strived for since watching his father use a fountain pen to pull perfect lines for his lettering and calligraphy, makes it hard to believe he pulls lines with spray paint. The range of Mesngr’s influences can be seen in his graffiti work, especially in his lettering where the Bay Area ‘funk’ style mixes with the wildstyle of New York and is highlighted by the playfulness of bubble-style lettering, seen most often on throw-ups (a style of quick graffiti lettering). In his pieces, he integrates the cartoon stylings of his early influences, Don Martin and R. Crumb, the free-form movement of Mode2, and the controlled pop art lines of Patrick Nagel. The result is his own vibrant style depicting the personalities that make up San Jose and creations from his own mind. Mesngr gravitates toward the female form to adorn his pieces, it being “simple [yet] beautiful and unique, expressing all my feelings [of] peace, love, darkness, pain, good and evil, mystery, sex, life, hope, and passion.” While at the heart of graffiti is an independent and personal intent to establish a presence among many, the concept of community plays a major role as all those personal voices, or “speaking hands” come together to paint a visual representation of a city’s soul. “Graffiti is an art form that is needed in our community, just like murals, because when you have a high-paid out-of-towner or even an established local artist painting a mural, it reminds us there’s a voice, a talent and passion in the people from these streets.”
Mesngr is very humble and would rather throw the spotlight on those that continually inspire him, like fellow artists Sean Griffin and John Dozier of the art collective TWC (Together We Create), which he is a member of. Even in the capacity of educator and mentor, he gathers more inspiration from the at-risk youth he teaches. “I hope and believe that art teaches them patience, the ability to see things through, and to stay creative. Those things apply to all parts of life and a young person’s future.” Mesgnr has surely shown he exists to help bring out the soul of San Jose and care for its future.
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.1 “Sight and Sound”
Pedro Perez prefers to go by his native Nahuatl moniker, Aquihua, a name deeply rooted in Aztec culture which loosely translates to “the essence of water.” For the last 13 years, Aquihua has danced with Calpulli Tonalehqueh, an Aztec dance group based in San Jose. He teaches beginning dance classes and is what Calpulli calls the Second Palabra, or second voice. As Second Palabra, he supports the executive director and furthers the organization’s cultural work with community members and partners. Calpulli Tonalehqueh is grounded in wisdom, harmony, and culture—values they share through weekly community spiritual ceremonies at the School of Arts and Culture.
Calpulli Tonalehqueh was established in 2004 and has grown to become the state’s largest Aztec dance group. During that time, the organization became a nonprofit and began applying for grants. Access to grants brought community partners such as SOAC, SVCreates, and Veggielution. Grants also brought a need for administration and bookkeeping. “My relationship with danza began as a spiritual thirst for knowledge of our culture. I wanted to reunite with my heritage, but I am a worker and like identifying areas where we need help,” shares Aquihua. “I noticed one area that needed support was the administrative and logistics role, so I jumped in.”
Over the last two years, Aquihua has participated in SVCreates’ Folk and Traditional Roundtables, convening with other culturally rooted organizations within the county. In these meetings, he found community through everyday hardships and gained new perspectives on how to solve organizational and institutional issues. “It was helpful to know that organizations of all sizes were struggling. We no longer felt alone during this very isolated period in history,” he shares.
“My relationship with danza began as a spiritual thirst for knowledge of our culture. I wanted to reunite with my heritage.” _Pedro “Aquihua” Perez
Aquihua recalls the roundtable structure: “The format of each meeting was discussing a topic at large, breaking into smaller groups to get deeper, and then regrouping to share our thoughts, [which] was beneficial. While I had experienced roundtables before, they were not nearly as impactful as these,” he shares. “It inspired me to bring the format back to Calpulli’s leadership and implement it in our weekly gatherings. This change was very constructive for us.”
As Aquihua’s spirit continues to grow as a dancer, he is sure to create space within the organization for its members to grow as they need and want. “Dance is a doorway into something greater,” he shares.
Ann manages the complex production of our annual Open Studios Art Tour with a joyful attitude. She is the liaison for several hundred Open Studios artists, event sponsors, and volunteers.
A third-generation Californian who has lived in Santa Cruz since 1981, Ann has a degree in History from UCLA. Ann worked as a production coordinator in the tech world for 14 years, served as a Girl Scout leader & trainer for seven years, and volunteered on the SPECTRA Steering Committee in the 1990s before joining the Arts Council in 2002.
Ann shares about her love and work with the artists of Open Studios and the changes she has seen in the art culture of Santa Cuz during her 20 years with the Art Council.
Apply to Become an Open Studios Artist
Applications for the 2023 tour will be available March 1, 2023. The tour is limited to adults [18 or older] who are residents of Santa Cruz County. Email Ann Ostermann, ann@artscouncilsc.org to be notified when applications open and receive guidelines and guidance.
Learn more about Santa Cruz County’s Open Studio and the other programs and grant opportunities at https://artscouncilsc.org/
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic (https://instagram.com/jackpavlinamusic)
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
CONTENT MAGAZINE: How has San Jose influenced the artistic endeavors in your life and career?
GIRAFA: Born and raised in the city of San Jose, Girafa has been writing graffiti across many Bay Area neighborhoods. It wasn’t until his conviction three years ago that he was forced to take time off for self-evaluation. Since then, he has been exploring different mediums and coming to terms with himself on a personal level. Born and raised in the city of San Jose, Girafa has been writing graffiti across many Bay Area neighborhoods. It wasn’t until his conviction three years ago that he was forced to take time off for self-evaluation. Since then, he has been exploring different mediums and coming to terms with himself on a personal level.
CM: How has San Jose influenced the artistic endeavors in your life and career?
G: an Jose is home base. I was raised here and influenced by local graffiti crews that run this city. Times have changed and with the relentless buff (term used to describe the attempts of city workers to paint over graffiti) and strict laws and punishments for graffiti artists, San Jose pushes you to work harder and take on more risks. I’ve taken what I’ve learned on the streets and applied it to my indoor work ethic.
CM: To some, you are the most infamous and most beloved graffiti artist in the Bay Area. Do you feel a certain responsibility to the kids and your fanbase?
I feel honored that people enjoy my work. Being an artist, I spend a lot of time in solitude and don’t notice how it affects others since I’m so focused on what I’m doing. If anything, I would want them to follow their heart in whatever they feel passionate about and overcome any obstacles that stand in their way.
CM: Who were your role models when you were growing up?
G: First off, my parents. My father taught me never to give up and to apply yourself. My mother took care of a lot of strays and pets, showing me and animals unconditional love. I watched a lot of cartoons growing up, so…definitely William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and John Kricfalusi, Mestre Waguinho and, last but not least, my old friend Buckethead.
CM : Would you say your parents were supportive of your artistic endeavors?
G: My parents have always been supportive, now more so than ever. (laughs) I kept it a secret as much as I could when I was painting on the streets, but when the news broke about my arrest I remember them saying “We knew you painted graffiti, but not to this extent.” Now my mom says “You found a way to turn lemons into lemonade.”
G: I believe my parents always knew I’d do something creative with my life. I was always playing [with my] imagination, locking myself away in my room drawing and I was definitely the black sheep of the family. I’m really thankful they let me be me.
CM: Do you think that your work on the streets limited your full artistic vision, or was it just a different part of it?
G: Yes, working illegally on the streets can be very limiting; that’s where I became very fond of repetition. You want to get in and out before anyone notices or the police show up. I got bored with painting the same icon and started to migrate into other areas, still remaining within the giraffe theme and never veering away from it.
Some graffiti writers are about style, where I was more about a theme. I made it a point to primarily use the colors black and yellow which is the strongest color combination used for street signs to get your attention. Now that I work inside my studio, not feeling rushed or having to look over my shoulder allows me to explore what I did in the streets and grow from that. So yeah, it’s different. There are things that I’d rather do in the streets and not in my studio, and vice versa.
CM: Why the giraffe?
I was given the nickname Girafa which means giraffe in Brazilian Portuguese because of my height. It stuck amongst my friends. I’ve always been fascinated with alter-identities so when I was given the nickname, I took it seriously and later developed a character to go along with the name.
Before the giraffe, I was all over the place with my art. But once I discovered the character, it felt right. Giraffes are such unique creatures. Also, it’s fun to pretend to be something or someone else. I’m able to get back in touch with my inner child, which some of us tend to lose sight of as we grow older.
CM: On a deeper level, what do you think it is about alter-identities that fascinates you so much?
G: I was adopted at a very early age, which leaves a lot of questions about who I am and where I came from unanswered. I needed a way to fill in the blanks so creating alter-identities gave me the ability to create my own story—which became my personal way of dealing with my past. The thing that fascinates me the most is the mystery that surrounds the person. Graffiti is all about that, which is part of why I was attracted to it.
CM: Do you think you’ve learned more about who you are with your experiences and through art?
G: Yes, but I’m always a work in progress. I don’t regret any of my choices. I’d say in the last few years, especially my time spent on house arrest, I did a lot of reflecting, searching, and reading as to what’s my purpose for being here. I strongly feel each of us has a purpose to fulfill whatever it may be.
I don’t believe in bad circumstances, only lessons to learn and grow from. It’s crazy how you can trace all the steps that led you to where you are today, and the signs the universe will present to you so know you’re on the right path. When I’m in my studio alone creating work, it’s definitely therapy. Even though my work is fun and colorful on the surface, I spend the whole time working shit out in my head.
CM: Ultimately, how do you want to be remembered?
G: What an awkward question for me to answer. Honestly, it’s really not up to me. I’m only responsible for myself, and I have my own expectations to live up to. It’s hard to already come up with how I want to be remembered when I’ve just begun.
Originally Appeared in Issue 5.0 Underground – SOLD OUT
I t’s a sell-out inside the Continental, with stylish folks from around the Bay Area crowded around a stage to see acclaimed LA trio KING. A handycam captures the groovy bass lines and delicate keyboard comps on a flat-screen television on the back wall, and the crowd shows love from start to finish, enough to earn an encore from the thankful group.
The performance is a watershed moment for the Changing Same (TCS), producers who host a weekly party at the Continental, showcasing musical minds interested in novel approaches to soulful music. On this night, Tommy Aguilar, well-known for bringing acts of this kind to San Jose under the Universal Grammar umbrella, is particularly proud. While a New York Times review may have just brought KING’s name into the mainstream, he’s been eagerly waiting to present the group since hearing their debut EP in 2011.
“We’re like knives. We sharpen each other. That’s what good friends do. It deepens the sound spectrum, and that’s what makes the unit what it is. You need that.” – Cory Randolph
In a musical world increasingly obsessed with classification, TCS stands out. The night they host is more about a feeling than a certain sound, and the eclectic roster of talent they have presented over the past year is a testament to the night’s diversity. Internationally respected selectors like DJ Neil Armstrong, DJ Proof, and Shortkut have all headlined, as have underground production duo Christian Rich and red-hot Soulection crew mainstays, like J-Louis and SoSuperSam. Live acts have included jazz/electronic innovator Taylor McFerrin, house band Tortured Soul, and vocalist SPZRKT.
On any given week, any or all of the producing group’s four residents maintain the TCS heartbeat: ringleader Tommy Aguilar (Chale Brown, formerly Chatos1013), futurist Mark Gamab (MarkPLSTK), the eclectic Shea Modiri (DJ Shea Butter), and the innately talented Cory Randolph (the CME). DJ Bluz and DJ ThatGirl are regular contributors. So is the night’s spiritual forefather, DJ Sake One, whose weekly San Francisco party Pacific Standard Time (PST) provided a blueprint for TCS’s future success.
When Sake’s party was running in the mid to late 2000s, he remembers PST regulars would occasionally ask if he was familiar with Aguilar’s work in the South Bay. Though Sake can’t quite pin down when they first met, just as with the other TCS residents, Aguilar’s reputation preceded him.
“The Changing Same [production] was a concept that literally came from a conversation me and Tommy had about music and society, the idea that ‘roots’ and urban music forms can [be] and often are the most progressive, quickly evolving, and influential genres,” shares Sake. The name came from the essay, “The Changing Same (R&B and New Black Music),” written in 1966 by African American writer and music critic Amiri Baraka.
“I wanted to bring a live element to a nighttime party—not just DJs,” Aguilar adds. “The Changing Same [concept] was a platform for this modern take on where R&B, soul, and hip-hop were kind of going,” Aguilar points out. “It had electronic elements. There was jazz in there, funk…. It was speaking to all those genres.”
With Pacific Standard Time and Universal Grammar as copresenters, the Changing Same debuted at Mighty in San Francisco in 2007. That night, the party presented LA duo J*Davey. Platinum Pied Pipers soon followed.
Randolph entered the TCS picture around this time, though he started as just an ardent PST attendee. “I was going [to PST] religiously because I was looking for something that catered to my musical tastes,” he says. One night, he finally decided to approach Sake to tell him he was going to be his shadow. Sake laughed, and Randolph insisted he was serious. Thus began a mentorship that helped Randolph finally pursue the art of DJing, a dream he’d had since first attempting to scratch on his Big Bird 45 record player at age four.
After a short hiatus, the Changing Same returned as a monthly series in 2010, this time migrating to the South Bay. With partner Michael Grammar, Aguilar and Universal Grammar presented LA beat scene luminaries like Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer in addition to Bilal and Theophilus London. However, Aguilar felt the party was moving away from its original intent, and placed the name on hiatus for a second time in 2011, opting to program under the banner Live at the Pagoda.
Then, in 2014, the Continental opened on South First Street—a new bar and performance space featuring craft cocktails, a hip ambiance, and—most importantly—an incredibly well-tuned sound system.
“It was the perfect room for what I wanted the Changing Same to be, in terms of how it was going to influence [the music scene],” says Aguilar. He soon took over the Thursday night spot, launching TCS as a weekly in January 2015.
Aguilar began assembling his roster of residents. He brought Randolph into the fold, as well as Mark Gamab and Modiri. Just as Randolph was, the two were aware of Aguilar from his work as a promoter. Both considered themselves fans.
“Tommy was bringing people that I wanted to go see, and I just wanted to be involved,” recalls Gamab. He and Modiri had become supporting fixtures for Aguilar’s shows inside the Pagoda, a makeshift performance space that was formerly an Asian fusion restaurant inside the Fairmont.
There’s an undeniable camaraderie among the four in person. Aguilar is in awe of Randolph’s wide-open musical palette, adding, “His ear is just deeper than the rest of us.” Modiri describes Randolph as “the yin to my yang.” It’s a feeling Randolph shares “without question,” adding, “We are kindred spirits. I’m always hearing something I’ve never heard before, and I DJ with him at least once a week.” The other three credit Gamab’s ability to stress the electronic component of the night.
“Everybody’s pushing each other,” notes Randolph. “We’re like knives. We sharpen each other. That’s what good friends do.”
Essentially, the format is not to follow one, giving the residents as much creative space as possible to share the sounds they, and their audience, love. The intent is to educate as much as it is to simply rock a crowd. That freedom remains a pleasant surprise for featured acts, even veterans like Shortkut. As Gamab remembers, “[Shortkut] said it’s one of the only parties where he’s been able to play whatever he wants and the crowd responds to it.”
“The crowds we produce in San Jose, whether they’re coming from the East Bay or San Francisco to join us for those special nights, the energy’s there, man,” adds Aguilar.
The cultivation of TCS as a home for hearing innovative, soulful sounds isn’t simply an outgrowth of Aguilar’s many years of programming locally. As he points out, the attendees from a decade back have largely moved on and started families. TCS has found a new crowd, and that makes Aguilar hopeful for what can be accomplished in his hometown.
“Due to Tommy’s and other people’s work in San Jose, it is arguably a more music-friendly city now than San Francisco is, and equal to Oakland,” says Sake. “The work they put in opens doors for all music lovers in Northern California. They deserve our appreciation and gratitude for that.”
In time, the crew hopes to export the night to other cities. For now, they’re content to keep playing what will soon be your new favorite song.
“I see cell phones Shazaming, trying to figure out what [song] that was,” says Randolph. “That’s how I know I’m doing a good job—that’s when you know you’re in the right space.”
A series of locally owned shops line the sidewalk down Santa Clara Street in San Jose: a plant store, a record shop, and eateries. The latest addition to this neighborhood is a boutique art gallery called 1Culture. This gallery started as a traveling pop-up and moved into a storefront across the street from San Jose City Hall. The shop, as it’s referred to by the small team that runs it, is owned by local real estate agent and art supporter, Andrew Espino. He has a story to tell–just not his story.
Right before the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, Espino was driving his seven-year-old son to karate practice when his son posed a question: “Dad, what do you do to help people?” Baffled, and a little offended, Espino asked his son what he meant. “I know you sell real estate, but what do you do to help people? To help the world?” Espino recalls, “That really dug at me. It’s how your kids see you.”
Espino studied business at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, not entirely sure what he wanted to do with the degree. Sometime in college, he met and started helping a local real estate agent with administrative tasks. His very first real estate investment was a multi-family home located downtown on Reed Street. Espino collaborated with graffiti artist Scape Martinez to create a one-of-a-kind mural that would live on the building. The painting process and unveiling of the piece turned into a community event, coordinated by Espino. He learned that he loved creating a space for both local art and the community. While the building has been sold since then, the mural lives on today. It continues to read, “culture.”
Espino continued to work with local artists, helping them organize pop-up galleries. In the process, he learned the artists’ stories and promoted their art with folks who stopped by. “I wanted to understand the hustle that an artist goes through, from having to set up shop to selling their work. Some days we would leave with everything we came with, but to see an artist go right back out there the next weekend inspired me.” Espino’s time traveling to far off cities in search of art got his mind turning. He wondered, “How can we help change some of these artists’ lives? What tools do I have that can help? Giving them a platform? That’s when it hit me—that’s how we’re going to make change. We’re going to help artists.”
From then on, Espino started his arts-focused business. Once he knew the story or meaning behind a piece, he loved it even more. He wanted others to experience that same feeling. “I realized I wanted to find a way to continue sharing artists’ stories far and wide. The meaning behind a piece makes it much more important.”
After a year of coordinating pop-ups, Espino opened 1Culture as a permanent space to uplift artists and bring community together. The gallery’s name, 1Culture, is rooted in originality, creativity, and unity. “If you believe in those three things, then you are part of one culture. We are a Chicano-owned gallery, but we are open to everybody and want to uplift all artists and communities.”
“We like to ask each artist to tell a story—what is their art about? That’s a huge part of our mission. We encourage them to give us the full body, the details of what they’re trying to say.” – Andrew Espino
The gallery plans to rotate shows every six to eight weeks, curating a mixture of hand-selected artists and announcing calls for art. “Right now, there is a long list of artists we would like to highlight.” Espino runs 1Culture and coordinates art events around town while continuing his career in real estate. His first large event, KixCon, brought together sneaker heads, visual artists, musicians, and dancers at Eastridge Mall.
“We like to ask each artist to tell a story—what is their art about? That’s a huge part of our mission. We encourage them to give us the full body, the details of what they’re trying to say. We believe that behind the artwork is a mission, a purpose. We want to tell those stories.”
Espino has continued to incorporate art into his real estate career. He has procured a large art collection over the last 20 years. Occasionally, he will use his private collection to dress up the houses and apartments that he is selling, giving the space a local and welcoming feel. Today, Espino has an answer to his son’s questions. “When I opened the shop, I thought about what I wanted people to see or how they would feel—and with everything going on in the world, I really wanted people to feel present. When you walk in here, you can take a time out from the world and really get lost in these stories that haven’t been told, and you’ll be in a place where you can feel at home.”
While other children played at house or hospital, Anjelah Johnson stacked books onto an imaginary desk, scattered papers everywhere, and fantasized that she was a stressed-out white-collar worker. “That was my dream growing up,” Anjelah reminisces. “When I become an adult, I’m going to have a messy desk and a phone and be stressed out from a long day at work.” Young Anjelah resolved to be a lawyer—mainly because they worked at desks. But that’s not quite how things turned out. Today, Anjelah works in front of a camera as a standup comic and actress rather than behind a desk.
I think my natural gift is the ability to take people on a journey through a story—the ups and downs of the story, the rhythm of the story, the pauses of the story.
Like her unconventional childhood dream job, Anjelah probably doesn’t fit your expectations of a standard comic. For one thing, she prefers watching crime dramas (or as she puts it, “something murder-y”) to sitcoms. If Forensic Files isn’t on, then she’ll settle for Friends. But on a more profound level, Anjelah can’t be reduced to simply her stage presence. When she’s not entertaining under the spotlight, she’s still warm and friendly. She’s still humorous. But her vibe understandably shifts when she isn’t the focal point for a crowd of thousands. Her energy dips an octave into an easygoing assuredness, and her jokes highlight the color of her conversation rather than infuse each and every line. This dynamic is even more evident during a photoshoot, when Anjelah cracks a joke and pulls a silly face at a curious passerby before composing her features into model-serious expressions for the camera.
This entertainer’s delightful sense of humor is an indisputable part of her personality. There are many flavors of comedy, and Anjelah prefers anecdotes over one-liners. “I think my natural gift is the ability to take people on a journey through a story—the ups and downs of the story, the rhythm of the story, the pauses of the story,” she explains. She also possesses quite the arsenal of impersonations and accents.
In fact, one particular accent and her experiences at a nail salon would fuel the launch of her career. It started with a need for material for a free joke-writing class. When Anjelah signed up, she had only recently moved from her Bay Area hometown. She was new to LA, finding her way among the city’s colony of actress hopefuls. For the class, Anjelah wrote about a conversation she’d had with her nail salon lady, Tammy.
The skit was posted on YouTube, and then, all of a sudden, a lot of attention was coming Anjelah’s way. “My messages from people started blowing up,” she recalls. “I had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages from people all over the world.” They wanted her to come perform. People in the industry wanted to meet her. At the time, she had all of 12 minutes of material.
“I didn’t know how to be famous. I didn’t know how to have fans,” Anjelah remembers. “I thought I was supposed to respond to every person who messaged me, so I would spend hours upon hours replying to people. It was exhausting.” At one point, Anjelah remembers thinking, “OK. This is either a little phase I’m going through, or this is the beginning of the rest of my life.” It quickly became evident that her career as a comedian was not temporary.
At the beginning of 2007, Anjelah had no bank account, no auditions, no agent, and nothing affirming she was on the right track. By the end of that year, she had an agent, a manager, a spot on MADtv, and a headlining standup act touring the country. Since then, she has appeared in commercials, guest starred in TV shows like The Shield and Ugly Betty, and appeared in films such as Our Family Wedding, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and The Resurrection of Gavin Stone. Two of her acts are featured on Netflix, and from January to June of this year, she’s booked for 88 standup shows.
“Trust the journey and the process that you’re on, and grow where you’re planted.”
Anjelah is, perhaps, best known for a role she fashioned for MADtv. The character, Bon Qui Qui, is a sassy food-service employee working through an “out-of-the-hood” program. As cashier, Bon Qui Qui Rust velvet blazer, Bonito Silicon Valley; black cami, Scotch & Soda; green glitter shorts, Bonito Silicon Valley Trust the journey and the process that you’re on, and grow where you’re planted welcomes customers with “Welcome to King Burger, where we can do it your way, but don’t get crazy.” Anjelah says the character is fashioned after her “ghetto fabulous” little brother, Kennie. “Pretty much whatever my brother says, I put into Bon Qui Qui’s mouth.” Another source of inspiration was a girl from a drive-through in Memphis, Tennessee. “It was her disregard for other people,” Anjelah remarks. “She was not very self-aware in the way she communicated—but she was very confident. It was almost like I was at her house asking her to make me some food.”
Unsurprisingly, the larger-than-life Bon Qui Qui broke out of her MADtv skit and proceeded to strut her way through a number of music videos, pursing her lips and flourishing her talon-length decals disapprovingly at anyone in close proximity. Her videos portray an alternate reality, where you can persuade kidnappers to let you go by pulling some dance moves and thug life consists of temporary tattoos and threatening people with squirt guns held sideways.
There’s something appealing about the filming environment, Anjelah notes. “If you’ve ever gone to summer camp—that’s what filming a movie is like. You meet all these new friends and you bond, and it’s a cool experience for however long that is.” Her hope is to act in the next breakout TV show, but she recognizes the importance of appreciating where she’s at. “Trust the journey and the process that you’re on,” she advises. “And grow where you’re planted.” Such sage advice is one final reminder that Anjelah is not your cookie-cutter comedian.
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Writer: Johanna Harlow|Photographer:Arabela Espinoza| Producer: Kristen Pfund |Art Directior: Elle Mitchell|Stylist: Mariana Kishimoto|Hair Stylist: PJ Ciraulo|Make-Up Artist: Renee Batres|Sister Extraordinaire : Veronica Johnson Location : Winchester Mystery House Wardrobe: Scotch & Soda, Bonito Silicon Valley, Donald Pline
All these comments and likes boosting our self-esteem
That instant gratification is poisoning our dreams
Social media pulling the plug on real time
I’m just trying to stay above it when it flatlines.
– Amplified, “Lovie”
IIn an age when many bank on virality, Andrew Vicente—“Amplified” to his fans—has been following the old model for building a fan base: touring as much as possible, making fans out of strangers, and selling music and merch hand-to-hand himself, one person at a time. Some might call his approach dated, but it might also help explain how, 10 years deep and still under 30, he’s already had fans tattoo his lyrics to their skin.
Over coffee at Forager in downtown San Jose, Vicente relates the time when his friend Gabe shared some lyrics by rapping over a beat he played through a karaoke machine. That moment in eighth grade was the exchange that inspired Vicente to pick up a pen and start writing his own rhymes. “I knew this is how I can really share who I am and not feel like this depressed little kid that can’t connect with other people. Everything clicked for me when I did that,” he recalls. “I’ve been obsessed. This is all I think about.”
“I knew this is how I can really share who I am and not feel like this depressed little kid that can’t connect with other people. Everything clicked for me.”_Andrew Vicente
Amplified is a two-city rapper in the truest sense, splitting his early years between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Once he transferred over the hill to Gunderson High School, he started sharing his rhymes with a history teacher and rapper named Apocalypse, who hosted a hip-hop open mic at Iguana’s called Lyrical Discipline. He urged the budding lyricist, whose ears were tuned to the complex lyricism of Immortal Technique and Minneapolis’s Rhymesayers crew, to take part; through connections he made on the scene, Vicente hit the road with the Vans Warped Tour in 2013.
That initial Warped Tour experience proved both inspiring and sobering. He and fellow support acts set up and dismantled their stage for every date of the tour. His limited stage time came while larger adjacent stages were doing changeovers, forcing him to immediately engage listeners or risk losing a crowd. In those make-or-break circumstances, Vincente learned how to perform. He headed out again in 2014, making waves as a duo act with singer-songwriter Brandon Scott and grinding out space in 2016 alongside fellow South Bay rapper Andrew Bigs.
In 2017, he encountered an offer he couldn’t refuse: Santa Cruz reggae rock heroes the Expendables asked him to handle work for their upcoming tour, with the chance to be an opening act. It’s a partnership that’s already taken him across the country twice. “I’m probably at the best position in my career I’ve ever been,” he notes, 48 hours removed from a tour stop in Bend, Oregon. “Even though I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I’m really going all out now.”
His recent single “I Am” earned a re-tweet from none other than Boy George. Follow-up “Illusions” provides the soundtrack to his first full-length music video. Both came in advance of his debut EP, Not Quite There Yet. The album’s a surprising listen, one that challenges listener expectations. There’s lyrical rapping, reggae vibes—he says his Santa Cruz roots made him destined to embrace the sound—and even a ballad sung in Spanish. The title alludes to the fact that these were all half-finished ideas he finally completed; it also suggests that, if the songs are a stretch for listeners, they might not be fully aware of the breadth of his talent just yet.
“It all started from me trying to find myself. Now I’m seeing my words and the music I wrote help [listeners] find themselves.”_Andrew Vicente
Adding to that conversation is Catch Lightning, his duo with San Jose stalwart Rey Res. It’s a project that defies listener expectations on both sides. For Res, it’s a showcase of his lush, evocative production ability; for Vicente, it’s been a chance to create freely with a musical partner—a new experience for a man used to piecing songs together in his bedroom.
When talking about what’s next, his restless mind is already scheming how to get back out on tour to retain the fans he just cultivated while touring with the Expendables. There’s a new project in the works. But even if it all stopped today, he knows he’s already made a lasting impact. “It all started from me trying to find myself. Now I’m seeing my words and the music I wrote help [listeners] find themselves,” he says. “If I never make another song again, it’s [still] mission accomplished.”
We are excited to introduce Content’s new Production Manager, David Valdespino Jr.
A Singer-Songwriter, vinyl Dj, and bicycle enthusiast, David brings his passion for community and a degree in English education to Content’s mission of connecting the South Bay through the art of storytelling. David will apply his experiences to writing, editing, curation, partnership development, and lifting community voices.
__________________ This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141 Follow Jack at jackpavlinamusic Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
In high school, Raul Peralez couldn’t have told you what he wanted to do when he grew up. Since that time, he has been a mathematics major, a substitute teacher, an emergency medical technician, a fashion model, a police officer, and (most recently) District 3 Councilmember. He believes this string of experiences has given him a wide range of perspectives. In his current position as councilmember, Peralez encourages community member involvement through participatory budgeting, a process that includes brainstorming ideas, encouraging volunteers and experts to develop project proposals, and voting on and funding projects. As he continues to look out for our city’s interests through his duties as councilmember, Peralez will soon be volunteering as a patrol officer for the Police Reserve Unit.
“The role of being a police officer prepared me the most for this role as a council representative. The main basis of both roles is being a public servant, serving the community members here in San Jose. As a patrol officer, I worked with people on some of the most challenging days of their lives. I also have worked all over San Jose—been able to drive through it, walk through it, see the areas that are more challenging and less, the infrastructure that is older and newer, areas that have investment and those that are lacking investment—so I really had an opportunity to get a good view of the city.”
Graphic designer Shannon Knepper cut her creative teeth in Seattle and Pittsburgh, but for the past five years, she’s called San Jose home. With a focus on printmaking, Shannon creates greeting cards, T-shirts, and other 2D art through her brand, War Admiral Press. More recently, she’s started a new project called Bike City: San Jose, inspired by the South Bay’s love of all things bicycle. Between her new line of bike art, freelance jobs, and personal projects, Shannon has quickly found her niche in the South Bay community though her eye-catching work.
What brought you to San Jose?
We lived in Pittsburgh for five years while my husband was attending school. We stayed there until he got a job offer from San Jose State University in 2013. Since then, I’ve just been learning what makes San Jose cool. For example, one night I saw the bike party roll past my house, and I said to myself, “What’s this? This seems too weird for San Jose.” On the surface, it doesn’t seem that quirky, but just like with any new city when you move, you just have to look around a little bit, then all of the sudden you see what makes it special.
Where do you get inspiration for your work?
I’ve always done things like silkscreening and letterpress stuff. There’s always some element of printmaking involved; that’s what I like to do best. I love any kind of vintage sports stuff. I get a lot of inspiration from books I find in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, the main branch in San Jose. It’s an amazing place-they have a treasure trove of old books with great illustrations.
How has moving to San Jose influenced your work?
I started doing San Jose-inspired posters and prints since moving here. For example, there’s something of an orange sauce obsession in San Jose. La Victoria Taqueria and Angelou’s Mexican Grill, both local restaurants, have their own versions. So I made a design of a row of orange bottles as a tribute to the sauce. I’m learning what makes San Jose cool and doing some of my art around that; I feel like there’s space for that. When I go to shops
around here, I don’t see San Jose-branded stuff. There doesn’t seem to be a huge sense of pride. When you go to other cities, the airports are full of local art, but San Jose has some growing to do in that way. The artists are here, but we’re still finding our place.
What has inspired some of your bike-themed art?
There’s a lot of weird bike history in San Jose. The first velodrome was built here, and there’s another one in Hellyer County Park. There’s a lot of weird, quirky bike things all over the city. I was also noticing it was such an easy place to bike around since it’s flat and it’s always nice outside. I’m not exactly a “real cyclist.” I don’t have a nice bike or special clothing or anything like that. But the area is ripe for more cyclists, even casual ones.
I’m making more bike-themed art thanks to receiving a small grant from Knight Foundation. They support art and other community projects in San Jose. I had some greeting cards with bikes on them for sale in Japantown, and they saw my work there and asked me to do more bicycle-themed art for the city. Now my War Admiral Press work is stuff that I just enjoy doing, while my new project, Bike City: San Jose, is where I want to make cool art for the city.
War Admiral Press | waradmiralpress.com | Instagram waradmiralpress
Many artists focus on only one type of media for their entire career, but Avery Palmer isn’t like most artists. He has delved deeply into painting, drawing, and ceramic sculpting throughout different phases of his life. Inspired by surrealist painters such as Salvador Dali, his figurative art presents cryptic metaphorical scenarios exploring the complex nature of human existence. In his artist’s statement, he says, “I invent scenarios that can be thought of as puzzles with no right or wrong solutions—and perhaps no solutions for them at all.” His fantastical and often eerie creations can evoke a wide array of reactions, but that is what makes them so compelling.
Palmer was born and raised in Humboldt County. He recalls his first experiences creating art: “For as long as I can remember, I always drew. As a kid, I was really into airplanes, cars, stuff most boys like. I would try to capture the essence of that thing as I saw it.” In addition to drawing, he was also a Lego lover, building new creations constantly. “Related to sculpting, Legos may have started me out,”
Palmer muses. “You can make what the instructions say or let your imagination run wild.”
After graduating from high school, Palmer was accepted to Humboldt State University (HSU), where he pursued his bachelor’s degree in studio art. He drew exclusively until halfway through college, when his work developed into oil painting. At the same time, he enrolled in a ceramics class, which he found he preferred. “I was frustrated [with painting] back then because I couldn’t replicate what was in my head,” Palmer acknowledges. “I found ceramics to be more intuitive. It was easier to take the 3D image in my head and create it out of clay. With painting, it’s more difficult.” His newfound passion for sculpting led him to enroll in a ceramics course every semester afterward.
As graduation approached, Palmer was excelling in ceramics. “My professor was asking me what I planned to do, but I didn’t know exactly yet,” Palmer says. “He recommended that I enroll in honors ceramics.” This class could be taken independently even after graduation, and Palmer ended up taking the class multiple times over the next few years. Without the pressure of his college studies, Palmer spent his day at the campus studio, living and breathing his work.
HSU participates in the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art (CCACA), and Palmer was asked to represent the university. The CCACA is held at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis, California. Not only was the conference a place to showcase his work; it was also a place to network and sell. “It was my first introduction into a ‘market’ where I could actually sell my work,” Palmer says. “It got me serious about thinking of my art as a career.” After he’d attended the conference multiple times, the John Natsoulas Gallery approached Palmer to offer to officially represent him as an artist. They would showcase his art locally and at various galleries around the United States. Palmer accepted and is incredibly grateful for this partnership: “It was nice to know my work would get out there and be seen by more people.”
Three years after graduating from HSU, Palmer was accepted to the master’s program for spatial art at San Jose State University (SJSU). Palmer was focused solely on sculpting, but because SJSU’s art program encouraged students to explore various media, he picked up his paintbrush again. “I didn’t experiment a lot, but I found my way back to drawing and painting about halfway through my master’s,” Palmer says. “By the time I left, I was focusing solely on painting. My ceramics were feeling a bit repetitive. Somehow, I felt like I had grown as an artist. When I went back to painting, I could paint in a way that I couldn’t before.” His paintings, like his sculptures, capture his fascination with the human condition, each piece a riddle for the viewer to solve.
Painter, Tyson Johnston, and his paintings—with their bold fantastical images in thick layers of watercolor and other media—reach out powerfully to audiences, in both theme and style. Inspired by influences as diverse as Tibetan Buddhism, skateboarding graphics, and tattoo art, Johnston’s work is steeped in allegory and symbolism. And the former head of the tattoo shop Death Before Dishonor is constantly perfecting new techniques to express his fierce, dynamic visions. Calling him meticulous would be an understatement.
“I’ve been doing art my whole life, but at a certain point I figured out that I liked painting more than tattooing. Tattooing definitely put me in a different direction, but really it just made me feel bad about myself, whereas painting makes me zen out. It’s much more meditative. And since it’s not delicate, I normally like working on wood, being able to really sit into painting. But it’s always cool to get out of your element and do something different. I look to everything for inspiration—I’m always trying to challenge myself. It’s kind of like organized chaos, right?”
If you run into Jai Tanju, he’s either somewhere in San Jose on his bike, camera in hand, or out on a skate or photography trip in some serene and strange landscape, or he could be in Seeing Things Gallery, which he owns and operates. In recent years, Tanju has built the gallery into a constantly revolving showcase of compelling artists, and—other than a really good library—one of the largest zine and art book collections in San Jose. But the sprinklings of the skating world in the gallery offer only a glimpse into Tanju’s long and prolific career as a photographer for top skateboarding publications, his extended relationship with Enjoi Skateboards, and what he credits for giving him an eye for finding and exploring the art in his own photography.
“I really didn’t get into photography until I was in my 20s. After high school, I traveled, finally ending up back in San Jose, and decided to take a photo class at West Valley. At the same time I was living with skater Jason Adams, and I was getting more into photography because my friends were skating. They were just turning professional, so people would come shoot photos of them. I would watch, thinking, okay, this isn’t anything special. What changed was that someone had come to actually do that work— take the photos—and it occurred to me that I could do that too.”
Eva Rorandelli is a fashion designer and founder of Evaro Italia, following in the footsteps of her father Massimo and his father before him, who began manufacturing leather goods in Florence in 1943. Eva grew up helping her father in his stores in the historic San Lorenzo shopping district in Florence, surrounded by Renaissance art and architecture. She later studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence before moving to New York City to pursue a career in modeling and, eventually, fashion design. Since her father’s passing in 2007, Eva has built on his legacy of classic Italian style, launching Evaro Italia as an internationally known luxury fashion house recognized for its timeless elegance and refined craftsmanship.
In our discussion, Eva shares her journey from moving to New York without speaking English to starting her fashion line.
The highly anticipated Evaro Italia Spring/Summer 2023 collection will be fully revealed on November 13th at the El Prado Fashion Showcase in Palo Alto, California. Created by Eva Rorandelli, the new collection is titled “Rosa di Cristallo” and features boldly colored reflective, multifaceted textiles and sparkling crystals that clash with architectural and glamorous natural shapes. The atmosphere merges modern sophistication with the brand’s timeless international taste. Reserve your tickets today to join us at the exclusive launch of the new collection. Tickets. (https://bit.ly/evarospring23)
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This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141 Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
OSCAR PANGILINAN
CONTENT EMERGING ARTIST AWARD
Jazz Saxophonist
Twitter: oscarpangilinan
Born and raised in San Jose’s Alum Rock neighborhood, saxophonist Oscar Pangilinan began playing in jazz ensembles in middle school, and his passion for music continued as he pursued a degree in jazz studies at San Jose State. In fact, passion is a key concept for Pangilinan as an inspiration and driving force behind his own creativity as well as something he hopes to instill in his students. Along with being co-leader of the jazz, funk, and R&B group the Bad Ones and performing alongside Bay Area musicians whenever the opportunity strikes, he works as a woodwind instructor with the Alum Rock Jazz Band and an educator for SJZ Summer Jazz Camps. He also performs with his trio as part of the SJZ Jazz Jam.
“I count myself fortunate to be surrounded by so many different people from all around the world—and living in Silicon Valley means we get to enjoy the very best that each culture has to offer. Choosing to make a career in a creative field means the desire and push to remain passionate about what you do is very, very real. I’m inspired by people who possess great passion for what they do.
“Teachers inspire me and [that] is probably a huge reason why I became one myself. And teachers aren’t just those in the classroom; they’re everyday people you meet, people in your family, and even your friends. Great teachers…take something you thought was complicated and overwhelming and make those feelings go away by making it relatable and understandable. Working with young students as much as I do, one of the biggest criticisms I have is that we’re loading our kids’ schedules with too much and demanding a level of productivity from them that’s on par with some CEOs. My greatest fear with all of this is that we’re teaching an entire generation of students to only get ankle deep in many subjects, rather than picking one or two that they truly are passionate about.
“We have an amazing cache of creative artists here in San Jose and Silicon Valley. I hope to show others around me a path they could follow, and I want to encourage them to be passionate and take chances.”
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THE SVLAUREATES PROGRAM is a prestigious honor given annually to South Bay–based artists in a variety of categories and disciplines. Awardees for 2020 are in two categories: Artist Laureate Award, for established artists working in any discipline and Content Emerging Artist Award, for young artists showing promise for continued growth and excellence. The Laureates are chosen based not only on their individual body of work, but also on their community involvement, educational efforts, volunteerism, and other forms of engagement. As educators, artists, and performers, each of them has devoted time to their own craft while also seeking to mentor others and forge new cultural connections in the diverse Silicon Valley community.
Ricardo Cortez embodies San Jose’s culture at its core, combing his love of art and the lowrider community. He earned his master of fine arts in digital art at San Jose State University. Cortez developed his graphic design and fine art practice within the intersection of technology, sculpture, and culture. It reimagines his Chicanismo, suggesting a new approach in studying our active relationships with technology and longing for nostalgia. He continues to exhibit, teach, and produce culturally significant work that encourages interaction, inviting the audience to become an integral part of the art. By day, Cortez works as a marketing director at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship of Santa Clara University. He is actively cataloging a digital archive of rare lowrider print material and remains dedicated to his pursuit of service to the community.
“I pride myself as a creator and an aficionado of the obsolete – using personal experience and cultural identity as a framework for my artistic expression.”
During Cortez’s term as Creative Ambassador, he will produce a series of workshops for youth that will culminate in a community art exhibition. The project, and Cortez himself, is infused with inspiration from San Jose. “My creative expression project revolves around mixing lowriders, art, and technology to show the San Jose youth how we can create new media art.” In the workshops, participants will produce one-of-a-kind sound-reactive artworks. “What inspires me is knowing that I live in a city that was the foundation of innovation that spread across the country. From computers to the San Jose lowriders that reimagined paint jobs and hydraulics, San Jose has been the epicenter of so many things.”
Walking into the Edward M. Dowd Art Building at Santa Clara University, you may think you have entered the geological history department. However, not all things are as they appear at first glance. The monoliths that welcome students are, in fact, intricate revisions of history, memorializing the destruction of an iconic para-fictional Hello Kitty monument.
Kathy Aoki’s satirical work lives within the cracked veneer of modern society, driven by concept and executed by any medium necessary. The humor on the surface of her pieces attracts viewers like moths to a flame but quickly gives way to profound introspection. She hopes viewers might examine the pervasiveness of cultural assumptions and corporate fanaticism with a tilted head. Her work, iconoclastic in nature, inflates the absurdity of modern icons until they pop while still treating viewers to intricate and stunning works of art.
Kathy Aoki is a Silicon Valley artist laureate and Lee and Seymour Graff professor in Santa Clara University’s art and art history department. Her work can be found in major collections across the United States.
Growing up on the East Coast, Kathy was exposed to institutions of fine art and feminist issues at a young age. Moving to California in her teens, she experienced new humorous and experimental art genres. She realized, “When work is confrontational, it can be very distancing to a large part of the audience. Not many people will be willing to wade through the anger to get your message.” Earning a master’s degree in printmaking, she later experienced an awakening while visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, known for its anachronistic architecture and exhibits on early technology. She explains, “I realized I was making fake museum work. Sometimes it isn’t easy to think about how I can make things without art history. I am always referencing things.”
Kathy’s work touches on assumptions about gender, wealth, culture, and history. “Part of my work takes things that seem important now and asks, ‘is this so important that in 400 years we will be visiting museums to learn about it?’ I use institutional presentation styles because those signify value sets from a different time. They were controlled by people with the will or money to make those selections.”
Aoki begins with a research topic gleaned from the news or pop culture. By introducing those concepts in a framework, she develops para-fictional narratives based on reality that boil over into a world of fantasy. She adds, “I try to lure viewers in with familiar formats and then slip in my commentary. It is not just conceptual—I want to provide a visual reward. We hold certain expectations, stereotypes, or values as the way things should be, but when you see them shaken up, they become funny. If you are willing to go down the rabbit hole, you get more bang for the buck.”
Her work leverages traditional styles and ancillary materials to make her fictional narratives seem real. While her original passion for printmaking is still a large portion of her portfolio, she enjoys continuously pushing her technique and allowing the medium to follow her ideas. She adds, “I have done printmaking, sculpture, dioramas, virtual reality, animations, and motion graphics. In that way, my technical skills have expanded far beyond what I was trained in school.”
Working as a professor has allowed her to learn through teaching, taking advantage of prior knowledge, and benefiting from a classroom of mistakes and problem-solving. Silicon Valley’s experimental, anything-goes culture has influenced her process. A concept may crystallize in her mind, but she explains, “Everything is always harder than I imagine, but I continue to jump right in, thinking ‘how hard can it be?’ I craft a show based on key pieces that fit exactly into the project. If one piece fails, it creates a hole in the narrative. I am always working on a deadline to bring everything to that level. I don’t have any time for failures.”
Kathy’s art is filled with questions once a viewer identifies the loopholes within the concept. She believes “artwork has a lasting impact when it brings up questions instead of seeing something and saying, ‘I know that’ and moving on. The imagery is important to me because it allows people to believe. You can’t unsee something.”
Kathy is taking on a role as Associate Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences at Santa Clara University, and exhibiting in New Museum Los Gatos beginning in August 2022 and the B. Sakata Garo Gallery in Sacramento in 2023. She is experimenting with new forms of photopolymer intaglio printmaking, with goals of going bigger than ever before, constantly weaving between concept, medium, and approach. Kathy explains, “I hope that people understand the breadth of my work, the ideas behind it and the sense of humor. It is not a hobby. The work is funny, but this is very serious to me.”
In spite of life’s struggles and the adversity she’s overcome, the lyrical has remained a constant and crucial part of LaToya Fernandez’s life. Fernandez’s love of writing dates back to when she was a young girl: at just eight years old she wrote her first book of poetry. She decided early on she wanted her life to revolve around writing and rapping. However, her plans to pursue those dreams took a backseat when she began college and wound up homeless. Fernandez spent her years in school couch surfing and on the cold streets of the East Coast. With no permanent roof over her head, she learned to be strategic in her relationships with people. She got a membership at the YMCA to shower at the facilities the gym provided and spoke to university officials to get free meal passes.
Her time as a homeless student overlapped with her time as a Marine and with an internship with Disney, a time Fernandez describes as “adversity city.” Fernandez was interning at Disney when her identity crisis as a young black woman was reinforced. Fernandez was told she couldn’t be photographed for her ID unless she straightened her hair or wore a wig. Fernandez’s small afro was budding dreadlocks, a look she took pride in and refused to change. Consequently, her time at Disney was cut short, and she went back to Boston where she was studying.
Fernandez also continued on with the Marine Corps, and it was there that she was sexually assaulted by a gunnery sergeant. When she reported the assault, she was questioned and ridiculed. “I was told, ‘You are nothing. You are a young little girl in a man’s world.’ ”
After being sexually assaulted, discriminated against for her hair, and struggling to overcome homelessness, Fernandez decided she needed a clean slate. She found her fresh start in 2009 when she moved to the Bay Area, bringing along the resilience she had gained from past experiences. “I remember when I left, I got out thinking that I’m never going to let anyone silence me again or make me feel like I deserve to be violated or that if I speak up, my voice doesn’t matter,” Fernandez said.
Her love for writing was renewed, and Fernandez found comfort and empowerment in her words—words drawn from the pain she experienced and rose above. That renewal of her love for writing and rap led Fernandez to the dream she once had as a young child. At 21 years old, Fernandez made her way into the music industry with the hip-hop group Ten Worlds. The group was inspired by the Buddhist concept of overcoming or being present in the 10 different states of mind: Hell, hunger, animality, anger, humanity, etc. The group was dedicated to spreading messages of peace and love through hip-hop. “As hip-hop artists, we were making sure we were saying really conscious things and speaking about justice and peace and trying to permeate that into the universe,” Fernandez said.
“A student’s voice is the most important voice in the room. As a young person you can never allow your voice to be silent. Stand up, raise your fist, and protest if you need to.”
Fernandez’s new start in California and with Ten Worlds became a literal rebirth when she and a group member had a daughter together in 2009. Her daughter, now 10 years old, is aptly named “Lyric.” In college, Fernandez wrote a short story titled “Lyric,” the first time she received feedback for her creative writing and received admiration from a professor who encouraged her to share her writing with the world. The story illustrated her love for friends and family as though they were songs in the album of her life. She vowed to name her first child after her story, so that she or he might carry on the legacy of sharing the message of love.
After traveling and performing with Ten Worlds, it dawned on Fernandez that her gift as a lyricist was limited by the music industry. What she really wanted to do with her musical abilities was to empower the next generation. Fernandez began working as a tutor at the YMCA after school and during recess, and when she wasn’t in the classroom, she was working as a crossing guard, working her way up as a tutor until she eventually became a teacher. Fernandez has taught at Rocketship Discovery Prep and Downtown College Prep El Camino where she exposed her students to the history that is often left out of typical school lessons and taught about the harmful effects of systematic racism.
She took her pain, hardships, and lessons learned and turned them into what she calls her gems. Fernandez’s gems are the rap or spoken-word lyrics she shared with her students, spreading empowering messages of self-love. She shared her experiences as a woman of color and connected with them in ways they were familiar with. She took her student’s background into account as she developed her restorative justice approach to teaching. The majority of her students were Latino, specifically Mexican. To connect with them, Fernandez taught what she says is their true history, using Aztec drumming, for example, to bring out their excitement and curiosity.
Her teaching reached a new level when she began Queen Hype, a school club that provided the environment young girls need to develop self-love and empowerment. There, Fernandez emphasized the significance of women in leadership positions, building pride around what others might perceive as a hindrance. An effective exercise Fernandez used to teach this consisted in having participants list the reasons they think they are not powerful. The format starts out as “I’m powerful but…” and is changed to “I’m powerful because…” Fernandez taught students that rather than looking at their hair, skin color, and their cultural background as something that hinders them, they must embrace these features and use them as assets. Queen Hype became Youth Hype, to include both boys and girls. Youth Hype has spread across the country, reaching places like Chicago, and offering students the opportunity to participate in workshops and lead protests.
Fernandez is no longer a teacher but serves as the dean at Downtown College Prep El Camino Middle School and remains active with Youth Hype. As for the future, she has big plans. In the years to come, Fernandez plans to run as the council member for District 3. “I think it’s time to change who’s at the table,” Fernandez said. Her roots in rap remain intact. “It’d be cool to have an education-activist rapper that’s in charge of policy,” she laughed.
On a plane ride back from Connecticut last year, Fernandez wondered to herself, “If I could impart any wisdom on the youth, what are some gems that I could drop on them?” In the span of a seven-hour plane ride, Fernandez wrote out her gems, carving them out with care and realized she had written a book with her rap lyrics serving as the foundation. Fernandez’s gems are woven within her book titled Truth, in which she provides both students and teachers with an interactive way to understand complicated concepts like relationships and systemic racism.
After struggling as a college student to find the power in her voice, Fernandez has grown to understand the journey required to find it and never lose it to silence—a prominent theme in her lyrics and teaching lessons. “A student’s voice is the most important voice in the room,” Fernandez said. “As a young person you can never allow your voice to be silent. Stand up, raise your fist, and protest if you need to.”
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Miguel Machuca likes working in charcoal because it’s like ash—like what his body will one day become. His words, like his work, have a macabre sensibility, but he speaks with a warm smile and an optimistic tone. Of his drawings he says, “They’re poems. You see images. I see words. They tell me their stories and what their titles should be.”
Machuca lives up to the mythos of the artist as a wellspring of impulses, of discrete risks, only partially calculated. In early August of 2018, he will exhibit at the Triton Museum—a show he is working on so constantly and fluidly, it’s as if his ideas live in his body as much as his mind. Circumstances have compelled him to be uniquely aware of the body and its fragility. He relays the details of his father’s death by car accident and his own bout with cancer. Of the diagnosis he says, “Well, I wanted the darkness. Here it is…I embraced it, and I started seeing life positively. My old self died. My old ideas and beliefs died with it…and I started seeing things that I never saw, that I never paid attention to.”
For him, art and life are bound up and indistinguishable from each other. “Art is life itself,” he says, “and life is constantly expanding. It never stops, and if it stops, it’s about to retract and follow its other motion.” Other motion? What he means by this is unclear, which makes it both ominous and attractive.
Kevin Morby | This Is a Photograph | (Dead Oceans) | Released: May 13, 2022 | Written by Taran Escobar-Ausman
Kevin Morby’s seventh studio album, This Is a Photograph, is a meditation on the bittersweet lessons of the past and the vulnerability of immortality, a theme given weight by old family photographs discovered after his dad had a health scare. Morby fleshes out this concept with his trademark retro folk-rock sound adding new dimensions with string arrangements and some of his strongest lyrical devices to date.
The existential burden of Father Time becomes integral to the proceedings. Morby sings on “Bittersweet, TN,” “Devoted myself to the passing of time… // The living took forever, but the dying went quick.” The mighty Mississippi River further entwines the proceedings with metaphors of time and destiny. Morby purposefully hunkered down in one of the River’s most mythical and alluring cities, Memphis, to draw meaning from a place known for straddling this life and the next. The song “Coat of Butterflies” serves as the album’s thematic core, which gracefully eulogizes the enigmatic Jeff Buckley, whose drowning in the Mississippi on the banks of Memphis added to the town’s eerie and mythic pull. The sprawling piece shimmers with simple, intertwining guitar, piano, and harp, which is all tied down with the surprising collaboration with jazz drummer, Makaya McCraven. Buckley’s own struggles with fame and purpose in life become research notes on Morby’s own vision quest filling the album, “Yeah, the sky can lift the river, and spread it out over the farm / Life’s just one long day, babe, but I’ve been awake all day long.”
The album further solidifies Morby’s staying power as he continues to grow out of the shadows of his influences and refines his simple, yet magnetic, vocal delivery. Rather than his sound being an impressionistic facsimile of artists past, Morby examines snapshots of their lives to honor their influence. He sings on “Goodbye Good Times,” “I miss the good times, Mama, they’ve gone out of style / And I don’t remember how it feels to dance, goodbye to good times.”
Favorite Track: “Coat of Butterflies” kevinmorby.com Social media: kevinmorby _______________
Quelle Chris | DEATHFAME | (Mello Music Group) | Released: May 13, 2022 | Written by Demone Carter
I have long felt the world has failed many great artists and musicians. There are way too many examples of artists bestowing great work upon the world only to be ignored and uncompensated in their lifetime. To make matters worse, sometimes we can only give artists their proverbial flowers after they die. It’s part of the cruel joke of creating art. But does it have to be that way? This is one of the questions Quelle Chris asks on his latest album, DEATHFAME.
Quelle Chris is among the small cadre of rappers whom I consider to be the vanguard of the form. What makes him special, even amongst his most talented peers, is his ability to communicate complex ideas in a way that feels simple and accessible. This existential artistic quandary is worked out over a production pallet that ranges from dark and sludgy to light and hopeful. This is perhaps best captured on the song “So Tired You Can’t Stop Dreaming.” On this track, which has a brilliant feature from Navy Blue, Quelle Chris opines, “If Heaven’s got a ghetto hell’s got a resort.”
Another track that captures Quelle Chris’s talent for working at the intersection of happy and sad is “How Could They Love Something Like Me,” where Chris isn’t rapping at all but rather singing in a heartfelt way that doesn’t compromise his signature style. This speaks to the breadth of DEATHFAME, which also has several amazing tracks that fall into the category of rap for rap’s sake. Songs like “Feed the Heads,” “King Is Back,” and “CUI Podest” show that as artsy as Quelle Chris is, he is still not above crushing sucka emcees.
The production duties for DEATHFAME were split between Quelle Chris himself and frequent collaborator Chris Keys. Soul-stirring piano riffs and grungy slowed-down samples collide to make a sound that is undeniably Quelle Chris. Let’s give him his flowers now.
ELUCID | I Told Bessie | (Backwoodz Studioz) | Released: June 10, 2022 | Written by David Ma
One of the year’s top standouts, I Told Bessie, comes from Bed-Stuy Brooklyn’s Chaz Hall, better known as ELUCID, one half of indie-rap powerhouse Armand Hammer, whose work has quietly bubbled to the surface in recent years—notably 2021’s Haram, a vaunted album with stalwart producer, the Alchemist.
Originally from Jamaica, Queens, ELUCID’s latest is a reference to his grandmother Bessie who is revealed to have been his earliest supporter. It’s a sentimental album that doesn’t immediately hold itself to be particularly personal, yet it’s peppered with wisdom that covers both complex emotions of the human condition, as well as modern day New York where it was crafted. ELUCID’S breakneck delivery is hurling, typically through clusters of detail that punctures the varied production. His writing gives you fragments of imagery that reveal itself not unlike when a camera slowly pulls back on its subject. On the ominous “Split Tongue,” he says: “Vibrating between flesh and teeth, air escapes. / Calling your name when least expected… / no strays, no mistakes.”
I Told Bessie features a mixed bag of beneath-the-surface producers who construct a bevy of fitting backdrops for ELUCID’s powerful stanzas. Child Actor, August Fanon, and Sebb Bash are just a few names adding stellar contributions. Past collaborators Kenny Segal and the Alchemist also reliably put their mark on the album. Cuts like “Bunny Chow” and “Betamax” are a marriage of avant-garde rap modernism between ELUCID and his cast of chosen beatsmiths. The 13-track release is not background music to be sure. An all-star cast of contemporaries also fasten their name to the victory—Pink Siifu and Quelle Chris, as well as ELUCID’s longtime partner, Backwoodz’s label chief and one of modern rap’s most poignant writers, billy woods, who appears on three cuts.
The year in rap thus far has been an embarrassment of riches, with mainstreamers like Drake and Kendrick tossing their hat into the ring at the midway mark. However, the indie rap scene proves vital as well, with many standouts offering equally compelling yet contrasting material. This is ELUCID’s third solo album, but it feels more like an arrival.
Staples Jr. Singers| When Do We Get Paid |(Luaka Bop) | Released: May 6, 2022 | Written by Brandon Roos
Authenticity burns white hot from the opening notes of “Get on Board,” the first song on the Staples Jr. Singers’ nearly lost album, When Do We Get Paid. It’s a fitting primer for the 11 songs that follow: sparse yet soulful, informal yet intimate, searching yet faithful.
Deeply inspired by the Staple Singers (the group’s name pays homage to their heroes), When Do We Get Paid calls out to God while keeping it funky. This is uplifting music wrought from, and created despite, hard times, a product of growing up in the Deep South post-Jim Crow. It’s also music recorded by teens not defined by tradition.
Paid is the group’s only full-length effort. Recorded in a long-gone studio in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1975 and released that same year, the album was long confined to the ears of those who happened to pick up a record while the group was touring the region with other gospel acts.
The shouted group vocals on “I’m Looking For a Man” spill over an untidy joy that feels more suited to a house party or tent revival than a Sunday worship service. There’s an unvarnished quality to the tunes in general that stands in contrast to the ornate, choir-led gospel of Rev. James Cleveland and the subtle harmonic mastery of classic jubilee quartets like the Dixie Hummingbirds.
There’s also an eeriness that pervades the album you wouldn’t expect from devotional music. “Somebody Save Me” carries a blues edge, the vocals from Annie Brown Caldwell and Edward Brown injecting a life-or-death urgency that grates against the slow stroll of the rhythm section. On “Too Close,” A.R.C. Brown’s contemplative lead guitar serves as the song’s emotional linchpin as lines like “Don’t you know I’m too close?” give the impression that the devil is right on singer Edward’s heels.
Rough around the edges but brimming with fire and spirit, When Do We Get Paid is not afraid of sharing about the scrapes earned on the road to salvation.
Favorite Track:“Somebody Save Me” juniorsingers.com Instagram: junior.singers
The Cilker School of Art and Design 2022
The Cilker School of Art and Design has developed a world-class community college of art and design that exposes students to cutting-edge technology and critical thinking.
The school offers interdisciplinary opportunities in architecture and drafting technology, engineering, fashion design, interior design, paralegal studies, healthcare, and park management with three departments—Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, and the Performing Arts.
The West Valley College Art Department offers courses in various topics and media, including art history, ceramics, computer arts and animation, design, drawing, painting, photography, and sculpture. Art Department facilities include a bronze foundry, state-of-the-art computer labs and lecture halls, ceramics, painting, and drawing studios. And offer programs in animation and computer art, drawing and painting (including color and design), photography, sculpture and ceramics, and art history.
The Department of Design offers programs that embrace design as both a process and a vehicle to make a positive and meaningful impact on people’s lives and society. With a focus on architecture and landscape, architecture, communications design (digital media, graphic design, UX), fashion design and apparel technology, and interior design.
The Performing Arts Department includes emphasis on two general areas, music and dance and theater and film.
In this issue, we featured six notable students from the various disciplines of The Cilker School of Art and Design as they move forward in their craft and careers. In addition, we’d like to introduce you to the Dean of the Cilker School, Shannon Price, to hear her journey and the goal of this ambitious West Valley College program.
Anat Baird has been involved in theater arts since she was in middle school, when she fell in love with performing in community children’s theater. Since then, she has taken voice lessons and participated in school productions. She started attending West Valley College in 2019 and joined the recently formed drama club that, unfortunately, didn’t continue after the pandemic hit. When classes went back to in-person, Anat reached out to the department leader, Laura Lowry, to revive the club. Since then, Anat has been the president of the West Valley Drama Club for the last two semesters. On top of that, Anat performed on mainstage and studio productions at West Valley and, over the summer, directed a children’s musical. On the side, she teaches private voice lessons. Anat plans on graduating this spring and transferring to a four-year university next fall.
Frances has been making things since before she can remember, and textiles and clothing have a special place in her heart. When she had the chance to return to making things after a long hiatus, she chose to start with the patternmaking class at Cilker School of Design, and there was no going back. An aspiring technical designer, she enjoys the nitty-gritty of production as much as design and has a passion for repair and repurposing of clothing. After taking classes all over the Bay Area and a stint as an alterations tailor, she came back to Cilker to complete her fashion design degree. Her time at West Valley has given her the foundational skills to go on and co-found the postpartum clothing label Maia Mothers, for which she leads design, product development, and production.
Kate has always loved creating art, using whatever materials she could get her hands on. She enjoys planning different creative concepts and talking with her friends about her creative ideas. Kate has used numerous artistic mediums, from traditional graphite pencil and charcoal to ceramics and digital media. She strives to achieve the title “Jack of all trades” by experimenting with new styles and ways to express herself. Disney movies and shows were a crucial part of her childhood, and Kate has become interested in animation. Kate aspires to learn as much as she can about different forms of art and to work for a major animation studio in California. Her collection includes multiple experimental pieces to help craft her own unique style and try new things.
A graduating interior design student from West Valley College, Orit Avinoon-Metz brings her native Israeli roots to her California-inspired designs. She finds inspiration in her memories of her homeland, whether of the unique spring wildflowers or the color schemes that combine the Mediterranean Sea with a desert landscape. She incorporates this inspiration into modern living, creating spaces that are both unique and practical. When her kids got to school age, and the thoughts of getting back to work surfaced, Orit decided to follow her long-time dream and passion and embark on a career in interior design, leaving behind a successful career as a chemical engineer in pharmaceuticals. She looks forward to many years of creating beautiful spaces.
Sarah has always been interested in creating pieces using solid colors and strong shapes to create images with a clear focus. She loves jumping between different media and inspirations to create pieces that are thought provoking and enjoyable to look at. She believes art should not be held down to represent an exact movement or statement, but rather created for enjoyment. Sarah is particularly inspired to repurpose materials such as cardboard, PVC pipe, and scraps of wood. She also loves drawing inspiration from sources that would not traditionally be considered artistic. Sarah hopes to one day use her skills to become a prop maker for film and television.
Sienna is a queer artist who found graphic design during a time in her life when she felt isolated from the world. Having dealt with social anxiety for a large portion of her upbringing, Sienna had trouble fully communicating her thoughts and feelings. She knew what she wanted to say, but vocalizing these messages was a struggle. However, in her junior year of high school, she finally found an outlet that did more than just give her a voice; it gave her a mission. Graphic design allowed Sienna to be the author of her dreams—building and telling stories through visual means. Today, she strives to tell the stories of others who struggle to have their voices heard.
Amy Hibbs is a visual artist and environmentalist whose work addresses themes of belonging and empathy through interaction with the urban landscape. With a desire to increase healing for individuals, communities, and ecosystems, Hibbs uses a variety of media and techniques to highlight the dualities of joy and pain, beauty and disgust, slow and fast. Having received her master of fine arts from Mills College and the Graduate Affiliate Award from the Headlands Center for the Arts, Hibbs continues her art practice by way of cyanotype, painting, drawing, and more recently, branching into social practice. “I’ve always been really sensitive to what the observer or the viewer is experiencing when they look at art. I think a lot about what that might be for the other person.”
“I’m inspired by my surroundings in San Jose’s urban streets and gardens to wholeness to what is discarded.”
The Transformation Station, Amy’s creative expression project as a Creative Ambassador, is a participatory art piece that uses the creative output of visitors to feed hungry composting worms. Participants are invited to contribute a bad thought, deadly secret, or expression of grief in the form of a drawing or words on newsprint paper. The paper is then shredded and fed to the worms. The resulting worm castings are rich fertilizer for nourishing plant life. “This project not only allows people to interact with the piece but by extension to interact with me. I wanted to have that connection with them on a deeper level than just putting something on the wall and observing them from afar while they look at it.”
TThe Midtown Arts Mercantile on Lincoln Avenue houses some of the city’s most innovative and creative businesses, while connecting the Willow Glen neighborhood to downtown San Jose. There’s something to be said for being in the right place at the right time. For lifelong friends Derek Tam and Brian Edwards, along with accomplished beer-brewing figure Peter Burrell, the right place is Hapa’s Brewing Company on the south end of the Mercantile building. The right time is now.
Brian and Derek met in their little league years in Los Gatos and have remained friends ever since. Both returned to the area after college, and Brian laughs as he reminisces about their first go at brewing. “I had no job and no prospects. In that period, I got into homebrewing. Derek was with me the whole way.” It started with some basic supplies and ingredients, along with a recipe from the homebrewing store. Both craftsmen found homebrewed beer was fun to make—and even more fun to drink. They watched their hobby evolve as they started to explore more advanced systems and delve more deeply into the art and science of brewing.
The name Hapa came naturally to them as they brewed for friends and family. It’s a play on the word hops, but it also has another dimension. “It’s a Hawaiian word,” explains Brian. “The literal translation is ‘mixed.’ ” Not only is it reminiscent of the mixing involved in brewing, but it’s also used to describe people of mixed ancestry. “Derek and I are both ‘Hapas,’ ” Brian says. “I’m half Japanese and half Caucasian, and Derek is half Chinese, half Caucasian.”
As Derek found his way into investments and finance, Brian worked in tech, and it was then that their hobby called to them. Brian jumped out of tech and spent a year brewing with Peter Burrell at his Dempsy’s Brewery in Petaluma. A Saratoga native, Peter understands the South Bay area and, with Derek and Brian, saw the potential for success in opening a brewery in this underserved market.
Their quest for the perfect spot had begun. “We wanted to find a space that was unique and special,” Derek explains. After having seen over 50 different spaces, they came across a location that was actually a storage unit. Yet it had all the makings of a distinctive space. “We tried to visualize what it was going to look like and knew it would work,” Derek says. The space is right in the middle of the burgeoning Midtown neighborhood, and they were originally unaware that the area would be going through some redevelopment. “It’s cool to be a part of that and see Willow Glen connect to downtown and the Rose Garden,” Brian adds. “This Midtown neighborhood is becoming a spot to be.”
They are happy to be a part of this evolving location, since the city seems to be backing the development of the neighborhood and the residents are enjoying the changes. Many people have taken to walking and biking to Hapa’s, something they had not done until recently. “Everyone in the neighborhood’s been telling us they’ve been excited for us to open,” Derek says, delighting in the brewery’s reception. “We have been, too! We want to be a destination spot in the community.”
With board games, shuffleboard, cornhole, occasional live music, and food trucks, the dream of Hapa’s becoming a destination is turning into a reality. The vibe and immediate goal of the brewery’s brand focuses on the overall experience of the tap room. “We want to make sure people have a good time,” Derek explains. Currently, the bar has three classic types of beer on tap: IPA, blonde, and a porter—all brewed with style.
Fans of the brewery can take Hapa’s beer home with them or give it as gifts to friends, thanks to the brewery’s crowler (can-sized-growler) program. A one-time-use, filled, and sealed-on-the-spot can is fast becoming the industry standard for takeaway beer. These recyclable vessels keep beer fresh for longer than a traditional growler and just look more fun. “It’s like a big, old-school Foster’s can,” Derek smiles. “It’s nice to know that people can share these with friends—and ultimately share the experience they have when they come here.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.2 “Sight and Sound”
By day, Cromwell Schubarth is editor of TechFlash and senior technology reporter at the Silicon Valley Business Journal. By night, Schubarth puts down the digital camera and pursues his passion for instant photography. Using a variety of old and new film types, Schubarth captures the artistic side of the Bay Area through a retro lens.
How did you first get interested in instant photography? My father was a photo engineer and quality controller at Polaroid for 25 years, so I saw every new camera and film that came out before it was released. I started with one model called a Swinger, which I thought was pretty cool. Our Christmas cards and family photos were all done with Polaroid. But while I was exposed to it early on, I moved away from doing anything with instant photography for most of my life. Four years ago I somehow got involved in a shoot using Lomography, the old toy plastic cameras, which reignited my interest. It was also a way to connect with my dad, who died last summer. In these past few years, it was a way for us to talk.
What is it about the medium that draws you to it? What I like about instant photography are the qualities to it that you can’t achieve with digital photography. I shoot digital Monday through Friday: digital is my work life, analog is what I do for pleasure. There’s something about a Polaroid camera that breaks the ice when you’re shooting on the street. If I point an iPhone at someone, they’re not always welcoming. But when I point a Polaroid, people are drawn to it like magnets. They want to know what it is and even ask to have their picture taken.
“There’s something about a Polaroid camera that breaks the ice when you’re shooting on the street.” _Cromwell Schubarth
I also enjoy really thinking about what I’m going to shoot. You don’t want to waste your film, especially expired film that’s not made anymore. Unlike digital photography where you shoot a thousand pictures and weed through them, you have to spend a lot of time thinking about what it is you’re shooting: how you’re shooting it, the lighting, everything. It becomes much more of an intense event.
Have you ever been frustrated when you didn’t capture the shot you envisioned? I never throw out anything I shoot, no matter how bad it might be. I’ll go through them looking for photos for competitions and photo shows. I’ll find pictures that I thought were horrible but now are beautiful. Sometimes it’s because the photo has aged and naturally become more sepia. As I said before, I spend a lot of time planning a shot in my mind, so I’ll often be disappointed with the photo in my hand. But when I look again months later without that baggage, I’ll realize it was something beautiful.
Your work seems to focus on both people and places… I have a deep fascination with people, particularly artists. Many of the people I photograph are creative types: artists, models, and other photographers. I see them at SubZERO in San Jose, and festivals in San Francisco and Oakland. I get an energy and vibe that makes them fun to shoot. I’ve always been fascinated with shooting abandoned places: if I can get into old buildings for a shot, it’s fantastic.
Are you more influenced by the subject of your work, or the medium? I spend a lot time trying to match the film with the subject. Often I’ll lug three different cameras and multiple film types to see what I’ll use. One project I’ve developed is shooting the San Jose’s Day of the Dead festival in October. This event is special because I shoot with a rare film called Chocolate, a special type of Polaroid film that creates a chocolate brown image, cooler in tone than sepia. Ever since I did the first shoot four years ago, friends who saw my work have given me Chocolate film to use for this project. At some point, I’d like to turn it into a zine or a show.
What are you working on this year? I’m focusing on new projects for the 12:12 Men group, an invitation-only international art collective where twelve men from around the world pick a new theme for each month to shoot. This year, we also have to do something “new” each time we shoot: a new technique, a different approach, etc. So I’m looking forward to that challenge.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.2 “Sight and Sound”
Jordan “Gatsby” Melvin was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, by a mother who loved R&B and a father who loved funk, two genres the 23-year-old rapper still loves to this day. But it didn’t stop there. “I was listening to anything that sounded good in my ears,” he says.
When asked about inspirations for his own musical productions, Gatsby quickly listed over one dozen artists and producers, including Nas, Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes, J Dilla, DJ Premier, and Pimp C—rest in peace. All of these individuals were creating music during what is known as the Golden Age of hip-hop music. “The Golden Age is the Golden Age because, if you ask me, there was no better music being made,” Gatsby says. “There was so much passion, so much energy behind the music.”
When Gatsby first heard the 2006 song “U and Dat,” by Vallejo’s own E-40 in collaboration with T-Pain, it was his first introduction to the Bay Area’s unique style of hip-hop—commonly referred to as “hyphy”—and he loved it. “When I heard that for the first time, it was so different. I realized that it wasn’t just accepted [in the Bay], it was huge,” he says. He admired the acceptance of that difference. Over a decade later in 2018, at the age of 20, he decided to relocate permanently to San Jose.
“It’s a creative wonderland,” he says. “The Bay Area is such a close-knit community when it comes to creativity. Everyone feels welcome.” He wasn’t getting that vibe from the East Coast’s “hustler culture,” and he didn’t feel it in Southern California, either. “The creative community of Southern California doesn’t care about you or what you’re doing unless you’re ‘somebody.’ I think that’s hella wack,” he says. “ ‘Nobodies’ are made into ‘somebodies’ every single day. It’s all about access and opportunity.”
About his lyrics, Gatsby says, “My lyrics are real life. They’re about interactions that I have either seen, learned from, or was involved with.” Being a Black man in the United States, his real-life experiences often lead him to rap about Black oppression and liberation. He aspires to channel that same energy into his music. “I put a lot of myself, what I truly believe, and my heart into my songs. Because I want them to mean something. I want them to provoke people so much that it damn near radicalizes them.
Naturally, his lyrical influences are more than musical artists. “I spend a lot of time educating myself,” he says. “I watch a lot of documentaries and interviews.” The subjects of those documentaries and interviews are often civil rights leaders such as Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, James Baldwin, and Fred Hampton. “I love listening to what all these people have to say. If they were alive today, the world would be completely different.”
Since arriving in San Jose, Gatsby has used that access and opportunity to stay busy in his quest to become a “somebody.” In 2021 alone, he released two albums, Currently Unnamed and Quake Space, and played almost a dozen shows despite not having a car. “I’ve performed in every major city in California, other than Hollywood,” he says. “I’ve been everywhere, and I’ve built a name for myself off of my grind.” His most recent album, Butter, was released this past July.
Gatsby is confident that grind will eventually lead him to worldwide success. In fact, if optimism and confidence were a disease, Gatsby would be patient zero in the next pandemic. “I think my chances of making it big are so high,” he says. “My music sounds incredible. Even if you don’t like the lyrical content, you cannot say that my music does not sound good. With my passion and my drive, there’s nothing that can stop me from making my dreams come true.”
The topic of oppression is not only a consistent throughline in his musical poetry but also peppered his interview for this piece. He claims that during the Golden Age, record labels—“the bourgeoisie”—didn’t realize how powerful media, and hip-hop in particular, can be. Now, he says, the music industry actively works to promote hip-hop artists that perpetuate negative stereotypes of Black culture. “The labels see to it that only people who are pushing a negative influence to youth are going to make it. Over time, that has built a society that only values artists perpetuating these negative stereotypes.”
That’s something he believes he can help change. “Media is the most powerful weapon in the world. Hip-hop, I believe, is the most popular genre in the world. If you can effectively control what you want to emulate, I genuinely feel that you can control the future. I plan to be something the world has never seen, heard, felt, or experienced. If not my music, what I do outside of music is going to change the whole world.”
Priya Das, Co-founder & Chief Programming Officer of Mosaic America
Priya is the creator of Mosaic’s inspired framework for social cohesion using the Arts and drives the creative vision, programming strategy, artist relations, and community outreach.
In this episode, Priya discusses how being an art critic and columnist, her history classical Indian Bharatanatyam performer, and the Hawaiian/Slide Guitar have merged to help form Mosaic America, cofounder with Usha Srinivasan. In addition, Priya shares how coming to America put her on a journey to find her “giant self.”
#87 – Angela Ostermeier – VP of Development, Cinequest
Angela joined the Cinequest team as the Events & Development Manager in 2018 and has expanded her role and responsibilities to VP of Development.
Angela works closely with sponsors, venue locations, and VIPs to ensure that Cinequest events such as Maverick Meet-Ups, Nightly VIP Soirees, and Opening & Closing night parties go off without a hitch. She prides herself on her attention to detail and drive to make each year’s CQFF a success.
In our conversation, we learn about Angela’s interests in the film industry, her experiences before coming to Cinequest, and her plans and ambitions in the world of filmmaking. She also gives us some insight into the year’s in-person festival, her favorite film, and announces the new Cinequest Beer/Wine Garden, which ones today (8/16/22) and runs 11:30a to 7p daily through the festival. The Unzipped Pavilion is a great venue to meet visiting artists and each other over affordable kraft drinks, food trucks, and entertainment.
(Located at the stunning new Unzipped Pavilion, across from the California Theatre at 350 S. 1st Street 95113.)
Recorded in the Media Lounge at AC Hotel by Marriott Sunnyvale Moffett Park.
(Sidenote: I mistakenly call the AC at the “Marriott Park.” That is incorrect, is it the AC Hotel by Marriott Sunnyvale Moffett Park)
Beverage:
AC Hotel Signature Cocktail – a refreshing Cucumber Gin and Tonic
Cinequest Film & Creativity Festival Summer 2022 will feature 450 artists arriving to present the world’s finest new films in downtown San Jose and Campbell.
Cinequest In Person, August 16-29
James G. Leventhal is an enthusiastic art leader and visionary who has worked at top museums throughout the Bay Area and the United States. Now, as of January 2022, he is back in San Jose as the executive director of the Institute of Contemporary Art San José (ICA).
In this episode, James shares about major figures who shaped his path into this work. You’ll hear about the artist who sparked his early pivot from wanting to be an artist to wanting to support other artists, and the hero who inspired his view of museums as inclusive community centers.
With these influences and his professional experience, James comes to the ICA with a down-to-earth and sustainable vision that breaks through barriers and invites people in. Listen in on what this means for the ICA as a place for community to come together through immersive, experimental, and collaborative art.
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Sitting along an unassuming suburban strip in South San Jose, at the edge of Los Gatos, Greaseland Studios isn’t exactly a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it recording studio—it’s more like a squint-and-you’ll-stillmiss-it kind of space. After getting close enough, the sound of blues music, muffled in the lowslung three-bedroom house sitting inconspicuously between its neighbors, clues you in.
Perhaps this suburban exterior fits awkwardly with the studio’s name, but once inside, the moniker suddenly feels like the only one. Seemingly every surface inside the crowded house is plastered with photos, records, and memorabilia. Sound absorption panels are haphazardly stuck to the walls and ceiling. A grand piano fits tightly in the kitchen, and guitars of every kind hang from the walls of the living room—where more pianos and a set of drums sit. It’s grungy DIY, and where, for the last 12 years or so, a modern giant of blues music has lived and recorded music.
“I had my own idea of what America was like. I watched every episode of The Simpsons, every episode of Seinfeld. That was, like, my cultural education.” – Christoffer “Kid” Andersen
“There’s a window there but don’t tell my landlord,” says Christoffer “Kid” Andersen, a gregarious bear of a man and perennial nominee at the prestigious annual Blues Music Awards. He’s pointing at a side of the studio’s control room, a tiny converted garage that he’s sitting in the middle of, surrounded by computer monitors, various pieces of recording equipment, and a chaos of wires spilling everywhere in tangles. “When we got this place, a place that was big enough, I had a friend who worked as a janitor for a radio station,” the 38-year-old recalls. “He was in charge of literally disposing of some old equipment they had—an old eight-track tape recorder and mixing boards and a bunch of stuff. So we just went there and took everything that worked, or that we could get to work, and started the studio with that.”
There’s a homey, if scrappy, aura to Greaseland, and bands and artists appear to enjoy the inimitable space. Countless albums have been recorded here, and on this Wednesday afternoon, the band Awek, coming all the way from France, is working through a rollicking blues track, one you can’t help but tap your feet to, if not get up and dance.
Andersen portions his time among Greaseland, recording and producing for blues artists, and touring as the guitar player for the blues band Rick Estrin & the Nightcats, a band he has played with for several years. He bears the visual cues of a bluesy character: his blonde hair is slicked back; he wears a pair of brown-hued, tinted Ray-Bans; his voice rumbles agreeably, like the sound of a motor engine idling; and he carries an almost-Southern drawl when he talks.
And yet Andersen, a man who has won the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Award, is from southern Norway. He came to Santa Cruz when he was 21 on a gig to play with blues saxophonist Terry Hanck’s band. It was his first time coming to America. “It was a trip, man,” he says. “It took me about six months to kind of get the hang of it, ’cause I had my own idea of what America was like. I watched every episode of The Simpsons, every episode of Seinfeld. That was, like, my cultural education.” The music, though, he knew well—he was pulled into blues and roots music and started playing at the age of 11.
Since arriving nearly 20 years ago, Andersen has largely remained here in the South Bay, while also touring the world, building a career and prominent reputation as a bluesman. Behind him in the control room, a photograph depicts a slightly younger version of Andersen, bowled over on stage, in the middle of a guitar lick, the image a frenzied blur—Andersen, the Norwegian, in action.
Elsewhere at Greaseland, in between takes of Awek’s recording session, Andersen is looking for a can of adhesive before finally finding it in the laundry room that doubles as the vocal recording booth. “I give up,” he says. “If it falls, it falls.” He’s spraying the surface of the ceiling, trying to force a sound absorption panel to stick. The foam piece won’t give. “Well, at least we get some good fumes in here.”
“It’s always been an incredible rush for me to do things that make downtown San Jose a better place to be.” -Joe Noonan
Joe Noonan still vividly remembers the day in eighth grade when his father told him the family was moving to California. For a kid growing up outside Chicago, the news was a bona fide dream come true. A Bay Area resident ever since, Noonan proudly claims San Jose as his own and has been a tireless advocate for the city, particularly its downtown core. Stints with Christmas in the Park and the San Jose Downtown Association (a partnership that casually began with volunteer efforts hosting community movie nights and collecting survey information at Music in the Park) paved the way for his latest role as development coordinator with the City of San Jose’s Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services department. As he admits, his undying optimism concerning the city’s potential has helped chart his career path for nearly a decade.
“I’m very fortunate to be connected to some organizations that I truly, sincerely love, and I think those organizations see that because I go all in. I’ve had an opportunity to touch some great things. It’s always been an incredible rush for me to do things that make downtown San Jose a better place to be. It’s been behind almost everything I’ve done in the last 10 years. I feel it’s the city that just keeps trying. I love that about San Jose.”
8/2/2022 -It is with a heavy heart we say goodbye to our fellow San Jose Advocate and friend. We will miss you, Joe!
Fashion is continuously changing. Although how people dress is largely determined by what is trendy, it’s sometimes overwhelming trying to keep up with the latest trends. As we explore fashion here in Silicon Valley more, let’s focus on what the South Bay has going on. I started this journey by speaking with Kimmy from Black and Brown on San Carlos Street and Araceli from Thrill of the Luxe on North San Pedro Street, whom you may remember from a previous post. If you haven’t visited them, go check them out. The vibe and aesthetic will for sure get you excited about South Bay style.
“When I think of true San Jose fashion, that true timeless fashion is going to be Dickies, Ben Davis, Pro Club Bigger T, and Pendleton, as well as work wear, which is really popular. This type of style is definitely ingrained in San Jose,” says Kimmy Nguyen, who has been working at the Black and Brown vintage shop for over eleven years. Streetwear and hypebeast are the core of what San Jose attire is all about. Wide leg, relaxed fit, and baggy denim are key characteristics. Chunky platform, high boot, and mid-century retro looks are all making a comeback in San Jose as well.
Another characteristic of South Bay fashion is the mixing of garment styles. “In the vintage community, it’s still hip/hop and rap influenced with oversized jackets and baggy jeans, which can be mixed with vintage stuff, newer stuff, and designer clothes,” says Araceli, who likes to carry timeless pieces in her vintage shop. Something I’ve seen here in San Jose more and more is the mixing of a hypebeast t-shirt, some vintage denim jeans with a designer shoe, and a new jacket from an H&M-like retail store. I think this is an interesting take on baggy, comfortable garments with a South Bay flare.
As I was researching what South Bay style is, an interesting term from a reddit article came to my attention. They called it “MFA Uniform”. This isn’t exclusive to the South Bay but has a profound influence on the people who reside here. MFA Uniform, if you haven’t heard of it, could be considered a more hipster look with jeans, a button up, and some type of leather shoe. It’s something you could wear daily if you work in the tech industry, or something you could wear to meet with friends. We have seen this fashion style at our Pick-Up Parties as well. Typically, it’s guys wearing a plaid shirt and denim pants with a dressy shoe.
Hypebeast/streetwear, thrifted vintage clothes, and MFA Uniform are what San Jose’s fashion consists of. Through the many cultural backgrounds that reside here in the South Bay we get a lot of different influences, resulting in a look that intermixes. Within these intermixes is where we truly discover our distinctive style. “Keep having an open mind with fashion. Every day I get customers that have never been here, and every day I hope that fashion keeps moving forward. Clothes are a great way to express yourself. You can buy and wear nice used pieces of clothing, and that could work for everybody,” says Kimmy. Whenever you feel like wearing that shirt that you may be unsure about wearing, just wear it. Express how you want the world to know you. Wear the clothes that speak to you and make you feel good about yourself. Try new looks out and you will love how it makes you feel.
On my own personal fashion journey, I like to break the gender barriers. I like to wear baggy clothes and give off a street wear vibe, but I also mix it with vintage garments and Mad Max-like clothing, giving it a post-apocalyptic touch. The more experimental and expressive people are with their fashion, the more they expand the style of the South Bay, because it enables others to feel as though they can express themselves, too. I think this influences others to become more aware of what they’re wearing. “To see a really masc male be okay putting on a more femme item is good. If you like it, you like it. We should not be categorized,” adds Kimmy.
Tony Gapastione is a pastor turned filmmaker, actor, director, producer, screenwriter, podcaster, and CEO of BraveMaker.
In this episode, Tony shares how he went from creating in the shadows of his spiritual work as a pastor to the empowering realization that the performing arts can be a spiritual experience itself. Now from the hub of his organization BraveMaker he supports brave storytellers of all kinds through film screenings, panel discussions, and an annual film fest in Redwood City.
In the wake of his own recent loss, Tony’s first feature film Last Chance Charlene invites much-needed conversation about death in our culture that largely keeps it at arm’s length. Get a look into the emotional and real-life inspiration for characters in the film as well as a couple of fun easter eggs to look out for. Hear Tony’s thoughts about normalizing and de-stigmatizing discussions of death and suicide in support of those who are grieving.
View Last Chance Charlene at Cinequest Aug 21 and 27.
At first glance, Tank Shop may look like a typical thrift store with rows upon rows of clothes, dolls, and various assorted items; however, what makes this store special is the music.
Besides selling carefully curated high-end streetwear as well as other products, like exotic flavored sodas and snacks, Tank Shop hosts weekly open-mic sessions encouraging young artists to showcase their talents. It comes as no surprise that this thriving cultural hotspot is quickly becoming an essential for music and thrifting lovers.
The 29-year-old rapper and founder of Tank Shop, Yonex Jones, said his favorite thing in the store is definitely the music. “My career starts with the music. I’m a local rapper from out here,” said Jones. “I used to be in the parking lot selling mixtapes.” Jones started rapping after he was arrested and sent to juvenile hall following a physical altercation with his stepfather at the time. “Everybody in juvenile hall raps just for fun, just to pass the time,” said Jones. “And I ended up finding a passion for it.” He shared that it was fun because in juvenile hall, there was nothing to do, but he still got to play with words, even with no resources. Jones was intrigued that one could have absolutely nothing but could still have their creativity.
He recounted experiencing a moment of clarity when he turned 22 that his life wasn’t heading in the direction he wanted. Jones thought he was destined to either die or end up back in jail, where he’d been since 18. He tried going to college for a week but soon decided to drop out to pursue making music. “I just treat it like a college student treats college, you know like work 20 hours straight every day, nonstop,” said Jones. “Little to no food, little to no money, just grind, grind, grinding.”
That is when TANKSHIT was unofficially birthed. Jones bought a box truck and started selling his mixtapes in parking lots. Soon after, he quickly realized that just mixtapes weren’t going to be enough to sustain customers’ interest in his music and the business he had going. He then started to branch out to selling merchandise and from there decided to expand the variety of products sold. “You know, people want to support, but they can’t keep buying the same album kind of thing,” said Jones.
Jones and the team that he found, including close friend and fellow rapper Lil Unda, have really grown the business since then. Collectively, TANKSHIT now operates 4 mobile pop-ups that travel around the Bay Area and a physical store in Alum Rock in San Jose. The name of the physical store was originally going to be TANKSHIT as well, but was changed to Tank Shop to be more appropriate for younger clientele.
The store also often gives back to the community, donating clothes and food where they can. Jones aims to use the shop as a safe space for people like his younger self to hang out and guide them to not make bad decisions in life, declaring that the music he makes as well as his business is about supporting the underdogs often neglected in Silicon Valley, even with its abundance of wealth. “We’re the other side, the filth, the grime, the neglect, and the poverty. So that’s where TANKSHIT kind of stems from,” said Jones. “It’s just all about the growth.”
Speaking of growth, Jones plans to expand Tank Shop. One of his goals is to bring the store’s mobile pop-up trucks to Los Angeles. The furthest they have brought the trucks so far is Sacramento. They are also working to get the store up and running on DoorDash as well, making Tank Shop even more accessible.
“One of my goals would be like…to make the Bay Area version of what people leave the Bay Area to go to LA for, so like you don’t gotta go out there,” said Jones. He said that in order to achieve that goal, he would like to build a team of his peers and professionals to establish a collective geared toward expanding their careers and TANKSHIT together. Jones aims to provide an environment where young artists in the Bay Area can succeed and make it big without having to leave their homes for opportunities that they may not find. “Opportunities are in the person; it’s not in the place,” said Jones.
With a recording studio set up in the back of Tank Shop, he has already started making that a reality. Jones wants to make Tank Shop an environment where artists in the Bay can come and collaborate with each other, pumping new energy into the community of San Jose. And with the way that the store is covered with autographs from customers, friends, and people who come by the shop, as well as the love they receive on social media, Tank Shop has certainly started to cement itself in the local culture.
tankshit.com
1530 Alum Rock Avenue
San Jose, California 95116
Instagram: yonexjones, tankshittankshop, tankshitboxtruck
alking through the halls of the Cilker School of Art and Design at West Valley College, creativity was everywhere. The displays of photography and mixed media pieces left me feeling inspired. Tank Shop parked outside the doors, a thrift store selling streetwear and imported goods. Groups of people walked around to take in the beautiful scenery. So many people came out to support their local fashion designers.
This Pick-Up Party had a flare to it. The attire worn to this event was unique to what I typically see at a Pick-Up Party. The outfits were more personalized and self-expressive. Since this party had a fashion show, the space we shared was aligned with showing off individual fashion taste, and I feel like people dressed riskier because of that. I would categorize the overall genre of the evening as streetwear—stylish yet comfortable. The vibe felt young, playful, and vibrant. Brooke wore a flowy dress and sneakers, which was very vintage feeling. Justin wore denim on denim, giving his look a late 80s, early 90s vibe. Melissa and Melik had on more conventional styles but kept it streetwear with grungy plaid and leather pants.
There were a few individuals whose outfits stood out to me the most. I loved Steph’s bootcut black bottoms and fitted top, which reminded me of vintage lace lingerie. I felt it was so well-matched to her personality, attitude, and how she presents herself. Isaac’s outfit had such a unique touch with a bulky custom necklace and fun socks that really elevated his look for the evening. My favorite piece he wore were his purple shoes—cozy yet fashionable. He tied it all in with a jersey texture blouse. Natalia and Katherine with their Dolls Kill vibes lit up the night with vibrant and fun silhouettes. Natalie’s pants were a lime green, baggy, and comfortable cargo style. Her futuristic shoulder flares and midsection jewelry band mixed past and present together. Katherine’s pockets of hot pink teased us, giving 80s Pilates class-meets-lingerie as her fishnet stockings peaked from the top of her pants. She also took bell bottoms to a whole new level, creating a different kind of futuristic design.
For the fashion show, each model gave it their all as they walked down the runway showing off their angles. The designs were nothing short of amazing. Each designer had their own unique style, and it was clear which piece belonged to which collection. They were cohesive in their designs and which garments they chose to showcase. I loved the variety. Some were more business-oriented, like something the modern businesswoman could wear into the office. There were also summer vibes with long gowns that flowed and made the wearer look elegant and soft. I loved the edgy garments as well; they gave me the sense of a modern twist on the Victorian era.
Attending fashion shows here in the South Bay is vital to defining what South Bay fashion style looks and feels like. These are the fashion influencers and trend setters, the ones actively sitting down and designing what the local fashion sense is. I could see the inspiration behind the clothing, from the techie business look to the gilded period influence. All direct reflections of who we are in the South Bay. All in all, I leave you with a question that I’d like you to sit with. What are your clothes saying about who you are? Think about it and see where it takes you on your identity journey. Pay attention to the why and the what so that you, too, can set the trend for the rest of us.
Reyes Muertos Klothing was originally the brainchild of artist and lifelong San Jose resident Carlos Rodriguez, who wanted to create an artistic identify for himself. Drawing artistic inspiration from both music and streetwear, the clothing brand has now grown into a three-man-strong creative force. Rodriguez has enlisted the direct help of his Citadel Art Studios neighbors— tattooist Brandon Ronald and artist Steven Martinez— who bring their specialized skills together to spread the ideals of Reyes Muertos across the globe. The brand celebrates Meso-American identity and tradition with an emphasis on anti-oppression. In the grand scheme, the three artists see their work as encouraging like-minded artists and individuals to engage in an artistically and politically mindful lifestyle.
“In the last couple of years, we have brought together an army of people. Behind the name Reyes Muertos, which means dead kings, we have found an identity of support and love for art and culture. We are all independent artists, but together we have really grown into this movement focused on the evolution of the mind: learning to live your legacy while supporting each other. Each one teaches the other, where I wouldn’t be who I am without them and vice versa. So together, we are a support system that focuses on pushing boundaries, living healthy lifestyles, and helping each other in rough moments. And our message of love, art, and anti-oppression has ignited people around the world.”
Picture (L to R): Steven Martinez, Carlos Rodriguez, and Brandon Ronald.
Staying inside the lines has never been Pilar Agüero-Esparza’s style. Over her 30 years as a practicing artist, she’s evolved from producing traditional two-dimensional art to creating three-dimensional pieces that address issues of culture, race, and home life.
Pilar draws from her experiences as a Latina woman growing up in a family of shoemakers to create unique shoes from scrap leather, much like her parents did. More recently, Pilar has used melted crayons to pour over paper, producing palettes of various skin tones. The idea was first sparked by seeing a pack of Crayola Multicultural Crayons, provoking her to wonder which color her three-year-old daughter would pick as her own skin color and how her choice could change as she grew up. Pilar has used that same eight-pack to pour, weave, and sculpt pieces that prompt us to examine our own notions of color and the role it plays in our lives.
“The interesting thing to me is how my practice has evolved. I trained as a painter and printer in school, but I found myself painting on the frames and stretcher boards. Drawings have always stayed in my practice, but over the years I’ve transitioned from narrative and realism, which are traditional in painting, to materiality and abstraction. It can be still narrative, but often I do work that’s more about material and sculpture. I’ve just always needed to work with my hands.”
hine Slender’s dedication to bringing the fashion scene to the South Bay is a journey sure to inspire. Sitting in the crowd of his fashion show ECO Freak last Friday, I was in the splash zone. Fashionable outfits were scattered around the room and the energy was elevated by musical performances from Gatsby, Tb Payback, LuvC4, JOY., KBtheJuug, and DJ Oculus as we waiting for the show to begin. As the first round of designs walked to the front of the room heads turned and cameras flashed. Throughout the show, five designers showcased their unique style and concepts: Dani’s Display, Vile.Honey, There’s Nothing Bolder, Walkway, and Vole Couture. This was a night of streetwear mania.
“Know that the clothes you wear are important. They define who you are, and they tell a story. Clothes are like a time capsule—each piece has a memory associated with it.” -Chine Slender
There’s Nothing Bolder:
There’s Nothing Bolder was the first to enter the runway, and their composite designs of plaid and denim wowed the crowd. This lifestyle brand truly lives up to its name. They have a sustainable model of creating new pieces from older ones, and I’m here for it.
Dani’s Display:
Bringing a whole new version of sportswear, Dani’s Display played ball. Dipping in and out of sports team drip and handmade garments, they gave us just the right amount of grunge and sexy. Their women’s designs showcased miniskirts and front-lace tops, while their men’s garments included sleeveless shirts paired with denim jeans. This made for a dynamic contrast between their different looks.
Vile.Honey:
Vile.Honey gave gender the finger with their androgynous designs and deeply stylized garments. Telling visual stories of polarity and contrast, their geometric designs created a degree of visual calmness, which was quickly spiced up with their bold accessories and make-up.
Vole Couture:
Vole Couture gave us everything we could wish for. Their designs had an electric energy that was matched on the catwalk. Their unique silhouettes and shapes were captivating and visually stimulating.
Walkway:
Walkway’s designs embodied splashes of cyberpunk, Valentino, and Balenciaga. Their designs inspired, and their creativity poured onto the crowd. One of their looks incorporated a VR headset, prompting us to create a personalized world by compositing elements from different places into an entirely new one.
Overall, this show was divine, and it represented everything San Jose has been waiting for. Creatives of the South Bay are vital to expanding the culture, making way for the future, and paving a path to greatness. The ECO Freak fashion show is iconic—a one-of-a-kind experience bringing people together from a place of passion, expression, and vulnerability. This supernova of imagination is making history in the South Bay and kickstarting a movement that defines and showcases the impact style has on a community.
If you couldn’t make it out to see the show, I invite you to look at what’s here and think about how your style shares a piece of who you are. How does it affect you and others around you? In my post about the 8th Lake fashion show, I wrote about why fashion is important. I hope you will use this post to consider finding and sharing your own fashion voice and to generate more conversation among your community. Each designer who showcased their work is contributing to what South Bay style looks like, and so can you, by exploring your unique individual taste for style.
With his show ECO Freak, Chine has done it again, filling our glasses with water from the fountain of youth. Full video of the event coming soon.
This past summer the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles displayed a quilted red, white, and grey American flag stitched from carpenter’s pants, suits, collared shirts, and scraps of red ties. The delightfully unexpected choice of materials is common throughout Ryan Carrington’s work. “I use this idea of medium as message,” the San Jose artist explains. “What something is made out of affects the way that people perceive it and the concepts behind it.” This particular piece—an amalgamation of blue-collar and white-collar uniforms—reflects two recurring themes in Carrington’s body of work: the pay discrepancy between executives and laborers and the often-unachievable American dream.
“It used to be that you could just pull up your bootstraps…but it’s become this false narrative that’s been spun,” Carrington shares. “[Yet] people just sort of put their heads down and keep working.” He hopes to spark a dialogue about economics and distribution of wealth, as well as our society’s way of devaluing labor.
When Carrington creates, he poses the question: What can I do with different mediums to make something cool, but also have it be thoughtful?” This mantra has stayed with him ever since he participated in an artist-in-residence program at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado (not long after earning his bachelor’s at the University of Wisconsin). At the beginning of his residency, Carrington recalls feeling like his sculptures didn’t measure up to the work of the other makers, despite his strong technical skills. “Finally, I realized it was because their pots had content behind them—whether it was the way their pots interacted with the tabletop or paralleled the Kansas plane or had to do with man versus nature…and that was kind of this ‘ah ha’ moment.”
Carrington’s work today is equal parts humor and impact. Take for instance, his colossal apple pie, a plywood shell stuffed with a filling of business ties. Or an oven mitt fashioned from brick and mortar. Or a pitchfork planted in a sizeable pile of ties titled “Middle Management.”
There’s also his performance piece, “Build Them Up; Take Them Down.” To appreciate the peculiarity of it, imagine Carrington, wearing a hardhat, a Christian Dior suit, Prada shoes, and a crimson necktie, wheelbarrowing past you in the gallery with a load of cinderblocks. As he continues to ferry loads of concrete masonry, building a wall mid-gallery, he starts to sweat through his nice suit. Upon completion, he immediately begins deconstructing the wall. This futile act of labor “brings into question the discrepancy of laborers and executives, as well as the shift in perspective of the American dream,” the artist explains. “It was a really slow burning joke…I think a really good way to communicate with people is through humor.”
Another project, this one exploring the intersection between fashion and labor, consists of plaid patterns he made with colored nails (aptly named “Screw Relief”). The idea came from one of his frequent trips to Home Depot. “I have to go alone, my wife won’t go with me. She’s like, ‘You’re just going to stand there and stare at materials,’ ” he laughs. “[But] she’s very supportive! She’s like, ‘You can have your alone time with that. I’m going to go take care of some business.’ ”
While wandering the aisles, Carrington came across bins of screws and realized they were the exact colors of a plaid Burberry design. “This is hilarious, I must make Burberry,” Carrington recalls thinking to himself. “A lot of luxury companies have sort of appropriated plaid,” he goes on to explain. “Plaid is something that’s gone lowbrow (like grunge rock) all the way up through high-end Burberry, like Ralph Lauren.” It took him a good handful of weeks to develop the right design, a practice he fondly refers to as “failing through the process.” Then he began the arduous task of fixing hundreds of screws into place.
“When people find out I’m an artist, they imagine me up on some bluff with some oils, you know? And it’s like, ‘No, I’m just, like, firing screws or staples into a board,’ and just trying over and over and over and over to make something remotely good-looking,” he laughs.
This sort of labor-intensive detail can be found throughout Carrington’s work. His quilted flags take him 40 to 50 hours to complete. And that’s after all the quilting classes at Eddie’s Quilting Bee alongside a group of venerable ladies (who got quite the kick out of this young man’s interest in their craft). “I make work about work. So, it should take work,” Carrington says, pointing out the parallel between his process and the way laborers perform the same task over and over again.
When Carrington isn’t creating, he’s teaching. “In sixth grade, I joined Future Teachers Club. You know, I just knew that was my calling.” He admits that for the longest time he intended to teach biology but had a change of heart after his college ceramics class. “I was enjoying the studio more than the lab,” he recalls. “I fell in love with artmaking through the potter’s wheel…the repetition and the craftsmanship and homing in on the technical skills.”
Today, he teaches at Santa Clara University, instructing students on the topics of sculpture, 3D design, site-specific land art, and professional practice. “So I got into this game as an educator and developed an art habit, I suppose,” he chuckles.
Carrington’s exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles has wrapped up, but keep an eye out for his upcoming projects. As he continues to educate others on the blue-and-white-collar divide, the integration of craftsmanship, humor, and depth in his future artwork is sure to be seamless.
“I think it’s harder to explain fashion by city now because of the internet.” -Kimmy Nguyen
Fashion is continuously changing. It’s sometimes overwhelming to try to keep up with the latest trends. Although a lot of how people dress is determined by what is trendy. As we explore fashion here in the Silicon Valley more, let’s try to focus on what the South Bay has going on. I started this journey by speaking with Kimmy at Black and Brown on San Carlos street in San Jose and Araceli from Thrill of the Luxe, who you may remember from a previous post. If you haven’t visited them, definitely go and check them out. The vibe and aesthetic will for sure get you excited about South Bay style.
“When I think of true San Jose fashion, that true timeless fashion is going to be Dickies, Ben Davis, Pro Club Bigger T, and Penalton. As well as work wear which is really popular. This type of style is definitely ingrained in San Jose” says Kimmy Nguyen who has been working at Black and Brown Vintage shop for over eleven years. Streetwear and hypebeast are the core of what San Jose attire is all about. The wide leg and more relaxed fit and baggy denim are key characteristics of what San Jose Citizens are wearing. Chunky platform, high boot, and a mid century retro look are all making a comeback in San Jose as well.
One of the South Bay’s fashion characteristics is the mixing of garment styles. “In the vintage community it’s still hip/hop and rap influenced with oversized jackets and baggy jeans. Along with a lot of oversized comfortable clothing which can be mixed with vintage stuff, newer stuff and designer clothes,” says Araceli who likes to carry timeless pieces in her vintage shop. Something I’ve seen here in San Jose more and more is the mixing of a hypebeast t-shirt, some vintage denim jeans with a designer shoe and a new jacket from a H&M like retail store. Which I think is an interesting take on the baggy comfortable garments with a South Bay flare.
As I was researching online what South Bay style is a term came to my attention from a reddit article which I found really interesting. They called it “MFA Uniform”. This isn’t exclusive to the South Bay, but has a profound influence on the people who reside here. MFA Uniform, if you haven’t heard of it, could be considered a more “hipster look”. With its jeans, button up and some type of leather shoe. It’s mostly something you could wear daily if you work in the tech industry. Or something you could wear to meet with friends. We have seen this fashion style at our Pick up Parties as well. Typically it’s guys wearing a plaid shirt and denim pants with a dressy shoe.
Hypebeast/Streetwear, thrifted vintage clothes, and MFA Uniform are what San Jose’s fashion consists of. Through the integration of many cultural backgrounds that reside here in the South Bay we get a lot of different influences. Resulting in a look that intermixes. Within these intermixes is where we will truly discover our distinctive style. “Keep having an open mind with fashion. Everyday I get customers that have never been here and everyday I hope that fashion keeps moving forward. Clothes are a great way to express yourself. You can buy and wear nice used pieces of clothes and that could work for everybody,” says Kimmy. Whenever you feel like wearing that shirt that you may have felt unsure about wearing, just wear it. Express how you want the world to know you. Wear the clothes that speak to you and make you feel good about yourself. Try new looks out and you will love how it makes you feel.
On my own personal journey I like to break the gender barriers when it comes to my own fashion sense. I like to wear baggy clothes and I give off a street wear vibe. But I also mix it with vintage garments and “Mad Max” like clothing giving it a post apocalyptic touch. The more experimental and expressive people are with their fashion the more they are exploring themselves. Expanding the style of the South Bay because it enables others to feel as though they can express themselves more. I think this influences others to become more aware of what they’re wearing. “To see a really masc male be okay putting on a more femme item is good. If you like it, you like it. We should not be categorized,” adds Kimmy.
It was the end of July 2019—just days after a mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Monday morning ICE deportation raids in Chicago were dominating the news—and Teatro Visión was about to present Raíces, a theatrical piece focused on the boundless human journey of immigration.
Artistic Director Rodrigo Garcia and Managing Director Leigh Henderson sat together, talking about what they were going to do. How should they proceed with the event? Could they talk about an art project based on migration and still allow space for people to mourn and to grieve? “It was really powerful because the people who came really connected,” said Garcia. “They wanted to say something, but they just didn’t know what to say.”
That is a core part of Teatro Visión’s purpose: providing opportunities for people to change the traditional narratives that have been imposed upon them. For 35 years, they have been making Chicanx communities visible and conscious of their own power to resist. Garcia maintains that the power resides in individual stories. By changing the perspective, the stories can be retold and reimagined in a fresh way. This approach appealed to Henderson. “It’s very deliberate; every project we undertake and every show we do is very conscious about impacting the world. I think that is really special.”
“This art is meant to do a specific thing in terms of building community, creating connections, and advocating for social justice.” –Leigh Henderson
When she arrived in the Bay Area as an undergrad, Henderson didn’t know what to do with herself. She was living with her sister and started sending out resumes, looking for freelance design work. Dianne Vega, who is still Teatro Visión’s production manager, called her in to paint scenery for The True History of Coca Cola in Mexico in 1999. The first show she designed for them was Kiss of the Spider Woman. Coming back to San Jose after pursuing an MBA and PhD at the University of Wisconsin, she was working on a dissertation and not looking for full-time employment. Henderson wouldn’t have taken a job with any other company. “Teatro Visión has a very clear understanding of why we do what we do—not something I necessarily see in all theater companies. It’s not just about making beautiful art. Although we do make beautiful art, it’s not about that. This art is meant to do a specific thing in terms of building community, creating connections, and advocating for social justice.”
This challenge motivates Garcia, who has been involved in some capacity with Teatro Visión ever since he came on board as an actor. In 2006, he acted in his first show, La Victima, directed by founder Elisa Marina Alvarado. Although acting is his trade, he has been directing since 2013. He came on board as artistic program manager in 2008 through a fellowship with the Theater Communications Group and took on the role of artistic director in March 2017. “Like a lot of us living south of the border,” said Garcia, “there is a great need over there and a perception that you can make it here. And certainly you can make it after a while, but nobody tells you everything you have to do to accomplish that. But I was willing to take the challenge.”
After studying modern dance and theater at the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature in Mexico City, Garcia immigrated to San Jose back in 1996. For 10 years he was undocumented, working a variety of fast-food jobs as he put himself through San Jose State—studying English. “I am still learning, but one of the greater challenges is understanding the culture and the values of Chicanx and Latinx art,” said Garcia. “I had a great mentor who has shaped my artistic vision, and now I am leading from those values.” Garcia took over from his mentor, company founder Elisa Marina Alvarado, as artistic director in 2017.
Following their impactful performance of Raíces, Teatro Visión invited their collaborators La Quinto Teatro to continue the dialogue by facilitating a series of conversation circles. Garcia was worried about attendance but hoped at least five people would come. “My God, we had more people than we thought because of this need, with mostly the same people coming every single day,” said Garcia. “At the end, you could see this big circle of sharing the importance of being together and people being very thankful for having found that space that is not often provided.”
Sharing stories forms the basis of Luz, a new show building on the success of past productions as the next phase. Luz grew out of a playwright working with elders to get their stories out in the form of engaging one minute pieces—an initiative funded by a Silicon Valley Creates Audience Engagement grant. These stories were read out during Evelina Fernández’s Departera, as part of the Day of the Dead. As always when staging a play, Teatro Visión tried to devise something related to its production that allowed theatergoers to participate creatively in the experience. The full text of each piece was displayed in a lobby kiosk, inviting audiences to respond. When staff saw the powerful potential of those stories, they decided to try to expand the project with an XFactor grant.
“We saw the power of the stories themselves and the need to take those stories out.” –Rodrigo Garcia
Because putting together a new show takes lots of resources, Teatro Visión wanted to solve technical and budgetary issues by producing something manageable. So they came up with the idea of using shadow theater—an ancient form of storytelling—and just two actors. They hoped to create a minimalist production, ready to pack into a trunk and easily adapted for a short library presentation or a full-length school assembly. “We saw the power of the stories themselves and the need to take those stories out,” said Garcia. “What better way than to take them out to younger audiences?”
Henderson noted that, in terms of age, Teatro Visión has always served a pretty wide demographic, with audiences skewing a lot younger, overall, than those of most other theater companies. Drawing in school groups and college classes means a wide range of ages and an underlying effort to make sure everything is accessible to families. “The reason we were interested in seniors, initially, is because Departera is about intergenerational sharing of knowledge and passing on of wisdom and experience to the next generation,” said Henderson. “But the stories the seniors told us were so important that we wanted to keep sharing them beyond the people who saw Departera.”
Accessibility is something Teatro Visión continues to value. Their productions are bilingual and Garcia himself does much of the translation. Many of their performances include ASL interpretation. Keenly concerned about affordability, they price their tickets to be radically inclusive—offering 10-dollar introductory tickets that level up to arts-patron pricing at 40 dollars.
Fortunately, Henderson noted that two-thirds of the company income is donated rather than earned. With funders like Hewlett and Applied Materials, Teatro Visión can continue to develop new work. The School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza provides them with office space and performance opportunities for shows like Macario, their annual Day of the Dead musical folktale, which now features more young performers than adults.
Article originally appeared in Issue 12.0 “Discover”
Ruben Escalante suffered a heart attack as a freshman in high school. But this is only surprising until Ruben reveals the trauma they endured as a child: the father who went out at least once a week and came home drunk, angry, and violent; the early death of the grandfather who was the only one that could subdue his dad’s temper; the constant and vicious attacks at school by bullies who could not accept a sensitive, poetry-loving brown boy.
In our conversation, Ruben tells how art, music, and movies were always a way to cope with life’s challenges, how they came to San Jose, and how discovering South First Art Walk opened their eyes to the creative scene. Now, as the Programs Director at the Best Buy Teen Tech Center powered by Google at MACLA, Ruben can continue to grow as an artist and mentor while helping others find their voice and police in creativity.
We also discuss Ruben’s new film, “danny boy” which will premiere 6/25 & 6/26 at the Tech @thetechinteractive in partnership with @sjmade
“Reclamation” marks the very first time San José based filmmakers will have their work viewed within the IMAX dome–an iconic landmark in our city.
And, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/casualgiant/ and https://www.instagram.com/emo_kids_of_color/
Ruben is featured in issue 11.4 “Profiles” https://www.content-magazine.com/articles/ruben-escalante/
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This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Kenneth Tan moved back to his home in San Jose from Los Angeles to help care for his grandmother, Crescenciana Tan (“lola” in Tagalog), in 2014. They began painting as an activity to do together. Lola would paint what she felt with watercolor, and then Kenneth would add drawings with markers based on her stories and memories – this led to a series of paintings they called “The Lola x Kenneth Collaboration.”
The time he spent with Lola from 2014 until her death in December 2016 brought out the artist Kenneth always wanted to be.
Recently, Kenneth created and self-published a book to honor Lola’s life story in “Crescenciana: a memoir & art book.”
In our conversation, we discuss the process of creating the book, a few of the stories of Lola’s life, and his journey in becoming an artist.
There’s a difference between your job and your work. Your job pays the bills and ends after eight hours each day. Your work is what lives beyond your lifetime, what bears your mark. Your work is your legacy. This is the credo that San Jose artist Kenneth (Tan) Ronquillo lives by. “A job is what you leave behind at the end of the day. Work is what you leave behind at the end of a lifetime,” he says. Ronquillo’s work is to tell the story of a lifetime, the story of the work his grandmother Crescenciana left behind.
“I am the living expression of her work,” Ronquillo says. “It’s my responsibility to make sure her work is good.” That expression—and that responsibility— take form in the Lola x Kenneth Collaboration, a series of artworks created by Kenneth and his grandmother, whom he calls Lola. Lola started all the pieces by painting strokes of different lengths and widths and shades using watercolors, and Ronquillo finishes the paintings by filling them in with drawings. The drawings are based on his conversations with Lola, her memories, and sometimes how she felt that particular day. Their source material is quite extensive, as Lola lived to the age of 96. She lived through World War II, raised two family generations, worked countless jobs to support that family, and served as a source of strength for Ronquillo whenever he needed it.
When his source of strength needed support, Ronquillo moved back home from Los Angeles. At the end of a contract at a job he didn’t like, he was asked by his mother to return home to help with the care of his Lola. Ronquillo made the decision to return to San Jose without hesitation. “I don’t feel like I made any kind of sacrifices,” Ronquillo says, reflecting on the career he quit to be with his family. “In an alternate universe I’m in a job I don’t like, not making much money, and I’m certain [my alter ego] is regretting not spending time with his Lola.”
The time he spent with Lola from 2014 until her death in December 2016 brought out in Ronquillo the artist he always wanted to be. “I was getting further and further away from my dreams and goals,” he says. “I had to come home to make my dreams come true.” Those dreams began with a love for the art in comic books and drawing on anything he could find, even the family growth charts. That love went into hiding as Ronquillo grew older, and he didn’t see art as a way to earn a living. “I used to make choices out of fear,” Ronquillo says. That changed when he expressed his fear of failing grad school to Lola. “Why scared? Discover,” Lola replied. “What is fear? You fight it.” Art is his work now. Telling Lola’s story is his work now. He is no longer afraid. He wants to discover.
What Ronquillo discovered is that his work with Lola was appreciated. The duo were asked to serve as judges for art contests, give interviews for Asian American broadcasts, and even make appearances at Filipino community festivals. “We got to meet the news anchors we’d see come on after Jeopardy,” Ronquillo laughs. He also discovered that he needed her to actually do something he loved. The art that started as an alternative to watching television all day developed into a creative flame in them both, producing piece after piece, some of which are still waiting to be completed.
Ronquillo is hesitant to complete those works that Lola left behind, even though his stated goal is to finish everything she started. “There’s going to be a point where I draw on all the paintings she left behind and there’s nothing for me to do,” he says sorrowfully. But Ronquillo is brave now, and completing the paintings is part of his work. “She left her story in my hands,” he says. “We are still a collaboration.” Each new addition to the Lola x Kenneth Collaboration is an homage to his Lola, his greatest inspiration. There’s a difference between your job and your work. Ronquillo’s work is to tell his story through art. And his story is truly that of Crescenciana Carbonel Tan, his beloved Lola.
Stacey is an attorney and program manager by trade and an art lover and community builder by heart. Stacey focuses on strategic partnership development and social impact for San Jose Walls. Born and raised in San Jose, she is passionate about creating a legacy of impactful public art in her hometown.
In our conversation, we learn how she became a part of the SJWalls team and her desire to help the creativity in San Jose. As well, we discuss the transition from POW! WOW! SJ to SJWall. And we find out about her and her husband’s Scamp – a lightweight fiberglass trailer camper.
ritish artist and photographer Marcus Lyon has been in the South Bay with his team, Camila Pastorelli, and Joe Briggs-Price, working on the next edition of A Human Atlas. The previous project includes Somos Brasil (2016), WE: deutschland (2018), and i.Detroit (2020), with this next version, titled De.Coded (launching 2023). This edition will explore 101 remarkable change-makers of Silicon Valley. Each regionally focused volume is more than the stunning colorful images; there is an interactive mobile app that activates audio recording of the person’s oral histories when hovered over the portraits. In addition, the ancestral DNA of each person to map their history and human history of the city to create a deeper understanding of the city- to mirror society.
In our conversation with Marcus, we talk about his inspiration for the project, his life, his approach to photography, and how his life’s work to tell more profound stories through photography has led him to our neighborhood.
Find out more about Marcus, and purchase books through Marcus’ website, Marcus Lyon and Instagram: marcus_lyon
View the Human Atlas Project and access all the images and data at ahumanatlas.com and instagram ahumanatlas
Funding for De:Coded is provided by the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. Nomination & fiscal support are provided by the American Leadership Forum (ALF).
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Marcus Lyon (b.1965) is a British artist. He was born and raised in rural England and studied Political Science at University. Commissioned and exhibited globally, his works are held in both private and international collections, including the Detroit Institute of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Arts Council Collection (UK) and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington DC. The 21st century saw his work move beyond traditional forms as he began to incorporate sound & science into his practice. He has created extensive bodies of work on dance, identity & globalization. Outside the art world, Lyon is a determined social entrepreneur: A TED speaker, he currently serves as a Board Director of Somerset House and Leader’s Quest and supporting BLESMA and Home-Start UK as an Ambassador.
3Below – Movie Theater
A dynamic entertainment destination, 3Below Theaters & Café serves as another jewel in San Jose’s crown for accessible, quality “third place” experiences. By creating a space that is inviting, intriguing, and includes a myriad of programs, GE invigorates this Downtown San Jose gem and gives visitors a unique experience from the moment they walk into the facility. When guests exit the three fully themed theaters and head into the creatively-themed lobby, they are greeted by caring and capable staff and find themselves always impressed by the commitment to ensure quality customer service for every aspect of the venue.
http://3belowtheaters.com/ | @3belowtheaters
288 S. 2nd St.
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 404-7711
https://www.3belowtheaters.com/contact-us
Broadway San Jose
Broadway San Jose, a Nederlander Presentation, is part of the nationally recognized The Nederlander Organization. Broadway San Jose debuted in 2009 with Spamalot. Since then, Broadway San Jose has brought more than 70 shows to Downtown San Jose, becoming a hallmark of the city where Silicon Valley finds the New York Broadway Theater Experience. Whether you live here or are visiting our city for business; whether you are with someone special for a romantic weekend or here with the whole family, Broadway San Jose has the shows you want to see.
http://www.broadwaysanjose.com/ | @broadwaysanjose_
408 Almaden Blvd
San Jose CA, 95110-2709
(408) 792-4571
info@broadwaysanjose.com
California Theatre
The California Theatre in San Jose, CA is managed and operated by San Jose Theaters, a division of Team San Jose. It regularly hosts performances of Opera San Jose, Symphony Silicon Valley and more. This beautiful theatre, originally built in 1927 and renovated and upgraded from 2001-2004, marries the opulence of its movie palace origins with state-of-the-art attributes.
https://sanjosetheaters.org/theaters/california-theatre/ | @sanjosetheaters
345 S 1st St
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 792-4542
Children’s Musical Theater San Jose
CMT San Jose trains and educates today’s youth through musical theater to set and achieve high artistic and personal goals, and to inspire them to become exemplary artists, patrons and citizens of tomorrow. Inclusiveness and quality are the touchstones of CMT’s vision. As a nationally acclaimed theater organization and the oldest performing arts organization in San Jose, CMT remains dedicated to providing the highest possible caliber of musical and theatrical training to children from ages 4 to 20, spanning all abilities.
www.cmtsj.org | @cmtsj
1401 Parkmoor Ave., Ste 100
San Jose CA, 95126-3450
(408) 288-5437
City Lights Theater Company
City Lights Theater Company creates provocative live productions that engage, inspire, and challenge audiences and artists alike through innovative concepts, intimate staging, and uncompromising storytelling. City Lights is dedicated to genuine philanthropy and goodwill that inspires and influences everyone at all levels of participation: staff, artists, board members, patrons, volunteers, and contributors. This “Culture of Care” allows everyone at City Lights to forge lasting, authentic connections to each other, to audiences, and to the stories they tell, and to create and sustain a warm and welcoming environment for audiences and artists with friendliness and generosity of spirit.
www.cltc.org | @citylights
529 S 2nd St.
San Jose CA, 95112-5708
(408) 295-4200
info@cltc.org
ComedySportz
CSz San Jose is one of 23 + cities in CSz Worldwide, an organization dedicated to bringing fun, collaborative, and positive experiences for corporations, groups, students, and entertainment seekers all over the world. Changing the world through collaboration, inspiration, gratitude & fun. Transforming lives since 1984.
http://comedysportzsanjose.com/ | @cszsanjose
5440 Thornwood Dr
San Jose CA, 95113-2706
(408) 224-0842
https://cszsanjose.com/contact-info
Hammer Theatre Center
The Hammer Theatre, named after former San José Mayor Susan Hammer and her husband Phil Hammer, a San José Rep Board Trustee, was completed in 1997 via a collaboration between the San José Redevelopment Agency and San José Repertory Theatre Company. This distinctive theatre offered theatrical productions for over seven years for San José and Bay Area patrons and to national acclaim. In March 2016, San José State University reopened the Hammer Theatre as a modern performance venue in the heart of downtown San José. The theatre serves San José’s community and the university through programming that features student, local, and international talent. The Hammer’s mission is to serve the community through works that illustrate the unique culture of creativity, diversity, and innovation in Silicon Valley.
http://www.sjsu.edu/hammertheatre | @hammertheatrecenter
101 Paseo De San Antonio
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 924-8501
hammertheatre-tickets@sjsu.edu
Montgomery Theater
The Montgomery Theater in San Jose, CA is managed and operated by San Jose Theaters, a division of Team San Jose. It hosts performances from CMTsj and additional organizations. Built in 1936, this venue retains its historic charm and offers audiences an intimate experience for every performance. Combining an elegant appearance with contemporary upgrades, it hosts a wide variety of events.
http://sanjosetheaters.org/theaters/montgomery-theater/| @sanjosetheaters
271 S Market St
San Jose CA, 95113-2008
(408) 295-9600
San Jose Ballet School
The San Jose Ballet School caters to students of all ages, levels and backgrounds. They offer exemplary classical ballet training where classes are tailored to the needs of the varied student base. Dancers of all backgrounds are invited to take a class.
https://www.sjballet.com/default.html
157 N 4th St
San Jose CA, 95112-5556
(408) 295-5394
janetvertin@earthlink.net
San Jose Center For The Performing Arts
The Center for the Performing Arts in San Jose, California is managed and operated by San Jose Theaters, a division of Team San Jose. It hosts major performances from Broadway San Jose and other organizations. Built in 1972 by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, it offers large windows throughout the entryways, providing plenty of natural light and spectacular views of downtown San Jose.
http://sanjosetheaters.org/theaters/center-for-performing-arts/ | @sanjosetheaters
255 Almaden Blvd
San Jose CA, 95113-2004
(408) 295-9600
San Jose Civic
The San Jose Civic in San Jose, California is managed and operated by San Jose Theaters, a division of Team San Jose. This historic venue has hosted The Who, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand and many other legends. A major, multi-million dollar renovation led to a grand re-opening in October, 2012.
https://sanjosetheaters.org/theaters/san-jose-civic/ | @sanjosetheaters
135 W. San Carlos St.
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 792-4111
San Jose Dance Theatre
San Jose ballet performing company and ballet academy performing classical favorites and innovative new works from leading choreographers. Performances include “The Nutcracker”, a San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley family tradition since 1964. Their leading San Jose ballet academy offers youth and open drop-in ballet classes for children and adults in San Jose CA, Silicon Valley, and online. Their focus is on bringing classical ballet performances and professional training to the community.
https://www.sjdt.org/ | @sanjosedancetheatre
1756 Junction Ave E
San Jose CA, 95112
(408) 286-9905
godance@sjdt.org
San Jose Improv
San Jose Improv is your home for all things comedy. Well it’s not really your home, you can’t live here, but we hope you stay awhile! Featuring stand up comics, YouTube comedians and basically funny people in general, if you like to laugh, be sure to check them out! SJI comes from Levity Entertainment, the #1 booker of comedy in the US.
http://sanjose.improv.com/ | @sanjoseimprov
62 S 2nd St
San Jose CA, 95113-2509
(408) 280-7475
sanjose@improv.com
San Jose Playhouse
San Jose Playhouse stands poised to serve those seeking joyful experiences. Our musicals, events, and classes are all designed with a singular mission in mind: to promote joy and give our patrons, cast, crew, and staff a place to belong where they feel the joy permeating everything we do. We invite you to join us in the audience, on stage, or behind the scenes. Wherever you find yourself, you’ll find joy at San Jose Playhouse.
https://sanjoseplayhouse.org/ | @3belowtheaters
288 S 2nd St
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 404-7711
San Jose Stage Company
San Jose Stage Company is recognized as the South Bay’s leading professional theatre company. Having earned a reputation for artistic excellence through imaginative and edgy theatrical experiences that spark ideas and dialogue with the audience. The Stage is devoted to new, cutting-edge work and reinterpreting American literature and world classics using innovative stagecraft, multi-media that propels the narrative, and accomplished, local actors in true repertory style.
http://www.thestage.org | @sanjosestage
490 S 1st St
San Jose CA, 95113-2815
(408) 283-7142
boxoffice@thestage.org
San Jose Theaters
San Jose Theaters, a division of Team San Jose, is responsible for the management, operations and maintenance of the Montgomery Theater, the California Theatre, San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts and the San Jose Civic. These four historic venues are conveniently located in the heart of downtown San Jose, California within walking distance of one another.
https://sanjosetheaters.org | @sanjosetheaters
349 S Market St
San Jose CA, 95113
(408) 792-4107
SAP Center
A Stadium, Arena & Sports Venue. A premiere Sports and Entertainment venue in Northern California. Home to the @SanJoseSharks & @SJBarracuda. The SAP Center hosts sporting events, comedy shows, performances, and concerts year-round.
http://www.sapcenteratsanjose.com/ | @sapcenter
525 W Santa Clara St
San Jose CA, 95113-1520
(408) 287-7070
https://www.sapcenter.com/interact-with-us/contact-us-1
The New Ballet School
New Ballet was founded in 2016 by local dancer, choreographer, and ballet teacher Dalia Rawson. New Ballet is the institution that San Jose and Silicon Valley look to for excellence in the art of ballet. They provide exceptional ballet productions and a positive learning environment in which young dancers can grow and thrive. At the New Ballet, ballet is for everyone.
http://www.newballetschool.org | @newballet.sanjose
196 N 3rd St
San Jose CA, 95112
(408) 352-5616
school@newballetschool.org
The Tabard Theatre Company
The Tabard Theatre Company provides live entertainment experiences that are enlightening, appropriate and affordable for audiences of all ages, championing unique works in an inclusive environment, with educational programs and altruistic outreach to the under-served.
www.tabardtheatre.org | @tabardtheatre
29 N San Pedro St., Ste 200
San Jose CA 95110-2447
(408) 979-0231
https://tabardtheatre.org/contactus/
F ashion style defines and groups people together to form a distinctive culture. Fashion style has the ability to drive social change, represent a community, and deepen the connection and attachment to the land and people residing there. Walking downtown through the wide streets and sounds of construction of the next nine-story high rise. Vans and leather shoes pollute the sidewalks. Skaters in their wide-legged slacks and off-tone t-shirts. What does San Jose style look like? Does it look like anything? We live in a melting pot, “American Culture,” but many American cities have distinctive looks to how their citizens dress, so why not us?
Defining a fashion style of a specific area can be a challenge. Since the start of the internet, people have been influenced by each other from all parts of the planet. Although this plays a factor, I still believe San Jose has the potential to have its own unique style. So I set out into the community to see what others had to say about it and what I found was fascinating. Let’s begin by thinking about why fashion style is essential.
“I don’t feel a cohesive fashion community here in San Jose” -Araceli Vizcaino
What we choose to wear every day says something about ourselves to the world. It tells our story in an abstract way that provokes identity. “You don’t have to tell people who you are. Someone could look at you and tell which community you’re part of,” says Araceli Vizcaino, owner of Thrill of the Luxe, a vintage shop here in San Jose. We make quick observations about others around us, and what that person is wearing plays a significant factor if we deem them “okay” to be around or not. Because our fashion tells a lot about who we are. “Throughout history, fashion has been a way to identify people according to class, occupation, region, etc., but today it’s mostly used to define subcultures. Especially since our society is moving towards individuality,” says Fashion Psychologist Carolyn Mair.
Fashion style has the ability to bring people together. Have you ever been on the street, and someone walks past you, and you have to take a second look and yell out that their outfit is “hella” nice, and it’s a whole interaction? If not, go outside in a kickass fit and see if anyone responds to you. It’s such an inclusive experience. “That’s how the vintage community is. It’s very much about who’s wearing the coolest t-shirt or even the coolest outfit. I think that is the unifying force of the community. Then you start connecting with people, saying that you like someone’s t-shirt and where did you get it? And from that interaction, relationships and communities start to really blossom from that,” exclaims Araceli.
“Fashion echoes the depth of human self-awareness,” muses Carolyn Mair. Sometimes it’s tough to wear what we want to wear because of the responses we might get from others. I have walked around in a “fit” that was a bit wild, but I was feeling it, even though I had people respond to me negatively. This behavior is partly conducive to why some of us don’t want to authentically express who we are and how we want to dress. This can have a pessimistic effect on whether we choose to wear sparkly orange shoes or dull gray sneakers. Can we declare right now to keep an approachable mindset so that we can create a safe space for our community to express and showcase who they are? Allow others and yourself to feel excited about dressing up and contributing to the vibrant culture we have here in the South Bay Area.
Defining fashion is a slippery journey. There are so many different outlets that influence our sense of style—delivering a melting pot of ideas and concepts.
What has stood out over the decades and in the conversations I’ve had with some local fashionistas is baggy clothes with a vintage feel. In my next post, I will define what San Jose’s fashion style looks and feels like. Please respond below and let me know your thoughts about how we can create a safe space to express ourselves through what we wear entirely.
Share a time when you wore something you felt great in and how it made you feel and how others responded to you.
Check out the latest posts from @peter_salcido, who is on a mission to bring people together through the power and influence of personal style.
We see what @thrilloftheLuxe has to say about the importance of what we wear.
IIn the heart of San Jose’s SOFA district, across from the fluorescence of Anno Domini and ambers of Café Stritch, is the unassuming home of Aedis Architecture & Planning in the W. Prussia Building designed by W.H. Weeks. The firm sits atop a growing marketplace, driven by the passion of Senior Principal Thang N. Do.
Thang Do’s respect for San Jose’s architectural history is palpable. The office’s exposed wood ceiling beams, bare cement walls, and energy efficient plenum floors reflect the minimalist and green values that Do adheres to.
I view the office space as something that will always evolve; you don’t build it in one shot and expect to be done with it. We will always tweak it. Certain things work, certain things don’t work. It’s always a work-in-progress. We’re architects and it’s our permanent experiment. -Thang Do
Under Do’s leadership, Aedis has flourished, executing numerous projects that incorporate his passions for modernism, education, and sustainability. Bold colors, swooping curves, and elegant forms can be found all around the South Bay in schools that he has touched. Recently, Do was instrumental in growing downtown San Jose’s retail scene through the fitting partnership with Muji.
Born in 1959, Do grew up impoverished in Äà Lat, a holiday resort town, built by the French during colonial times to escape the heat. Although Do was surrounded by Äà Lat’s French colonial architecture, the unlikely inspiration of a Shell Oil housing development steered him in a different direction. “They built this cluster of housing that was unlike anything in my town…a flat roof, clean line, concrete with exposed aggregate, glass, very clean simple geometry…It’s basically modern architecture.”
When Do was twelve or thirteen years old, his father commissioned the family’s house to be built. Finding the draftsman’s blueprints, Do was enthralled with how the three-dimensional world was rendered flat. Immediately, he started to create his own sectional and elevation drawings.
“As a child, I loved the adventure of exploring through spaces and especially buildings that have a lot of nooks and crannies, different kinds of scale, different kinds of space, different kinds of light, interesting circulation, going up and down, flat…That’s what we try to do with schools. In my own house, I designed it specifically for children because I have four kids. It has two lofts, one of which is a secret loft that only our kids know how to get to. There’s a secret door, a visitor will not know where it is.”
In 1975, when the country was literally collapsing due to the war, Do left aboard an Air Force plane. After staying in Guam and coming to the US, he continued to pursue architecture through drafting classes in high school. He eventually discovered the Bauhaus architects as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater,” a building that heavily influenced his decision to become an architect.
After graduating, Do went on to work with construction companies and architectural firms. He took a position at PJHM Architects, now Aedis, before deciding to go to “real architecture school.” In 1986, Do graduated from the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo and returned to PJHM as a key partner. Though power came quickly, proper leadership and business skills were talents that Do admits he acquired over time. “I lacked the sense of self confidence to really let myself go, let myself design, explore, and so forth. I always approached this profession in a conservative way until the last five or so years.”
A testament to his latest approach is the award-winning work with Union City’s James Logan High School, one of the projects he is the most proud of. Initially, Do was asked to replace the village of prefabricated classrooms, commonly known as portables. He went further by addressing larger functional issues with sustainable solutions, and crowned his achievement with the exquisite Center for Performing Arts. Do not only helped the school receive state funding, but he met and exceeded the school’s goals with his personal vision intact.
In addition to educational building needs, Aedis plays an active role in project-based learning with schools like Evergreen Elementary in San Jose. Do says the benefits go both ways; students learn about design methods and employees learn about school needs and how kids think.
Sitting on the Architectural Review Board, Do has an optimistic view of the city’s future development, particularly downtown. “The term may sound pretentious, but whatever, I’m an urbanist. I would like to see San Jose become more and more a rich urban environment. Our being here and opening the market downstairs is part of that…It’s not just us. I start to see more life on this block. So hopefully, collectively, if people see downtown as a destination, then we’ve got something.”
#80 Scott Knies – CEO San Jose Downtown Association
Scott has been at the helm of the San Jose Downtown Association since 1988 and has been the foundation’s only executive director.
Starting as founder and owner of the Fencing Center in 1981, Scott’s career changed as he and other business owners looked to represent the needs of downtown businesses and the Downtown community experience. Under his leadership over these last 34 years, Scott has band a prime seat in witnessing changes and directing the City’s urban core vitality. The organization launched the Music in the Park summer concert series in 1989, the Downtown Farmers’ Market, and the Downtown Ice skating rink – to list a few of the accomplishments.
In 2021 Scott announced his plans to step down in the fall of 2022, and a search for his replacement has already been in process. In our discussion, we talk about how he came to San Jose, became the CEO of the SJDA, the changes he has seen over the last three decades, and his love for rafting.
Find out more about the San Jose Downtown Association and a San Jose events calendar at sjdowntown.com and on Instagram sj_downtown
Bassist and composer Nick Panoutsos’ (who was a Content intern before he went off to NYC in 2016) released his first solo album Monos. The Greek word for “alone” (μÏŒνος), the album is a meditation on the isolation of 2020’s pandemic lockdown. The album reflects on Nick’s Greek heritage and fond memories of growing up in San Jose, CA, and the nearby Santa Cruz mountains.
In our conversation, we talk about his journey as a musician from moving from San Jose to New York and the inspiration behind the compassion on his album.
Find out more about Nick and his album on his website nickpanoutsos.com (https://www.nickpanoutsos.com)
And his Instagram @vegbass (https://www.instagram.com/vegbass)
Listen and purchase the CD of μÏŒνος on his Bandcamp page, nickpanoutsos.bandcamp.com (https://nickpanoutsos.bandcamp.com/releases)
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Photography by Ygor Lobo ygornyc (https://instagram.com/ygornyc)
Album artwork and design by Ash Suh (https://www.instagram.com/ashsuh)
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Randall King is the kind of artistic director that most theater companies dream of having. With a focus on the importance of the midsize theater companies and an ability to work both backstage and front and center, King has transformed San Jose Stage Company into one of the finest theaters in the area. In his 19 years with the company, King has directed nearly 200 plays and musicals, including 39 new works and 9 world premieres. King is also a veteran actor. Although he works mostly on stage, he’s appeared in a number of television series and films, including Mumford and The Rainmaker. Under King’s direction, San Jose Stage’s latest production We Are Proud to Present… is a dark comedy that revolves around the early 20th-century genocide of the Herero and Namaqua peoples in Namibia.
“At our level, if you’re not able to express yourself artistically because you’re stuck in some administrative job—you get frustrated. So I always try to find ways to give everyone in the company creative outlets. Having everyone suggest titles and help formulate the season gets them fired up about the plays we’re going to do. It generates an investment in what we are doing at a whole new level, and I think the audience gets more bang for their buck.”
The Stage’s long-awaited postponed production due to COVID-19.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning play erupts with biting wit. After the disappearance of their alcoholic patriarch, three sisters along with their partners, reunite in AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY to console their razor-tongued, drug-addled mother Violet. As the family careens toward a near-apocalyptic meltdown; old grievances are aired, family secrets unearthed, and new wounds are sowed. This provocative Tony Award-winning play unflinchingly—and uproariously—explores the challenge of escaping the inescapable.
Mattie Scariot became Director of PJIFF in 2018 and grew the festival to an 8-day regional festival including Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy, Hollister, and San Juan Bautista.
In our conversation, Mattie explains her vision for the festival, focusing on diverse, inclusive, and women empowering films and seven educational programs. We talk about her journey to be the director and some of the highlights of this year’s festival, which return to in-person events and screenings.
Find out more about PJIFF programs, events, and purchase tickets at PJIFF.org
This year’s festival begins on April 6th and runs through April 13th.
_______________________ This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141 Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
El Prado Fashion Showcase Evaro Italia
Tasteful and elegant, this show was a jewel. Flashes of Tuscany inspiration seeps between the seams. Fashionable details. People swarming their seats eager to see Evaro Italia Design director Eva Rorandelli’s latest designs, presenting ten looks of her latest collection set up in a European style showcase. Casual catwalks are separated by two looks at a time. High Society is the name of the show, which took place at the El Prado Hotel in downtown Palo Alto. This exquisite place was drenched in chic furniture and a polished aesthetic. During cocktail hour, the sound of clinks filled the balcony, accompanied by smiles with friendly conversation. Flashes from cameras and jewelry sparkled in the room.
“Ohs” and “ahs” gracefully crescendoed as Sarah and Vanessa from Scout Model agency in San Francisco walked Eva’s Designs. Evaro’s fashion showcase represented an appreciation for European beauty, architecture, and art. “Today, we feel close to Europe,” says Eva. Catherine Liang, Miss San Francisco 2022, was the hostess for the afternoon and added that she loves, “that each dress is custom-made, making you feel like it’s made just for you. Making it really special.” Her congenial presentation engaged the attendees as she introduced each new look while the models walked.
Dress 1: Anna Sequin Dress
Structured shoulders and a sensual, open back perfect for a holiday party or a red carpet event.
Dress 2: Lola Faux Leather Dress
Classic and eclectic take of “The Little Black Dress” with a bit of elevated edge meant to make an impression. Elegance, sophistication, and a statement..
Spring summer evening looks. The flavor of the Evaro Italia world where they make mostly couture gowns and have recently been experimenting with day wear and other types of garments.
Dress 3: Isabella Lace Gown
Scalloped open back and iridescent crystal collar. Hand-sewn, refined Italian lace.
Dress 4: Gina Silk Gown
Inspired by the rolling hills of Tuscany and the geometric architecture of its cathedrals. Juxtaposed textures with soft and hard lines with rhinestones to give a glamorous silhouette.
Dress 5: Acqua Denim Top and Capri Pants
A day look from the resort collection perfect for your next vacation. Featuring pearl-embellishments. Inspired by the sea and riviera of Italy. The sand, the water, the beach, and used materials that remind you of that. Bicolor of beige and gray Denim. It’s all about pearls and is the main focus of this season’s collection.
Dress 6: Perla Cocktail Dress
Hundreds of pearls and rhinestones sewn into the fabric with sheer mesh back. More elegant and perfect for a night out. Or a romantic stroll with the dress dazzling under the moonlight.
Dress 7: Foresta Lace Gown
Dreamy gown with delicate hand-beaded rhinestones onto the lace of the corset and skirt. Inspired by the natural elements of Italy’s countryside and seaside.
Dress 8: Foresta Multicolor Sequin Dress
Shimmering sequin and lace dress that is form-fitting. Red carpet piece.
Dress 9: Toscanella Gown
Created for the Toscanella by Evaro Eau de Parfum advertisement film. Hand sewn. Just like how flowers grow, each with a unique and one-of-a-kind fit. With fantasy and divine feel to it. Accompanied by a headpiece and shoes that surely complete the look.
Dress 10: Open Back Lace Bridal Gown
Elegant yet simple with a backless silhouette meant to stop others in their tracks while illuminating the room.
The showcase was dazzling. The twists and turns of the models made Eva’s garments flow so nicely – allowing you to envision them on and where you would wear them. Bags and jewelry were available at the show as well. Eva had two pearl necklaces called the Day Pearl Necklace with lapis and baroque pearls and the Night Pearl Necklace with onyx and Akoya pearls. All of which were made by hand by her artisans in Florence. Eva’s couture clothing collections designed to be one-of-a-kind are great heritage pieces, as Catherine mentions at the show’s end. They contributed to the uniqueness and timeless aesthetic of Evaro, which wowed the crowd as the show ended with a roaring round of applause.
Six-year-old Yolanda Guerra sat at the dining room table with a Dick-and-Jane elementary-level reader. The strong, bold print matched her growing confidence as she strung words into sentences. Her father sat next to her and watched her read. “Mija, what is it about? Tell me.” She started saying the sentences out loud. “Which word is that on the page?” he asked. “What’s that word?” he pointed, “and that word?” She looked at him, and he said, “Mija, I don’t know how to read.”
At 18, for a graduation present, Yolanda received money from her father. She spent it all on buying novels. “When he asked what I got, he started crying. My father and I were connected intuitively. He created a space for both of us to learn.”
Gratitude for her father inspired one of Yolanda’s most well-toured pieces, “Love, Strength, Will and Power of Protest (Little Iron Vagina),” an installation work in which a small iron with a glowing, red center sits atop an ironing board. Flanking the brave little machine, two wooden panels with handwritten cursive describe a memory from the early ’80s, when Yolanda was 13 and her older brother demanded she iron his shirt. When her refusal escalated into an argument, and her mother sided with her brother, her father stepped in and freed Yolanda from the outdated expectation that women must cater to men.
“My father and I were connected intuitively. He created a space for both of us to learn.” -Yolanda Guerra
Much of Yolanda’s art explores the culture she inherited from previous generations. For example, one of her works-in-progress is an untitled textile sculpture about dismantling shame, for herself as much as her mom and dad. “My parents were hit in elementary school for speaking Spanish,” Yolanda explains. “I need to let go of the guilt my parents had.” As a child of assimilation, her English is fluent, but her Spanish is hesitant. “I have students who ask, ‘You’re Mexican–how come you don’t speak Spanish?’ We have to talk about the colonizer!”
A full-time artist with her own studio at the Alameda Artworks, Yolanda has been teaching art for eleven years. Born in San Jose as the youngest of nine, she chose to pursue her BFA in Art while her classmates became engineers or graphic illustrators. She found an affinity for writing, which she sometimes embroiders into her artwork: her own words mix with those of Pablo Neruda and Sandra Cisneros in “She Gave Birth to Joy and Poetry,” a sculpture composed of a zip-up cloth tissue-box with smooth, dried flaps of colorful acrylic paint and butterflies. Its satin lining contains lines of poetry celebrating the beauty, depth, and functions of the vagina.
Many of her recent pieces are woodblock prints about families separated from their children. Yolanda sees these works as healing for herself and possibly for many others as well. “I want to show love and hope and pain, but pain in a way that people can see the beauty of family, of Mexican people,” she says. “I want to be some kind of voice for people who are not always heard.”
“I think that’s why I’m a teacher too,” Yolanda reflects. “Each time I walk into a classroom, I want to honor the teachers I had.” During her time at Evergreen Valley College, which Yolanda attended for junior college before San Jose State, she found creative women professors who were “kind and open to people’s craziness.” The instructor whom she dubs her “first art mama” once told her, “You have to follow your own path. Because if not, what kind of life would that be?”
And so, Yolanda expresses her truth in every way she can. She reminds her city it was once a farming community; it can continue to innovate without exacerbating wage gaps. She sheds tears each summer as another class of students graduates; she makes art about them, wishing them well. And eventually, confirmations arrive at the door. Her students return to their art mama and tell her they still enjoy drawing or painting or printmaking. And Yolanda rests assured she’s at the right place in life. “Whatever pulls me in the direction of where I need to be, I follow that. Despite whatever situations are around. That’s just my way of living.”
#77 – Amanda Rawson- Project Manager and Researcher Director for Art Builds Community
Amanda Rawson has participated in the cultural art sector for more than eight years. Previously, Amanda worked as the Major Gifts Officer for the San Jose Museum of Art and the Donor and External Relations Manager at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. Rawson’s background in art history, development, and program management enables her to create spaces that bring together the community. She is a founding member of San Jose Arts Advocates. She was the chair of genArts Silicon Valley, a program of Silicon Valley Creates dedicated to empowering creative individuals and emerging arts leaders through professional development, advocacy, and networking.
In our discussion, we talked about Amanda’s path to becoming the project manager and research director of Art Builds Community, her role, and the work they have been doing for the County of Santa Clara Office of Women’s Policy on a project called Womanhood.
People came to slay at the ten-year anniversary Pick-Up party for Content Magazine. Phones were out recording the vibes and rhythms of the performers. The atmosphere of the chilled air invoked the many layers of long sleeves and coats. Ten years of spreading creative content through the imaginative process of art and creativity. Walking around San Pedro Square Market, where the event was held I noticed the brilliance of the creative community. Vendors were displayed their work, featured community members mingled about while Photographers caught every moment as I approached individuals whose outfits I wanted to capture.
The outfits displayed the coming out of the winter season and transitioning into spring. Vests were the noticeable item that many people who attended were wearing. Windbreaker vests, furry vests, and denim vests. Cozy and stylish enough for the occasion. The perfect garment for this time of year. I also noticed that hats were worn all throughout the evening. Mostly beanies with a few dad hats and snapbacks, but the coolest hat type was the fedora. As the South Bay consists of so many different groups of people, the older crowd brought out their best fedoras and sported a “jazz cat” look–to quote Chine Slender. As with the previous Pick-up Party, individuals were wearing the MFA uniform style as well as streetwear. MFA or (jazz cat) had a mixture of styles. The more traditional, like what Kevin Peth was wearing and others with their own personal spin on it like Francisco Graciano and Abe Menor were wearing. Long duster jackets were still worn widely throughout the evening (similar to issue 14.1 Pick-Up Party). Maylea, Shannon, Arely, Joe, Kathryn, and Vincent are all rockin’ this style in their own unique way.
People’s outfits express parts of themselves they want to expose. Engaging conversations were sparked by some individuals wearing the same designer brand. Other friendly chats stemmed from compliments and acknowledgments of some really cool outfits locals wore. I love this because it provides a unique connection purely from the clothes people are wearing, which has the potential to lead to new friendships and connections. They bring out the creative side of people. How they express themselves and how they want to be interpreted by others. Sharing style and taste for fashion are some of the essential things fashion has to offer the community. Many of the attendees were dressed in all-black attire; each one had their own specific way that was different from another on how they styled it. Vincent, Melody, Joe, and David were all in black but David gave the punk vibes; Vincent had that high fashion feel, while Melody and Joe strutted the streetwear looks.
While on this exciting journey of diving deep into what the South Bay style looks and feels like, I’ve gathered that we do have unique styles. There is importance to how we South Bay Areas dress. Even how we accessorize. From Arely’s “Causin Ruckus” bag to Kung Fu Vampire’s blood-red shades. The evening was full of patterns and color and some floral designs, too as we creep closer to spring. I had such a blast interacting with everyone last Thursday at the Pick-Up party. San Jose really showed up and expressed themselves through the aptitude of personal fashion style.
Look for my future post about my conversation with Araceli Vizcaino, the owner, and operator of a thrift store called Thrill of the Luxe. We talk about the importance fashion has in our community. What the power of fashion can do and contribute to the interconnectivity of our community. Feel free to comment on Instagram and share this post with friends. See you at the next Pick-Up party.
When Abby Bettencourt thinks about describing her creative process, she imagines a carousel. She envisions a steady rotation of ideas circling through her mind, like the ornate rides at fairs and amusement parks. The ideas glide by, passing out of view to ruminate in the background, then resurface once more for assessment and reinterpretation. Nothing is ever fixed, but always in motion and guided by the fluidity of change.
Abby’s journey within the art industry has been circuitous, following her development as a spatial artist and contemporary jewelry maker. Now she has come full circle, entering the next phase in her career as volunteer director of the 6th Street Studios and Art Center in downtown Gilroy.
Growing up as a Gilroy native, Abby loved to craft with her mother. “She kind of spurred me working with my hands,” she explains, recalling the days of polymer clay, knitting, and baking Shrinky Dinks. Once she discovered the limitless possibilities of three-dimensional art, there was no turning back.
Abby went on to pursue her BFA in spatial arts at SJSU, where she became immersed in the community as a practicing artist and a conduit for others’ creativity. On campus, she led the Jewelry and Small Metals Guild, cultivating opportunities for members to exhibit and sell their work or to share resources in their craft. She was an art preparator for the Institute of Contemporary Art and simultaneously held the role of creative director and curator at Social Policy in downtown San Jose. There she played a pivotal role choreographing exhibitions with First Friday events showcasing local artists in the SoFA district.
“I couldn’t have done it without embracing the community.” -Abby Bettencourt
When it came time for her BFA project, Abby was well-prepared. She visited each section of spatial arts at SJSU, learning everything from how to plaster silica molds to annealing glass. Everyone in her life got involved in some capacity, including Abby’s father, friends, and roommates. Even the vintage table used for her sculpture’s foundation had been passed down from Abby’s grandparents. The finished piece was exhibited at Social Policy, symbolizing the coalescence of her artistic growth and collaboration with others. “I couldn’t have done it without embracing the community,” she says.
Two years later, Abby came across 6th Street by pure serendipity. She found a post on Craigslist at the end of 2020 listed by founder Emily.McEwan-Upright—the studio needed an intern and Abby knew its location well. “I severely missed all the art organizing I did in downtown San Jose. So, after I toured the space and met Emily, I offered to help out where I could. The center’s mission is simple: to provide an inclusive and financially accessible creative space for artists of all disciplines,” she says.
The studio building itself has already lived many lives. Originally designed as a Studebaker dealership in the 1940s, it was later used as an auction showroom, then a window and shades shop during the 1990s. At one point it was a branch for Hope Services, a support agency for disability and mental health. It even acted as headquarters for the Gilroy Dispatch. Over the decades, its walls and mid-century façade have changed little, but the operations within have adapted to the community around it. Now the center is gaining momentum once more, this time with Abby adding to its story.
The pandemic poses an exceptional challenge, affecting how the center can engage with the public. “Everyone is apprehensive about going out and about, and rightly so,” she says. It’s also been a matter of tapping into the local creative community—bringing people together.
A variety of artists have already rented studios through the center’s residency program—ranging from illustrators, oil painters, graphic designers, musicians, ceramicists, screen printers, and a soap and candle maker. Some are local, some commute from San Jose, Hollister, or Santa Cruz. The exhibits draw from this rich resource of talent, displaying seasoned and emerging artists alike who work in a symphony of mediums. The center even partners with local schools for group shows to strengthen Gilroy’s arts education.
Then there’s the monthly art walks, designed to explore the arts and culture scene developing in the historic downtown district. Likewise for the center’s art market events, which celebrate small business artists while giving hobbyists and crafters time in the spotlight.
Abby describes 6th Street’s operations as delicately balanced. She has several projects waiting in the wings between the schedule for exhibits and open studio days. Eventually she would like to integrate her own expertise by instructing workshops on jewelry making or enameling, hoping to ease people past feelings of intimidation, so they can flourish in the craft. The possibilities are endless.
True to her process, Abby brings back all the artistic wisdom and confidence gained from her creative journey thus far, putting a new spin on something familiar.
Article originally appeared in Issue 14.2 “SIght and Sound”
The San José Arts Advocates Nobody was stepping up to just keep [the arts] organized.” –Peter Allen
On January 1, 2020, California Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) went into effect. The goal of the bill is to limit the ability of companies to classify workers as contractors rather than employees. The bill was inspired by the gig economy vital to companies like Uber, Lyft, and Door- Dash, who classify their drivers as contractors, avoiding minimum-wage laws, labor protections, unemployment benefits, and other employee aid. Another sector of the work force that will be hit by the bill are artists and those that hire them to do project-based work. San Jose’s visual artists, dancers, musicians, singers, and actors are being involved with unknown consequences or possible benefits. This bill has been a topic among many in the local arts scene, and one that comes up when talking with the newly formed grassroots group, San José Arts Advocates (SJAA).
The SJAA is a collaborative effort across many involved in the cultural landscape of California. In an area globally known for technological innovation, the role the arts play in San Jose can get lost, voiceless. The group is a central voice for arts advocacy and education in San Jose and is planning ways to address the impact of AB 5 and many other policies and issues permeating the arts. The core team of SJAA has come together from various factions of the arts community—Peter Allen (former San Jose Arts Commission chair), Brendan Rawson (executive director of San Jose Jazz), Julia Canavese (GenARTS Silicon Valley), Eileen Beckley (Santa Clara County Office of Education), “Mighty” Mike McGee (Santa Clara County poet laureate), Ron P. Muriera (board member of California Arts Advocates and Californians for the Arts), Amanda Rawson (public art consultant), Yori Seeger (School of Visual Philosophy), and Eva Smith Glynn (Flash Fiction Forum). With each member working in their separate corners of the political system on behalf of the cultural foundation of San Jose, the SJAA was born over years of discussion in the meeting rooms and hallways of San Jose. As member Peter Allen says, “Nobody was stepping up to just keep [the arts] organized. We certainly would go to city council meetings and commission meetings and lobby, but we were finding we were getting information late. We were having to organize last minute and couldn’t really organize groups of speakers, cohesive talking points, messaging, and getting white papers and letters to council members well in advance of the meeting.”
I don’t want to be your grant writer. I want to teach you how to grant write. –Ron Muriera
As more private development comes to San Jose, so does another issue. Neighboring cities have a percentage of private development costs set aside for public art, but San Jose does not. The SJAA hopes to have a seat at the table as the process of the city’s annual budget moves forward and discussions like these take place. The group will also focus on educating the community about the current state of the arts. As member Ron Muriera explains, “A lot of folks don’t understand that arts education is supposed to be a requirement in all school districts in California, and very few school districts are offering any type of arts education, which means they’re noncompliant; but parents are not educated on the fact that we have one arts class in our school. If we help them understand that they can voice that at their school board, change can happen.”
Education is a major goal of the group. Most artists are not well versed in the opportunities available to them through grants and fellowships and how the application process works. The SJAA wants to fix that by building a hub for those resources. The core team members all have experience writing and reviewing grants and want to teach that language to those it would be most useful to. A host of grant writing workshops around the city, Muriera says, “I don’t want to be your grant writer. I want to teach you how to grant write.”
The San José Arts Advocates officially went live Saturday, February 15 at the School of Visual Philosophy with the team’s inaugural event, Creating Change: Arts and San José Politics, where local artists showcased work inspired by the current political climate and the primary elections.
The 10th Anniversary of Content Magazine issue 14.2 Pick-Up Party was an exciting evening of culture and community that celebrated many talented artists and passionate art lovers. Live music, laughter, and happy chatter filled the air of San Pedro Square Market and brought the night alive as new and familiar faces came to celebrate together.
BAUNFIRE’s photo-booth and Content specialty drinks specially prepared by the San Pedro Square Market Bar for the event both left behind fond memories to be treasured for years to come. To date, our largest Pick-Up Party featured artists from around the South Bay Area with hundreds of guests, including California State Representative Ash Kalra, who presented Content Magazine with a Resolution the ten years accomplishment of highlighting local creatives.
Daniel Garcia, Founder and Cultivator of Content Magazine, and Juan Sanchez, Founder and Creative Director of BAUNFIRE, toasted the success of Content Magazine and looked to the future with raised glasses from smiling guests of the South Bay’s key creatives.
We at Content Magazine are grateful to all the artists, partners, members, and community for your support in this project to give visibility to the artist of Santa Clara County.
Thank you all for ten years! Here’s to (at least) ten more.
Event Musicians: @bennettjazzkeys, @lidiapeacelovesax, @the408collectivemusic. Featured Artists: @caiakoopman, @alexknowbody, @farrantabrizi, @ezramara1, @nicolastela, @j.duh, @teejay5992, @benjamin_dobbin_art, @mrharada, and @gmrartstudio. Event Partners: @baunfire, ABIERTO, @spsmarket, @stuarteventrentals, @voyagercraftcoffee, @soskiphotobooth, and @sanjosejazz
Ezra Mara was born in Russia, where she received her MFA before moving to the US more than 20 years ago. Her work has been shown in galleries across the country, as well as in Moscow. Her quarantine oil-on-canvas series, Ana’s Days, shows the same woman posing against a variety of backgrounds, her expression stoic and resigned.
“I, as never before, felt and saw how our ‘raw’ reality turns into what we call ‘life’ only when filled by human presence and human intentions,” explains Mara. “That gave me an idea to make a series of paintings where the same female character in the same outfit appears in each piece, only her poses and background changing. Her figure occupies a large space in the composition, which gives a feeling of a tightly confined space, a nod towards the situation of isolation.
“During the quarantine, we often wake up with the feeling that every new day repeats the previous one. For me personally, this feeling was an impetus to the realization that…we are solely responsible for our own lives. Even restricted by the four walls of our apartments, left without live communication, we must create our days again and again, filling them with meaning and beauty.”
Mara’s time in the crisis began with a transition from one health scare to another.
“In early March, I had a heart operation. The day after I was discharged from the hospital, quarantine was announced.” The first days and weeks were filled with fear and anxiety for Mara. She began making small drawings, one per day. The drawings gave her strength, and the feeling of uncertainty and confusion began to recede.
“The beautiful spring supported this state of my mind. I have never walked so much…never paid so much attention to the beauty around me. The walking route was short, and I watched the bloom of every tree, every bush, and every flower in my path.
“I did not feel the severity of isolation. I am a person who never gets bored staying alone. I had books, movies, video lectures. I had my paints and pencils, canvas and paper. I had social networking. My old friends living abroad became closer to me than my next-door neighbors. It so happened that due to the cancellation of a flight, our family reunited. I got an opportunity to enjoy the time spent with the whole family for a month and half.”
An artist’s role in moments like this, says Mara, is to use their talents to reflect “life on a raw canvas, so we are able through our internal resources to create our unique days, [to] make our days.”
Santa Clara County Office of Education‘s Sunol Community Day School has worked in partnership with SV Creates to guide students through collaborative processes to create murals that explore social justice themes. Students have created murals with themes such as racial justice, the COVID-19 pandemic and essential workers, immigrant rights, and the wrongfully incarcerated. These murals not only provide a platform for their voice and expression but also allow for a sense of accomplishment and pride in this visual representation of an important social justice issue they can relate to.
Abolish Ice This mural was designed by students from South County Community School. Mostly students from Morgan Hill and Gilroy, they have strong ties to migrant workers and families. Migrant workers travel the country to pick fruits and vegetables when in season from California to the East. The artists wanted to honor migrant workers. Migrant workers did not stop working during the COVID-19 pandemic. This challenging work became even more dangerous during the pandemic. In the piece you can see images of the workers, a set of rising fists in many shades and ‘your voice matters’. This piece was used to promote participation in the census and voter registration for youth.
Key Vocabulary Census: an official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details of individuals. Migrant Worker:a person who moves to another country or area in order to find employment, in particular seasonal or temporary work. Pandemic: (of a disease) prevalent over a whole country or the world.
Suffrage Centennial Women’s suffrage, the legal right of women to vote, was established nationally in the United States with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in August 1920. The artists who designed this piece wanted to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of women having the right to vote. In the same year, they wanted to show, the world was experiencing the challenge of the pandemic and racial tensions. Honored in this mural are women suffragettes, migrant laborers, and African American civil rights heroes.
Key Vocabulary Centennial: 100 year anniversary. Suffrage: the right to vote. Suffragette: women fighting for the right to vote in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
First Responders The title of this piece honors those who fought for attention to the challenges of their people in many different ways. On the football field players chose to draw attention to inequities by taking a knee during the national anthem. In communities across the country, citizens took to the streets to protest unfair treatment from the police and justice system. In hospitals, nurses continue to put themselves at risk daily to support those in need. This mural captures the tension our nation experienced in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. The COVID-19 pandemic, shelter-in-place, and protests against police violence all contributed to this tense time period.
Key Vocabulary First Responder: someone designated or trained to respond to an emergency. Shelter-in-place: the act of seeking safety within the building one already occupies. Tension:mental or emotional strain.
Healers This piece features a collage of civil rights leaders. Racial healing takes many forms. Some participate in protest. Some leaders fight for justice through direct action. Some create art. Pictured here is Mahatma Gandhi. He used non-violent protest to win the independence for the people of India from the British Empire. Following in his footstep,Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used non-violence to fight for civil rights for African-Americans in the United States. During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Cesar Chavez worked tirelessly to bring attention and fair pay and working conditions to farm workers.
Key Vocabulary Non-Violence: the use of peaceful means, not force, to bring about political or social change.
Frida Kahlo This piece features a collage of civil rights leaders. Racial healing takes many forms. Some participate in protest. Some leaders fight for justice through direct action. Some create art. Pictured here is Mahatma Gandhi. He used non-violent protest to win the independence for the people of India from the British Empire. Following in his footstep,Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used non-violence to fight for civil rights for African-Americans in the United States. During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the US national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Cesar Chavez worked tirelessly to bring attention and fair pay and working conditions to farm workers.
Key Vocabulary Identity: the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is. Class: the system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on perceived social or economic status.
Walking into the Dark Horse Gym into the crowd of fashion influencers bobbing their heads to the catwalk tunes overplaying the chatter and whispers of casual conversation. It’s a full house. Lights spill on the walls and tops of heads with dangling jewelry flashing and lines of contour telling stories of the past. Chine Slender, the show’s architect, speaks on the microphone to notify that the show is about to begin. The lights dim as there’s a shift in music. A crew is gathering at the entrance. Silhouettes of models dance in the dark. The lights come on, and out come the first model as they step onto the runway. The 8th Lake Fashion Show on February 4th, 2022, was a night to remember.
Chinedu Emeahara, a.k.a Chine Slender, is a San Jose local who broke through the art world with his music back in 2018. (Read more about it in issue 13.3 Perform.) He says he’s always been interested in expressing his style through clothes. As he traveled around the country to conventional fashion hubs like New York, he felt inspired to take his experiences and put them into something he could share with others. Thus he was motivated to connect with local designers to create a fun show that stood for something. “San Jose, even though it’s far from being a fashion hub, has the population and potential to get more into fashion and use fashion to build community and connect with others. The rest of the world already knows of the Bay and how influential we are, but when it comes to fashion, it’s much harder to come by,” says Chine, recognizing the importance and power of fashion.
Chine looks at clothes like time capsules. They document the times and eras of a generation, social moments, and sometimes an individual staple. They reflect the times and capture what was popular and defining culture. “When it comes to south bay style, since it is such a melting pot, you’re going to get so many different looks and styles, it’s really when people step outside of those limits is when you start to get the outliers who are the ones who actually define the fashion,” says Chine. “How they’re wearing it is just as important as what they’re wearing.” Chine defines the south bay style into five categories. Chollo, hypebeast/streetwear, jazz cat, suburban, and skater. These are observations by Chine and how he and his community relates to them.
Fashion moves and shifts, and how we dress ourselves and interpret others’ attire is an exchange—a story of emotion, experience, and personality. I want to provide a space for us South Bayers to consider and express ourselves through the creative outlet of fashion and dress. We are a melting pot of cultures, which reflects through our style. Every day or week, a new trend can erupt, and the fashion industry can shift. Here in the South Bay, how we wear our clothes paired with how the wearer expresses their outfit defines our unique and specific style. Other factors contribute as well. Like geography, weather, what kind of social events people are attending, and what type of community we have. Fashion expression is a way to tell the world a bit about yourself- it shows us what you’re all about.
Through my journey of defining what South Bay Style looks like, I’ve encountered creative people who are pushing the fashion scene in San Jose forward. What individuals wear to events sets the tone for what’s in and what isn’t, which is why a fashion show has the impact necessary to stimulate brilliance and bind a neighborhood together.
Watch the full 8th Lake Fashion Show here and get involved.
Feel inspired to wear something that represents a bit about who you are. Have fun with it. In our next post about defining what South Bay Style looks like, I sat down with Araceli Vizcaino, who is the owner and operator of Thrill of the Luxe. We talked about the importance and influence of expressing your unique style and some of its difficulties.
Chollo: Dickies, cut off, high socks, cortezs and a plain white t-shirt. Very narrowed color scheme.
Hypebeast/streetwear: Screen printed pants, shirt, and/or accessory. Including expensive t-shirt brands like Supreme.
Jazz Cat: Some type of vest blazer, collared shirt or v-neck, black skinny jeans and doc martens. Colors are usually on the darker end. Usually gray or black.
Suburban: an expensive tote bag, usually Gucci, Balenciaga, or Louis Vuitton monogram Louis, with some platform heels and a modern trench coat. And you’ll see them in hubs. Generally around the two big malls, Oakridge and Valley Fair. Where most people shop.
Skater: a combination of cholo, streetwear/hypebeast and jazz cat style. When they skate they’re comfortable. Cut jeans or dickies, with a supreme t-shirt and the somber and darker colors which all come from the other categories.)
These photos are meant to inspire and express what the fashion influencers of the South Bay are styling and dressing.
When you first hear “CVNT KALL ME BRO,” the sheer force of the two-minute onslaught feels like the sonic equivalent of running into a brick wall.
There’s so much to process in an instant. If you’re not first floored by the peaking, pounding bass and delicate bells of the jackhammer beat, then the screamed opening lines certainly snatch your full attention. A few seconds later, you realize bewilderment is exactly the reaction rapper Chine Slender (real name Chinedu Emeahara) is hoping for, because four bars into the song, it backspins right back to the top, a built-in re-load.
“The angst was high,” he recalls of the night that set the tone for recording the song. “My homie was definitely influencing me to just scream my lungs out. I was feeling anxious, energized, and rageful, ready to pretty much attack—not someone, but attack life in a way, I guess.”
Energy is a key part of Chine Slender’s sonic signature. After being mesmerized by the first mosh pit he ever saw at a backyard metal show in his teens, he now urges fans to open their own pit once things hit a fever pitch. His wide range of influences, which draws as much inspiration from the SoundCloud rap of the late XXXTentacion as contemporary metal giants System of a Down, explains why the response he hopes for is rooted more in rock than rap.
While his heavier moments loom large on Worlds Away From Limbo 97, he also presents a new side of himself on the 7-song set, released this past January. The more melodic rapping on his first solo EP seems to draw inspiration from the contemplative lyricism normally found in emo and alternative. On the brooding “Worldz Away,” where he’s accompanied by a spare guitar and a slowly pulsing 808 kick, he raps “Maybe I’m a curse / or a cancer, where my stars is,” his dark contemplation drawing a parallel with the work of Canadian DIY rapper Golden BSP or the late Lil Peep.
If the project feels oddly eclectic, that’s because Chine’s a good snapshot of hip-hop’s zeitgeist. It’s a genre in transition, where the pop success of Drake has brought melody more fully into lyrical delivery, and the rise of new age stars like Lil Uzi Vert has brought a new emo introspection to a musical style that has never been huge on sharing its feelings.
“I figure that a lot of people—and me especially—deal with the anxiety that uncertainty brings,” explains the 23-year-old when speaking on the title of his album (the number 97 alludes to the year he was born). “[The title is] the fact that you’re worlds away from your uncertainty. I feel like the project itself had a lot to do with me coming into who I [am].”
That transition was partly aided by psychedelic experiences, a dynamic that plays heavily into the visual of his video for “Down.” Such experiences gave him the space to sit more comfortably with what he labels his “demons,” which led to better recognizing and accepting the balance inherent in life—light existing with darkness, joy sitting alongside pain. “It definitely has influenced a lot of the way I think—the music that I make and the sound I go for as well,” he shares.
Though Chine marks 2016 as the official beginning of his music career, 2018 was the watershed year for his career thus far, with songs like “Get It” and “Lane Switch” racking up tens of thousands of plays on SoundCloud. That notoriety led to shows throughout the Bay Area and even performances in LA and Reno. In 2019, he released Take Off, a collaborative EP with rapper Lo-So and producer JR Beatz.
His musical momentum was halted in the fall of 2019, when he moved to Virginia to attend Norfolk State University. At the urging of a friend, he auditioned for the school’s homecoming concert, and impressed the judges enough to earn a spot opening for Lil Durk in front of the whole school, a moment that proved to be his East Coast breakthrough.
That rise didn’t come without a little culture shock. “Some of them didn’t know what to do because they never felt it—they didn’t know what a mosh pit was,” he explains. He didn’t sweat it, chalking up the experience to simply working out kinks in the crowd. “Eventually, after my second show out there, I was getting the mosh pit ready. Now they knew how to rage.”
Since returning to San Jose in the wake of COVID lockdowns, there haven’t been many chances to connect with audiences back in his hometown—with one notable exception. As part of a Martha Street Art Night, he summoned a mosh pit when debuting “CVNT KALL ME BRO +.” In the spirit of social distance and in a nod to his punk spirit, he did so on top of a van.
A mixed-media artist and one of the artists selected for City of San Jose’s the first Creative License Ambassador in the program’s pilot year, Corinne Okada Takara composes technology-integrated projects and crafts sculptural work out of elegant yet mundane materials, like silk, food wrappers, newspapers, and plastic produce netting. “The sculptures explore the pulling apart and reassembling of modern-day artifacts,” she explains on her website, Okada Design. “I am fascinated by the resulting textures and colliding and merging stories.” Increasingly, this creative has found her art extending beyond self-expression and toward interactive engagement. Her workshops for museums, libraries, and classrooms act as a bridge ushering others into the realm of creativity. She describes her job as “giving people a canvas to work on,” adding that it equips them with “confidence in their own creative voices.”
“I think it’s important we play together in our public spaces.” -Corinne Okada Takara
Takara’s project, Layers of SJ, revolved around stickers—a medium she finds both “playful and inviting.” Each sticker contained an image of an artifact representing the San Jose community, past and present, and the public was encouraged to incorporate these into collages. Though Takara gathered a number of images from library and museum collections, as well as with her camera, she also enlisted community involvement by welcoming anyone to submit pictures. The Layers of SJ booth sparked conversations between strangers who couldn’t help discussing (or puzzling) over images, swapping stories, or pondering possibilities for symbolic objects from their own neighborhoods. “I think it’s important we play together in our public spaces,” Takara shares.
Murder most malicious has transpired at the City Lights Theater Company—and we couldn’t be more delighted about it.
The theater is showcasing its first ever murder mystery performance and they’re starting with a bang. The Hollow is a play written by the Queen of Crime herself, Agatha Christie, and takes the audience on a trip to the sunny English countryside… but there’s a storm coming. A body turns up. Detectives come knocking. A number of guns begin popping up in unexpected places. And a messy snarl of romantic relationships are uncovered. Who committed the crime? The movie star? The mistress?… Or did the butler do it?
Here are three reasons why you should consider buying yourself a ticket:
It’s Directed by an Agatha Christie Diehard
One reason The Hollow truly shines at City Lights is because it’s overseen by a self-proclaimed Agatha Christie “hyper-fangirl.” Ever since Director Doll Piccotto acted in one of Christie’s plays, she’s studied the author with the tenacity and thoroughness of a forensic investigator on a crime scene. Actually, she’s read her way through every single one of Christie’s books (no small feat considering the author published over 66 novels, not including all the plays and short stories).
“[Christie] has such an ability to lay out all the clues for you… [and] it’s so satisfying to watch those pieces all come together,” describes Piccotto. In fact, these clever plots and twist-endings earned the early 1900s novelist the Guinness World Records achievement of best-selling novelist of all time (an accolade not even JK Rowling has managed to take from her).
“You see pictures of her, and you see this demure little old lady… [But she] towed the line when it came to convention,” Piccotto laughs. For starters, she was one of the first English women who ever surfed… And then, of course, there was the time she framed her husband for her own murder.
Piccotto explains that Christie went missing right around the time her husband wanted to divorce her. “Her car was found on the edge of a quarry [with] some of her clothes in it. Of course, the husband’s the first one that’s suspected,” she says. “So they start digging into his past and discover his mistress, drag his name through the mud and the papers… And then, all of a sudden, they find [Christie] at this spa, chilling out! And she’s registered under her husband’s mistress’s name—which is just savage.” When the authorities questioned her about the incident, Christie feigned a case of amnesia, and the matter was dropped.
From such a curious mind is it any wonder her stories were one-of-a-kind?
You’ll Meet Some Intriguing Suspects
But out of Christie’s vast range of work, why specifically The Hollow? Piccotto shares that this script is one of Christie’s more psychological ones. “This play is about relationships,” she explains. “This is a play about how people interact with each other, the relationships they have, and how they develop.”
The cast has embodied the characters with enthusiasm. “They’re excited!” she says. “They’re reading extra source material… They’re really getting into the spirit of this murder mystery.”
Expect a particularly exceptional performance from actress Karen DeHart, who plays the flighty Lady Lucy Angkatell. Lucy, an older matron (and a repeat offender of the nonsequitur), chats about murder and sandwiches with the same offhanded air. And DeHart does a fantastic job of keeping you guessing whether she’s harmless or lethal.
Actress Caitlin Lawrence Papp also does a splendid job of playing the less than intelligent Gerda. Her eyebrows have a habitual way of shooting skyward in confusion and her wide-eyed way of gawking in alarm (whenever she can’t understand something) gives the impression of a chicken caught in the headlights.
In fact, the furtive glances, scrunched brows, and pained grimaces communicated by the entire cast add another psychological touch to the performance. Because of the intimate size of the theater, the audience can easily make out and scrutinize these reactions, drawing their own conclusions as to the meaning behind them.
“I hope we get a lot of amateur detectives out there ready to come and solve this mystery.”
You’ll Be Playing Detective
In a way, that intimate performance space also gives the audience the impression of being in the room with the suspects. It won’t take long before your brain starts “assisting” Inspector Colquhoun and Detective Sergeant Penny with your own theories on the investigation.
Piccotto explains classic whodunnits engage viewers in ways other plays don’t. “The audience is playing detective and that is exciting!” she says. “I hope we get a lot of amateur detectives out there ready to come and solve this mystery.”
She especially loves hearing folks swap theories during intermission—as well as their reactions to the Big Reveal. “When the audience gets it, when they finally realized who did it, there’s this wave—you can hear it. Somebody in the front row will just be like, “Ah, oh my gosh,’ and then you just hear it kind of ripple through the audience.”
But pitting your wits against crafty Christie is easier said than done. She had a way of making you second and third guess your assumptions, throwing in enough twists and turns to rival San Francisco’s Lombard Street. “Nothing was off the table for her,” Picotto laughs.
Her advice to all the amateur detectives? “Suspect. Absolutely. Everyone.”
Don your trench coat and step into the world of The Hollow before the show closes on March 6th.
Showtimes are Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
BBeing a comic in San Jose is not easy. Between getting on stage in front of a new audience every night, hoping for laughs; competing with other amateur and professional comics for the same slots; and trying to make the best of whatever ad hoc stage the venue put together for the comic’s set, it can be exhausting. Despite this pressure, comics Brian “BMo” Moore and Ruben Escobedo III decided to not only be comics in their own right, but to also take on hosting their own show, where five of the Bay Area’s best comedians compete against each other in a format that’s half improv, half standup, a dash of weirdness, and all laughs.
Pick Your Poison would never have existed if not for beer. Local San Jose breweries are a prime destination for finding comics at all levels of experience, who often hop between multiple venues in the same evening, performing during open-mic nights. BMo, who had never done any form of standup until three years ago, was exposed to comedy mainly from backstage. Having worked in the beer industry for over a decade, with a focus on events and marketing, BMo previously worked with comics to arrange open mic nights and other special events. When he met Ruben in 2018, BMo was working for Santa Clara Valley Brewing (now closed), where he had arranged a recurring local comedy night. “I had just started running shows in Santa Clara Valley Brewing,” said BMo. “I had maybe done three or four shows, and Ruben was at one of them as a performer. [After] the second time he performed, he came to me and said, ‘Hey, I want to do this show, and I got this idea for a prompt show.’” Unbeknownst to BMo, Ruben, an experienced comic in San Jose, had been toying with a new show premise for a while, but hadn’t yet found the right venue. “I’d pitched this show to other places, and they all said I had to talk to Brian at Santa Clara Valley. He’s the brewery comedy guy,” said Ruben. “And I was like, I don’t want to step on any toes, but I wanted to just talk with him.” It was that conversation where the show began to come to life.
Since January of 2019, Pick Your Poison has hosted four seasons, with two seasons taking place each year. Before venues closed down due to COVID-19 in the spring of 2020, the show operated much the same way as Ruben originally pitched it to BMo. “So, usually, we have five comics,” Ruben explained. “Each comic is going to do two separate sets. The first set is completely improvised, based on envelopes they pull that me, BMo, and a couple other people have written prompts for.” The prompts, ranging from slightly vulgar to just plain random, are what set the show apart from others. A few past prompts include “Museum of Divorce,” “Why is Santa Wearing Daddy’s Watch?,” “Baby Yoda Is Overrated,” “Jesus’s Twitter Feed,” and “Accidental Adoption.” How each comic responds, reading the prompts for the first time while on stage, determines if they have a shot at victory.
After the first half, each audience member votes on paper to pick their favorite comic of the five. Ruben recalled: “We’d have a halftime, which was usually just BMo or I just gabbing on stage, killing time while the other person counted.” BMo added, “Then in the second season, we upgraded that…[having] like a very skilled comedian coming to do a set.” After the votes are tallied, the second half of the show begins. “Everyone comes back and does a second set, which is their prepared material, but the winner of the audience vote will ‘headline’ the show,” said Ruben. While the other comics get five to seven minutes for their final sets, the headline winner gets up to twenty minutes for their material to close out the evening. Later on, each season concludes with the winners of that season’s previous shows coming together for a final showdown. Most comedy shows don’t have the concept of seasons, but for Pick Your Poison’s format, it worked out perfectly to have a conclusive ending to a series of shows.
“When there’s somebody who’s on the cusp or someone who’s at maybe what I consider to be my level or a little above, I say, ‘Look, I wouldn’t book myself.’” –BMo
There is no money awarded for winning, although a season champion may get an old sports trophy or other random trinket as a prize. It’s far more important for Ruben and BMo that everyone, from the comics to the audience, and even the venue owners, is genuinely enjoying themselves. With BMo having experience from the management’s side and Ruben having more experience from the comic’s side, they empathize with everyone involved. They are the first people to tell you that improv is not easy for everyone, even experienced comics. Occasionally, they have had to turn comics away, for fear they wouldn’t be ready for the chaos of Pick Your Poison and wouldn’t have a fun experience being on the show. BMo walked through how they explain this. “When there’s somebody who’s on the cusp or someone who’s at maybe what I consider to be my level or a little above, I say, ‘Look, I wouldn’t book myself. I would never book me for this show to do the prompts.’ ” It’s not an easy conversation, but BMo and Ruben are trying to look out for the comics as much as the audience.
Normally, the show is hosted in Clandestine Brewing (featued in issue 10.3), but when COVID-19 sheltering-in-place began, Ruben and BMo thought they’d have to call off the third season. Then they had the idea of trying to use Zoom to host their show, and while they had to make some adjustments to the show’s format, overall, it was a huge success. It also allowed them to book other comics from across the country. Later in 2020, when minor league baseball was shut down, the duo had the idea to use BMo’s connections from his former brewery job with the San Jose Giants to host Pick Your Poison as an outdoor, drive-in comedy show, allowing them to host season four shows with a live audience. Guests drove around the outside edge of the field and parked to watch the performance right on home plate. Voting was all digital. Guests could scan a giant QR code off the stadium screen to cast their vote. Although plans for 2021 shows are still in development, both the Zoom and stadium format have proven to be fun and successful.
While you’d never know it from the confidence they have on stage and in real life, both BMo and Ruben admit they’ve had a lot of self-doubt as they’ve started out on this adventure. “Because we’re only a couple years in, we suffer from imposter syndrome all the time,” said BMo. “We never think we deserve to be where we are or who we’re with.” Although BMo may be relatively new to standup, and Ruben new to event hosting, there is no question they’ve come together to form the perfect hosting duo the San Jose comedy scene was looking for.
If you turn on the news for thirty seconds, you will find a myriad of things to fear- a recession, high unemployment rates, unstable corporations, uncertain state budgets, and Mother Nature gone berserk. How does one live in an environment of fear and change? If you stay tuned to the commercials, corporations and pharmaceutical companies have several solutions for sale.
Local artist Gianfranco Paolozzi has some interesting ideas about change, failure and the things we buy only to discard.
To Gianfranco, art reflects life. The materials he chooses, his process, and where he exhibits his works finds root in everyday life. He is directed by chance and his compass is his heart.
He uses recycled materials found in his immediate environment, rescuing things that would have been ignored or wasted. Yet his motivation is not to be a trendy “green” artist. Rather he captures in his work what he calls “intentional chances” and welcomes what others see as mistakes or failures.
He takes natural materials and make-up free photography subjects and “puts his imagination on top” in the form of liquid or linear markings. It is an emotional journal of his life that tells the story of a human being touched by chance.
I caught up with Gianfranco to discuss some of his recent bodies of work.
Markings Series
Gianfranco doesn’t write much so he invented a process he calls “markings” to journal his emotions. “I started to make the lines I wanted in the moment, line after line, repetition after repetition. The diary is a repetition of words- repetition of the letter ‘a,’ the letter ‘b,’ who knows how many times.”
He claims no day’s worth of markings is the same and he cannot recall the emotions or stories he writes from the day. It has to be felt in the moment.
“Sometimes people say ‘oh the lasagna was so delicious.’ But I cannot remember flavors, how the lasagna tasted a week ago. I’m pretty sure it was delicious but I cannot remember.”
Collagement Series
Gianfranco captures an environment over a period of time in a non-linear process that embraces chance. He takes a series of progressive photos from the ground to the sky over a period of a few minutes, mixes the photos up like a deck of cards, and then re-assembles them onto works he calls “collagements.”
“I live my art. It’s about chances. When I take a picture of your foot for example, who knows what’s going to happen by the time I get to your face. There’s the possibility no one will be there by the time I go to shoot the head or that a bird will fly over you. So what is interesting to me is when I combine those images, when I was shooting your foot, the bird wasn’t there yet.”
Roundels Series
People in San Francisco were surprised to learn Gianfranco’s series “Roundels” were not ceramics. When Gianfranco discovered discarded label and sticker paper rolls in the dumpsters at his day job, he fell in love and felt compelled to save them.
“I fall in love easy. I don’t know how I’m going to use these things, all I know is its wasted paper and they are round and I don’t know where to put them all.”
How he created the roundel was through necessity and chance.
“There’s a hard cardboard around the outside that compresses it maintains its nice round form. As soon as I took the middle out, the round paper starts to make some decision about how to go into the middle. In a few days they started to bubble and make their own movement. Two or three of them popped and I lost them. There were some with curves and I had to find a way to stop those things. If I don’t do something, I will lose all of them. I had a bucket of Elmer’s glue and I put it all over them. When I came back the next morning, solid! I had a nice Roundel that looked almost ceramic. It’s one of the most delicious experiments I’ve ever had.”
He put his markings on them, first in pen like his journals, and then in liquidized rubber.
Jack-in-the-Box Series
Gianfranco is filling up his studio with boxes from the kitchen to create a series of work based on the idea of the Jack-in-the-box. He takes pictures of a subject in the same method as his collagements, places them at random on the box, and then allows the shape of the box to dictate the shape of the work. He cuts off leftover photo corners and mimics any holes or cutouts in the box. Then he names the work after the subject such as “Kat-in-the-box” or “Lacey-in-the-box.”
Skating has quite the quirky history. The first recorded invention of skates was credited to an 18th century instrument maker and inventor. Wanting to make a memorable entrance to a masquerade, he arrived wobbling on primitive metal-wheeled boots while playing a violin—then promptly crashed into an expensive mirror. Skates gained in popularity, and almost two centuries later, the New York Roller Skating Association (NYRSA) converted a hotel dining room into the very first public roller rink. Over the years, the world has seen roller ballets and roller ballroom dancing, roller discos and roller derby bouts. Carhop waitresses of the ’50s wheeled milkshakes to parked convertibles. And German barmaids of the mid-1800s strapped on skates, too, traversing the length of sizeable taverns to serve beers.
It should come as no surprise, then, that today’s quad skaters continue to comprise a lively, colorful community. Take Chicks in Bowls (CIB), a worldwide collective of skaters (of all levels) with the mantra “shred ’til we’re dead.” This community—founded by a roller derby girl who answers to the alter ego Lady Trample—is dedicated to encouraging and swapping tricks with other quad skaters at meet-ups and making skate parks more inviting for all. To date, CIB boasts over 300 chapters around the globe.
Our local CIB chapter, headed by Lucila Chavez, can be spotted at skate parks across San Jose. One of their hangouts, Lake Cunningham Action Sports Park, is California’s largest skate park, with an array of bowl shapes, rails, and boxes, as well as the world’s longest full pipe. However, Lucila and her crew are particularly fond of Plata Arroyo, a scrappy east side skate park they’ve adopted, with the intention of cleaning away its trash and advocating for upgrades. “It takes all hands to make it beautiful and welcoming for all,” Lucila remarks.
Plata Arroyo’s graffitied bowls certainly differ from the pristine cement slopes at Cunningham, but there’s personality in that paint. Words in complex fonts, cartoon characters, and other tags in bright hues match the splashes of turquoise, canary yellow, and hot pink on laces and helmets sported by CIB skaters.
Besides badass tricks, attire allows skaters another outlet for expression. Skaters have plenty of ways to express identity by personalizing their looks—from Hello Kitty skates to heart toe stops, from stickers applied to helmets to pompoms, bows, and wings attached to laces.
Lucila expresses a preference for vintage dresses (with spandex) and bold red lipstick—along with her helmet, elbow pads, wrist guards, and kneepads, of course. “I let [new skaters] know, ‘Hey, safety is sexy.’ ” She tells them. “ ‘Be sure you tie your shoes. Be sure you’re checking your roller skates. Make sure they spin. This is how you clean them.’ ”
“I let [new skaters] know, ‘Hey, safety is sexy. Be sure you tie your shoes. Be sure you’re checking your roller skates. Make sure they spin. This is how you clean them.’”
CIB San Jose, like other Chicks in Bowls chapters, is not only a great support system for beginners, but also for two of the most underrepresented groups at skate parks: women and quad skaters. Lucila says the number of skateboarders and BMX riders catching air on the bowls greatly outweighs the number of quad skaters; it’s also common to see a single woman for every ten men. “It’s less intimidating for us to go in large numbers,” she notes. “Especially if girls are on roller skates…they’re gonna get eyed.”
When the CIB San Jose chapter isn’t grinding along Plata Arroyo’s edges or kicking up into ho-hos (handstands) on its ramps, they join fellow skaters for San Jose Skate Night. Every first Saturday, streaks of light from participants’ LED wheels zip across streets and sidewalks like urban fireflies. They make quite the memorable sight as they cruise (and sometimes conga) around the city while blasting the Bee Gees and Rick James from a 15-inch speaker on wheels (playfully nicknamed the “music stroller”).
Next time you drive past a skatepark, remember our resident rollers—women who sail and spin across cement as gracefully as ice skaters, women who wear bruises—not with embarrassment, but with the pride of battle scars gained from courageous acts—women who use wheels as a way of welcoming others into community.
Cuong Nguyen says that much of his career came to him by luck, but the hours of work he pours into his pieces say otherwise.
Nguyen’s paintings give the sense that if one were to reach out to the painting, one would be able to feel the texture of skin and the life that he imbues onto canvases, a feeling long associated with classical styles of painting. His work demands that viewers stop to study the portraits he paints in hopes of absorbing every detail into their minds. “It’s realism, but drawing humans doesn’t have to be so realistic,” says Nguyen. “It doesn’t have to be every wrinkle of the skin. I don’t go for that.”
He began his artistic career by participating in public street painting festivals, where he gained notoriety for extremely lifelike pieces made with pastel chalk on asphalt. After that, he started getting invitations to competitions all over the world thanks to his use of verdaccio, where one uses a green foundation to build skin tones from black, white, and yellow pigments.
After experimenting with different styles of painting, Nguyen gravitated back to realism, even when his friends questioned his inclination to use the style, as it was not popular at the time. “I do try different styles, but it goes nowhere,” says Nguyen. “Only thing I can say is you have to listen to your heart.”
His portraits have won him many awards and accolades over the years, but the one that remains the most significant to him is the Best of Show Award in a statewide painting competition at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara. The five-foot-tall oil painting of an impressively frowning friend (as well as the sheer size of it) certainly made judges stop and stare. “You have to play the game,” says Nguyen. “Make it big, make it bold, make a statement.” He says that award opened many doors for him and is what convinced him to quit his job as an icon designer at Yahoo in 2010.
For Nguyen, art has always been a part of life. Even at 10, he knew in his heart that he was going to be an artist. He remarks that he was very lucky to be the youngest child in his family, his parents having loosened up their expectations by then, allowing him to do whatever he wanted. “I think art chose me,” says Nguyen, “because I had no choice.”
However, he explains, growing up in poverty limited his access to resources for learning how to make art. “The only book I had is a very old book,” says Nguyen. “It’s a Vietnamese work talking about Leonardo da Vinci’s life.” He copied the pictures he saw there, learning from da Vinci himself in a way. Nguyen was later accepted into Saigon’s Academy of Arts but was, unfortunately, unable to attend once he emigrated to the US. When he arrived 30 years ago, Nguyen supported himself while studying at San Jose State University, working part-time at a French restaurant and as a graphic designer at The Mercury News. He earned a degree in illustration and soon after, in 2000, began working at Yahoo.
Nguyen also teaches workshops in exciting locations like Italy, Spain, and Mexico. “For me, the teaching is fun, because I think I was born to be a teacher,” says Nguyen. “But learning the different cultures is fun, too. It’s amazing to see people from all over the world.”
One of the most memorable workshops he’s taught was in his home country of Vietnam right before COVID-19 hit. Nguyen never expected to return to his homeland as a teacher or receive the warm welcome of his people. “It’s kind of an odd feeling when you go back to your own country and teach,” said Nguyen. He remarks that it also felt odd to be teaching in his mother tongue. He explains that he was used to speaking English when talking about his artistic process and methods.
“Teaching is a performance. You go on stage, you know what you have to say, and you keep saying that line forever,” says Nguyen. “And suddenly, that line has to be in a different language, and even in my own language, I couldn’t find some words to go with that.” In addition to his workshops around the globe, Nguyen also writes and posts video tutorials about his artistic process and techniques. When he teaches, he tries to share not only the techniques of his craft, but also the philosophy that guides his mind while creating art.
Love, passion, and feeling are three things out of innumerable ingredients that make the details in Nguyen’s work so captivating. To him, the portraits would otherwise feel dead. “If you don’t have the love and the passion, then you can’t get the soul,” says Nguyen. “When I do my work, all I can think of is how can I express the feeling.”
A 20,000 square-foot abandoned grocery store on State Street, between Third and Fourth Streets in Los Altos, has recently opened as a modern food hall after four years of planning and repurposing. The project was led by Los Altos Community Investments (LACI) founder and principal Anne Wojcicki, also of 23andMe. She envisioned transforming the space into a vibrant community hub and extension to the Los Altos Farmers Market. LACI partnered with Gensler’s San Jose office to bring that vision to reality.
Two of the primary designers on the project were Brian Corbett and Corinda Wong. They drew from their own life and design experiences to lead the charge to reuse and transform a dormant structure into a welcoming, flowing gathering place with hints of Santa Barbara. With Spanish colonnade elements, the space will be the home of various culinary offerings, including Taiwanese-Korean concept Bo Bèi, local Los Altos favorite Tin Pot Creamery, El Alto by Chef Traci Des Jardins, and even a teaching kitchen. With work done by local craftsmen like Terra Amico, Mission Bell, and hand-painted signs by Ben Henderson, the space is sprinkled with an eclectic mix of tiles to create a venue that Corbett and Wong are not only excited to see opening, but enjoying themselves.
How did you get started in interior design? Corinda Wong: I started by taking a career test in high school. Architecture, engineering, or accounting came up. My father said, “You would bore yourself to death going into accounting, so choose something else.” So, I just took a shot; I actually didn’t know what interior design was; it was closer to home in terms of college, San Jose State, compared to architecture. So, I went for that.
Brian Corbett: For me, I was always into art as a kid. And, similar to Corinda, I took a test in 11th grade, like career ideas, and it was either an architect, engineer, or psychologist. And I was always into building. So, whenever we had the homecoming parade, I was the one building the floats or leading that team. I was drawn to that. Architecture just always kind of seemed like where I wanted to go with things. And like, instead of going strictly into art, I wanted to kind of take it to the built environment.
I went to Buffalo University for my undergrad program, which is a great school. Because the economy dropped out in the 60s, this was kind of like an amazing big city that was, you know, not very populated. So much of the projects that we we’re doing, and the thought, was around revitalizing the city. I really developed a passion for cities at that point in time. Eventually, when I went to grad school at Columbia in New York, I worked for a few internships, doing high-end residential apartments and then got a job with a professor doing schools and community centers, which turned out to be a really great experience, and so much of it I found in New York, even though it’s architecture firms, they do a lot of interiors. And that was something I really hadn’t considered before.
But eventually, I married my wife, who I met in grad school. She’s from San Jose. And she wanted to move out here after we lived in New York for a few years. So we made the trek, and I began looking around for jobs. I found Gensler, a small office right downtown. I went in and interviewed; they were 15 people at the time. And that office, I guess, was really an outpost from when they were working on the airport. But they did mostly interiors. I kind of pivoted my career at that point in time. And over time, I really fell in love with it and making an impact on the spaces that people are in.
Corinda, how did you get to Gensler?
CW: For years, I worked in San Francisco for one design guy—for maybe eight or nine years. I was then part of that whole slump in terms of work slimmed down in the economy. So, I actually took some time off and explored floristry for a while.
I had a friend who had a friend who worked for Gensler in accounting. I wasn’t actually looking for a job, and she said, “Hey, just give me your resume.” I said, “Okay, here it is.” I got a call maybe eight months later, very randomly, from Kevin Schaefer in San Jose, and he said, “Hey, why don’t you come on in and let’s talk.” We talked for maybe two hours with him and the design director at the time, John Scouffas. And I wanted to come work for them. They were sort of this source of just a familial sense of what design could be. And it brought me back to San Jose, where I started my schooling, and it was great.
Gensler has several tech company clients, which means those projects are not visible to the public; what’s some of the places that you’ve worked on that are public?
BC: I think the first one we did was HanaHaus (456 University Ave, Palo Alto). That was actually similar to the State Street Market project in some respects. It was the old Varsity Theatre that later became a Borders bookstore and then sat abandoned for many years…That kind of partnership with working space, high-end retail, and coffee really draws people together. So, reactivating that courtyard felt really good as well. And every time we go by there, that place is packed. MiniBoss (52 E Santa Clara St, San Jose) is another one of those enjoyable projects, and those guys are great.
CW: I’d say Moment in the parking garage by San Pedro Square Market. We were part of the original planning way back years ago. Some projects take a long time to come to fruition. But it’s great when you see people interact. It’s great to see the excitement when you bring life back to a corner, or especially to spaces that have been abandoned. HanaHaus was an empty theater, the corner where MiniBoss is was dormant—so that is very rewarding.
What are some of the unique aspects of the State Street Market?
BC: I think a plus is that we’re able to reuse the existing building. Though that’s probably a plus and minus. We can get into that. But, definitely a plus from a sustainability point of view. It might have been cheaper to knock this thing down and rebuild it, but it would be a whole lot less sustainable. We save a ton of carbon by repurposing it.
And, keeping that authentic feel in Los Altos, I think there would have been a lot of hesitation to have something new and modern, or potentially larger here—so, keeping that same authentic vibe, but bringing it back to life in a different way.
CW: There has been a lot of sort of sensitivity on that. I think the location was the first thing. Usually, in architecture and design, when it’s brand new, you’re picking the right spot; this location was already here. They had a vision that it would be an extension to the Farmers Market. And that created those first design triggers of what the storefront and facade could be, how that can invite people in. I think that was the initial sort of pluses. It had the bones, though it had a couple of decades of modification. To lose the story within it would be just a travesty.
BC: The building itself is pretty interesting. It was like a one-story grocery store, like mid-century modern, kind of built in the 50s. And it was covered up, later adding a second story and turned into this kind of mission-style building.
What was nice about it, like when Corinda talked about its bones, there’s a central dome that used to be there that gives you that big grocery feeling. When that was opened up, it just lent itself to this community space. I think that was something that definitely worked out well for the project.
At what point were you brought into the project? Did the developer come to you and say, “Hey, I have this building, what can we do with it?”
BC: They wanted to do a food hall and probably offices upstairs. So they came in with a pretty good vision around that in terms of, like, operation model and specific program that wasn’t really figured out. But they came to us with that. And then we worked with them for a few months, really developing concepts and, like Corinda said, Anne’s vision (Anne Wojcicki, cofounder of 23andMe and principal and founder of LACI) is that of a local Los Altos resident, and she loves that Farmers Market there. And she really wanted to create a permanent extension of the Farmers Market and have that same vibe. So, a lot of the concepts revolved around that.
CW: Well, it’s also a multigenerational community, kind of a little township here. So it was really to create a space that would fit three generations—from your newborn babies, your grandmothers, to your after work hangout happy hour, a place that everybody can come to, whether after baseball games or bike rides. I remember Anne was saying that everybody can actually go and have food together. And that was a missing piece to Los Altos.
What you’re talking about is “place making.” Is that concept taught in your training? How did that idea come into the State Street Market?
BC: It’s definitely part of my education, at least within architecture. And what I was doing in Buffalo, so much of the work was trying to make “place” there.
In this project, it was definitely a focus. Robert Hindman (Managing Director, LACI) is very into place making as well. And we had shared values on how this project could come to fruition in that sense.
CW: In my education, that wasn’t part of it. I was in interior design, so it wasn’t about that exterior; it was more inbound. So a lot of this, I think, came from just being in school in San Jose State, watching that city kind of stand still for a long time, and being part of Gensler for 14 to 15 years and watching the city actually start to come alive and the impact that we can have slowly. It took a long time to make minimal steps, but you could see the significant impact that can be made. And we at Gensler were in some kind of forward vantage point; I think that’s the momentum that I’ve gotten from place making. I saw it sort of working from the middle of it and from watching it and being a part of it.
BC: Even before we were awarded the project or competing on it, we developed some sketches and ideas of what might happen. A lot of it is actually what we ended up doing. But it was all about place making. In the end, it was all about slight modifications to the building that created activity. And so, like the idea of widening the breezeway and making that an outdoor dining area or extending the arcade and making that outdoor space, we kind of painted a picture really early on.
But we had these solid ideas all around place making, more so than the design initially. Then, of course, the design followed.
With State Street Market recently opening, what are you proud of?
BC: I think some of the ideas that we brought to the table will have a significant impact; we feel very proud of the modifications to the Paseo into the arcade to create that outdoor space. We think it’s going to be really active and create a great street presence.
The widening the pass-through—that connectivity is going to be a big deal. We had a soft opening, and that space was super-well utilized, and it felt really good, felt activated. And then the front arcade, people walking by on the sidewalk, are naturally drawn in there. And they want to be part of it. So those are the two big moves for me.
But also, that central space and opening up that dome—it was all closed in the previous iteration, but it just created this amazing space once it was opened up. So, I think I’m very proud of creating that gathering space, both on the interior and the exterior.
CW: My background is interiors, but I had a hand in this project’s exterior architectural design, and that part is quite fun for me. And the best aspect of that is when you hear from the community, or Robert Hindman tells us that people will walk by and say, “Wasn’t the building always like this?” That fitting into the context and fabric of the community—I think it is the best thing when people peer in and they’re excited to see it. That’s exciting to have this space be part of their world. I think that’s amazing.
Also, the secondary tier—I love the idea of design cues that give people this notion of “Oh, something to do.” So, adding simple things like awnings to the corner, where it signifies, “Hey, it’s retail. Come on in.” Then for the storefronts themselves, the windows, they were short. We elongated them from the top of the ceiling to the floor. That’s again, open it up with a “Come on in” visual cue.
Where do you find inspiration for designing a building like State Street?
BC: A lot of it is experiences, I think—like going and visiting as many places as you can, whether it’s overseas or even locally, and gathering those experiences and keeping an eye out as you’re there for what you like, what feels right, and trying to have a deep memory of those experiences, so you can draw back on those.
CW: I always used to tell people that it’s great when you experience things, and it becomes slightly fuzzy because then you would not ever mimic something. But you would create from that feeling in yourself—like what you remember of it. So, it’s great to be slightly forgetful.
And, we are from a different generation; as much as I love them, we approach inspiration differently than looking at Pinterest and collecting images. Now there is a lot of design starts that way. But when you’re a little older, you’ve gone to a few more places, you can rely on other things—create your own “Rolodex.” And, usually those things are not merely visual; they’re inspired from experiences or literature, even songs. It’s paintings and a picture, or a feeling that you might want to bring into what you are creating.
What are some of the design elements that are here that make this place unique?
BC: The tile. There are 40 different tiles in this space. And that was something that Anne really wanted. It is almost something to be discovered throughout the space. Not that we selected all of it. We had a hand in a lot of it, but so many people had their hands in selecting the tile. So that’s kind of a cool feature. With each of the risers on the stairs to the second floor throughout the exterior, you’ll see that each tile is different.
CW: Yeah, I mean, and [Anne] wanted actually to reuse a lot of tiles that she didn’t use on another project. So, that was also a bit of a sustainability part of this project. I was like, “What are you gonna do? You have one box of this, one box of that. It’s not enough to do all.” But we patched it together, and it’s a great story because of that point, right? Not wasting very much.
They’re hidden in some of the private spaces. So every bathroom is a little different. So if you go on a bathroom hunt, you’ll see that they are different. Maybe that’s a “game” that people can do. There is a lot of tiles.
BC:Yeah, I think the other thing is the arched windows. I think they are really cool. They really brought this building, I think, closer to what they want it to be.
And from a furniture perspective, we paired our client here, Los Altos Community Investment, with Terra Amico. And they brought a lot of unique elements. They built tables from reclaimed bowling alley wood, and made it a feature, with a lot of reclaimed wood, to make interesting installations throughout the space.
CW: Also, the signage was painted by Ben Henderson, who worked with us at Gensler for a while. We introduced him to the client about two years ago. And Robert Hindman brought him in to do a lot of hand painting of the signs.
BC: I love the work that Ben does. And we definitely had a vision of his style of hand-painting, hand-lettering, how that would fit really well here. And we’re so glad that they hired him because he’s been adding a lot of cool features throughout.
For someone looking for some design principles, for example, if someone is redoing their kitchen, what are some design guidelines?
CW: It should be functional first. Right? I always say that. As for your height of countertops in your home, if you’re super tall, you can actually adjust that. In commercial, you don’t have that luxury. There’s a standard. There are laws. But I think you can always think of where you want your focus to be. What is the first thing you want your eye to go toward, right? Is it the hood? Is it the backsplash? Is it important that the island is central, where everybody gathers? I think making those first initial choices can define what your other selections are.
BC: I was going to say storage, so you can keep it minimal.
CW: Hide everything. [Laughter.]
BC: Exactly. Keep it clean.
What advice would you give to somebody looking to get into a career in architecture or interior design?
BC: We’re hiring. [Laughter.] I think that with automation coming our way, that’s always something I’m worried about with the profession’s future. We’re employing it more but more as a tool for designers. But, ultimately, I think we’re the profession that is going to go more toward the creative outlet and the relationship-building with the clients; that is where the profession is ultimately going to have to go. It’s going to be the design creativity and in that client relationship. I think a lot of the technical aspects and the drafting will become very automated over time. You can have a 10-story-tall building, and it will populate the whole thing for you. And you can change the layouts, and it gives you all the counts automatically. But that’s not design, right?
CW: That’s algorithms. It’s like a quick first pass. It’s iterations, but it’s not design. The missing thing is going back to human experience like that “Rolodex” I was talking about, the experiences you’re trying to create. I don’t think computers will ever be able to do that. And I think that’s what anyone interested in this profession really needs to be thinking about. It’s always going to be about the human experience instead of the more technical aspects in terms of drafting and drawing and computer modeling and things like that.
I’m on the oozy-gooey side because it is about your passion. You want to come in and do something creative. We’re part of a small percentage of fields where things get built; there’s an actual object, a thing, from your brain that comes out. But you actually have to love it, because it is hard work. Your brain is constantly working, and you’re training it all the time. And innovation needs to happen. Creativity has to happen, and that’s not usually on that time schedule. Not normally. But the rewards are what you can create and see. That one moment when you get your first project, and it gets built, and you hear somebody say, “Ah.” That is amazing.
“I take on only the work I need in order to survive or work that truly excites me creatively. When my plate is full, I leave the buffet and eat. And when I’m finished, I don’t fill it up right away.”
I recently took time to catch up with an old friend, David Perez. David has managed the sort of things that few do, including earning the title of Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. His words blend playfulness and insight, both in poetry and interview.
What role do you see technology playing in the lives of writers?
One effect of technology is that it has allowed for greater pluralism in terms of who gets to put their work out there. The common beef with this pluralism is that it creates a lot of junk to sift through, but it seems to me that the Internet has gotten really good at allowing us to sift and to find the things we’re looking for. Before I get too optimistic about it, I will also say that certain companies in control of how we find our information, literature, and art have a way of compelling us to like certain things and of favoring content that is in their interest for us to favor. But at the end of the day, this is a tension I have chosen to live with, albeit cautiously. I think it’s great that writers can self-publish and market themselves to their niche audience.
In the era of TV, memes, GIFs, and like buttons, do you see a way of selling literature to the masses?
I think that “selling literature” is becoming more and more a matter of finding one’s specific readership. This is something the Internet encourages in general. It rewards you for being very specific in your tastes, for taking tangents and running with them, because it allows you to find whole communities that appreciate whatever sub- sub- sub-genre you’re working with. I think the take-home is that writers should feel free to experiment and to challenge themselves. They should take very seriously the economic viability of total surrender to their idiosyncrasies. Of course, it takes some work after the fact to find the right audience, but they’re out there. No matter how strange an animal you create, someone out there is into it.
How have you used technology to promote yourself?
Paying Facebook to promote my posts works, sadly, quite well. Actually engaging with others through social media can also work. What doesn’t work is using social media as a dump for your event info. If all people ever see of you is what time your show starts, they’ll just ignore it. They need to connect with you first. It’s just like any other social interaction. You need to be present with it. You need to really talk to people and participate in the forum. Then people might be interested in what you’re doing outside of it. I’ve found it’s also nice to have content available specifically for an online audience. For me, this is pretty simple: sample poems and videos, that sort of thing. The downside of all this is that in the outside world you’re constantly tapping a little black box while people are trying to talk to you. So they start tapping their black boxes. Before you know it, it looks like we are all engaged in this cultish kind of walking prayer.
What about poetry appeals to you more than other mediums?
Nothing. I adore fiction and drama. When you read a good novel you leave your body and live in someone else’s. Poetry does this for you too, but a novel does it for a looooong time. So long that you forget who you are. And, well, I love to forget myself. I do it as frequently as possible. As for drama, I have a crush on every stage actor I’ve ever seen perform. I am beguiled by the unfolding of live narrative. While I haven’t written novels or plays, I have written short stories and screenplays. But I mostly write poems. Why? Ask the leprechaun that whispers in my ear at night.
What’s your writing ritual?
I find a way to create a full day with no obligations. I politely suggest to my partner that she have a night out. I put on music without lyrics. Then I procrastinate for four hours and become involved with something on the Internet. I decide that the problem is the music, so I turn it off, then continue to procrastinate on the Internet. Then I get really sad. I start wondering if I’m not such a good writer after all. Then I start writing, dejected, guilt-ridden, and skeptical. None of it works. It’s all a mess. I delete it. But because I have a full day with no obligations, I still have about eight hours left. Those are the money hours.
What turns you on creatively?
Stepping off the tracks and quietly watching the rat race like I might watch an episode of Ninja Warrior, without investment or the sense that I’m in the thing as a contestant.
In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield explains resistance as anything that blocks you from creating. What are some forms of resistance you’ve met, and how do you deal with them?
The constant stream of unresolved logistical challenges that daily adult life demands. That is my most clear-cut resistance. I deal with it by choosing my battles carefully. I take on only the work I need in order to survive or work that truly excites me creatively. When my plate is full, I leave the buffet and eat. And when I’m finished, I don’t fill it up right away. I look at the empty plate with love and I let it be empty for as long as possible. This means I let opportunities go by. People ask me to do things, and I often say no. I love the word “no.” Sometimes I sit alone and say it softly to myself…no.
What role, if any, does pain play in the creative process?
Pain is the reason poetry is necessary. Pain has us all walking around broken. We don’t know we’re broken because we’re not allowed to show it, so we get too good at acting. When you make art, you take off a mask. The point is not to find some according-to-Hoyle genuine essence. The point is to try to stop pretending like you know what’s going on, and with a modicum of style and grace, report what you see. Not the names for what you see, what you actually see.
How has your writing changed with age?
HA! Yes…yes. Now I write about Ensure and Matlock. In all seriousness, as I get older I find myself looking less towards big showstopping events and more towards the everyday. I feel so confined by the day-to-day. When I first started writing, I escaped from it. Now, I look closer at it in the hope that I’ll find out that what’s happening actually isn’t as mundane as it seems. I wonder if life only seems repetitive because I’m not paying enough attention.
Is there a creative place that you are trying to get to?
I want to make a movie. There, I said it. I have always gravitated to poetry. But in school, I studied and developed a deep appreciation for film. Once life gets less busy and more…um…funded, I’m looking to do some shooting.
Who are your biggest influences?
Emily Dickinson deserves every bit of her popularity. Also on the list: Charles Simic, Jeffrey McDaniel…Kubrick. I know everyone says it, but Kubrick.
What book would you give someone to inspire greatness?
White Noise by Don DeLillo.
JFK said, “When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” What role do you think that poetry plays in society?
Progress, as we think of it, is forward motion. Developing more products, better services, increased efficiency, higher yields, greater market value… Poetry reminds us why we should care about the business of staying alive. It is sideways progress. The more sideways progress you make, the more you’re able to enjoy, evaluate, understand, criticize, and reimagine forward progress. If we are not able to do these things, we stand to back ourselves into a corner, acting and thinking robotically, without knowing why we are doing anything. Productivity will exist for its own sake. It won’t be there to benefit the lives of the people making it happen. It’ll be something that uses them up in order to perpetuate itself, something they are powerless to control. If it sounds like I’m describing the way things are already…well…sideways progress becomes pretty urgent, I think.
One of my favorite Dylan lyrics is, “And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot/Fighting in the captain’s tower/While calypso singers laugh at them” from Desolation Row. Who would win that fight?
Eliot, because I would be his tag team partner. I would hit Pound with a chair when the ref wasn’t looking.
S itting in the loft of Café Trieste in downtown San Jose, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with Sally Ashton, our county’s newest appointee to the post of poet laureate. Since it has only been a few months, she is still working out what all this will look like during her two-year tenure. Not sure about the details, Sally is sure that she wants to make the most of our multi-cultural heritage that permeates the fifteen cities and nearly two million people that make up Santa Clara County.
While still quite the prestigious honor, the poet laureate of Santa Clara County has distinctly different duties from its royal courtly beginnings. The poet laureate’s focus is to elevate poetry in awareness of Santa Clara County residents and to help celebrate the literary arts. The poet laureate also serves as an advocate for poetry, literature and the arts and leads a community project that makes poetry more accessible to the public. This awareness of and accessibility to poetry contributes to Santa Clara County’s literary legacy.
Sally believes that she is well suited to be sensitive to a broad variety of communities. She comes from modest beginnings – being one of four children in an agrarian family, originally from Oregon. Her parents had the means to attend college, but due to post-war times, they, like many others of their generation, had to forego higher education and, as Sally said, “just get busy.” Her family was able to move to Santa Clara County when she was five years old. Both her parents worked – Mom in real estate and Dad as an employee for Lockheed.
Though her family prized education, she would not describe her upbringing as one that was heavily enriched by literature. With almost a whisper, Sally let it be known that she didn’t read as much as she would have liked, but she always had afondness for writing. She wrote her first poem while in grade school.Some years later Sally met and married Frank Ashton, a local wine maker and businessman. They have three children whom Sally describes as “the joy of my life and my three best poems.”
Ms. Ashton recounts that her passion for poetry was stoked as she began “following the energy.” She started out taking classes at West Valley College and then transferred to San Jose State University where she is now a faculty member. What started out as a path toward creating non-fiction “pretty quickly circled around to poetry. As soon as I realized there was such a thing as an MFA degree, that was exactly what I wanted to get.” Sally went on to get that Master of Fine Arts degree from Bennington. She persevered, taking the number of classes that would allow for the pursuit of dreams, while still allowing her to be available to her family.
Now an editor of DMQ, an online literary journal, Sally has the distinct privilege of being exposed to the voice of national and international poets who compose in various genres of poetry. These are the poets who inspire her. Rather than any one particular poet, it is a brand of poetry: those of the post-modern generation who use words like a designer uses fabric. They are manipulating words to bring forth many shades of meaning while continuing to ask the question, “Can you depend on [language]; can it really mean anything?”
And though Sally is impressed with the current breadth of poetry, she made it a point to mention the voices that call to her from the past. Like her, many of these women poets started out composing their works of art amid their domestic duties: Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth B. Browning, and even Virginia Wolfe (though not a poet, she produced works that also empowered women). Though these women were never acknowledged and certainly never published during their day, “they persevered in a very private manner that has become significant.”
Here’s what Sally had to say about the significance of poetry in our day and time, and particularly in our culture of Santa Clara County: “Poetry all seems very apt, particularly in the contemporary moment, in our area because it’s brief. And there is such a movement in all forms of communication towards brevity with twitter… text messages… Of course not all poems are going to be 140 characters…nor would we want them to be. …They are accessible like a little moment in time. It’s a distilled moment… you can pick it up with your cup of coffee and read a poem or two and enter a reflective or an energized place.
Poetry, when it’s working at its best, distills a moment and takes you there, and it can be all the many different kinds of moments. You can find that of course in a novel or short story, you enter a different world for a longer period… A poem is working hard to employ symbol and resonance of an image… [It] makes a difference since you have so fewer words to create your world and make an impact.”
In her brief tenure as Poet Laureate, how does Sally Ashton plan to make an impact? With nearly two million people in Santa Clara County, Ashton is aware of the enormity of the task and so she makes the most of opportunities like this and other natural channels of publicity to get her message out to the people. Poets are known to write about the life and times in which they live. One opportunity Sally hopes will allow for the most impact is to partner with the tech community of Silicon Valley. Much of the technology in our Valley is just a different form of art and expression. What better connection than for our poet laureate to connect with our tech community and allow the art that is technology to inform the art of poetry.
Unlike the poet laureates of old who were commissioned to write for the pleasure of the royals, Sally has been asked “to contribute to the literary legacy of Santa Clara County. I think as poet laureate… at this point I am just trying to reconnect folks with the idea that there is cultural value in the art form, that there really is a reason to value it, so when the conversation comes up, the response isn’t, ‘I don’t get poetry.’ That’s kind of the majority response. Well, I’d rather people kind of get it.”
Jumping in headfirst. That’s how Haley Cardamon would describe her explosive entry into the magazine industry. Born and raised in East San Jose, Cardamon harbors a deep love for not only the city of San Jose as a whole, but more specifically, the creativity and diversity she sees all around her—creativity that she believes is often overshadowed by San Jose’s notoriety in the tech industry.
Cardamon has always been drawn to the creative world—particularly to the graffiti and underground art scene, which is featured prominently in her work. As she looks back on her journey, she laughs: “I’ve always been really into graffiti, but I kind of learned to keep that quiet. In middle school, I got suspended for it and had to do an anti-graffiti program and everything.” Today, Cardamon works to capture street art and more through her own artistic medium—photography. Gifted a camera while in high school, she began taking photos of the world around her, starting with architecture before moving into art. As her personal portfolio expanded, Cardamon knew that she wanted to compile and share her own work and initially set her sights on creating a lookbook. Upon further reflection, she realized that she could combine her lifelong propensity toward meeting new people with her love of art and could act as a conduit between artist and audience. In this way, the magazine Bay Area Creatives Klub, also referred to as BACK, was born.
The first issue of BACK features an in-depth interview with San Francisco rapper, Equipto. “That’s kind of how it started,” Cardamon explains. “I never even thought that he would answer my message. It took him awhile, but he did, and we did this super extensive interview. At that point, I just went with it and decided I was going to make a magazine.” Prior to the release of issue 1, Cardamon had no experience in magazine production, but she didn’t let that stop her. Looking back at the first and second issues of BACK, Cardamon notes the changes not just to the magazine itself, but also to her level of comfort and assurance. As she flips through the pages now, she points out the more streamlined look of issue 2. At just 20 years old, Cardamon often has to work hard to prove her drive and professionalism, but she doesn’t let that impede her goals.
For Cardamon, 2017 was a transformative year. Once she knew that she wanted to seriously pursue publication, she decided to take a year off from school and completely dedicate herself to becoming acquainted with San Jose’s art scene. “I’d take my camera and just walk around downtown and go to art shows. A lot of the time, I’d go alone so that I could meet new people and just hand out my business cards to everyone.” For Cardamon, creating BACK has not only changed her timeline and career trajectory, but also her daily life. “I feel really proud,” she says, “and I’m always on the hunt for that hidden talent.”She has learned that the magazine industry is difficult in terms of profit, but money is not her main focus. Rather, she wants to be a mouthpiece for San Jose’s up-and-coming talent. “I want to get jobs for artists and show that San Jose is an art hub. Not just a tech city.”
The positive feedback Cardamon receives is what is most important to her. “I want people to see me as someone who makes connections. You know, linking an artist with someone looking for a certain type of art. Or even just exposing audiences to artists that they don’t already know.” In addition to her magazine publication, Cardamon occasionally organizes giveaways and art shows, including her event, San Jose Day, which is held on April 8 and showcases local art. Currently, Haley is back in school at De Anza College and is on her way to finishing her degree in communications and media. She also works part-time at a custom display manufacturing company called Commercial Art Manufacturing and hopes to publish two issues of BACK per year. “Ideally, I do want this to open up to artists around the world, to travel for it, too, but right now I’m doing it for San Jose.”
Speaking of Magick Blues Band’s eponymous debut, drummer and vocalist Zack Sauer seems to breathe a sigh of relief. “It’s been a long time coming,” he says of the album, now available on Bandcamp. That might seem like a strange sentiment to those who only know of the band as a recent group on the Silicon Valley circuit. In truth, the project’s the tangible realization of a dream Sauer and bassist Nick Verdi have clung to since they were both 16, well before they had enough people to execute their vision of creating a rock band.
“We used to just play back and forth, bass and drums. That’s how we learned,” recalls Verdi, noting the fun would last until his furious neighbor would show up and scream at them to turn it down. “It all started with a passion for playing together. That’s what we try to bring when we’re on stage. Our motto is ‘we’re here for you’ because that’s why we play: we’re here for the audience to enjoy what we do.”
Sauer recalls falling in love with classic rock when he first heard “Stairway to Heaven” in full on the radio. Similarly, Verdi was entranced by the live energy of Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury in videos. He saw a dedication to performance he felt was missing in current music. In an age increasingly reliant upon digital wizardry to gloss over musical moments, the members of Magick Blues Band are steadfast in their reliance on human touch and the visceral energy of live interaction with their audience.
A December 2017 performance at Caravan Lounge served as the group’s true live debut. The date proved pivotal. “It gave us this confidence—what we’re doing is noticeable, and people actually like it,” says Verdi. They were immediately invited back to play the lounge’s New Year’s show, and within their first year together, they performed as part of the 2018 Fountain Blues and Brews Festival. This past August, they played San Jose Jazz Summer Fest thanks to a co-sign from local blues mainstay JC Smith.
“This is the live, studio feel we’re trying to develop,” says Verdi of the recordings, captured in Sauer’s grandmother’s garage back when Magick Blues Band was just a quartet, with Justin Morton on lead guitar and Tyler Sargent on Rhodes piano. Sargent has since left, but the group’s been supplemented by rhythm guitarist Joseph Cañas and Sean Biggar on percussion.
Magick’s indebtedness to classic rock is clear, especially the country-tinged, elastic jams of the Grateful Dead. It makes sense, then, when the two quickly share that “Jerry’s Tune,” an ode to Jerry Garcia, remains their favorite on the project. The tune’s been in the works for close to four years.
“It was the first bass lick I came up with that I felt embodied that feeling of the Grateful Dead that I really enjoyed,” Verdi says. The nearly nine-minute album closer strolls and morphs, always maintaining a slow burn energy reminiscent of the Dead and the Allman Brothers Band. Energy builds then dissipates, but the center is always held together through the well-established chemistry of Verdi and Sauer.
The music’s even been good enough to fool others about its origins. “To have people like my parents or friends go ‘What Dead Song is that?’—that’s the connection where you think, wow, we did it,” Verdi emphatically shares.
That notion speaks to the strength of the Magick Blues Band’s sound. It’s more throwback than replica, a studied analog analogue rather than a digital facsimile of a bygone era and sound. That earned wisdom even shines through in their name. Though they started as just Magick, they added “blues band” to reflect the trajectory of groups like Santana, who used the same suffix at the start of their musical career.
Is the name then meant to serve as a marker of the group being just at the beginning of their journey? “That’s exactly how I look at it,” replies Verdi with a mischievous laugh. “That’s what life’s about, at least in my eyes. It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey.”
For the group’s founding members, building community and connection are at the heart of what that journey will entail. “As long as we’re doing music every night,” says Sauer, “I’m happy.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 11.5 Dine (Print SOLD OUT)
For ten years I have heard booming thunder during springtime in downtown San Jose. It wakes me up and makes the windows hum. The sound motivates me to slip on some sandals and hustle down to Japantown. That thunder means San Jose Taiko, every bit as powerful and exciting as the first day I heard them.
But what makes it possible to shake the windows from three blocks away? How do you get so much sound from a drum? Is it the drum or the drummer that generates the power to rattle windows and make dogs bark?
To find the answers to these questions, I headed to San Jose Taiko’s rehearsal space in an old warehouse on Montgomery Street. It was cold in the empty studio and the cloudy skies made the room dark. As company member Meg Suzuki emerged from the towering racks of wooden drums, she detailed the effect that rapid variations in temperature can have on the instruments. The sound will vary greatly especially if exposed to high humidity, something to consider as they haul 3500 pounds of drums to a local festival or halfway across the world.
Taiko is the Japanese name for two-headed drums, mounted on upright stands, ranging in diameter from 12 inches to 12 feet. They have an iron ring for lifting and carrying in processions. Traditionally in Japanese theatre, they provided sound effects with special strokes to portray (rather than imitate) rain, snow and wind. The story goes that jazz drummer Daihachi Oguchi invented modern taiko style by arranging the instruments in the temple like a western drum set and creating a dramatic folk-jazz crossover.
Unlike the customary instruments carved from a trunk of Japanese oak, the drums Meg hauled out onto the warehouse floor had a wine-barrel construction. Typical of North American taiko, staves of wood are bound together to make the body of the drum. Developed by Kinnara Taiko in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, this drum was lighter and much less costly to ship. This revolutionary design made it easier for groups to form, allowing taiko to spread across North America. San Jose Taiko began in 1973.
Since it uses fewer trees, the barrel design has caught on back in Japan and San Jose Taiko is now collaborating with top percussion manufacturer Pearl on a prototype taiko drum. Artistic director Franco Imperial explained that although the group once made their own drums, they now purchase from master craftsmen like Mark Miyoshi in Mount Shasta and Kato Drums from Concord. San Jose Taiko hopes that their drums will last forever, and indeed by caring for their instruments, they still have drums nearly as old as the group itself.
It is hard to imagine that an old cowhide could produce such a mighty reverberation. The leather skins that cover both ends of the drums are the key to tuning the drums. It once took five men to stretch the cowhide over the barrels to create the taut surface and nail the heads down, but today dowels and a series of car jacks accomplish the job. The skins are replaced every one to two years depending on wear and tear.
And how do you make the drums thunder? Each size of taiko has special-sized wooden bachi (drumsticks) and each player has their own pair for each type of drum. The left-hand plays a lighter “female” stroke while the right makes a heavy “male” stroke in the center of the drumhead.
Becoming a taiko member is no easy committment, both in strength and time. The audition process alone takes one year, leading to a further 12-month apprenticeship. The 18 company members also compose much of the original music that they perform. Each group is different, but Franco stressed that for San Jose Taiko, “it doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are as long as you have the proper attitude and skill.” Members range in age from 20 to 40 and perform nationally as well as in Japan, Mexico, Canada, Italy, and the UK.
Back home, that power extends into the community with outreach programs. First of its kind in the country, San Jose Taiko Conservatory is expanding upon the company mission to enrich the human spirit and connect people beyond cultural and demographic boundaries. All ages can participate via a Junior Taiko workshop, an adult class or a free performance at festivals like Nikkei Matsuri in Japantown.
Stepping out of the warehouse to the echo of the drums, I looked forward to the day when I will again hear them rattling my windows. In the words of Daihachi Oguchi, “In taiko, man becomes the sound. In taiko, you can hear the sound through your skin.”
This episode of the Content magazine podcast is a little bit different. I conducted the full audio interview with Corinda Wang and Brian Corbett of Gensler about the Los Altos State Street Market project. Corinda is the design director and senior associate, and Brian is the studio director.
Los Altos community investments led the Los Altos State Street Market project with founder and principal Anne Jaworski (also of 23 and Me); she envisioned transforming space into a vibrant community has been the extension of the Los Altos farmers market Brian and Corinda.
Their work led designers to draw from their own experience to transform the dormant structure into a welcome flowing gathering place, which is now the modern food hall known as Los Altos State Street Market.
Special thanks to the managing director of Los Altos community investments, Robert Hindman, for putting this interview together.
Entering the studio, I sensed the weightlessness and wonder of a new, yet familiar, galaxy. I felt like an honored guest in a marvelous artistic environment. My first experience traveling the Druniverse was in downtown San Jose at South First Billiards. I was blown away with the performance energy and unique mixes by this electronic music artist from San José. Dru, not entirely his real name, is a young, humble graphic designer with a musical alter ego called the “Druniverse”. Recently, Dru invited me to his home to visit the nexus of his digital universe. His home studio is a custom-built electronic music laboratory where keyboards, laptops and synthesizers stand ready for the day’s experiments. One wall houses neatly framed vintage DC Comics, a movie reel of “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and a stack of classic Disney VHS tapes. A mountain of video games, drawings from a beloved uncle, and various instruments cover another wall and flow into every corner of the room. Above the bed hangs an enormous, surreal landscape print by Salvatore Dali – its presence a reminder of the strange universe enveloping me. And on the nightstand, the slightly oversized white helmet mask, reminiscent of Nintendo’s popular Megaman character, sits neatly on the nightstand waiting for our hero to become Dru and begin the journey into his beautiful, bass-drumthumping, electronic dance Druniverse.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in San Jose, the Evergreen area. I was actually voted ‘Most Musical’ my senior year. Musically, I wouldn’t be who I am if I wasn’t here in San Jose. San Jose is awesome in that there are just good people here. People are friendly. Growing up with all those instruments and doing Mariachi, you don’t want to just play one instrument, you want to learn them all.
I see quite a few insturments here. How many do you play?
Guitar, bass, ukulele, drums, synthesizers/ pianos (they are one and the same). I used to try the trumpet, and flugelhorn.
Wow. How did you learn to play so many instruments?
I started with the guitar and then the bass, because it was natural. Once I started transferring chords from the guitar to the piano, I started to figure out how to make cords. It takes time. It takes loneliness. Now I make my own instruments. That’s what synthesizers do. You have to take your time and program every setting; you can make any sound you want. Each synthesizer is built around isolators, and they send out different wave forms. You can modify the isolators and glide and bend the waves, balance the sound and play with the resonance. You can have different synthesizers: one that’s a computer program or one that inputs the sounds.
“IT TAKES TIME. IT TAKES LONELINESS.”
There are so many things here that don’t look like instruments. What are all of these gadgets?
Well this one (little red box with a black screen) is my filter. When I mix, it lets me control my frequencies with my fingers. I can control my high and low notes with this touchpad. The vocal robot noises come from my synthesizer Yamaha DX7, go into my talk box which, is basically a speaker. It vibrates those tones that I hit on the keys, into this tube in my mouth. You just move your mouth and it makes these crazy noises. Daft Punk and Peter Frampton have used these kinds of things. It’s old school.
I see you have quite a few keyboards. How many do you have?
Oh well, I have a few, and this one is my favorite. It’s a sampler that my uncle gave me. He’s a musician and he gave me that bass cab and a lot of other things. He was in the music biz in the 80s, so, he gives me some cool stuff. It looks like a keyboard, but it actually connects to this old hard drive and when you play it, the sounds are sent into the computer.
What do you think about technology, living in Silicon Valley and being in the epicenter of it all?
Technology, old and new, is awesome. I made this piano part on one of my songs done with this 1982 mini keyboard that has a little headphone jack. Any type of noise can be amplified in different programs, and you can make sure that different frequencies don’t leak through if there are things that you don’t want. Besides the robot vocals, I also record people when they don’t know it– like when I’m out with friends or when people spend the night and they’re looking back at the night. I record some of them when they are talking. I just take those little clips and snippets of words, and right before a drop, when I have a bass come in, I’ll throw those words in. I just live life, and if I can make Druniverse happen during it, then it’s going to happen. I don’t plan it.
Tell me something no one would expect from Dru?
I have a Mariachi outfit. I do Mariachi with my grandpa. I’m down here in San Jose alone. I have been living alone since sophomore year, and I had to find ways to make money to be able to pay for school and to take care of myself. It was also a way to build up courage. It’s those experiences, looking over at my grandpa playing around a fire pit, with people drinking and singing around us– to have this moment with my grandpa where I know he is proud of me, and I am happy to be with him. It’s cool to have that experience; and who knows how long that will last.
Do you incorporate the Mariachi style into your Druniverse?
Yeah, the chord progressions are so classic. Hearing them translated into the software program and then into these electronic bleeps and bloops, it’s not the same song anymore at all.
How did you get interested in electronic music?
My band broke up in high school and after high school, everyone spreads out. You think to yourself, ‘Well, what do I do now?’ But, I actually was the one who wrote all the music that my band performed, and a lot of times, I was the one who would suggest that they play certain things. I don’t know why, but they looked to me for things like that. Now we are all doing our own things and they are still really supportive and are really excited about the new music, new sounds, new instruments that I have been playing around with. I started to record everything by myself, balancing a full time graphic design job. Music isn’t easy, but since I play all the instruments and record everything by myself, it’s all good.
And the idea for Druniverse? Did you always know you wanted your own universe?
Druniverse? Dru was a good representation for the music. When I would show people my earlier stuff, they would all say that it sounded like video game music, genesis-style stuff. I wanted to create a character, and these characters have their own background and style. Druniverse is also inspired by some dreams that I’ve had, and this idea that I didn’t want to be seen or judged for the music I’m making. It’s about the music that Dru makes, not who I am. People don’t know what race or age I am under the mask, under the guise of the character. The mask lets people develop their own interpretation of who Dru is. I like that people can have their own personal experience with the music.
Donny Foley is currently the gallery manager for the Pacific Arts League in Palo Alto. Donny has also created his own illustrated characters, Donbon, Bert the cat, and Skunk-Truck, who live and make mischief in the Donbon Universe. Though he has slowed the creation of these comics during the pandemic, Donny looks to return and further explore their world in the months to come.
In our conversation, Donny explains the creation and transformation of his artwork as well as exploration in “Word Painting.” (https://www.donbonsuniverse.com/word-paintings)
Below is article abour Donny’s journey in our 2012 article from issue 4.3, “Branding”
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This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in Issue 14.1 Winter 2022 — release date: Dec. 9, 2021: https://bit.ly/Discover141
Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic
Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
Welcome to the wonderfully whimsical, twisted, and delightfully inappropriate world of Donny Foley, aka Donbon. This Donny does it all, comics, painting, children’s books, vintage resale, cartoons and more. He is not out to change the world with his art, he just wants to make people laugh and brighten their day.
What do you do?
I mainly work in digital art, it’s much more forgiving. I do a lot of things like clocks, calendars, stationary, but I’m mostly known for my comics. Recently I finished my first children’s book titled “Khristina and the Lost Imagination;” it’s a very cute story about a little girl and her cat. My buddy and I started a cartoon called “Vitamin D.” I’m very excited about this because I’ve always wanted to make cartoons since I was a child. I also help run a vintage resale business with my girlfriend and her best friend called, Out of Print Vintage.
Where can we find your work?
I’m featured all over the place currently, for instance: KALEID Gallery and… actually that’s about it. My website is full of goodies though www.DonbonsUniverse.com.
What inspires you to create and how do you keep motivated when things get tough?
I’ve met a ton of people in my life who do what I do, just hella better. But, they’re content just throwing it all away for some crap job that makes them unhappy. I don’t want to be like them so that usually gets me motivated.
What do you think is more important content/finished product or technique/process?
Personally I think the content is the most important part. If your content sucks then your technique and finished products will do nothing but just look good.
Who are some people who influence and/or inspire you?
Mike Patton, Jhonen Vasquez, my girlfriend’s cat, Spot, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, the people of Pixar, Winsor McCay (Little Nemo), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter), Shigeru Miyamoto & Takashi Tezuka (Legend of Zelda), a lot of my old bosses (because they’re something I strive not to be), and a bunch of my friends who I won’t name because if they read this, I’m sure it will go to their heads and their heads are just fine the way they are.
If you could be any fictional character who would you be?
Little Nemo, that kid had some sweet adventures.
When do you get your best ideas?
Ha ha randomly my most genius ideas come to me while I’m in the shower. Then I get exited (not too excited) about this new idea and can’t wait to work on it. I think it’s because I have nothing to do in there but think. Oh and clean.
What materials/tools do you use most to create your work?
My good old reliably unreliable computer, mouse, and wacom tablet. (All of which are falling apart.)
Are you self-taught or formally educated? How do you think that has influenced or affected your work?
For the most part I’m self-taught. I’d be lying if I said I never had anyone give me a bunch of pointers. I even took a photoshop class once to sharpen my skills. But the teacher was never there so I didn’t really learn a whole lot. I think not having formal training is nice, I’m able to form my own style that wasn’t some teacher’s that cost me a lot of money and time to mimic.
If your creative work was edible what would it taste like?
I would like it to taste like rocky road cereal from the ‘80s followed up with an amazing high five. But it would most likely taste like snail urine.
When you are not creating what do you like to do?
I usually go to hospitals and punch babies in the face, maybe drop an atomic elbow or two.
How did you learn to access your creative talents and gain the confidence to put it out there for everyone to experience?
I used to make all these over the top and stupid comic strips in high school that everyone loved. The more positive reactions I got, the more confident I’d get. Negative reactions are great too, sometimes they’re even better. They show you what you didn’t see and can help you improve.
What advice would you give others just beginning their creative adventures?
Go to a nice a quiet graveyard all by yourself, find a peaceful shady spot and make yourself comfy. Look around and tell yourself, “I can draw better than everyone here.”
B are bulb string lights hung above as Sound Wave did their “thang” on stage. A wave of people flooded the third floor of Urban Blanco. At the same time, smiling individuals sipped on Prosecco and nodded their heads to the music’s beat at last Thursday’s Content Magazine release party for issue 14.1 – the 57th issue to conclude the 9th year of print. As is anticipated and expected, the night contained exclusive local performers and artists displaying their work from right here in our community.
Lately, I’ve been thinking more about the South Bay fashion scene. We are a melting pot of cultures, and with that comes worldwide influences. At the Dec. 9th Content Magazine Pick-Up Party, I walked around and talked to individuals whose outfits stood out to me. I met terrific creative people with a variety of fashion styles. Although everyone expressed their unique selves, I noticed a few patterns.
Many were on long jackets with some type of pattern. These long patterned jackets seemed like the signature look of the night. Julia, Tina, Nguyen, and Kathleen were all wearing beautifully patterned duster jackets. Two of them were wearing I.B. Bayo’s designs. While Kathleen got hers from Penelope Boutique at Santana Row.
There were a lot of MFA uniform styles at the party as well. Mike wore a yellow button-up plaid shirt with blue jeans and brown leather shoes. A signature look of the South Bay. As well as a lot of streetwear/hypebeast attire. Thobeka, Erik and Vivian, Erik Burke (with the beanie), and Stikmon are all sporting the streetwear styles of San Jose.
Towards the end of the party, I spotted Almanac Goods and Apparel. A streetwear company based here in San Jose. Ac, the shop owner, was there along with Cam, who did modeling for Almanac and wore their Cork Almanac Hoodie.
Age had a lot to do with people’s outfit choices as well. The younger crowd wore more denim and vintage clothing. The older group wore more designer and artsy wear. This is an interesting difference because it demonstrates how and why the South Bay fashion style forms and changes.
When someone in our community reinvents a garment, they contribute to South Bay fashion. When someone styles garments with intention and narrative, that also contributes to South Bay fashion. The things we wear and how we wear them are direct lines to who we are individually and who we are to the community and this land.
If you attended this event, what fashion styles did you notice? What do you think you would have worn if you couldn’t make the event?
Follow me and leave a comment on my Instagram @peter_salcido
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Peter Salcido
Peter is a Silicon Valley native who influences the space around him through his expression of style and ambiance. He is a fashion editorial photographer, blogger, and content creator. Peter wili be contirbuting to the Content Blog about fashion trends and fad in the South Bay.
It the age of 12, Marissa Martinez started writing fan fiction about her favorite show, Avatar: The Last Airbender (still her favorite show to this day). Greatly invested in the storytelling and character development, especially those of her favorite characters, Toph and Katara, she joined an online community that gave her a platform to share fan fiction for books she was reading as well.
Then someone pointed her to the International Thespian Society at Evergreen Valley High. Marissa signed up on club day and attended her first meetings straightaway. “One friend joined with me, and we started doing backstage things—sound and lights,” Marissa says. As she befriended upperclassmen, who comprised most of the club’s actors, she integrated her creative writing and explored acting. By senior year, she became the club’s president and wrote her first play.
Like the premise of John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club, Marissa’s first play features four high school students who meet in the lobby of a community college. Through their one-on-one exchanges, each student’s reason for taking classes is revealed: one needs to make up classes, one wants to get ahead, one is an overachiever, and one is unsure of the future.
“I realized, in conjunction with the community work I was doing on campus, I wanted my art and writing to impact my community in San Jose where I’m from.” -Marissa Martinez
Completely student written, directed, and acted, Marissa’s debut play launched her future playwriting endeavors. At Santa Clara University, where she majored in theater and English, Marissa developed short one-act plays and focused her intentions as a playwright. “I realized, in conjunction with the community work I was doing on campus, I wanted my art and writing to impact my community in San Jose where I’m from,” Marissa says. “After that, I wasn’t even interested in going anywhere. I just wanted to be here.”
As a younger writer she had dreamed of starting a theater company. Her passion and skill were affirmed when she received four grants from the university to put on her biggest play yet, Hapa Cup of Sugar. Marissa received funding from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, SCU Presents, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, and the Office for Multicultural Learning to cover media purchases, workshop fees, props, sets, costumes, and production-team compensation.
After graduation, Marissa continued to write and collaborate with theater companies who resonated with her themes of identity and social justice. Bindlestiff Studio, the only Filipino American–centered theater in the nation, showed two of her plays in 2017 and 2019; yet the theater was located in San Francisco, far from home.
Early in 2019, Marissa stumbled upon the perfect opportunity at a genARTS workshop. “My now-friend Matt introduced himself as trying to start his own theater company, and he was looking for playwrights,” Marissa says. “So during lunch period I went to find him and asked, ‘What do I need to do to work with you?’ ”
More Más Marami Arts
More Más Marami Arts launched in January 2019, with original founders Matt Casey, Kimberly Piet, Angela Sarabia, Andy Sandoval, and Daniel Lerma-Hill. Its name derives from the founders’ Mexican, Filipino, and American cultures, translating to “more more more arts” in English, Spanish, and Tagalog.
“More Más Marami is about creating inclusion in theater, but it’s also here to create a space for us in the South Bay,” Marissa emphasizes. “One of our biggest goals is to develop more writers so we can have more original content in the South Bay.”
Works in Progress
MMMA’s program Works in Progress accepts submissions from writers of any background. Even if a script is a work in progress, the team reads it and then casts people from the community to read those characters at an informal table read. Here, the writer hears their play out loud for the first time and receives feedback from actors.
Trespass Theatre
The founders get creative with not only their meeting rooms (community coffee shops) but also their performance spaces. “Part of our mission to make theater accessible, Trespass Theatre is about bringing theater to the streets in unconventional, untraditional locations,” Marissa shares proudly. “One of my pieces became the first Trespass performance in September.”
Alongside a creek near her grandmother’s house in Evergreen, Marissa led a “devised” theater ensemble piece: As the writer, she established the structure and story; as a cast, the founders developed the content and blocking. As Matt introduced them on the evening of the show, the rest of the cast began swarming the audience. The topic was environment and climate change, elaborated through three separate stories as the cast moved around the audience, giving them a different story to follow as they passed.
The second Trespass Theatre production featured two shows, funded by Awesome Foundation, and was performed at the Billy DeFrank LGBTQ+ Community Center. One play, Queercenera, illuminated LGBTQ+ experience in San Jose—ultimately showing “how family can support you and love you and make you do crazy things you don’t understand too…It’s a powerful experience for an audience member to recognize themselves in the play,” Marissa notes.
24-Hour Theatre
More Más Marami’s collaboration with Center Stage Productions, the drama club at SJSU, gives access to the black box theater in the Stone Performing Arts Center. Here, magic and chaos unfold: youth, college students, and friends of friends gather to write from Friday, 8pm to 2am or 4am. At 7am, everyone gets up to cast the script, rehearse throughout the afternoon, and perform at 8pm. “It’s for people who are dipping their toes into theater, who want to try writing or acting, and also for those who know what they like and want to do something wacky,” Marissa explains. “Anything can happen.”
Amplify
Growing up in East San Jose and Evergreen, Marissa remembers the pressures she faced as a student. “As an adult I know there’s resources out there, but when you’re a kid going to a school overflowing with students and there’s only two counselors to meet with, it’s scary.” When she’s not brainstorming, coordinating, and running programs with More Más Marami, she’s working with middle and high school youth at a program called Amplify. “These students have ideas and opinions. We try to give them a platform to use their voice and to practice their arts and leadership abilities,” she sums up. The students get to work alongside other artists. “We help them in photography, creative writing, and communication.”
After three years, Marissa has seen changes all across the board: “Even from the beginning of a project to the end, you can see how comfortable they become talking with others, and the friendships they make. Some of them outgrow some of our projects and processes, and they’re ready to do more outside of Amplify.”
LEAD Filipino
Marissa is also the program director of Fly Pinays, a sisterhood and mentorship program of LEAD Filipino that provides educational programs focused on increasing Filipina representation in civic leadership (Leadership, Education Advocacy, Dialogue). In her third year of involvement with LEAD, Marissa aims to bring high school students to the 2020 Fly Pinays Leadership Summit, exposing them to these resources and discussions.
Ultimately, Marissa finds her motivation in the people she works for, whether through artistic programs or mentorship—from including neighbors who rarely see theater, to finding others who love the arts, who love to write, who are Pinay like herself. “We’re all stronger in communities together as one,” she says. “We have to stick together.”
PODCAST With Marissa Marteniz and Matt Casey, Cofounders of More Más Marami Arts
Episode #73 More Más Marami Arts – Cofounders Marissa Martinez and Matt Casey
In this episode, we speak with Marissa Martinez and Matt Casey, cofounders of More Más Marami Arts. Marissa is a playwright and a creative writer, and Matt is a theatre producer and organizer.
More Más Marami Arts formed in 2019 as a collective of artists united by our faith in the power of theatre to bring people together. Their program produces innovative productions, script readings, open mics, educational workshops, and opportunities for and with underserved communities of San Jose and the South Bay Area. In our conversation, we hear about Marissa’s and Matt’s journeys in the theatrical arts and the purpose and mission of More Más Marami Arts.
Please find out more about More Más Marami Arts on their website moremasmarami.org
As Brian Boitano skates onto the ice, the psychological weight is colossal. “It’s like the microwave gets turned on,” he describes, “and you’re cooking from the inside out, ready to explode.” The roar of 20,000 throats tidal waves over him and washes across the Saddledome. The almost palpably solid feeling of 20,000 pairs of eyes latch onto the back of his neck like a grappling hook. He strikes an erect pose, made all the more commanding in a blue military uniform. Silence falls like an ax. The music swells. And Boitano’s skates stir to life.
That was 1988, and three decades later journalists continue to ask Boitano about the subsequent four minutes and thirty seconds of his life. After all, Calgary ’88 earned him an Olympic gold medal in men’s singles figure skating. Only one other American has achieved that status for the same event since. The media also senses—as they did in the days leading up to Boitano’s triumph—a noteworthy narrative. For starters, America was predicted to come in second. Brian Orser, flag carrier for that year’s host country, Canada, was favored for the win. However, both skaters had similar skill levels as well as matching military-themed song and costume choices. Reporters were soon championing the slogan “The Battle of the Brians.” Add to all this Boitano’s invention of a move called the “Tano Triple Lutz” (extending one arm overhead during jump and rotation), and you have an underdog, a rivalry, new advances to the sport—ingredients guaranteeing a recipe for success.
Boitano isn’t bothered by the constant requests to relive the routine that landed him top of the podium. “It was the culmination of everything,” he explains, “the culmination of all your childhood dreams and aspirations, the passion you have for it, the work that you put into it, all the people that had expectations for you, and the pressure you’re able to deal with.”
At 24, Boitano experienced a surreal moment of glory. “You know, at that moment, that nothing’s going to compare to that,” Boitano says. “That’s why it’s ingrained in my brain, so much that I remember every single emotion.” The unadulterated delight and overwhelming emotion that crossed his face after his flawless finish is proof enough the memory will never lose its potency. But that doesn’t mean life after Olympic gold is destined to be anticlimactic. Boitano feels incredibly fortunate for Calgary, and he credits it for the blessings that followed.
Whereas Orser’s decision to become a skating coach is a conventional one, Boitano’s chosen route has been a little less predictable. He’s gone from lacing up skates to tying on apron strings as a Food Network star and host. Though these fields are dissimilar in many ways, they do carry commonalities. “You layer the elements and you come up with a great recipe,” Boitano notes of both. “With cooking, it’s how a plate looks, how it smells, what the ingredients are, how they taste. With skating, the layers are choreography, music, costume.” Food is also a performance, he observes, appraised by friends and family.
But there are also benefits to cooking that skating doesn’t offer. Renowned for his exacting technical accuracy on the ice, Boitano is surprisingly lenient with ingredients in the kitchen. “Skater Brian is literally precise and thinks of everything: every moment, every foot, every place,” he remarks. “Cooking Brian, is…I sort of made this pact with myself to not get too in my head about cooking. There’s not much difference between a handful of parsley and a handful and a half of parsley—so let’s not measure.” He enjoys going by instinct, imagining flavor combinations while brainstorming new recipes. “I like the freedom,” he confides with a smile.
Boitano’s playful synergy with food earned him his culinary debut with the Food Network. The title of the series—What Would Brian Boitano Make?—tips its hat to the song, “What Would Brian Boitano Do?” played during the cartoon South Park. It was informational, but it was also intimate (unique from the professional tone of the Network’s other shows at the time). In each episode, Boitano hosted events for his friends. These ranged from a sausage shindig for the Secret Society Scooter Club to a bacon-themed dinner for a women’s roller derby team. “It was a little bit irreverent, a little bit funny. I could show my goofy side, which was different from what everybody knew me as on the ice.”
Indisputably, skating will always be the passion ingrained deepest in Boitano’s heart. Until recently, he’s performed in shows and continues to swoop across the ice for recreation. “It’s the ultimate feeling of abandon,” he enthuses. “You’re traveling across the ice at 25 miles an hour, and then you’re throwing yourself in the air, and you’re landing on a thin blade with complete control. There’s this command of the energy in the air that you feel when you’re doing it. And when things are exactly how you want it, it’s this entire picture of, in your mind, perfection of the moment.” He’s held that fervor ever since he witnessed an Ice Follies show at eight and began pretending his roller skates were ice skates, his kidney bean-shaped patio a rink.
Nevertheless, Boitano doesn’t miss the excruciating pressure of competition. He identifies it as 95 percent a mental game. That critical inner voice is so palpable he nicknamed it “Murphy” after Murphy’s Law. “He’s saying ‘If anything bad can happen, it will happen.’ And you’re trying to punch Murphy down.” In contrast, Boitano takes his own pace with cooking and enjoys therapeutic late nights in the kitchen, testing new recipes and cocktails.
He also wasn’t very healthy as an athlete. At 16, he began regulating his diet with monastic devotion, quarantining himself from ice cream and his mom’s sandwiches. “I was always starving myself when I was training,” he acknowledges. Most meals consisted of baked potatoes with plain yogurt, salads with cooked pasta and diet dressing, and crackers with jam. He remembers wistfully watching food commercials on TV and writing them down in a “someday” list.
Perhaps most telling is one of Boitano’s fondest food memories. While training in an Alpine village one summer, he was submerged in a number of food firsts: buttery croissants, fluffy quiches, creamy fondue, and gooey raclette. “They eat what they eat,” he chuckles. “They don’t have diet jam and crackers.” He recalls with amusement his coach’s consternation when he returned to the States, stepping off the plane with a few extra pounds—and not the kind in his suitcase.
To Boitano, cooking is a memory maker, a love language expressed to friends and family. “You remember the food, and you remember the stories, and you remember the time you had,” he says before reminiscing about pizza parties hosted for relatives in Italy. (Try not to smile picturing 35 loud Boitanos all helping out in the kitchen.)
Undoubtedly, Boitano continues to embrace life after Olympic gold. But skating will always be an integral part of who he is. It’s in the straight-backed way he holds himself—ever the effortless poise of a skater. It’s in the 24-year-old gleam in his eyes as he talks about Calgary. It’s easy to picture him out there—his blades slicing across the rink in a crisp, satisfying whisper, the air favoring him a little more than the rest of us mortals as he spreads his arms and soars into jumps. But the playful chef is in there, too. You can imagine him surprising a dear friend with paella, or learning to make pasta from his Aunt Maria. In the end, he continues to mix and blend his energetic and spontaneous passions for life into new concoctions as he shifts off the ice and into the kitchen.
Sammy Koh’s landscape paintings are an invitation. Though photorealistic in detail—each frond of a palm tree drawn with a tiny brush—they present as open-ended offerings more than a precise, predetermined point of view. Like the way Sammy views her life, moments of beauty in nature are fleeting. But they can be evoked, regifted, to facilitate peace and healing.
“I wish that people who see my paintings sense the peace and quiet I feel in painting.” She doesn’t draw in human figures so that viewers can “put themselves in the place they want to be…to have a moment to think about their own life.” While pointing to a landscape of California Avenue in Palo Alto, where a street lamp shines its brilliant sphere of luminescence into an overarching tree, she says, “They can stand under the lights. I want them to have time to think.”
Attending school for graphic design in Korea, Sammy did not anticipate becoming a painter. She always held an art dream of her own and worked as an illustrator before immigrating to the US with her family. Once they arrived, her focus was on her son and daughter, who were three and five years old at the time.
Eleven years have since passed, and Sammy has created a community around her in Palo Alto. Just a year ago, she began teaching art classes in her home, focusing on still life and portraiture. Many of her students are also immigrants, mothers of grown children rediscovering the joy of making art for themselves. As they draw and paint, they chat and listen to music. Their finished pieces, many of which feature their children, pets, and plants, can still be found on Sammy’s Instagram.
“I wish that people who see my paintings sense the peace and quiet I feel in painting.” -Sammy Koh
When she transitioned the art class to landscape (painting), the rush of positive feedback stoked her own appreciation for her artwork. In March, as the pandemic canceled her classes, she started to paint more landscapes. As she took more scenic drives and walked around her Palo Alto neighborhood, the ephemeral spirit of sunsets and sunrises stuck with her. “I never miss this moment on a trip,” she smiles. “They are beautiful, but disappear quickly.”
Sammy’s process centers around these precious moments. She prints her photos out, puts them on a wall, and gazes at each to recall the emotion they carried. Much of her time is spent editing images to create a magical effect—a lone bench at Capitola Beach might rise to new heights to overlook a sunrise; a garage door might carry an ocean; and windows, in many of Sammy’s paintings, reflect the warmth of her favorite natural phenomenon.
Within these pieces of art, suburban environments react with romance: street pavements glow in pinkish hues; mailboxes and fire hydrants pop from the sidewalk like ornaments; doorways are always open, revealing worlds of imagination, the sweetness of hindsight. Yet any natural entity—be it tree, bush, or crawling ivy—is portrayed in painstaking hyperrealism. “It can take five hours to draw one tree,” Sammy explains. The contrast should be jarring, but the result is serene.
Yet if the dreamlike elements in these otherwise photorealistic illustrations hint at the shivery, spell-cast atmosphere of the half-light before dawn, perhaps the viewer has caught a rare vibe from the creation process. Sammy’s painting occurs between 2 and 6am. In the quiet, as her family sleeps, she paints. Sometimes, at the break of dawn, she goes out to take pictures. But she returns home soon after, because the “kids and husband ask for food.” After breakfast, she naps before heading to her computer for Photoshop work. Evenings are for family time, walks before dinner, and a second nap before midnight, when she wakes up for more nocturnal art-making.
Sometimes, though, her children join in. On occasions when her daughter accompanies her on photo shoots, Sammy likes to use the photos taken by her daughter. “Whenever I remember the scene, it warms my heart because of her.” And those feelings, in turn, enhance the painting. Other photos are selected by her son. “He kindly explains to me why he picked them,” she shares proudly.
In addition to teaching others to paint, Sammy invests in the community that supported her journey as an immigrant woman. Simple Steps, a 510(c)3 organization founded in 2017 by a Korean immigrant, empowers immigrant mothers to stay in the workplace and further their careers against the odds of limited support networks, language, and cultural barriers. In June, Sammy led a workshop on Instagram marketing for her fellow Simple Steps artists. Sped-up process videos, she shares, are popular right now. Though editing these videos takes time, she aspires to continue posting them for her followers.
Finally living her own dream, she recognizes the different dreams of her children and cherishes their enthusiasm for hers. “I think about when I am an 80-year-old grandma,” she laughs. “I would be happy painting. So, this is my dream.” And if there was ever a proud moment in her life, “I think it’s now.”
Originally appeared in issue 13.2 “Sight and Sound” (SOLD OUT)
#72 – Suzanne St. John-Crane – ALF
Suzanne St. John-Crane joined the American Leadership Forum (ALF) in March of 2016. She has worked in community media for the last 24 years, serving as the founding executive director for two community television stations in the Bay Area, including CreaTV San José. In addition to her leadership and influence in local media, Suzanne is also a talented blues singer and performs with her and her husband Dave’s band, Pearl Alley.
In our conversation, Suzanne shares her passion for music and ALF’s mission to join and strengthen diverse leaders in our community, to create and support networks for good. To find out more about ALF, visit their website at alfsv.org
Though artist and craftsman Nicholas “Knoffy” Knopf has been immersed in creating art since a third grade writing project entitled “Attack of the Melting Zombies,” it wasn’t until this past year that he found the courage to share his work with others. Those admiring his work today, however, are given a look into his journey through a palette of creative experiences and influences that still inform his bold and surreal yet relatable work.
Without formal art education or training, Nicholas has become a man of many talents and has built his skillset over the years through his own dedication to evolving his craft. All these skills have played their part in developing the artist Nicholas is today—from realizing his love for creating surreal and unconventional drawings at a young age to studying pottery as a teenager, which taught him to be patient with the process; from working under his dad, a painting contractor, where he learned the art of making a smooth, clean line with a brush to learning the art of shaping surfboards. Each experience has granted Nicholas more freedom to create his own vision and share his imagination.
Nicholas’s recent pieces are vivid, dynamic meditations on the Monterey Bay surfing culture that he has been a part of for the last 18 years. His clean line work and simple color palettes give way to wavy, bendy characters with oversized appendages that echo both expressionist and surrealist styles. The most prominent and signature element of his pieces, however, are the dynamic facial expressions of his subjects, who are predominantly surfers in wetsuits. They are the primary element that dictates the subjective interpretation of the piece. Interestingly, the expressions are not posed; rather, they capture a fleeting moment of thought, either deep contemplation or a slight, minuscule transition of a moment—a mere flicker of a thought or a nuance of a passing feeling.
It is Nicholas’s knack for noticing these moments that gives him his inspiration. “Surfing is very dynamic, and a lot of the time people aren’t paying attention to what is happening around them. But if you pay close attention, you can find glimpses of emotion ranging from euphoria to rage.” These emotions are characterized and changed by the simplest of lines. Nicholas approaches these lines as he does when shaping and building surfboards, slowly refining them over time to retain meaning in the simplest of forms.
Surfing culture is the central visual motif found in Nicholas’s current work, yet its thematic gestures transcend typical coastal beach art. Surfing serves as an entry point into something deeper, surreal, and imaginative. In one piece, in front of a red sky, a languid, angry looking white shark rests upon a reef like a walrus and balances a surfboard upon its nose while glaring mockingly at a surfer wading in the water. In another, a young surfer enters an Escheresque staircase to come out the other side aged, walking out upon a cloud with surfboard in hand.
“Surfing is very dynamic…if you pay close attention, you can find glimpses of emotion ranging from euphoria to rage.” – Nicholas Knopf
Nicholas moved to Santa Cruz as a teenager and became part of the surf scene, which obviously had a great influence on his artistic vision and aesthetic. Growing up as an artist and surf enthusiast in Santa Cruz, he naturally felt the influence of legend Jim Phillips, the artistic mastermind behind the Santa Cruz skate brand. Nicholas soaked up the work of Phillips, who himself added elements of surrealism and abstractionism to his work. Nicholas extends these local traditions from Santa Cruz’s past into new, untamed paths where his methodical process dictates a less-is-more graphic style.
Nicholas is currently taking elements he discovered in recent graphic design classes and experiments with mixed media to further elevate his style and bring new meaning to his fluid, clean lines. He relates, “Mixed media feels the most rewarding at the end because the resulting product is more interesting. The process can be tedious and involves a lot of problem solving, and the pieces certainly don’t always come out as planned, but it is always fun to experience the result. Art is a lifelong journey for me—like making surfboards. It is always evolving, and I’m always trying to make it better.”
When Kristi Yamaguchi saw the ice show at the Hayward Southland Mall as a little girl, she was in awe. “Just seeing the lights and the costumes…the performances were just really magical the way they all came together,” she remembers. “As a six-year-old, it’s like wow.”
As a child, Yamaguchi began skating in Hayward and continued in Fremont, California, where she grew up. While a career in figure skating might have struck some parents as impractical, Yamaguchi’s parents never discouraged her from pursuing that path. “Luckily, they didn’t have a clue about what they were getting into,” she says. “Or what I was getting into.”
But figure skating was Yamaguchi’s dream. She was drawn to the intersection of physical technique and artistic performance. “It’s a precision sport,” she says. “To be a good skater, you have to make it look easy even when it’s not, [and that] artistry makes it unique.”
With the artistry comes the more personal, subjective side of figure skating. “Your favorite skater could be some random person who’s 25th in the world,” Yamaguchi explains, “but maybe you like the way they move or the way they interpret the movement. It’s an emotional connection that audiences get with skaters—from their style and their personality. I think it’s important to have both. Some people think, ‘Oh, you got to have jumps,’ but when you look back at the history of our sport…the top [athletes] always had the combination of athleticism and artistry that put them above the rest.”
Yamaguchi’s performance at the ’92 Winter Olympics took the gold, and she used her visibility to give back. “It’s definitely helped open doors being an Olympian,” she says. “People are more receptive to hearing your story, your cause.”
Yamaguchi established the Always Dream Foundation in 1996. The charitable organization has worked to provide opportunities to underprivileged and differently abled children. In the last five years, Yamaguchi and her husband, hockey Olympian and San Jose Sharks commentator Bret Hedican, have targeted early childhood literacy as the foundation’s primary focus. “It really came down to ‘if a kid can’t read, they’re not going to have a successful academic career,’ ” Yamaguchi says. “So, we wanted to try to hit that underserved area.”
While Yamaguchi loved reading from a young age, it was the experience of reading to her two daughters, Keara and Emma, that led her to consider writing a children’s book herself and begin thinking about how her foundation could help foster young readers. Yamaguchi has now authored two bestselling children’s books—Dream Big, Little Pig! and It’s a Big World, Little Pig! And Always Dream partners with the national literacy organization Raising a Reader to provide reading material to schools and to increase parent engagement in learning activities at home. “We bring in the digital technology side and provide tablets that are preloaded with ebooks for classrooms,” explains Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi is also busy creating pieces for Tsu.ya, her line of activewear for women. The endeavor unites her career, love of style, and philanthropy. “I’m a girl,” she laughs. “I love shopping. I’ve always been interested in fashion, and…the costume plays a big role [in skating]… Activewear was a natural segue because—not being a formal designer—it’s something I know and grew up in.” Inspired by Newman’s Own and TOMS Shoes, the Tsu.ya brand donates a portion of the proceeds to Always Dream.
While childhood literacy may be her focal point, Yamaguchi has not left skating behind. She continues to skate alongside other luminaries in shows that support childhood reading, and for the past six years, she’s partnered with Hawaiian Airlines to bring community ice skating to San Jose with Downtown Ice. Every year during the holidays, visitors can enjoy skating there under the twinkling palms, perhaps getting a sense of that same magic that drew Yamaguchi to the ice as a little girl.
Article originally appeared in Issue 7.5 Serve SOLD OUT
Annmariz Milagros is the illustrator behind the luscious, juicy, body-positive femme characters brightening these pages right now. And she does it all in the name of self-love—a journey we all could use a little push through.
She comes from a big, artistic family. They all lived in one house, where the TV was always on and usually showing cartoons. Her favorites included Power Puff Girls, Total Drama Island and lots of anime. She surrounded herself with Sanrio stationery and in her free time she would google “anime girls” to trace the eyes of Sailor Moon and the like.
Imagining new characters was the hobby she took everywhere. In elementary school, she started a comic with two of her cousins. They cast themselves in random storylines which, looking back now, she can’t make sense of. “Did we really think this is how the world works?” she laughs, but the joy of creating characters based off herself and those around her stuck. In high school, she would tear off half sheets of paper, write the date, and draw out what happened to her that day. Her friends knew about it, so “I’d draw my crushes without their faces,” she giggles.
In college, Annmariz pursued early childhood education before switching to art. She transferred from Mission College in Santa Clara to Long Beach State, where she joined a community of artists with interests similar to her own—illustration, character design, and storyboarding. Her goal at the time was to be picked up by a company. But gradually she realized: “I loved my style.” Freelancing freed her to “transform it as I go.”
Another awareness was coming into focus—why her characters looked like her. “I didn’t see anything that represents me,” she says. “I’m brown and big. I wanted to create things I’ve always wanted to see for myself.” She knew among her artist community on Twitter that there were others who wanted to see themselves related in cute, erotic art too.
These sweet and naughty, sexy and peachy girls do it all: thighs and plump asses galore, they reflect inner dialogues you just might relate to. Annmariz’s 2017 zine series Peach Gorl was inspired by all the blessings and curses of major life transitions: a break-up and adjusting to life on her own in the Long Beach area.
“It was scary being vulnerable with people, but also very cathartic,” she says. “I felt like I needed to purge out.” And if the purging didn’t change up her style some, well, what’s the point of being an artist? Most of her illustrations used to be in black and white, but “during that time, I saw more color popping out…then all the color popping out!” Her characters started to end up with pink hair—“I’ve always wanted pink hair!”—and her new color palette was guided by bright joy.
“I wanted to create things I’ve always wanted to see for myself.” -Annmariz Milagros
On the weekends through school, Annmariz worked as a caricature artist at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. For two years, she finessed her skills as an artist and as a retailer. “Especially on slow days, a lot of my day was trying to reel people in,” she explains. Once a family agreed to have their portrait done, “you had to draw as quick as you can.” She learned to finish a drawing in under three minutes; with color, under five. All the while, she interacted with the clients, asking about their day and making them laugh.
After graduation, the effects of the pandemic drew her back to family for a year. She stayed in her hometown of Milpitas, taking space during quarantine to grow her presence on social media. She also began taking commissions. “I’m still striving to diversify my characters,” she says. As she evolves, she believes her style will too. Eventually, a search for more freelancing opportunities drew her back south.
Now back in Long Beach, where she lives with her partner and a couple of their friends, you’ll find her crafting her dream day by day. She hopes to have her own studio space and meet more fellow artists working in her niche. “I’m a more introverted person, so I’m very thankful for Instagram,” she says. Online, she’s able to spark some of these relationships through mutual follows and story reactions. “I didn’t think I’d be in contact with other artists making big girl art.”
As a true morning bird, her perfect day begins with a few hours at the gym (followed by her breakfast of choice—milk and cereal), but “then it’s commissions and requests till early evening.” While she’s working, the highs and lows of her mood cycle her through playlists featuring badass female artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Ari Lennox, H.E.R., and Jhené Aiko.
Reflecting on herself five years ago, she states, “I would’ve been shocked I’m putting myself out there like that!” Yet, looking back shows her the power she’s carried all along.
Spend an hour talking about whiskey with Virag Saksena, and it will feel like you’ve taken a master class on the subject. A longtime fan of the versatile spirit, Saksena is the cofounder—along with Vishal Gauri —of the 10th Street Distillery, one of San Jose’s first hard alcohol producers since prohibition.
Originally an engineer who dabbled in home brewing, Saksena’s passion for whiskey truly began when he tasted a limited edition Laphroaig that had been aged in sherry casks. It became his drink of choice, but when supplies of it ran out, he realized there truly was no getting it back. “It feels like a sense of loss—something you really enjoy and you cannot find it anymore. You grow to love a certain expression and then it disappears.”
Being naturally curious, Saksena dove deep into the world of whiskeys, exploring the flavors and nuances that gave them depth and character: honey-noted bourbons, spicy ryes, smokey Japanese whiskeys. His favorite was single malt Scotch, peated but not too heavily. “I got to thinking, why don’t we have a great single malt coming from here?” he explains. “California is known for great microbrews; it is known for amazing wines that challenge the French wines. So, why can’t we do something in the whiskey world? That was kind of puzzling. I didn’t believe what a lot of people said, that you need a certain climate to make whiskey.”
He began looking into how to take the next step in his home brewing hobby, moving into the hard stuff. But distilling is a lot more complicated than brewing, requiring a strong knowledge of the “cuts”—different alcohols, their flavor profiles, and their evaporation points. Understanding the process wasn’t something that could be done through reading and Google searches. It required hands-on learning, and Saksena was ready to take the plunge. He stepped away from his software career to focus on learning to make whiskey. “I wanted to do something that was not bits and bytes but nuts and bolts,” he says.
“The first step in making whiskey is making beer,” he explains. “I’d been making beer for a while, so I was like, okay, I know I can do that. But when you research, there’s a whole bunch of stuff floating around, and you don’t know what’s right. So I ended up going to Scotland and spending some time there working at this apprentice program. You go there and spend a week working for the distillery, from malting the grain, drying it, running the mash…the first part I understood fairly well, but the second part I had no idea.”
After his apprenticeship, Saksena started distilling in his back yard, and his confidence that this project could truly become a viable enterprise began to grow. He also built some of his own prototypes to improve the process. At the distillery, he explains how the TechShop in San Jose was an incubator for these prototypes. “I like building stuff,” he says, “whether it’s software or electronics and hardware. Let me give you an example.” From behind a desk, he pulls out a hefty, complex-looking object made of metal and glass. It’s a shell and tube condenser, a device used to liquify alcohol vapors, and Saksena created it by hand at the now-defunct maker space.
When he and his business partner began to explore the business side of things, searching for a space that would accommodate the equipment and technical processes required of a distillery, they found an encouraging partner in the City of San Jose. “We talked to cities all over the Bay Area,” Saksena recalls. “Some said, ‘We want big software firms here, we don’t need this.’ But San Jose was very supportive; they were very open. They worked with us on the regulations. There are fire and zoning requirements…you can’t just go into an empty shell. Starting a software company is fairly easy: you rent space in an office park, and you can just do it. This was a complex project. It took us about a year just to find a place.”
The location they found (on South 10th Street) is in the warehouse district north of downtown that is also home to several of the new crop of craft breweries. These spaces are perfect for alcohol production, as they can store the large fermenters required in the process. The 10th Street space is huge but is already filling up, housing the vats of mash and wort, custom made copper stills, and, of course, stacks of barrels with whiskey aging inside.
Speaking of the aging process, any whiskey drinker must ask about the age of the bottle in question. Some take eight, ten, twelve years or more before they are bottled and shipped out to the public. But Saksena wanted something they could bring to market in a short timeframe. Although additional products are forthcoming, their currently available single malt (the only product on the market at the moment) only ages for about 14-18 months. And they have eschewed the workaround common in small-batch distilleries of using tiny barrels to extract the flavor more quickly. Instead, they focus on making a clean, flavorful product from the outset that doesn’t require extensive aging.
“People ask how long we age the whiskey,” Saksena says. “My response is, ‘As long as it takes.’ ” He offers a taste of another product, not yet ready for consumption. It’s delicious, but with more bite than the single malt and no earthy peat flavor. His nuanced palette says it needs to wait. “This will stay in the barrel until it’s ready.” They have as many as five different varieties that are in various stages of the aging process.
They use a number of methods to produce the clean but flavorful effect they were looking for in their signature single malt, including fermenting the wort in open air for a period of time to allow local wild yeasts to do their work. This creates an initial beer that has a distinctly “San Francisco sourdough” flavor to it, which they carefully retain throughout the distilling. They also import specialty peated malts from Scotland, and the custom stills imbue the whiskey with maximum taste while still cutting out the harsh alcohols.
“We knew what we wanted to do—we wanted to create a world-class single malt. There are global single malts coming out, but what is happening here in America is that most of the single malts taste more like a bourbon than a single malt; the complex nuances don’t shine through. But we wanted to bring those out. We wanted to create a smooth, complex, and clean product.”
Their single malt whiskey is currently available at several South Bay bars and restaurants, including Paper Plane, Haberdasher, and Alexander’s Steakhouse—and bottles can be found at some markets and liquor shops that carry local products. And while the distillery does not yet have a permit for a tasting room, private tours are available for groups by appointment.
Saksena is clearly proud of and passionate about his whiskey, and the fact that he could make it in his home city of San Jose means even more to him. He makes efforts to involve the community, recycling the grain for use by local farmers and working with small local businesses to distribute. “I wanted to do something which allowed me to work with my local community. It’s something which was missing [in software], and I wanted to get back to—not working across four time zones, but something grounded in the community.”
So, next time you get a chance, take a seat at your local bar, order a shot of 10th Street whiskey, and enjoy a uniquely San Jose flavor. It’s worth savoring.
Flowers are intertwined with feelings—and Jose Ibarra and Efrain Escalante of Apis Floral get that. Though they never went to school to learn the art of flower arranging, Ibarra and Escalante (who playfully call themselves “The Flower Guys”) describe a deep connection with, a deep understanding of, the natural world. The name these partners chose for their boutique—Apis, the genus of the honeybee—seems particularly fitting.
Apis specializes in natural, rustic-chic arrangements for corporate events, weddings, holiday parties, and window displays. Though Ibarra and Escalante are of Mexican heritage, they’ve been told their designs have a Parisian flourish. They go the extra mile for quality—visiting the flower market twice a week and tracking down flowers in other cities. Escalante takes on a supporting role, nurturing the moss and succulent walls and botanical designs, handling marketing, and memorializing their creations through social media. Ibarra is the lead floral designer, feeding roses, carnations, and dahlias into vases until they’ve matured into bouquets.
“It’s always an emotion that moves Jose to start working on the bridal bouquet,” says Efrain. “It’s a process. Every time he’s going to start working on bouquets, he’s thinking about the bride. How does she look? What was she wearing for our last appointment? What was her vision for the wedding? How is she going to be carrying that bouquet? It’s like art.”
Rebecca Herman and Mark Shoffner have been artistic collaborators since 1999, creating sculptures and installations incorporating textiles, wood, bamboo, paper, and reclaimed materials. Their recent work draws on art and architecture from different cultures to create new interaction sites and refuge in contemporary society, and can be seen at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles as part of the Artists in Residence program until the end of the year.
We spoke with them about their artistic voice and some of their recent projects, including hats and masks made of fabrics dyed to reflect the Air Quality Index, and creating covers for a collection of political books found in Rebecca’s grandfather’s library using a process called ice dyeing.
Imagine you’re stepping through the cerulean and sapphire entry of the Iceberg Skating Palace at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. By the time you’ve wandered the massive arena long enough to locate your seat, a Latin song floods the air and a willowy American’s skates have stirred to life. As she flits across the rink with a triple Lutz/triple toe loop combination and a double Axel, you can’t help but admire her airy affinity with the ice.
You’ve just met the Iron Butterfly, the ninth-placed Olympian and two-time US national silver medalist, Polina Edmunds. And while Edmunds’ nickname fits the weightless way she maneuvers across ice, there’s more to it than that.
Did you know that behind the cloak of the cocoon, caterpillars dissolve their bodies into a soup before reorganizing and reassembling themselves into a new creature? Though Edmunds’ transformation might not have called for such drastic measures, she’s overcome her own fair share of uncomfortable transitions and growing pains over the years.
Take for example the crippling mental block she faced in middle school, which left her incapable of performing jumps. “My coaches were at such a loss,” Edmunds recalls of her six-month burnout. “They tried yelling at me. They tried crying with me. They tried so many different tactics to get me to do it. And I just couldn’t.” Part of the problem was Edmunds’ longing for even a taste of normalcy. The 5am practices, after-school practices, and early bedtimes didn’t allow for much of that. But when Edmunds’ friends planned a Jamba Juice and salon trip on the last day of seventh grade, Edmunds’ mom (also one of her coaches) had an idea. She promised her daughter the day off if she could nail her jumps.
“Every time I got butterflies in my stomach, I thought about Jamba Juice,” Edmunds smiles. “That was the one word that kept replaying and replaying in my mind.” After her special girls’ day, Edmunds felt once again ready to face the rink. “It was my favorite day ever, but I came home, and I kind of had that reset where I was like, ‘That was fun. But skating makes me special—I’m going to go back.’ ”
Puberty was another rocky transition. Edmunds’ new physique meant she had to adjust to a different body balance, readjusting her poise to new proportions and relearning the muscle memory of moves. Her metabolism changed too. As a youngster, Edmunds’s big appetite was a source of pride. While other skaters religiously watched what they ate, she could polish off a big meal right before taking on the rink (something that always gained her more than a few odd looks from her competitors).
She laughs, recalling her indignation when coach David Glynn and her mom suggested she cut back on the milkshakes and pizza slices. “Eating everything you want and still being a toothpick—that was the best!” she asserts. “And all of a sudden, knowing that that’s not the case anymore and that I need to pay attention, I struggled with fully identifying with that.” It took her a whole two years to finally respect her body’s new limits.
Most recently, Edmunds has faced another pivotal transition. After rinks closed for months during the pandemic and consistent practice was no longer an option, she made the decision to retire from competitive skating. It can’t be easy to step away from the only way of life you’ve ever known.
“They tried yelling at me. They tried crying with me. They tried so many different tactics to get me to do it. And I just couldn’t.” -Polina Edmunds
It was at 20 months of age that Edmunds’ mom first plopped her into skates. It was at four she began lessons. By the ripe age of five, she earned the lead role in a skating performance as the audacious Pippi Longstocking. “My mom put pipe cleaners in my hair, braided them, spray-painted them orange,” she recalls. Edmunds has fond memories of her dad encouraging her with gifts. “Whenever I won first place when I was growing up, my dad would take me to Toys R Us, and I would get to pick out a doll…I ended up having like 20 Cabbage Patch kids!”
For Edmunds, the rink echoes with countless memories and thousands of hours of hard work. It has been the site of adrenaline-charged performances, new friends, and daring feats. To say it contains a large chunk of her identity is an understatement. “It was really emotional,” Edmunds told a reporter at NBC Sports about deciding whether or not to retire. “Every time I talked about it, I would start to cry, just because I couldn’t fathom the idea of stopping.”
But here’s the thing about stories—one chapter must end before the next can start.
One of the first transitions Edmunds made in retirement was taking the sudden lack of structure and finding a new rhythm. In less than a week of her big announcement, she started her own podcast, Bleav in Figure Skating. After gaining confidence and credibility by sharing her own journey across several episodes, she began interviewing big names like gold medal Olympians Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano. With hopes of one day becoming a sportscaster, it’s a fantastic first step for her future.
As she switches from interviewee to interviewer, Edmunds hopes she can enrich the interactions between media and athletes. “[As a skater,] I found that whenever I did the typical interview with NBC or wherever, the questions were pretty much the same and there wasn’t a whole lot of depth to the conversation…as athletes, we kind of all get the same questions.”
To counteract this, she creates a safe space for her guests by letting them know she can relate. “I try to include my own personal experiences and make it conversational,” she says. “And it ends up honestly feeling a lot like a therapy session…I need to start calling it Therapy With Polina!”
She also gets specific, focusing on niche angles rather than overarching careers, like discussing Gracie Gold’s struggle to regain skills and consistency in the rink after her hiatus. Or reflecting on eating disorders with Rachael Flatt, who studied the subject at Stanford after watching many athletic peers fall victim. Beyond the podcast, Edmunds has started hosting seminars for young skaters about mental training, nutrition, and other key topics regarding the sport.
Edmunds’ graceful shift from one sphere to the next carries the same fluidity as her movements across ice. It’s been a year since her retirement, and this new season looks good on her. She’s done away with her long locks for a stylish, new haircut. She’s shed the braces of her youth and gained a few healthy pounds that compliment her face and figure. The winged pendent of her necklace clinches it—the Iron Butterfly is alive and well.
#70 – Brandon Roos – Arts Journalist, DJ, and Content Magazine Contributing Writer
Brandon has been a contributing writer for Content Magazine since our second year of publishing in 2013. In addition to Content, Brandon has written for Metro Silicon Valley and San José Jazz.
In our conversation, we talk about his love of words and music and how they have come together in his career, as well as his approach to writing and his journey as a local writer.
“I’ll still do this thing where I get a legal pad and start writing the story off the top of my head, and if I don’t know the quote, I put some brackets there. I realized that often, inspiration comes naturally in the process. You’re able to kind of craft this thing by just trusting your intuition and catching those finer points. I don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. I can trust my instincts and believe that I know a thing or two about a narrative.” – Brandon Roos
Follow Brandon at: IG: @brandiathan and brandonroos.contently.com
Hear Brandon DJing at Camino Brewing First Sundays with @firstearmusic!
SVCREATESrecognizes the region’s finest artists who have demonstrated a commitment to developing their art forms and to enriching the greater Santa Clara County region with exhibitions, performances, presentations, and service. The SVArts Award Program, including the SVLaureates and theContent Emerging Artist Award,awards unrestricted cash prizes to support artists while they pursue their creative work.
The purpose of the SVArts Award Program is to: Recognize the artistic vibrancy and impact of our local artists Provide monetary support to encourage continuing development of the artist’s work Spotlight the important role individual artists play in contributing to a vital and creative community
Awards and Categories The 2022 SVArts Program will award two Content Emerging Artist Awards of $5,000 each. The award program for other Artist Laureates is on hiatus and is anticipated to return in 2023.
To preview the application in advance, you may review a downloadable copy of the application on the SVCreates website, svcreates.org
Awards will be presented at a public SVArts celebration in May 2022. In addition, all awardees will be featured in the May issue of Content Magazine.
Content Emerging Artist Award: Recognizing early career artists in all genres – visual, performing, and literary arts:
Visual Arts: Including two and three-dimensional work that is created in the studio or in community spaces; including drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture in all media, photography, video, mixed/multiple media, installation, new or alternative media and social practice art.
Performing Arts: Including art that is presented for an audience on a formal or informal stage. Applicants would include artists creating work that is developed offstage, backstage, or pre-performance (choreographers, composers, stage directors, stage/set/costume designers). Or performers themselves (dancers, actors, spoken word artists, instrumental/vocal musicians).
Literary Arts: All written literary art forms.
Note: This program does not include architecture, landscaping, industrial/graphic/computer systems design, journalism/photojournalism, or other commercial activities.
An Emerging Artist is defined as: + An artist in the early stages of their career (not defined by age) + Demonstrating a commitment to their practice, working intentionally over the last 3-5 years to develop and promote a career as a professional artist + Having some evidence of professional achievement through exhibitions or performances in public settings + Being rigorous in their approach to creation and production + Having developed an original body of work with a clear identity + Taking risks and embracing challenges
Eligibility Applicant must: + Be at least 18 years of age at the time of the application deadline. + Spend at least five-ten hours a week on and may derive income from the practice/creation of art. + Have exhibited, performed, presented and/or published artistic work in a public context within the last three years. + Be the principal creator/performer or the sole author of work(s) submitted. + Be a resident of Santa Clara County or one of several bordering counties (Alameda, San Mateo, San Benito, and Santa Cruz Counties) for at least one year prior to the application deadline, AND can demonstrate through professional history that artistic activity has had an impact on residents of Santa Clara County.
Applicant must not: + Be enrolled as an undergraduate student. + Be a prior recipient of an Artist Fellowship or Laureate from SVCREATES or Arts Council Silicon Valley. + Be a current employee or board member of SVCREATES/ or have been employed by or served on the board of SVCREATES/Arts Council Silicon Valley/1stACT Silicon Valley within the past 10 years.
Review Criteria SVArts Award applications are reviewed by independent review panels, comprised of distinguished professional artists and community arts leaders, representing a spectrum of disciplines. Awardees will be selected on a competitive basis, based on artistic merit, artististic development and community impact.
How to Apply All application materials will be submitted through SVCREATES online application portal. If submitting your application online creates an obstacle for you, please contact Alyssa Erickson to make other arrangements (see contact info below).
To preview the application in advance, you may review a downloadable copy of the application on the SVCreates website, svcreates.org
Application requirements include: narrative questions, links to work samples hosted online, resume, and a letter of recommendation.
Letter of Recommendation: submit one letter of recommendation from someone who works in the arts and knows your work well. It is the applicant’s responsibility to upload the letter. Letters should be no more than one page, signed by the recommender and address the following questions:
What is your relationship to the artist? How do you know their work? In what way is the artist an asset to the arts community in Santa Clara County? Why should this artist be recognized as a 2022 Emerging Artist Awardee? Questions?
Email your questions to staff or contact us to schedule a phone call. Please contact: Alyssa Erickson, Program Manager alyssae(at)svcreates.org | 408-998-2787 ext. 204
To preview the application in advance, you may review a downloadable copy of the application on the SVCreates website, svcreates.org
#69 – Conrad Egyir Conrad is a Ghanaian artist based in Detroit, working in figurative narratives of the African Diaspora. His work blends religious and West African folk iconography within domestic scenes, portraying a deep understanding of the history of portraiture. He utilizes shaped canvases and relief elements to reference stamps and postcards as metaphors for migration; journals, books, binder tabs, and chapters as metaphors for time and the archiving of ideas.
In our conversation, Conrad discusses his process, the inspiration to this current series as well as his guiding life philosophy.
His exhibition will be on view in the ICA San Jose’s Main Gallery in conjunction with Conrad Egyir: A Chapter of Love, a Facade Project at the ICA San José through February 20, 2022.
Conrad Egyir: A Chapter of Love and Conrad Egyir: Chapters of Light are generously supported by program partner Facebook Open Arts, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Pamela and David Hornik, Tad Freese and Brook Hartzell, and Applied Materials. Follow Conrad at @conrad_egyir and conradegyir.com On view at Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose (https://www.icasanjose.org)
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. read more about Jack in issue 14.1 Winter 2022, released Date Dec. 9, 2021 Follow Jack at @jackpavlinamusic Spotify: https://bit.ly/jackpavlina
W hen Alexa Arena commutes to San Jose from her home in San Francisco, she often takes Caltrain.
“The good news is when you’re sitting on a train, you’re not gonna do a phone call or a video call,” said Arena, Google’s senior director of real estate development, in an interview with San José Spotlight. “So you have, frankly, the time to read and to make sure that you digest information.”
For the past three years, Arena was a central leader in negotiating the tech giant’s Downtown West project for San Jose, an 80-acre office and housing complex that’s been called a city within a city. The complex will be located near Diridon Station, a transit hub that San Jose leaders hope will become the Grand Central Station of the West, particularly following the arrival of California’s long-awaited high-speed rail.
But for now, the station mostly serves VTA’s bus and light rail, as well as Caltrain, which runs from San Jose to San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood. The commute provides the tech-real estate exec with a quiet time that’s often missing from Silicon Valley’s fast-paced rat race lifestyle. “In our meeting culture—that I think has taken over the world—it’s hard to find those times,” Arena said. “You also end up in an experience on trains, in particular, where you see so much outside the window. So it does give you that mental space just to reflect.”
Arena, 44, was born in Dallas but moved with her family every few years during childhood. She has also lived in Baltimore, Chicago, Boston, and New York City.
“I think that versatility of locations and experiences definitely did a lot to give me a sense of how each culture and community is unique,” she said, adding that she moved to San Francisco 13 years ago following advice from a mentor at the Harvard Housing Institute. “He had recommended the West Coast because it was just so much more open to some of the thinking around community building and how we think of the physical environment not as a set of buildings, but as a composition of how you bring neighborhoods to life,” Arena said.
“It was really about community and neighborhood-making versus buildings, and that intrigued me.” -Alexa Arena
The executive was working in Lendlease’s California development arm when she got connected with Google. She said the company exemplifies the type of building that first inspired her to enter the real estate industry. “It was really about community and neighborhood-making versus buildings, and that intrigued me,” she said. Arena was attracted to the tech giant’s team-oriented approach to project planning.
Arena has reflected on the work it’s taken to push the massive Google project past the finish line—Downtown West was approved by the San Jose City Council in May—and the work that remains. It’s been three years since the council passed an agreement and sold several parcels of public land to the tech company for its new megacampus. Arena said she’s excited to see the project’s next stage of evolution.
“The openness of the dialogue after the MOU [memorandum of understanding] vote was really immensely appreciated,” Arena said.
Prior to the project approval, activists worked strenuously to prevent the sale of land to Google, with some chaining themselves to the chairs inside San Jose City Hall in protest.
The proposed tech campus includes 7.3 million square feet of office space, 4,000 housing units, 15 acres of parks, and a 30,000- to 50,000-square-foot community center. The project also features 500,000 square feet for retail, cultural, arts, and education uses. A quarter of the project’s housing units will be affordable.
The most challenging aspect of planning, Arena said, was figuring out how to wrap the complexity of the project around the needs of the community. “We could not have achieved this project and its goals without deep, lasting partnerships with people in the equity community, with people in the arts community, with people in the environmental community,” she explained. “You can’t do a project of this complexity, with the myriad of goals that we really want to achieve, without a partnership mentality and a co-creation mentality.”
The pandemic, too, introduced challenges that Arena said residents faced with surprising aplomb. “It shows people in the community, their dedication to the outcomes and the objectives, that we all rolled up our sleeves and sorted through how to work through that together,” she said.
Many residents wonder how the project will blend with the rest of downtown. Arena said the key to answering that question lies 40 feet above the sidewalk. “We often talk about the first 40 feet in real estate, because that’s what you actually experience,” Arena said, adding that the developers aim to create a ground-level experience where someone is steeped in San Jose’s distinct cultures. “It is a pretty incredible culture around festivals, around pockets of San Jose, but it’s spread out. And so if we’ve gotten it right, we can bring that community together around that first 40 feet and be like, ‘This is only gonna happen in San Jose. I know I’m in San Jose, I’m not in a generic city’s downtown,’ ” Arena added. “It’s going to take a lot of partnership to get there.”
Central to that partnership is the fate of the area’s artists, many of whom gravitate around downtown through hubs like Local Color. Arts groups like SVCreates met with Google executives prior to the City Council’s approval of the development, and Arena said that meeting informed many of the project’s design guidelines.
“Our worst-case scenario is that the ground plane becomes too expensive to invite artists in…we absolutely don’t want that to happen,” she said. “We’re thinking [about] how to optimize the whole of the place into the right type of ecosystem that defines an authentic city…the importance of public art is a component of the project, so it’s accessible to everyone who comes o the site.”
The project’s design guidelines include prohibiting art that causes environmental disruption within the riparian setback along Los Gatos Creek or the Guadalupe River. The guidelines also call for creating art that evokes “a sense of destination to areas of high traffic and high visibility, to help shape gathering places and to be a part of the place making of destinations such as a cafe, an event venue, or programmed activities.” Arena said a committee of arts advocates and residents from all over San Jose helped inform the design guidelines and requirements for public art displays.
“There’s a dedicated budget to free programming; oftentimes that will be art: performance art, other things going on, music, in those open spaces,” the Google executive said. “The entire goal of the free programming is to invite in [the] community and to make it feel like it’s a place where you don’t have to come and buy something to be a part of.”
Local Color had planned to host an artist studio in one of the buildings on the project site. However, the facility never opened, due to Santa Clara County’s COVID-19 health guidelines, according to Carman Gaines, Local Color’s member relationship manager. Arena said Google wants to keep artists and other cultural leaders working in the downtown area. “There’ll be some movement, but it is absolutely about the stability and the growth of networks like them who are really important to helping our arts and cultural community thrive,” she said.
Sculpture and theater are Arena’s favorite art media. The three-dimensional aspect of sculpture allows the public to experience the work and each other in a unique way.
“Art is a way to really connect Googlers and Google and society…to make us feel like we are part of something larger, to get us in conversation, to give us a shot at alternative ways of thinking,” Arena said. “Google needs art in the same way our culture needs art.” Google wants to capture the culture of San Jose in its public spaces, Arena said, and art is central to its vision of a vibrant downtown.
“San Jose has got this incredible spirit of entrepreneurship, celebration, creativity, diversity,” she said. “The goal of the downtown is to bring that all together, to access it with frequency, to feel like every weekend you can come and discover something new.”
T here’s a significant amount of abstraction in flying by plane—after all, you’re hurtling through the air in a metal tub at 30,000-plus feet, but the most surreal moment of your flight is that first glance through the plastic cabin window at the terrain far below. From an aerial angle, the landscape is broken down in a patchwork of shapes and condensed colors like a massive, earthy quilt. Linda Gass captures that feeling through her map-like “stitched paintings,” art that addresses water and land-use issues in California and the American West.
Although she also works with glass, Gass has an obvious soft spot for textiles. “With textiles, they tend to have a comforting feeling to them,” she describes. “We’re used to wrapping ourselves in them. We sleep under them.” Her intricate designs are fashioned by drawing with the sewing machine, guiding the fabric with her hands while controlling the speed and movement of the needle. Averaging a mile’s worth of thread per year, she coalesces teeny tiny stitches into textured patterns that reflect their environment—rolling grasslands curve and loop, rows of crops form neat lines, rivers and oceans coil and ripple.
The highlight is certainly the water, not just in texture but in color. Through silk painting, this artist commingles an ever-changing blend of aquamarine and turquoise, cyan and seafoam. Her H20 interest was initially fostered by her mother. Gass recalls her mom frequently warning her that if she didn’t finish her salad, it would rain the next day (a superstition carried over from her own childhood in the particularly rainy country of Luxemburg). But the threat didn’t carry the same heft, considering LA’s stubborn lack of rain. “We have all these lush green lawns and swimming pools,” Gass remembers pondering. “If it doesn’t rain here, where does our water come from? I had no idea. You know…it comes from the tap!” Later, she was shocked to learn that none of LA’s water came from local sources.
“I use the lure of beauty to look at the hard environmental issues we face.” – Linda Gass
Gass’s enthusiasm for maps also started at a young age. The artist’s face softens with nostalgia when she speaks of hours spent whirling her Rand McNally globe. “I’d play this game where I’d spin the globe, and I’d close my eyes and put my finger on it, just to see where it landed,” she smiles. “Mostly it landed in the ocean because it’s mostly water. Which also left this big impression on me of how much of our planet is water. It was this process of discovery.”
A few years later, Gass’s time at Stanford continued to cultivate her valuing of sustainable living. “I lived in a co-op house where we ate vegetarian,” she notes. “We did recycling, we didn’t use paper napkins with our dinners, we baked our own bread and granola…all those good hippie things!” Today, her advocacy-fueled artwork features in a number of magazines and books, including a National Geographic publication on unusual maps and the cover of an environmental science textbook.
One of her favorite pieces to date will be included in a solo show addressing climate change at the Museum of Craft and Design (featured until May 3rd). The stitched painting, Severely Burned, reveals the crippling damage of the Rim Fire in the Tuolumne River Watershed area through an artistically rendered vegetation burn map. It’s a personal piece. Gass has regularly visited and backpacked Yosemite National Park ever since a week-long class trip in 8th grade taught her an appreciation of the area’s ecosystem (from its plants and animals, to the glaciers that carved its valley).
And she witnessed the fire in person. “There was this cloud, like one I’d never seen before,” Gass recalls of an intense moment staring out the bus window at the horizon. “It was this cauliflower in the sky. It was not a rain cloud. And the underside of it…the whole cloud was grey. There was no white.” The fire burned so hot it had created its own weather, condensing the moisture from the atmosphere into an unnerving pyrocumulus cloud. Gass vividly recollects the flurry of ash later falling like snowflakes, some crusting on the zoom lens of her camera.
Although her work wades through some harsh realities, Gass takes a surprisingly gentle approach. “I use the lure of beauty to look at the hard environmental issues we face—rather than make artwork that may be more ugly like the subject matter that I’m dealing with that people might not want to look at. Or live with.” Visually pleasing images make unappetizing truths a little more palatable. “Otherwise they might want to stick their head in the sand because it’s overwhelming,” she observes.
Moreover, this artistic choice reveals an optimism in the restoration of natural beauty. Catching a bird’s eye view with Gass reminds us we can aim higher. Rather than settle for a flawed standard, we can choose to be better stewards of the planet we inhabit.
Article originally appeared in issue 12.0 “Discover.”
The Art of Disability Culture — Working Towards Access and Inclusion at the Palo Alto Art Center
SV CREATES’ The Business of Arts and Culture provided an important reminder about the cultural diversity of our community, the unique organizational ecosystem that has built upon it, and continued urgency for social justice, access, and equity in our work. At the Palo Alto Art Center’s recent staff retreat this summer, we used the Museums & Race Report Card tool to assess our progress in supporting equity in governance, funding, representation, responsiveness, resources, and transparency. On average, staff gave us a “C” grade, identifying some gains in the area of representation in programming and transparency, but acknowledging significant work to do in diversifying our staff and in creating a sustainable funding source for equity efforts.
I reflect upon this work as we get ready to launch our fall exhibition, The Art of Disability Culture. As a staff, we have been committed to exploring the “A” for “access” and the “I” for inclusion in our ongoing DEAI (Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusivity) work. We saw this exhibition as a chance for us to enhance our organizational capacity for access and inclusion, while bringing creative perspectives from the disability community to the public.
The exhibition will feature the work of 20 artists, all of whom identify as having a disability, in a broad range of media. The show celebrates intersectionality and community, showcasing everything from Anthony Tusler’s documentary photography of the 26-day occupation of the San Francisco Federal Building in 1977 that led to the ADA to the Black Disabled Lives Matter logo designed by Jennifer White-Johnson.
Our goals for the exhibition are lofty:
To introduce audiences to and to create opportunities for celebration around the connectivity, ingenuity, resilience, and creativity of the greater Bay Area disability community.
To encourage audiences to understand the ways that the creative work by people with disabilities has made a positive contribution to our community and world.
To reveal the complexity and diversity of the disability experience.
To promote access to the exhibition for diverse audiences through the use of access features like audio description, Braille, large-print labels, captioned videos, seating, and advance access information.
To achieve these goals, we have relied upon institutional partnerships, with organizations such as AbilityPath, Magical Bridge, Ada’s Cafe in Palo Alto, Creative Growth in Oakland, Creativity Explored in San Francisco, and NIAD Art Center in Richmond. Our outstanding guest curator, Fran Osborne, has created extensive labels for the exhibition that will be available in large-print and Braille. Audio visual descriptions for all the artworks will be available by QR code and on our website. Programs for the exhibition, including Friday Night at the Art Center on September 17 and a Community Day Celebration on October 10, will include live captioning and ASL interpretation, thanks to the assistance of the Midpen Media Center.
This show has demanded that we do more than ever before to support access and inclusion. Funding was necessary to support these activities and we are grateful for the generosity of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, California Humanities, Pamela and David Hornik, and Magical Bridge.
I am also mindful that this exhibition has come at a time when our staff is the smallest it’s been in organizational history. The impact of COVID-19 hit the Palo Alto Art Center dramatically, and like many of our colleagues, we are working to rebuild and recover. While the preparations for this show stretched our team, we have found continued inspiration in the work of the artists, who have been so appreciative for the opportunity to show their work in this community and context.
Circling back to the Museums & Race Report Card, I am also reflecting deeply about how we sustain momentum from this exhibition for deeper institutional change — such as sustainable funding to allow us to provide access features for all of our exhibitions moving forward. I am continually reminded that access and inclusion work is a process. We continue to work toward it, striving to make progress toward a future that we hope to shape, but that remains in many ways uncertain.
Katherine Sherwood. “After Ingres.” 2014. Acrylic and mixed media on recycled linen. 84 x 105 in.
Second- Michaela Oteri, “Self Portrait”, digital print, 26 x 38 in.
Use by permission from Palo Alto Art Center
Danny Thien Le, known by many in downtown San José as “Dandiggity,” has been a key figure in the local art and cultural scene where he is known for his poetry, event planning, arts and music advocacy, and fashion entrepreneurship. He has collaborated with Universal Grammar, Cukui Clothing, The APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit, and POW! WOW! San José, and most recently has taken on a librarian position with the City of Santa Clara.
Join our conversation with Danny on the Content Podcast to hear about his journey from a late-night club-goer to a San José State University graduate with a Master of Library and Information Science degree.
Follow Danny at @dandiggity https://www.instagram.com/dandiggity/
This episode’s music is “408” by Jack Pavlina. Read more about Jack in issue 14.1 Winter 2022, released Date Dec. 9, 2021
AAt a typical fashion show you might see grandiose or elegant runways that models strut down, dressed in the latest pieces by prominent designers in the fashion industry. But stripped of all the glitz and glamour are garments that only serve the purpose of meeting current fashion trends or setting the status quo of the fashion world. Pivot: The Art of Fashion puts on events that are not your typical fashion show. Founders and producers Tina Brown and Rose Sellery have set out to blur the lines between fashion and art while engaging their community and setting themselves apart from the norms of the fashion industry.
The visionaries for Pivot originally met while working together at FashionART Santa Cruz and found themselves wanting to support designers and artists outside the mere bounds of Santa Cruz and with events scheduled throughout the whole year, not just on an annual basis. Their background in fashion and art allow them, and Pivot, to flourish in their mission of bringing fashion and art together. Brown holds a degree in environmental design and gained experience in the fashion world by working her way up from making millinery hats to eventually working on runway events and photo shoots for Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Giorgio Armani. On the other side of the spectrum, Sellery works closely with different mediums in the visual arts. Sellery encapsulates gender norms and her own personal struggles through conceptual garments and sculptures. With a goal and vision set in mind and the skills and knowledge they possess, Brown and Sellery provide artists and designers who collaborate with Pivot with opportunities to further advance their place in the art and fashion scene.
The process begins with artists submitting an online application with examples of their work and a detailed overview of the performance aspect that would be incorporated into their clothing line modeled at the fashion show. Applications are reviewed by board members who decide if the submitted work fits with a certain venue. Though Brown and Sellery are always looking for new talent, often attending events for West Valley College, the Academy of Art in San Francisco, and City College of San Francisco for potential talent, they have worked with the same artists and designers for many years.
At its core, Pivot is a platform for local artists and fashion designers to showcase their work through photo shoots and runway events, to find the help to sell their work, as well as to foster a sense of community. Blurring the lines between fashion and art at Pivot translates into coiled mattress springs swirled around the lower frame of a model, peanut butter jar labels used to adorn a dress centered around a pun, and flowing designs hand painted on silk scarves, dresses, and skirts. Brown and Sellery work closely with artists and designers to modify pieces that are featured in the runway events, providing constructive criticism to ensure the pieces are cohesive collections. “Really what it’s about is creating an artistic community and supporting artists and designers,” Brown says.
Pivot is a learning process. Brown and Sellery brainstorm ideas with designers and artists and provide them with feedback to incorporate into their designs and eventually the finished product. In that learning process, however, unlearning is necessary.
The thin frames of the models who grace the runways are an issue Brown and Sellery can’t look past. To them, these models do not represent inclusivity or the body positivity they strive to include at Pivot. While the fashion industry does receive some criticism for its size-specific standards, it has become just that—the standard. Brown finds herself telling designers at Pivot to make clothing for all shapes and sizes. “A lot of times designers, especially in New York and in Paris, they’re only cutting for models that basically have no shape and figure; they’re a clothes hanger. That doesn’t really translate to the real world,” says Brown. Aside from Pivot, Brown is the founder of her company, Ilkastyle. The name derives from the ancient Scottish word “ilka,” which means each and every. She applies the philosophy of ilka to style to reflect the need for wearing something people feel comfortable and happy in.
As for Sellery, she expresses her views on the fashion industry’s beauty standards through her art. While watching fashion shows online a few years ago, Sellery found herself struck by how thin the models were. “The women were so emaciated, it was appalling. You could see the bones that ran across their chest and their clavicle poking out, I was just thinking these women were just skin and bone, and it was horrific to look at and not beautiful, in my mind,” Sellery says. Her immediate thoughts led her to create the wearable art piece titled, “Skin and Bones” which symbolizes the normalization and glorification of thin and petite bodies. With sliced bones scattered across the body of the model wearing it, the piece mimics a corset in the way that it tightly clings to her body. “We’re bombarded with a certain look and told, ‘This is what beauty is,’ “ Sellery continues.
Body image is only one of the issues Brown and Sellery work to address through Pivot. Overall inclusivity of people across all walks of life is essential, which can be seen through the people who design and model the clothing at Pivot’s fashion shows. People of different ages, sexualities, and gender identities play a role in Pivot, whether they’re the designers or models, whether older women strutting down the runway or young boys and girls being the brains behind detailed and thought-provoking pieces.
Brown and Sellery work closely with their production of FashionTeens Santa Cruz, a program open to middle and high school students in Santa Cruz County to design and model clothing—usually with recycled material—for its annual fashion show. The duo have enjoyed their time working with teens. It’s allowed them to see how the teens have grown as young people and developed as designers and artists. “There’s a struggle to fit in in a world where they don’t see anyone like themselves in magazines or on television. There’s very few that represent who they can look at and say, ‘That’s beautiful; she’s beautiful,’ ” Sellery says. While Brown and Sellery have seen impressive work from the teens, one of the most memorable designs came from a place of torment and rising above harsh bullying. A young indigenous Mexican girl living in Watsonville became the target of verbal abuse by her classmates for being distinctly different from the rest of the Latino community. Written largely on the girl’s garment were the hurtful words said to her by her classmates. As she walked the runway at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Cruz, her outfit lifted to reveal positive words about her that replaced the negative ones. The whole scene played out in a manner Sellery describes as hauntingly beautiful. “I think it changes how they experience themselves and the confidence they build, not only creating something but wearing it out on stage and getting this riotous applause,” Sellery says regarding the significance of events like FashionTeens and Pivot.
Defying the norms of the fashion industry has proven to be much more than resisting the standards of beauty. Pivot has grown as a space for creative minds to collaborate and create quirky, whimsical, and inspiring pieces in a way that captivates its audience and engages community members beyond just clothing for the sake of pure fashion.
Google: “Blind I for the Kids,” “Treatment Sound System,” “Substance,” “Cukui,” “PLSTK,” or “South East Beast” and you will just scratch the surface of Dandiggity. Get involved in San Jose and eventually you’ll meet him. Declared by his friends to be the Mayor of the San Jose scene, Dandiggity is a key player in what many consider to be the city’s cultural renaissance.
Elements of art, music, writing, philosophy and community come together in his laundry list of mainstays and bylines. Blogs, music collaborations, stores, galleries, design houses, dance crews, poetry, and activism are portions of his multifaceted persona. Try to label or define Dandiggity and you will quickly realize there may be no definition for what he does. Creator, organizer, and director all seem to fall short of capturing the energy and initiative that have made him one of the most diverse people you will meet.
Born in Oklahoma City, Danny Le, aka Dandiggity, or Diggity for short, moved to San Jose at age 10 and spent his formative years in the large Vietnamese community here. Diggity was strongly influenced by his entrepreneurial father; through observation, he learned the value of defining your own career. “To be fully happy you have to be your own boss,” he says. “To be able to take control of your dreams and not have somebody take control for you is the hardest path, but also the most fulfilling.”
Throughout his childhood Diggity kept this philosophy in the forefront and began writing poetry. Immersing himself in spoken word and eventually travel, Diggity was exposed to ideas and cultures beyond the close-knit Vietnamese community. Through local events and church functions he quickly discovered his penchant for organizing and his enthusiasm made him a natural talent.
Flash forward to the Diggity most people know today and it is hard to believe he once considered himself an “observer” or that he ever had a shell to come out of. Upon meeting him you quickly realize his enthusiasm is contagious and his positive energy almost tangible. If San Jose is in the midst of a cultural renaissance, Diggity is the city’s Da Vinci. “It’s about creating community through culture,” he says. “Everything I think about telling the world—I have to share myself, as much as I can share myself.”
From his involvement with Japantown’s Cukui Clothing & Gallery to his unique approach to social justice through South East Beast, Diggity’s presence can be felt in person and through the online sphere. He easily navigates the worlds of fashion, music, and art and manages to blend them into a seamless experience. With a click and a follow on any major social media network, San Joseans can quickly enter his world.
His willingness to share and collaborate has made him the figure he is today. “I am enthusiastic about helping people develop their dreams and encouraging them to pursue them,” he says. Diggity also has some advice for fellow thinkers:“First rule of anything, it’s not because you thought of it first, it’s what’s put out there first. If you’re an ideas guy, you have tons of them, ship it out, let somebody refine it for you.” And that is just what he has done; redefining what many would consider the traditional model of success: owning and running one company. Instead, Diggity has collaborated to create a diverse portfolio of talents and pursuits.
“The forces of the world tell us that you have to be in a cush job with security, you have to pay off this debt. I say this: be healthy, be aware, be out there, be involved. You will always be happy and you will always have enough.” – Danny Le
So what is next in his journey? “Lately, I have been learning to take on less; as someone who loves to be involved, you can wear yourself thin,” he says. “In 2012 I told myself: teach yourself to say no.” Dandiggity isn’t taking a break. Rather, he is taking the time to gain focus and turn his attention to the projects he is the most passionate about.
“San Jose is experiencing a renaissance,” Diggity says. “We are on this threshold. Most people don’t see it, because usually they see it after the fact, but we’re not at the end, we are still at the beginning.”
“I am excited because people are a catalyst for other people, it’s like a virus. People see things they want to do and be involved in.” On his friends and fans dubbing him the “Mayor of San Jose,” Diggity laughs. “I believe everyone can be mayor of San Jose, or mayor of their town,” he says. “You just have to support one another. Don’t make excuses. Just go. You’ll have much more fun, and you’ll run into people everywhere.”
Article originally appeared in issue 4.3, “Branding,” 2012.
Issue SOLD OUT
It’s one of those slow afternoons, and a few lowriders from the Low Conspiracy Car Club have gathered at the garage of current head Sergio Martinez. Surrounded by vintage car prints, show trophies, and shelf upon shelf of model cars, members reminisce over slices of pizza on the organization’s 40-plus years of history.
These memories are bittersweet, reflections trigged by the recent loss of José “All Nighter” Martinez, president during the club’s first decade, and later in life, a regular judge in Lowrider Magazine’s car shows. Last week, the club honored him with a memorial cruise down Santa Clara Street. Now, as they pass around old photos and magazine clippings, a few of the older auto aficionados reflect on the club’s deep impact on their lives.
“It starts out as a hobby and turns into a lifestyle,” muses Abel Hernandez (a retired member of the club, but one of the 10 original high schoolers who first brought it to life back in the ’70s). Sergio smiles his agreement, the Impala symbol tattooed on his arm proof to his friend’s statement. That same mindset holds true across the club. It’s evidenced in the matter-of-fact way club members can rattle off the painters and modifiers behind their cars with the level of pride art collectors reserve for listing the masters framed on their walls.
There’s no argument that these cars are drivable art. “You’re not going to take a family vacation with those,” Abel comments with a chuckle. Sergio nods, “I kinda made mine a trailer queen and chromed everything.” If you’ve witnessed members’ painstaking attention to detail, you’ll understand why. For starters, there’s the handmade Zenith wire wheels with plated spokes in chrome and gold. There’s the big-bodied builds (practically with a couch in the backseat). There’s the hydraulic suspension (some with the power to raise up on three wheels or jump). Occasionally, there’s hidden murals tucked inside the door jams (ready to flash whenever the driver enters or exits the vehicle).
“It starts out as a hobby and turns into a lifestyle.” – Abel Hernandez
And of course, don’t forget the wild paint jobs—a factor which happened to be José’s specialty. “Anybody can paint,” José’s wife Lisa Martinez says. “But you have to be an artist for it to really come out. They used to call them rolling canvases.” It’s not an exaggeration. If you want to win a car show, you play for keeps. Flashy flourishes of sparkles, patterns, and pin-striping get you on the podium. Or as Lisa puts it, “Go big or go home…Make it so that when it drives down the street, it gives people a headache it’s so bright.”
At times, lowrider painters have been known to take a little creative license. “Sometimes you tell them what you want, and they know that’s not going to look good,” Sergio explains, gesturing at his ’78 Grand Prix’s sunset-style two-tone fade from tangerine to scarlet, a coat accented with crisp yellow pinstripes. “I didn’t want orange on there—but he put it on there. When he told me, I wasn’t happy. And then I saw it…and I went back to him and said ‘Put more on.’ ”
“Carlos [Lima] did that to me, too, with my truck,” Sergio adds. “I wanted different colored flames—and he put a kind of magenta. And first thing I thought was ‘Pink. You painted pink flames on my truck?!’ But every truck show I went to with that truck, I won best flames.”
Judges not only look at the paint but scrutinize all the hidden little details, Sergio explains, describing the spotlights and turntables used to reveal every last facet and angle. And for rides with engraved undercarriages, you better believe their owners bring out the mirrors to capture those beautiful underbellies.
Fittingly, these cars with their loud personalities have an equally memorable origin story. It all started with young Chicano lowriders in post-World War II Los Angeles.
Tired of whitewashed cultural norms in the States, Mexican Americans expressed pride in their heritage with their own counterculture. So, in response to the nation’s obsession with speedy hot rods and raised trucks, Chicanos embodied their new motto, “Low and Slow,” by cutting coils, lowering blocks, and even adding sandbags or bricks to their trunks.
Unfortunately, apprehension of minorities ran rampant in the ’50s and the media stoked irrational fears of gangster ties. The result was police harassment as well as a 1958 California law that banned lowered cars. Rather than conform, lowriders met this with a cheeky response: hydraulics. Repurposing aircraft landing gear, they could now elevate their ride height to “appropriate levels” at the flip of a switch.
East San Jose was arguably the hub of the lowrider golden age during the late ’70s and through the ’80s, despite its LA roots—a period Abel refers to as the “King and Story Days.” From Friday to Sunday, Low Conspiracy (which was 80-members strong at its peak) cruised the boulevard with dozens of other clubs late into the night. Thousands of car enthusiasts milled around on the sidewalks and daydreamed themselves into many a driver’s seat.
Cruising acted as a night club on wheels, as much a social staple of the time as spending your nights at the roller rink or the bowling alley. “Once you saw another car flying your plaque [in the rear windshield] you would follow him. Before you knew it, you had a dozen club members cruising together,” Sergio explained in an interview with Lowrider Network. “That was how we met up back when no one had cell phones.”
It was the place to see and be seen. Drivers would showboat by hitting their hydraulics. They’d roll down the windows and blast Latin rock. “Good days when we were out there, huh?” Lisa says to the friend sitting beside her. “That’s when we were young. The guys were out there with their beautiful cars—looking at the girls—who were looking at the guys.”
Unfortunately, the assumption that lowriding and gangsters were somehow linked was still being made by public and police. “They always thought we were up to no good,” Abel recalls. Sergio nods in agreement, “They started fining people, and they were going after the nicest cars because they’re the ones that stood out.”
José, however, was determined to overcome that stigma. “He would approach the chief of police and say, ‘Yo, this is an event we want to do,’ ” Lisa recalls. “He didn’t want them to be hassled.” José and the club also collaborated with local firefighters on toy drives. The message was clear: we’re not here to cause trouble. “You have to give back to your community and show that you’re part of the community,” Lisa states. “You’re not the problem.” These gestures earned them respect among law enforcement.
“Some people are scared of [lowriders], but, nah, it’s all families nowadays,” Sergio verifies. “I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’m older and I got a couple of little grandkids too…the whole family gets into it!” In fact, on more than one occasion, the club has chauffeured young ladies and their quinceañera courts to party venues. “They get a kick out of it,” Abel smiles.
At the end of the day, the club is one big family. Again and again, the Low Conspiracy guys refer to the special brotherly bond shared by members. “When I first started going with them, we happened to park all of the Martinez’s together, just coincidentally,” Sergio recalls, “and somebody noticed and said, ‘Hey, are you guys all brothers?’ And José pops up right away. ‘Oh yeah, we’re all brothers.’ ”
“And he loved being the big brother,” Lisa shares. “He was always referring to Abel as ‘my little brother.’ With everybody. Even the younger guys that were starting, he’d say ‘Oh that’s my son.’ And people thought he had all these kids!” She chuckles at that. Though José retired from the club for a time, it was Lisa who encouraged him to rejoin a few years at the end of his life.
As the group returns to the present from this trip down memory lane, conversation steers toward the upcoming car show at History Park. It’s going to be in July, just in time for the club’s 45th anniversary and will reward a scholarship to a kid who wants to go into auto painting (in memory of José, of course).
Sergio sits back and watches his friends refill their plates with pizza. He gives a contented glance around at his patch of paradise, brightened with tools and trophies. “I’ll be in the club forever,” he declares. “You’ve seen my garage. I’m not going nowhere.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.4 Profiles (Print SOLD OUT)
Sawyer Rose is a sculptor and installation artist who has been working on a project called the Carrying Stones that is currently on display at the NUMU through January 23, 2022.
The Carrying Stones Project is about inequities that women suffer from in the workplace, society, and home. So what was the impetus to begin the Carrying Stone project? When I started the carrying stones project, I had a toddler and an infant at home. And I was drowning under the weight of both my paid work and my unpaid domestic labor. And I tend to be a researcher. So, I thought, you know, if I’m having this much trouble with the advantages that I have, this must be a story that goes a lot deeper. So I started researching and found that Yeah, it is. And that’s how the carrying stones project began. When did that begin? That was in 2014 when I started the research, and the first piece was in 2015. And what was the first piece? The first piece is not here; it was a 20 foot long 1000 piece sculpture that recorded the working hours of 47 different women in the workforce who also had children. Not all my work is about women with children, but that one was 1000 out of 1000 tiles representing 1000 women’s work hours.
And so the idea of stone or the weightiness, what are you communicating with that? The title carrying stones comes from a Portuguese expression that I heard in Brazil. And sometimes, when you ask a woman what she’s been doing, she’ll say, oh, I’ve just been carrying stones. And that means she’s been at work at our paid job all day. And then she comes home and is the pillar that holds up her family. So, I thought, oh, wow, that’s really fitting for this topic. That was very much in my mind at the time. And so, when I did begin this project, it seemed the perfect name.
So, then your own personal journey and period stone were when you were working at a professional life and domestic responsibilities and stuff like that.
What some of the different kinds of stories and research that you found that were similar, but then other stones that other people were carrying the two, were surprised at or say, overwhelmed you? As I started looking for different women’s worth stories, I learned how many similarities there are and how many vast differences there are both at the same time. And so, the topic began to feel really juicy to me because it is very multi-layered. So, what I learned was that women who have caring responsibilities either for children or for elders are affected, across the board, by many different age groups. But I also learned that women of color disproportionately affected women in low-paying jobs are significantly affected by women’s labor inequity.
And, and I started learning about just, you know, out of my interest, like, what could be done about that, you know, once we knew these facts, and we told these stories and put a face to these facts.
What can be done? You know, what can be done to kind of, like, take some of those stones away, right? So, certainly, within your household, redistributing the labor, that’s, you know, seems the obvious first step. Still, on a broader level, engaging girls from the time they’re young in leadership programs is essential. You know, if you can see it, you can be it. And in the workplace, true allyship is really important. And when I say true allyship, it means paid maternal leave, paid paternal leave – that is just as important if you’re asking people to divide the work. It also means rearranging things for women in low-paying jobs, like, you providing health care for less than 40 hours a week jobs, providing childcare, or, you know, help with elder care for people who need that, you know when you’re making very little. Then you have to miss because of family responsibility, that you’re making less still. So.
Talk about your work as an artist. Do you see yourself as a catalyst for change in society or a mirror? How would you even describe “Carrying Stones”? A commentary? You know, yes, it’s a commentary. Yes, it’s a mirror. But my particular interest is in education because when I started this, I was only dealing with one audience member, and that was my husband. And really, myself, and I thought, well, these are all fascinating statistics. But statistics are numbers, and they don’t have names and faces and stories. How can I humanize these numbers and really build bridges to people who don’t know anything about the topic yet? So for me, it’s bringing awareness.
When I build my pieces, I purposely build them to be aesthetically pleasing, and they attract you visually because I want you to come up close. And then I want you to look at the wall text and go, Oh, wow, I had no idea that that’s what this was about. And now I’ve learned something, and I do get that reaction all the time. And that, to me, is winning.
Would you say that your art practice is driven to educate? Would you say that’s kind of like your personal voice and mission? It always has been. I can’t stop giving people my opinion on things, it seems. Before I started the scaring stones project, the series of work was about California native plants. And when endemic plants, you know, there were only found in California, we’re going extinct. And that all started because, you know, I had this amazing plant in my front yard, and I looked it up, so again, it led from research to Hey, I found out something, too. Oh, y’all gotta know this.
Let’s talk about a couple pieces in particular. Yeah. Okay. So, the way the sculptures in the show work is, I first find a woman with an interesting work story. And mainly a story that has some sort of angle that I’d like to share with people. So, this woman, Lauren, is a professor of African American and US history, but she’s also the mother of an elementary school-aged child. And the thing that I find interesting is that women in academia are very, are typically undervalued; they’re promoted less often, they’re paid much less. And she feels that. So, what I do once I find the woman whose story I want to tell, I developed a timekeeping app that they can just have on their phone. And, over two weeks or so, they tell me hour by hour, how much paid labor they’ve done, how much unpaid work they’ve done, and when they’ve done anything else, other than sleep. So I translate that then into one of these large-scale sculptures. And in the case of Lauren’s piece, I made it look kind of like books because you know, she’s in academia, and that really worked with her personality.
In this particular piece, the brown books are her paid labor, and the white books are her unpaid labor. And the very few spaces that you see in the matrix are the hours where she was doing anything other than work. And so, you got to remember that anything other than work means you see your friends, but it also means getting your exercise going to the dentist. It’s anything, so the whole rest of her life is in those very few spaces.
So, that personal work is like brushing your teeth? And exercise isn’t considered as personal work; that’s just other survival.
Describe what the categories of personal work are there? Well, so there are really only three categories. There’s working for pay, working for no pay, and then everything else, including brushing your teeth taking your shower.
This is Darlene. She’s a educate. She works like six jobs. Darlene is an absolute powerhouse. She is a teaching artist. In addition to her own studio work, she has taught in the Oakland schools. She teaches at a nonprofit she teaches to adults with disabilities. She you know, at the time when I made this piece, she was working six different gigs.
Just to both follow her passion and to make ends meet. And one of the things that interested me in this piece was taking a deep dive at volunteerism because volunteerism statistically falls disproportionately to women. You know, it’s work. It’s caretaking work for the larger community. It’s work that has to get done. And Darlene is one person who takes it on. And doesn’t get paid. And so, her sculpture works the same way that they all do.
The gold sacks represent her paid labor, and you can see that there’s a rock inside each one like she’s collected that piece of money. The Silver sacks that looked like the bottoms have ripped out are her unpaid labor, and you can see the stones on the ground underneath. Like she hasn’t collected that money. And the spaces in the matrix are the hours when she was not working.
This piece is called Tracy, and she works full time as an attorney and mother to an eight-year-old daughter at the time, who is a budding martial arts star. So, you know, she has that responsibility to get her to all the practices, training schedules, and tournaments. And I thought that was a really interesting work story, not one you hear every day.
The reason I chose the forms in this Tracy, her personality is very hard to say. She’s rather stage she’s very calm, her Demeter demeanor is grounded. I chose the mortar forums for her work because she is a fairly serious, grounded person, and that seemed to fit, and then the metal wireframes are her unpaid labor. But again, geometric, regular. She is the steady hand on the wheel. So, her piece reflects that in the aesthetics I’ve chosen, the way I think about it is I can choose anything. So, you know, how do I justify it against the personality of the person?
Each piece has little easter eggs in it about the woman that’s about. So, it’s nothing that you would know, maybe unless I told you, but I put little details in that reflect each woman’s personality. She told me her favorite color was this beautiful, bright blue. And I said, Alright, I can work with that.
In the Lauren piece that I was talking about before, I made the sizes of the books. The brown books are the sizes of academic publishing standards. And the white books are the size of children’s books, publishing standards. So, there’s each piece has little things that, you know, besides the larger things like the materials and the colors that I use, you know that every choice that I make, I try to make it reflect the personality of the woman that the piece is about.
Stacy Frank is a printmaker based in Santa Cruz. She has been working on paper since 1994. What Stacy loves about printmaking is the process and the technique involved. She did some darkroom photography in college, but after graduating, Stacy learned about printmaking which seemed like a perfect combination of her scientific illustration and photography processing.
“One thing I love the most about printmaking is the big reveal.” -Stacy Frank
Over the last three years, Stacy developed an entirely non-toxic techniques that are fast and get quick results—using a process of cutting out stencil boards and using those stencil boards as masking and printing elements. Stacy then runs them through the press several different times. Using various combinations of inks and layers, she achieves beautiful ghosting and offsetting patterns from the stencils. Though the results can be unexpected, that enhances her love of the “reveal. But that is what gives Stacy joy in her process. “You never know exactly what you’re going to get sometimes; it’s fantastic, sometimes it needs a little work, but it’s always so satisfying.”
See more of Stacy’s work and her workshop at StacyFrank.com
Each October, Stacy participates in Santa Cruz Open Studios, where visitors experience artist workspaces, watch art demonstrations, view and purchase original art.
Ever been so drawn to a piece at an art museum that you’ve wanted to submerge yourself in it? Dive through the canvas and swim around in the paint? At Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience, you can.
Beyond Van Gogh takes 300+ masterpieces by Netherlands’ most famous painter, then renders them into a 35-minute multimedia experience that traverses the artist’s career. It’s certainly surreal, seeing Vincent van Gogh’s paintings pour off the canvas and wash across the expansive floor and walls of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. As the projected performance unfurls and the artwork fills the entirety of visitors’ visions, it soaks them in the feeling of the colors. It allows them to appreciate all the details, down to the individual brushstrokes (which often stretch longer and wider than guests themselves).
“We want to show a contemporary audience that van Gogh is still relevant today,” says Fanny Curtat, the art historian consulting on the project and a vital part of the exhibit’s creative team. She points out that the painter’s life of hardships resonates with those who have suffered their own difficulties during the pandemic. After all, “van Gogh painted Starry Night while he was in the asylum!” she points out—and yet, despite the pain, he created something exquisite.
“So you have somebody that can show you that even though you’re struggling, you can transcend all of your struggles into works of art,” she says. “He helps us look at things in a beautiful way and focus on the colors, the power that they have, the joy that the world can bring.”
Recently, a few high-tech Van Gogh experiences have been making the circuit across the nation and the world (NOTE: This exhibit is different than the one that came to San Francisco this summer, called “Immersive Van Gogh”), but each and every exhibit showcases their own angle, highlighting different facets of this complicated man. San Jose’s exhibit chooses to honor the bond between brothers, presenting a series of letters van Gogh wrote to his beloved brother Theo. The show also highlights the progression of the painter’s palette—from the dark shades of van Gogh’s early work to the addition of color after his move to Paris and his introduction to the impressionists, to the golden yellow hues after his consequent move to the South of France, to the intensely vivid colors of his most recognizable pieces during the final years of his life.
Curtat says that Beyond Van Gogh also leans into the remarkable movement of the artist’s brushstrokes by causing his portraits to blink, his flowers to bloom, and his landscapes to swirl into shape. “You don’t have to do much to animate his work—it’s already moving,” she notes. “We remember Starry Night’s twirling sky more than anything.”
Of course, the question everyone will ask is, “Is it worth it?”
We think so. Especially if you slow your pass to not only grab a few nice “grams”—if you pay attention and let yourself be fully immersed. You will be tempted to bypass the three switchback hallways of letters and quotes, but that section gives van Gogh’s work a greater context. And we encourage you to take it in rather than hurry through to the main immersive hall.
When asked if projection-mapped exhibits are the art museum of tomorrow, Curtat is adamant that digital experiences by no means replace a trip to the Musée d’Orsay. “To me, it’s complementary to a museum experience. Scale is one of the most important things in art. So when it’s something huge and immense, you feel overpowered. But when you have art on the wall, you have the aura of the original, and you have a more intimate feel about it,” she explains. “I encourage everybody who has a chance to go see a true van Gogh on the walls to do so because that’s magical.”
In the meantime? Come stroll among van Gogh’s brushstrokes.
Beyond Van Gogh opens on September 24th and concludes November 14th. Complimentary beverages from the exhibits’ partner, Keurig, are included with entry.
When Cynthia Cao was a young girl, her mother liked to reward her with trips to Michaels. There, she would buy stamps for her collection. It was an inexpensive way to encourage creativity—drawing and painting were her childhood hobbies when she wasn’t reading or playing outside, happily entertained with the family pets.
Though Cynthia fell in love with the freedom of artistic play, she planned her career for a different trajectory. Exposed to few professions in the art world growing up, she chose careers that were “art-adjacent” to support herself. For seven years, she worked as a school photographer. As she took drawing classes at night, the art of photography faded into the humdrum of her work.
When she told her family she was leaving her job to study painting, no one supported this pivot. “They didn’t think about art in the ways I’ve learned,” Cynthia explained. “They didn’t know its history from visiting museums and galleries…they’d think of lacquer paintings in restaurants or flea markets where artists try to sell souvenir-type paintings.”
“The art world is so much bigger than most people think…there are many roles to be had.” – Cynthia Cao
But when Cynthia took her first intaglio class and pulled her first print, “it felt like Christmas morning.” As the sun shone through the print studio and leapt off the metal plate, “I had an overwhelming feeling that this was what I was supposed to be doing.” Printmaking combined her loves—paper and ink—with a soothing process of repetition and variation; she could create books. Her choice to leave now made sense.
As Cynthia worked through her degree in pictorial arts at SJSU, she pursued internships and volunteered in spaces that expanded her curiosity. As an artist assistant at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose (ICA), she discovered that the real party took place behind the scenes, during installation. “Seeing how art is being made in the gallery, how other installers were getting to use power tools and ride scissors lifts, was so interesting.” Five months before graduation, she approached the facilities manager and asked him, “Can I work for you?”
They worked together for six years, with Cynthia being the first woman to be hired to the installations team. As an art handler and preparator at ICA, she enjoyed being a conduit for other artists’ visions in gallery spaces. “It’s very collaborative, even though art technicians aren’t really out there,” she says. “The work requires artistic skill and craftsmanship, but we’re helping others showcase their work.”
The visionary work of gallery technicians animates her, as it invigorates her personal goal. In the foreseeably pandemic-free future, Cynthia hopes to set up her new studio at Citadel Art Studios so that other printmaking artists can use her press and indulge in the joy of shared process. The press, gifted to her by a professor, is a conduit for community outside the art school bubble. “Come make a print with me!” she smiles and winks, “Just clean up your mess!”
Years have passed since Cynthia has established herself in the art world. She has found joy in its multiple branches—as technician, educator, and most recently, a Creative Ambassador for the city of San Jose.
As a facilitator for creativity, Cynthia is deep in the process of planning two major projects: Taste of Home and Community Table. The two projects run parallel to each other, addressing food insecurity from different perspectives.
Taste of Home, a multi-workshop series launching with Chopsticks Alley Art, will address the cultural gaps in food pantries through art: a printmaking class will spotlight food-centered stories and memories; local artists will present hands-on projects; art supplies will be distributed to elementary schools and libraries; and local chefs paired with students in the SJSU cooking and nutrition program will develop recipes for food pantries—culminating in Cynthia’s goal to inspire changes in food donations. Community Table will be a collaboration with SJSU and involve students across disciplines.
These Creative Ambassador projects are a convergence of all her experiences thus far. Now that she’s managing SJSU’s student art galleries where she first discovered fine art handling, she gratefully brings back the “real world” experiences her professors prepared her for. “What I want to show students here goes beyond technical things like putting a show together,” she shares. Many art students are apprehensive before graduation, but “the art world is so much bigger than most people think…there are many roles to be had.”
Cynthia’s ambition to expand the possibilities of artistic professions in young people’s imaginations goes right back to her family. When Cynthia brought her mother to Chopsticks Alley Art’s 2018 opening ceremony for Salt Stained: Home, her mother moved between the exhibits and live demonstrations, eyes wide. “She loved this fashion designer there who used a traditional Vietnamese basket technique to weave old telephone wires,” Cynthia remembers. “She had so much fun!”
Looking back, Cynthia wonders whether those behavior-rewarding stamps from years ago might have sparked her zeal for printmaking today. Either way, she has blazed her own path through the arts. With a freelance art consulting business and her own studio to call her happy place, “I’ve proven this is what I’m going to do.”
My-Linh Le now describes herself as a Multidisciplinary Storyteller as she has moved from being an environmental lawyer to freestyle dancer, choreographer, and director of a forthcoming film, Mudwater. The film is an adaptation of the turf dance project she started and developed known as Mud Water Theatre.
In our conversation, we discuss how My-Linh’s artist’s expression and leanings have moved her through several phases in her life. From secretly learning how to “pop” and joining San Jose-based world-renown dance crew Playboyz, Inc (Est. 1981) to directing. And, still, My-Linh’s own story is being written has she finds herself writing, with the theme of “myth” shaping her storytelling, which she does not limit to mere words.
My-Linh will be performing with Playboyz, Inc. Oct 2, 2021, at the Mosaic Festival “A Space for Belonging” at the School of Arts and Culture (https://www.content-magazine.com/events/moscaic-fest-21/)
The SVLaureate program recognizes our region’s finest artists through a competitive process, using independent expert panels, and honor these artists with unrestricted cash prizes, promotion, and recognition with an award at the annual SVArts Awards. Ray Furuta was awarded the 2019 On Stage SVLaureate Award.
A San Jose native, Ray Furuta has devoted his career to the flute. As a prodigious high school student, he was invited to take private lessons with renowned flutist Carol Wincenc and continued to study under her private instruction through college. In 2011, Furuta returned on a break from his studies at Stony Brook University in New York and had a revelation that there simply wasn’t enough opportunity available in his own home town for classical musicians to thrive. So, he founded Chamber Music Silicon Valley (CMSV) to fill the void, an organization for which he still serves as Artistic Director. Initially conceived as an outlet for traditional classical performances, today CMSV attempts to push the boundaries of what chamber music can be in the hopes of making it more relevant to the diverse Silicon Valley community. Furuta, meanwhile, continues to tour worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher, and cultural ambassador.
“Being able to give musicians the tools they need to go out and be successful is a very important mission for me. I also have a passion for using my talents to ignite social change — to enable my students to go out and be advocates for music and social justice. Working hard to better the lives of my family and make them proud of me is a constant inspiration (not pressure, at all). They sacrificed so much for me to achieve the career that I currently have — so giving back to them is an important inspiration for me. Otherwise, breaking social and cultural barriers and creating a better world through music is overall what I strive to accomplish; even if the impact is only a little, that little matters very much to me and keeps me working hard.”
With how well they get along, you’d have no idea that Be’Anka Ashaolu and Jeronica Macey were sisters, let alone flourishing business partners. Together, they built Nirvana Soul.
Replacing the beloved Caffe Frascati after one of its owners retired, Nirvana Soul reflects the warmth of the sisters’ relationship. The duo, sometimes known as “Jeranka,” has transformed the coffee shop from a vintage Italian ambiance to an open space brightened with plants and evolving walls of art. The cherry on top? A bright pink ceiling.
Since she was 22, CEO and cofounder Jeronica has dreamt of building an inclusive coffee shop. “I do believe that everyone has a purpose,” Jeronica encouraged. “And I feel like that every time I’m in a coffee shop; I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be,” she continued.
Jeronica first fell in love with the coffee business while working at Peet’s Coffee in Willow Glen. Over the years and between “real” office jobs, she’s always found herself back at the cafes. Before opening Nirvana Soul, her final stops were at Bon Appétit and the nearby Voyager Craft Coffee—both of which left her with strong friendships and partnerships.
“I do believe that everyone has a purpose. And I feel like that every time I’m in a coffee shop; I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be.” –Jeronica Macey
Meanwhile, cofounder Be’Anka’s career took her into marketing and sales operations, which is why she became the CMO of San Jose’s first Black-owned coffee shop. The people-centered leader explained that because she grew up surrounded by technology in Silicon Valley, she doesn’t think anything is impossible. Her mentality has been essential for the shop’s success.
Jeronica described her sister as “the type of person that is a pusher, in a good way, but…”
“I like to ‘encourage’ her,” Be’Anka cut in.
“ ‘Encourager. Your word!” Jeronica laughed. “She definitely has a ‘can-do-it’ [mentality].” The CEO continued, “I don’t trust anyone more than I trust my sister.”
When Jeronica approached Be’Anka about opening a coffee shop, the CMO’s response was, “Let’s just try! The worst thing that can happen is that we fail. And then we just don’t want to be like old ladies thinking back to like, ‘Why didn’t we just try to open Nirvana Soul?’ ”
When the sisters started their search in 2019 for what would become their second home, Caffe Frascati owners Roger and Caroline Springall were serendipitously looking for new owners. The four hit it off right away. “They really liked us and felt like we were the right people to take over this place, so they wanted to work with us. And they did,” Be’Anka said as she described the various obstacles the first-time owners had to overcome.
For most of their planning process, they relied on Google, starting with typing, “How to open a coffee shop in downtown San Jose?” into the search bar. “Seriously! That’s how we did it,” Be’Anka confirmed.
Since opening in the summer of 2020, they have supported dozens of artists, from SJSU students to an 82-year-old painter. For many creators, it’s their first chance to publicly share their stories and display their work. When choosing what to display in Nirvana Soul’s free, mini gallery, Jeronica explained that “the truth is, it honestly is a vibe. Like we feel if the energy matches Nirvana Soul. It’s such an instinctual thing.”
The only permanent paintings are their two murals: a word collage by Emilio Cortez and an image of the owners’ faces with coffee beans in their hair by first-time muralist Ricardo González Kurszewski.
Be’Anka went on to share that she and Jeronica have built their business with the community and with the artists. She firmly believes that “this business is not what it is without the artists,” who are all people of color. These mutually beneficial relationships have solidified the coffee shop’s spot in the vibrant SoFA District and in countless people’s hearts.
In early August, Jeronica and Be’Anka added comedians, poets, DJs, and musicians to their community. Their Thursday-night-live addition arrived in tandem with their extended hours, which now go until 7pm most days. Their barista and rapper Jordan Melvin (aka “Gatsby”) hosted the debut event on August 6th.
Jordan taking the stage is a quintessential example of the supportive, growth-oriented culture Jeronica and Be’Anka have taken from their childhoods and instilled into the baristas. More than just coffee experts, the owners push their team to explore their passions and take ownership over other parts of the business. “It’s nice to be around people who care about something as much as we do, which is often not the case,” explained Be’Anka.
To name a few examples of these more-than-barista game changers, we have sound engineer Joy Hackett and baking guru Eli Schwartz, who run their music and open mic programs. Leti Castellano is their animator and illustrator, Kevin Crisafulli writes their monthly newsletter, associate manager Mariseth Abat is a featured photographer, and Daniel Rios is their trained opera singer.
“I don’t know if I just was really lucky or blessed,” Jeronica boasted about her close-knit team that hangs out after hours to get food and go thrift shopping. “Our team really gets along, you know what I’m saying? But that’s how it’s always been at every coffee shop I’ve ever been at. I feel like there’s nothing like that,” said the owner, who meets one-on-one with her team on a biweekly basis to check in on their goals and mental health. “They’re doing so much for me to help me live my dream. I want to be able to pour back into them and their dreams,” the coffee queen shared.
The challenges of owning a coffee shop or restaurant are no secret. Few survive their first year. And yet by Nirvana Soul’s 10th month in business, the founders were already scouting out places for their second location.
The team’s drive and community’s support are directly correlated with the success of the brick-and-mortar store that opened six months into the pandemic. The community propels the coffee shop by asking for things that it can’t yet do. Be’Anka explained that “people believe in us so much that people will literally be like, ‘Ok, well, when you ARE roasting, I want you in our restaurant…’ We get that a lot on all kinds of different opportunities.”
Courtesy of Dap Ashaolu, their CFO and head of products, in July the sisters added a roastery and warehouse to their empire; a feat that usually takes years to reach. “I just felt like we kept being in those situations where the doors were opening,” said Jeronica.
From childhood, when they shared their grandmother’s leftover coffee—diluted with water and boosted with too much sugar—to today, the power sisters have only begun chasing their dreams.
“We just don’t want to be like old ladies thinking back to like, ‘Why didn’t we just try to open Nirvana Soul?’ ” –Be’anka Ashaolu
Even as a baby, Sara V Cole held art materials in her hands. Her mother inspired her to find no limit in her creativity, and Cole truly hasn’t. Originally from Framingham, Massachusetts, Cole attended San Jose State University, earning a BFA, and since becoming a nationally represented artist with an exhibition history spanning the continent, from San Francisco to New York City—understandably, too, because Cole’s art is a stunning journey through the impermanence and fragility of life. Fragile yet bold, vibrant yet muted, Cole’s work is one long process of experimentation, employing everything from ceramics to collage in an attempt to express the uniqueness of the human condition. While Cole has suffered from progressive chronic health conditions for most of her life, she doesn’t let it hold her back. Instead, Cole’s art is a reflection of resilience through pain, a reflection that is at once inspiring and haunting.
“As a woman encountering chronic, debilitating health conditions since birth, my vision of a future self, be it artistic or otherwise, is inextricably intertwined with the progression of illnesses. Honestly, I am grateful to even be able to create today, and each additional day I am blessed to be able to do the same, is a great day—until I have run out of adaptive tech options for my mobility concerns, and I cannot!”
If you’ve ever participated in the First Friday Art Walk, or seen the Phantom Galleries while strolling downtown, or been in to Kaleid Gallery, you’ve probably heard about Anno Domini, operated by Brian Eder and Cherri Lakey, two very passionate individuals who have set out to cultivate the fledgling art scene in San Jose.
How did Anno Domini come to fruition and what are you guys all about?
CHERRI: In 2000, graffiti actually became a felony instead of a misdemeanor, so that was jail time. We really loved the street art that was happening in San Francisco in 98-99, the time when you’d see something really beautiful everyday and then 3,4, or 5 months later it was just gone, and it was just heartbreaking. So we really took an interest in the artists. There were maybe 2 galleries at the time showing street art. We really wanted to be involved in that and Brian had somewhat of an art background already, so we just had to find our place. We knew we wanted to start our own graphic design company. And then it was a matter of, do we go to San Francisco where we already feel like it’s a scene and has support, or do we go to a place like San Jose where it’s zero tolerance, it’s much harder, and there is less of a scene? Don’t they need it more? And couldn’t we build something of our own? We chose San Jose.
BRIAN: I lived here before and I think the campaign back in the mid-eighties was “San Jose is growing up.” And I remember “San Jose is throwing up” would always go through my mind because there was nothing happening. It was so devoid of life in a lot of ways, at least it seemed like it at the time. And the things that would start up, the cool kinds of places, they would disappear so quickly. Where was the culture? Only New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles? We wanted a place kind of like where Warhol and his friends would have hung out back in the 70’s, where people talked about everything from politics and religion to street art. And that’s the whole reason we started the gallery. In the beginning it was just wanting to get together with other like-minded people.
CHERRI: It was during the dotcom boom. There was a vibe down here; startups all the time, crazy creative people with two guys sleeping under a desk. We really thrived off that.
How do you think the scene here in San Jose differs from that of LA and SF?
BRIAN: For someone here to get attention on any level they really have to work a lot harder and we think that just makes for stronger artists. But at the same time, what’s happening in San Jose, especially in the past, was that artists would get to a certain age and they would leave, they would move to another city. So right when you got artists to a place where they could start creating here, they were taking off because they didn’t see being able to survive in San Jose doing their art.
CHERRI: It becomes a portal. The city and the artist invests so much into going to school here or trying for awhile. San Francisco is 45 minutes away. You can live really cheap and there are hundreds of galleries to plug into right away in terms of an art scene. And LA is not that far either, so every city has to say, what are we doing to really support them so they can live and work here? When we started 10 years ago, nobody was talking about artists. It was all about the tech industry, biogenetics, all this crazy stuff, and we would stand up at the end of a meeting and just go, “what about artists?” And they would sort of look at us like they had no idea what we were talking about. It was a real battle and we tried to find a bridge where we could work with artists, but also be a city liaison too because if you know anything about the digital culture and what’s coming, these are the bright minds that are starting these companies or being hired, mainly because these companies need musicians, and artists and poets. They can teach anybody the rules of accounting, manufacturing rules, but who’s going to think of the next big thing? Who’s gonna say, well why can’t we do this? They start with a blank canvas and they create something no one has ever seen before. And that’s who the companies want. So there’s this thing going on where the MFA is the new MBA. We need to cultivate that if we want tech companies to stay here too. They need to have a creative pool to hire from. But we need artists that live and work and thrive being artists. Hopefully there is some harmony there and some opportunities.
Can you tell us about the Phantom galleries, what you’ve done with that, and how it’s a part of the San Jose Downtown project?
BRIAN: With the dotcom crash, we would be walking around downtown and the biggest thing that was standing out was people just walking the streets staring at the ground past empty businesses and dying restaurants. On the weekends, it was literally a ghost town. We put in the phantom galleries by arguing that the empty storefronts were public space. At first it wasn’t seen that way, but at the end we finally got the project in there and it’s one of only two projects since 2001 that is still running.
CHERRI: At our peak we had 15 spaces going. It was insane! Our contract was to do a dozen installations over the year and we ended up showing 150 artists the first year. And we went back with a binder and said, we have this many artists wanting to show. We’re in our 8th year now.
BRIAN: It was about artists being part of economic progress in a city. That entire area is rented out now.
Do you have any advice for upcoming artists that are trying to break through?
BRIAN: I’ll use David Choe as an example. He did a show in Los Angeles at an ice cream parlor and the next time we saw his work in San Jose, it was 18in a hair salon. He wasn’t afraid to do it and there was nothing really beneath him in the beginning. It was just about getting his work out there. And there are a lot of artists that start out where they’re already too good for places. It’s just about doing the work and being open to possibilities and not slamming the door on an opportunity because it could be a bigger deal than you imagined.
How about you, Cherri? Advice for the upcoming artist?
CHERRI: The most successful artists we’ve seen do their art every day because it’s who they are. There are artists, where it’s a hobby, it’s fun, it’s a relaxing thing for them, and that’s great. So put that into context too. But typically the artists who are like, there is no plan B, this is it, this is what keeps them sane and they do their work with or without anyone noticing.
BRIAN: Artists have to understand the gallery. If you’re a punk band, you don’t go to the opera house and ask for a gig.
CHERRI: And then be upset when you don’t get it.
What would you both like to see happen in San Jose in the future, specifically in the art scene?
CHERRI: Fifty more galleries, first of all.
BRIAN: More of an art buying culture. People would be really surprised about the kind of art that comes through San Jose. Besides having amazing local art, there is amazing international art being exhibited here. With all the wealth that’s in the Bay Area, it’s not romantic in their minds right now to buy their art in San Jose, so they think, I’ll just go to New York and buy this or that artist. There are artists being exhibited and blowing up in Europe and New York that have come through here.
CHERRI: More of an appreciation of the culture that thrives here. San Jose has a history of a more institutional and academic art scene. I think we are the only non nonprofit gallery downtown right now. But there are people doing amazing things in their basements and garages and down the street. San Jose has the same sort of habit of trying to bring artists in from fairs and stuff from outside, but I know a guy two blocks away that blows those artists away. So why are we not giving them more opportunities?
And it’s not San Jose’s fault, it’s a matter of people realizing it, being a part of the culture, and giving them opportunities. That’s sort of what we try to do with the street market and with Subzero. Let’s bring them out and bring them topside. We tend to gravitate to subculture and people under the radar. You know, a lot of them want to be there, they like flying under that radar.
BRIAN: It’s because mainstream doesn’t need anyone’s help. It’s already been embraced. And where’s the fun in that?
CHERRI: It’s fun for all of us in the underbelly to come up topside and get together and have one big party. It’s cool, because the mainstream comes and they feel safe. They are shocked a lot of times, especially when the artists are saying they’re from San Jose!
What is sacred for you about Anno Domini? What sets it apart?
CHERRI: Anno Domini is family. I grew up as an outcast, without friends, in a very small town in the Midwest and I never fit in. So when I found Brian, to find someone who is definitely my other half, that’s one huge life-changing thing. But then together, to create a place where we asked, where are the musicians and where are the poets, where are those people that we can debate with about all these amazing things? And then to suddenly have them in this box. Cause really that’s all Anno Domini is. It’s just a box. It’s just walls, a floor, and a roof. And to feel like you’ve found your people, your like-mindedness, you’ve found friends…the real definition of friends. People that step up every single time in the most amazing way. Consistently. That, for me, is the most sacred part of it. It’s interesting that you use the word “sacred” because we had a girl here and she was telling me how much she loved Anno Domini and I realized how much her eyes were starting to well up and starting to cry. She said Anno Domini was her church, where she gets her inspiration to keep doing that nineto-five thing everyday, day after day. It’s amazing.
BRIAN: To us, it is a sacred space. It’s this place where ideas are born. We curate the artists, we don’t curate their work. A lot of places you go into, especially bigger institutions, they want to tell you why something is art and to us, the question is more important. If you come to it like you have all the answers, you’ll never get anything out of it. But we try to walk in here as if we don’t have the answers and keep looking at everything as if it were new.
How would you describe the artwork you feature?
BRIAN: We refer to it as urban contemporary, and that’s about as tight as we want to get. The idea is that it’s by someone who lives in a big city, who really lives in it. And that comes through their music or poetry, or the art that’s there.
CHERRI: Artists will sometimes say to us, I can be this or that. We just want you to be you. And whether or not it fits with us is fine, but that’s the only criteria. We give a lot of debut solos and it’s not smart business to give an artist their first solo show. But our thing is, we knew a long time ago that we were in this for moving the culture forward and for art history. We know that someday, somebody is going to look at our history and say, something happened here, something came out of here.
BRIAN: That’s more important than how much money is in our bank accounts.
CHERRI: We know there are still a lot of artists out there that don’t know about us and we don’t know about them, but we would love to! The biggest thing we always say about Anno Domini is the inspiration part. A lot of times, we bring art here because we want people to realize what’s going on in the world. If you come in and say, “I could do that,” great! Do it! The best thing we hear is when a kid says, “I’d love to stay, but I really want to go home and paint.” Cool, we have done our job for the night, you know? That’s it!
What do you do? (As far the person call gin themself and artist, painter, illustrious)
I recently graduated from high school and am a visual artist.
How did you get started in drawing and painting? I think I got into drawing when I started to make a lot of fan art relating to the video game Pokémon. I also have taken various art classes since I was young, as well as drawing, digital art, and painting classes in high school.
Who has inspired, influence you. In your art? I am most inspired by video games I play, cartoons, flowers, plants, water, and other colorful and beautiful things I see.
What is the subject matter that you focus on, and why? Most of my artwork is focused on detailed patterns and nature, such as flowers and plants. I really love flowers, and I like to use bright colors in my artwork, which appeal to me and like the way it looks.
What do you prefer to work with paint, oil, pen…etc.? I mainly use pencils and markers on paper but have used acrylic paint and digital tools such as Adobe Photoshop and Procreate on an iPad.
What do you see yourself doing next? I plan on taking classes at Foothill college in the fall, and the rest of the summer, will continue drawing artwork on an electric guitar for my mom’s friend.
Which piece are you most proud of? A piece I am really proud of is an acrylic painting I did of orange flowers, where I used a photo and grid to create. I am really proud of this painting because of how much time I spent on it and how it turned out. Another one I am proud of is a drawing of my aunt’s dog next to her koi pond. I only used two colored pens to make it, blue and orange, and I am happy with how it turned out.
Now that you graduated high school, what are your future plans, personal, educationally, and with your art? I plan to take art and other classes at my local community college. I’m not exactly sure what I want to study in college, but maybe earn an AA degree and/or transfer to an art school or four-year school. In the future, I hope to do something related to art and also hope to continue to create more colorful art!
“I would love to see more public space engagement…”
As a teenager, Ed Solis didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, so he joined the military, more specifically, the 82nd Airborne Division. He came out of the service after a few combat tours with the intention of really making a difference in the world. Love brought him to San Jose. Then in 2014, he was appointed recreation superintendent at City Hall. In that position, Solis has implemented numerous recreational activities, but the idea for his most notable activity he gleaned during a fact-finding mission to Guadalajara, Mexico—the notion of a day of open streets, free of cars, to build better community relations. The idea is simple, and though Solis was hesitant to try it in the United States, he decided to give it a chance. “Viva Calle” was born and has been a smashing success. Last year, 130,000 people turned out to shut down six miles of San Jose streets and get to know one another. As for the future, Solis plans to continue bringing the San Jose community together in fun, meaningful, and inclusive ways.
“Before I retire in about five years, I would really love to see our open streets program growing and thriving on a multiple-timed basis every year. I would love to see more public space engagement where we have nonprofits, art groups, and citizens all taking part in creating vibrant communities and public spaces for everyone to enjoy. You may not have a park or a dog park in your community, but if there is a spot that can act as an open space, then that’s wonderful. Ultimately, I would love to see all the folks in San Jose come together around making the city more walkable, more livable, and more inclusive. This town is a wonderful place; we just have to connect all these little communities into one unified, connected city.”
Find out about the next Viva Calle San Jose, route, and tips visit the link below.
S hiloh Ballard wants to make diversity, equity, and inclusion central to Silicon Valley’s bicycle movement. Ballard is the Executive Director of Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC), a membership-based organization founded in 1970. If you use bicycle lanes, sharrows, public bike racks or if you bring your bike on Caltrain, BART, or VTA, thank the SVBC.
SVBC advocates for safe, bikeable streets in Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties by working with local governments, developers, and public transportation agencies. SVBC staffers also teach bicycle safety at elementary schools and manage the Bay Area’s Bike to Work Day. SVBC volunteers offer free bicycle valet parking at festivals, as well as on game days at Levi’s Stadium and Stanford University.
Representing underserved communities, however, wasn’t central to SVBC’s mission until Ballard met Tamika Butler, who was the Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. Butler became one of Ballard’s mentors and helped her connect bicycle advocacy to the challenges faced by low-income communities. “If we’re supposed to be a bicycle coalition that cares about all folks,” says Butler, “then we have to realize that everyone who rides a bike isn’t just making a lifestyle decision. There are folks who depend on this mode of transportation because they have nothing else.” What advocating for safe, bikeable streets has in common with advocating for affordable housing, employment equity, and an accessible public transportation system, says Butler, is helping people who are underserved and unseen and whose voices are often disregarded.
Ballard was uncomfortable when she first heard Butler talk about transportation justice. “But after I thought about it,” says Ballard, “I knew we had work to do to make equity and inclusion more front and center in all we do.” Statistics say this work is needed. The City of San Jose’s Vision Zero program found that 50 percent of the serious bicycle and pedestrian accidents happen on 3 percent of its streets. These streets are in low-income communities like East San Jose. SVBC is helping the city reduce these accidents to zero.
“I knew we had work to do to make equity and inclusion front and center in all we do.” -Shiloh Ballard
Ballard is no newcomer to equity and justice work. She worked at the Silicon Valley Leadership Group for 15 years, advocating for affordable housing. Her work convinced Santa Clara County cities to enact housing impact fees, inclusionary zoning laws, and green building measures. Before joining the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Ballard worked for California State Senator Byron Sher and on pro-labor initiatives with South Bay labor unions and the Santa Clara County Democratic Party.
The SVBC was a perfect next step for Ballard. Her mother inspired her to become an environmentalist and to live a life of public service. Their camping trips to national parks gave Ballard a love of nature that led her to earn an environmental studies degree at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Watching her mother’s struggle to provide her with a happy childhood and a home in one of the nation’s best school districts showed Ballard the divide between haves and have-nots—and made her want to do something about it. The “something about it” at SVBC has been to re-engineer the metrics they use to prioritize staff time and resources so that in all they do, underserved, low-income communities are considered.
Her first step was self-education. Ballard reached out to the East Bay Bicycle Coalition’s René Rivera. He gave Ballard dozens of articles about ending racism. From there, Ballard met with her staff and Board of Directors. They spoke freely about racism and their experiences of it. They began a process to eliminate bias from their decision making.
Ballard also recruited her friend and mentor Poncho Guevara to join SVBC’s Board of Directors and help with this work. Guevara is the Executive Director of Sacred Heart Community Services, a grassroots antipoverty organization that serves the Valley’s neediest. Guevara says that it was Ballard’s authentic leadership that grabbed him. “We’re trying to become relevant to communities that not only have the greatest needs, but also have their own indigenous strengths and values,” says Guevara. “Is it happening quickly enough? Of course not, because this has a real impact on people’s lives. But it’s happening, and that’s encouraging.”
“For me, it’s about growing and galvanizing our membership,” says Ballard, “and transforming the SVBC into a powerful force of people who come out and work to make all of our streets and communities safe and better through bicycling.”
Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition
96 N Third Street, Suite 375
San Jose, CA 95112
We’ve seen the lockdown footage of folks in urban areas dancing on apartment balconies—a hopeful sign of life and defiance during COVID.
Yet, how does a professional dancer survive a global pandemic?
It’s not easy. For Alex “Prince Ali” Flores, San Jose native and veteran street dancer and instructor, the pandemic is one more challenge in a life in which one has chosen the path of art and rarely looks back. “I’m just blessed to be in the situation I’m in right now,” he says. That situation for many of us is in front of a computer running Zoom. He’s assembled what amounts to a studio dancefloor in an apartment bedroom, equipped with wide-angle cameras so he can dance, teach, and break down the technique of his students. It’s a strange environment for popping—Flores’s dance style of choice for over 15 years—a street style that has a history of battle culture, competition, and community.
“The style that I do is not the most popular,” says Flores. “I don’t advertise myself as this hip-hop-studio, commercial dancer. I do something that’s a very old-school, traditional style of street dance. I had to bounce back and get creative.”
Getting creative is at the heart of popping, which took shape here on the West Coast in the Oakland communities of the 1960s, where local kids developed a style called boogaloo. “It started in black communities in Oakland around the Civil Rights Movement. These kids were essentially creating this dance, characterized by a lot of soul stepping, stops, and animated-type movements. It all started in Oakland with boogaloo,” says Flores.
The soundtrack for boogaloo was often live funk bands, or James Brown on vinyl, blasting out of driveways and talent shows and echoing in local gyms. Middle and high school mascots would even face off in boogaloo dance battles for school pride and street cred. As the music got faster into the 1970s and more digital in the 80s, the dancing changed with it. In the mass-market sense, we now know it as “breakdancing” or “hip-hop” dance, yet purists know that each genre has its own style, moves, aesthetic, and aficionados. For Flores, popping was his first love.
“Popping is its own style, a beautiful style,” he says.
Growing up in a close-knit Mexican family in East San Jose, Flores was a shy kid whose father loved fishing and the outdoors and encouraged his son to become a public service officer and serve the community. A cousin who would break and pop at raves turned Flores on to street dance, and by high school, he had found his calling and an alternate way to serve the community.
“I was always the quiet kid, and I didn’t really have a voice in school,” says Flores. “I was always the wallflower in the back. I made this conscious choice. I’m going to do this. This is the thing I’m going to focus my energy on.”
Popping provided a focus, a passion, and a way to navigate adolescence and avoid gang culture in the neighborhood. He befriended local dancers Aiko Shirakawa and San Jose legend Spacewalker, who mentored him and critiqued his moves. It was urban folk art happening in the moment.
“There really was no school for popping. The way we learned was by being around people. It was very organic,” says Flores.
As he grew older, he continued to learn from the most established Bay Area dance crews, such as Playboyz Inc and Renegade Rockers, until a hallelujah moment arrived with an offer from Bobby and Damone from Future Arts, who offered him a salary equal to his day job to teach dance. He jumped at the chance.
He continued to work on his craft, teach, and compete until winning his first world title for popping in 2019 at the Freestyle Session World Finals in San Diego, a seminal moment for his career and his art.
The arts in general, and street dance in particular, are in a curious position in 2021. Superstar-sponsored, mass-market dance shows are reintroducing wide swaths of the population to dance and choreography, yet perhaps missing the point when it comes to freestyle and street dance, which is more immediate and of-the-moment, like jazz and hip-hop. For Flores, who has served as a judge and showcase artist for shows like World of Dance, he sees the world turning on to dance, but also tries to stay true to the form, even as street dance in general evolves and emerges.
While acknowledging that the competitive aspect of popping and street dance will always be a part of the form, Flores imagines a focus for street dance in the post-pandemic landscape that leans more toward helping one another through art, instead of trying to prove who’s best. He sees the city of San Jose and its communities as part of that equation.
“If we can have some sort of facility where artists can go and get paid their worth, that would be amazing,” says Flores.
Among his many dance education offerings, Flores teaches an intensive dance boot camp called “The Renegade Way,” which seems to describe the ethos one must have to pursue a life in street dance. For Alex Flores, his smile is disarming and his demeanor is warm and friendly, but when it comes to dance, his determination is evident.
Francisco Ramirez has been into art for as long as he can remember. His first memory is of scribbling on his mom’s walls. As he grew up, art became a form of escapism from a turbulent home life. It was a hobby for a long time. Only recently has Ramirez begun taking it seriously, picking up mural work and other commissions to keep himself afloat. His work is comprised of bright, mysterious color, bringing focus to his anthropological and fantastical themes—dramatic, mundane, and everything in between. Ramirez works in acrylic, watercolor, and pastel, but he prefers acrylic, as it lends itself to the versatility of his art gigs. He likes to work fast—sometimes producing a full painting in a day—although the complexity and composition of his work belies that speed. As for the future, Ramirez sees himself doing murals, but beyond that, he doesn’t plan much and is happy to see where his art takes him.
“While I have my personal favorite artists like Van Gogh or Frida Kahlo that are big influences on my art, at the end of the day, the people I’m really inspired by are those that surround me. Other artists are my creative food. That goes for life itself, everything beautiful, wonderful, and terrible, all of it brings me inspiration. But quite honestly, without the influence of the artists around me, I wouldn’t have much.”
The Fashion Design and Apparel Technology (FDAT) program at West Valley College was established in 1985 by a group of industry professionals for the students who wish to gain knowledge and experience in the field of fashion. At the end of each year, we celebrate the accomplishments of our graduating students with a fashion show that represents their individual collection.
The students showcase their own point of view through the garments they design and execute. The 2021 graduating students faced the challenges of Covid-19 that disrupted their learning when school shut down and the majority of classes moved online. They lost access to technology and equipment usually available to them and the collaborative learning environment was severely restricted.
Teachers and students had to adapt to extreme changes and rethink their learning strategies. Despite personal, emotional, psychological, and physical challenges, these students stayed focused, kept learning, and built their skills. This year’s Virtual Fashion Show on June 4th is the reaffirmation of their passion, dedication, and pure commitment to achieving the dream they choose to follow.
Wing Hung Flora | Flora’s passion for haute couture developed organically in the bustling shopping hub of Hong Kong after moving there in her twenties from Hunan, China. Flora not only enjoyed what the metropolis had to offer but also parlayed all she observed and learned and, with partners, opened a women’s clothing stores in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Since relocating to California, Flora has turned her interests to merchandising and hopes to either start a business of her own or work for a local fashion brand. In her free time, she enjoys shopping, events such as Fashion Week, traveling, painting and sketching. Instagram:floralo_fashion
Bonnang Kim | Bonnang has been interested in designing and making, especially something 3-dimensional. Ever since she learned how to make patterns and to sew garments in her early teens, she has always been with her sewing machines. During her 20 years as an interior, furniture, and architecture designer, she was particularly interested in the relationship between space and the human body and liked to play with architectonics and materials. As she continues her design path in fashion, she is looking at the human body even closer. Her tectonic design approach focuses on how the volume is constructed to be fit to the body. She also constantly tries to push the limits of her imagination by creating experimental silhouettes with asymmetrical balance.Instagram:bonnang.kim
Crystal Hua | Crystal always wanted to be a fashion designer ever since she was little. Her first handmade piece she made was a cosplay from Sailor Moon and she dreamed of making more clothes that give comfort and confidence like how she felt when she wore her cosplay. Her inspiration comes from vintage garments from the 1940’s to 1960’s with a romantic and modern finish. She pursues to make pieces that are not only sustainable but also adjustable with delicate embroideries and intricate designs to make each piece wearable for any occasion.Instagram:by__chua
Maria Iordache | Maria learned sewing and knitting from her grandmothers. She loves math, particularly 3D geometry and graphics, and studied bridge design, got a PhD in computational mechanics and an MBA. In parallel with her professional career, she continued learning about design and patternmaking, and became particularly interested in fitting. She is intrigued that simulation and modeling technologies that existed for years in mechanical and aerospace engineering are hardly used in the apparel industry. She is on a mission to do just that and to create high quality, perfectly fitted, beautiful clothes for professional women.Instagram:mariamiordache
Monique Perez | Monique has found a new passion for repurposing tired unwanted clothes. She wants to bring an innovative reimagining of apparel to the world. Her designs plan to spark interest and creativity with her audience. She recognizes the need for sustainability within the fashion industry while also identifying the prioritization of quality garments. Her vision showcases the potential clothing has to transform personal style and believes less is more with intentions to create capsule based designs. Monique is passionate about nurturing creativity and finding ways to express herself while inspiring those around her. Instagram:mo_creativ
Nazrin Zamini | Nasrin grew up in Iran, with her talented parents who made everything from home. She was influenced by her mother creating garments by knitting and sewing for the family. She started college in interior design. However, passing by the fashion lab, she was so mesmerized by the students working on draping fabrics on the body forms, she decided to continue in fashion. In this school she learned about sustainable environmentally friendly lifestyles. She likes to focus on bridge design and create high quality, custom-sized garments for professional women. She also has a dream to bring vintage fashion back. Instagram:Nzamini1
Sirisha Gudimetla | Sirisha’s interest in embroidery and fashion started at a very young age, her true inspiration being her mom. She grew up seeing her mom create beautiful outfits using a simple sewing machine, needle and thread. She started doing hand embroidery on her clothes during her teen years. That is when her interest and passion for fashion began to blossom. Now, she wants to open a workshop, which mainly focuses on creating simple custom designer wear clothing with unique hand embroidery. She believes in using good quality and long-lasting fabric, while keeping sustainably in mind. Her goal is to use leftover fabric scraps wisely while designing and to bring awareness to people about environmentally conscious fashion. Instagram:sirishag
Rebecca Martinez | Rebecca is an ambitious upcoming designer. Coming from a humble background, she is driven to be successful. She believes it is in the fashion industry where she can achieve her dream. While a late bloomer in regard to the intricacies of the fashion world, she is of a mind in creating a versatile range of garments that are more suitable to the average sized woman of today. She believes in designing color neutral garments that are appealing to everyone. One day, she would like to be a costume designer for actors in the theatre arts.
Is it real art or is it digital art? This is the question that San Jose artist Joseph Arruda is frequently asked, and his answer is: both. Influenced by award-winning American artist and writer Bill Sienkiewicz’s aesthetic to “learn all the rules so you can fundamentally figure out when to ignore them,” Arruda creates what he calls an “art hack,” mixing a variety of digital and traditional techniques to create his abstract and portraiture artwork.
How do you figure out when to ignore the rules?
I look at the process as: I have been given a tool, what are the natural limits and corner cases for this thing? Sometimes you get a spectacular result that isn’t even reproducible and sometimes you go, that was a bad idea and really didn’t work.
“It’s kind of a Zen anarchy thing.” – Joseph Arruda
When people ask you what you “do,” how do you answer?
It depends on the context. Since I am equal parts tech geek and a creative, I lead with whichever I think the audience is likely to grasp easier. When I tell some folks that I do art or illustration as part of my livelihood, the looks range from acknowledgement to dumbfounded.
What is your process, your medium?
I’ll use just about anything available (except oils, which I love but have no real facility with or patience for), but I definitely orbit around a lot of the same materials: acrylics, gouaches, a large army of various pens and markers, and various digital tools such as Photoshop, Krita, and Context Free.
I do a few things that seem to be my own schtick, mostly around the mixing of analog and digital. It’s something I’ve actively played with, and I suspect most of what I do is both a little bit primitive and a little bit unorthodox, which may be why a lot of folks regularly ask “which part is real and which part is the computer” and I’m not sure you can quantify it in the end really…and to be honest I’m not sure why it would matter. It’s kind of a Zen thing.
My head never got the memo that said you’re either this or you’re that. I just said if there is something out there and it will produce an interesting result and I can figure out how to use it, I will use it. So my process, for lack of a better term, grew out of that. For example, I will start with a pencil sketch, scan that sketch, print the sketch on Bristol paper, paint on that, scan it again, print it out again in color, etc. In some ways it’s a ridiculously overwrought or inefficient process, but mentally it works for me.
What inspires and motivates you?
Almost anything, really. My head can occasionally make some ambitious creative leaps from the seemingly mundane. It probably also helps to live in an urban area that always has stuff going on.
How would you describe your subject matter? What themes seem to occur/recur in your work?
Of the material I’ve published, the two biggest groupings are stylized portraiture and abstract work. I also come back to kind of absurd/sci-fi styled illustration. For example, if you picked up local drum deity Wally Schnalle’s latest album, Idiot Fish, the sleeve image was by me.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
People outside of San Jose seem surprised that I chose living in San Jose over [living in] San Francisco, and part of that was because of the art and music scene—that point really makes newer SF transplants apoplectic. It’s small, but vibrant, and getting better.
What are your biggest challenges in creating art?
Space. It is no secret that the cost of square footage is at a premium, so that can often act as a constraint. Beyond that, maybe that there are only twenty-four hours in a day? It sounds trite, but I do actually have way more ideas than I can ever hope to complete execution on…but that is what it is.
Is there something you are currently working on, or are excited about starting, that you can tell us about?
A series of jazz portraits I’m finishing in hopes of getting them shown at Cafe Stritch, over on First Street.
Born in Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico, Claudia Blanco was surrounded by art from birth. Blanco’s father was a part-time jeweler whose font books fascinated her as a child, as did the painted signs and screens sitting around the screenprinting shop her uncle ran. Back then, people told her she was good at drawing and painting, and after moving to San Jose when she was eight, she even took some basic art classes in high school. But was too critical, comparing herself to others, and didn’t pursue it further. It was only after she had her son and decided to go back to school that a videography class sparked her creative interests once again. From there, Blanco took more art classes, including one where the teacher directed her to the Arsenal in San Jose to buy the class-required materials. It was there that she met the shop’s purveyors, Sean Boyles and Roan Victor; after finding them on social media, along with other artists in their circle, she started getting inspired. “It made me feel eager to create, so I set out to rediscover my creative side,” Blanco recalls.
Pretty quickly she got the hang of things and began applying paint to canvas in earnest. Inspired by the work of photorealist painter Chuck Close, Frida Kahlo’s outlook on art and life, and the bold, bombastic work of street artists like Drew Merritt, Blanco began creating portraits.
Blanco’s portraits are a vibrant mix of a technological aesthetic and a nostalgia for childhood. Working in a variety of materials, particularly gouache, which she enjoys for its “crisp and clean” qualities, Blanco creates imagery that is both charmingly familiar and uniquely engrossing. Some of her work consists of medleys with Picasso-like cartoon imagery and incorporates recognizable figures and icons as disparate as Barney Rubble and the PornHub logo, while others are portraits of notable women deconstructed with technological motifs. All of Blanco’s work is rendered in sharp, expressive lines that often dissolve into chaotic flurries, with pixelations being a common element of this entropy. Blanco likes to play on the viewer’s sense of nostalgia. “My generation had the best cartoons,” she claims.
Moreover, Blanco uses these dissimilar elements to capture people’s attention. “I want the viewer to see my work across the room and be intrigued and drawn in. It’s so interesting to watch people walk to the piece from across the room, and as they get closer, the image starts to disintegrate into tiny squares right before their eyes,” Blanco says of her pixelated portraits.
What’s even more impressive is that Blanco has only been seriously making art since late 2016, after being inspired by that art class. She’s been on a proverbial tear, and it shows. In 2017 alone, Blanco joined every event and show she could, and her artwork was featured in a dozen exhibitions across California, including the Chocolate and Art Show at SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, Fiesta Fridays at the Art Attack Gallery, also in San Francisco, the All-Womxn’s Showcase at Forager, and the San Jose Art and Zine Fair at Empire Seven Studios. This year, some of her work was featured in The World of Frida exhibition at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, a show focusing on art and photography inspired by the life and work of Frida Kahlo. The exhibition was so popular that it will begin traveling the country, exhibiting at a string of galleries for the next three years.
Blanco remains bright and hopeful. “My twenties are coming to an end in November, and I’m excited to enter my thirties with this new adventure,” she says. “I’m just having fun and trying to learn as I go,” she says, adding, “In five years, I really hope I will have left my nine-to-five job and will be doing this art thing full time.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.3 “Perform”
Self-taught artist and parent Jonathan Crow discovered that quarantine actually resulted in less time in the art studio. Crow experienced a shift in priorities, mainly preoccupied by the insurmountable task of keeping his six-year-old educated and entertained. Like many of us during this time, Jonathan checks social media—especially Twitter—and finds it hard to cope with the frustration of a world that appears “maddening and sickening.” The reality of COVID-19 and the BLM protests, however, have inadvertently bolstered Jonathan’s conceptual focus in his artwork.
In 2017, Crow released the coffee-table art book, Veeptopus: Vice Presidents with Octopuses on Their Heads, a collection of 47 vice-presidents hand drawn with octopuses on their heads, accompanied with esoteric and curious facts about each Veep. After the project’s success, including being recognized by the Huffington Post and New York Times, he turned his attention toward oil painting. Vintage photographs snapped between the 1950s and 1980s inspire him to create paintings that explore the suburban dream juxtaposed with the fears and anxiety “lurking at the root of America’s subconscious.”
During quarantine, Crow created two companion pieces that illustrate the amplification of current circumstances: Irene and Her Bugs and Tuesday 2pm. Both pieces use a muted palette of blues and whites, recalling the nostalgic hues of old Polaroids. The neat and tidy homes feature the clean-lined designs of the 1950s, a time when the suburban promise was to solidify the American dream. Crow’s use of color and negative space, however, creates scenes that are purposefully stark, alluding to the emptiness of that promise and dream. In Tuesday 2pm, the subject sits in her seemingly empty kitchen with three drinks poured in front of her, as if waiting for company. She appears to have finally given up on her pipe dream and contemplates drinking alone. In the second painting, Irene poses outside, face mask on, with her dog, Bugs. Her posture and dress color hint at a lightheartedness that is contradicted by the reality of her mask.
Jonathan Crow’s stylistic theme fits into the context of current events, but our quarantine and global pandemic increase the emotional potency for viewers. His art may reveal hard truths while also offering a catharsis that brings you back from the void. “Art can bring intellectual and emotional clarity to all the chaos and toxicity. Art can also tune into the subconscious currents of the zeitgeist and articulate them in a way that is beyond words or really even rational thought.”
Artist Isaac S. Lewin is a multidisciplinary artist with a studio at the School of Visual Philosophy in San Jose. He creates unique sculptural pieces in two different styles: signs that contain text-like forms with no concrete meaning and large, three-dimensional, welded-metal wireframe structures.
Lewin is talkative and thoughtful, with a unique charm that makes you feel like you’ve known him for years, even upon first meeting. Despite being a transplant to San Jose, he has a passion for the community and the artists he’s found in the South Bay. But his artistic roots are grounded in the graffiti and street art he saw in his hometown of San Luis Obispo.
“I lived on a dead end, and we had train tracks at the end of the street, and I also lived on San Luis Obispo Creek,” he says. “I saw a lot of graffiti growing up, even though I’d grown up in a fairly small, agricultural town. All the creeks from my backyard go through downtown, and then also there’s tons of bridges and the train, so these are all like central places where graffiti is committed, so to speak. Walking through the tunnel, you’re seeing all this graffiti. I’d ride my bike by the train tracks all the time and see graffiti coming by on the Amtrak line and the freight cars. So over time, around the age of 15 to 16, I started painting graffiti.”
At age 18, he moved to Osorno, Chile, as an exchange student and discovered a whole new world of graffiti culture that dwarfed his own small-town experience. “It was like showing up to New York in 1984; there’s kids in the plaza writing in blackbooks, freestyle rapping. The community was as authentic as it could get. All it did was bolster my commitment to graffiti and hip-hop culture.”
This passion for the letterforms of graffiti has stuck with him through his studies and career. After attending college at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, he returned to California to work on an MFA at San Jose State, where he refined his concepts and began exhibiting his works.
His signage pieces examine the beauty of text by emulating the forms of letters, but creating “words” with no meaning.
“The whole idea is to take a communicative format, which is signage, and then put something that can’t be communicated,” he explains. “I’m just trying to create beautiful text; I don’t want you to be distracted by the word ‘war’ or the word ‘peace’ because those things have so many meanings for people, based on their own histories and identity. But text is inherently human. It’s our basis for communication, and I’m creating a property where everyone can read it at the same literacy level. It doesn’t even have a sound, because we can’t speak it—but we know it’s communicative.”
The metal wireframes, meanwhile, have a different visual impact but draw from a similar concept. While these site-specific works appear deliberate in their form, Lewin’s approach in creating them is much more freestyle. He takes sections of steel and welds them together at joints, constructing the figure as he goes. Somehow, the result still tends to resemble graffiti, with shapes that imply letterforms and give an impression of the outline of a tag you might see under a bridge or on a train car in San Luis Obispo or on the streets of Chile.
“Text is inherently human. It’s our basis for communication, and I’m creating a property where everyone can read it at the same literacy level.” -Isaac Lewin
“The style that they come out is just that way almost subconsciously,” he admits. “It’s kind of like a doodle, but instead of making a mark on the plane of paper, the space is just the paper, and the rod is the line. I don’t actually measure any of the things beforehand. I take the length of steel…cut it…weld it…and then I just build and build, and I listen to headphones and so it’s just music. I need to know the parameters of the area, but otherwise, I’m just building—just drawing in space.”
Lewin encourages people to see these pieces in person, with good reason. Their wireframe nature means photographs flatten the works, but in person, the three-dimensionality is striking, with the structures popping out of the walls on which they hang, filling the space and creating a form that changes its appearance depending on the viewing angle. While many of these works are in private collections, two can be found in the lounge of the Foundry Commons building near downtown San Jose.
Ultimately, Lewin’s goal with his art is a simple one. “I can give you all these conceptual ideas and break it down really philosophically,” he says, “but at the end of the day, I’m just trying to make cool-looking shit. Most people only spend a matter of seconds with any piece of art in a museum. I think artists need to be really conscious of that first initial grab of visuals; once you’re drawn in, then you can meditate on it and think about it on a higher level. That’s important, but I think first it should just be…cool.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.1 Discover (Print SOLD OUT)
While spray painting on canvas remains his primary mode of artmaking, the phrase “the world is your canvas” holds literal meaning for Fernando Amaro, Jr.
Fernando Amaro Jr. started spray painting at a young age. He reminisces about practicing the art form in his teens, armed with Krylon and a phantom cap. Today, after more than two decades as an artist, Fernando goes by the name Force 129. An unassuming personality brimming with ideas, he is a resident artist at the Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose.
The studio where Fernando creates magic is a cozy corner in the backyard of his house. He built this studio by the sweat of his brow, a structure of his own creation to house many of his finished pieces as well as a few ongoing projects. The work on display here is a mix of both the figurative and the abstract. Fernando doesn’t limit himself to one form but instead prefers a freestyle approach to painting. He loves to work in mixed media, a distinctive aspect of his style the use of newspaper clippings and multiple kinds of paint in addition to the aerosol paint that is his go-to tool.
While spray painting on canvas remains his primary mode of artmaking, the phrase “the world is your canvas” holds literal meaning for Fernando. He paints everything from shirts and bags to jam bottles and collectible train sets. Earlier this year, the Exhibition District, a collaborative of creatives that pays artists to beautify San Jose, asked Fernando to “live” paint a shipping container in Cesar Chavez Park. Over the course of a week, Fernando painted the container until it transformed from a drab box into a bright and bold public artwork depicting a diversity of faces.
Each of these faces, with its wild eyes and distinctive features, seems to carry its own story. Fernando says that most of his work, in fact, comes out of character studies. He holds a “library of characters” in his mind that continues to grow each day.
This library of characters goes beyond the people Fernando observes in his day-to-day life. It also includes fictional characters that have resonated with him. His recent show at Kaleid Gallery, entitled #UseTheForce129, highlighted a number of characters— both past and present—from the Star Wars film series.
Whether using a preexisting story or character as inspiration for his work or delving into his imagination to build from scratch, Fernando likes to bring new ideas to the table. For example, in 2014 he created the Work_Spaces project, a pop-up group art show that features both the work of visual artists and an exploration of the spaces where they create.
Of course, launching group art projects while continuing to innovate on his own requires hard work as much as it does ingenuity and passion. “I’ve lost many nights of sleep completing things, and I continue to do so every day,” says Fernando. “But, in the end, it’s all worth it.”
“If you are looking to have a career in art or design,” advises Fernando, “set your goals right, prioritize things, and ensure you have all the time to create something beautiful. Rushing and taking shortcuts will only increase errors and lead to an unsatisfactory work.”
With the sleep deprivation, the packed schedule of projects, does finding inspiration become more difficult? Fernando takes a pragmatic approach to the question of inspiration: he believes the ability to inspire oneself is a skill an artist must develop. This is a skill he seems to have mastered. “Life is my inspiration,” he says. “It is constantly changing and evolving around us every day.” For Fernando, the inspiration is always there—it’s just a matter of training your eyes to see it.
Article originally appeared in Issue 8.3 “Show” (SOLD OUT)
Jhere’s a picture book kind of playfulness to Diane Villadsen’s photos. Not only do they practically twirl with sprightly youth and wonder, but they also toy with colors and shapes. They remind the viewer to let out that inner kid for a breath of fresh air.
The first thing others tend to notice about Villadsen’s visuals are those joyful, zany splashes of color. “I find myself coming back and back again to the same colors,” she observes. “Pinks, mint greens, tomato reds, yellows.” She’s crafted several presets so anyone can dip their pictures in what she describes as her “candy-colored dreamworld.” The palate, creamy and colorful with a vintage flourish, imparts a Candyland-come-to-life kind of aura. The feeling is furthered by delicious preset names—titles like Pop! Cotton Candy and Pop! Jelly Bean. One of her favorites—Pop! Peppermint (“warm, pink undertones with a dreamy glow”) is particularly fitting considering Villadsen’s wistfulness for a world glimpsed through rose-colored glasses.
“I love painting a picture for people, a different universe,” Villadsen notes. “I want it to feel—not like I’m in San Jose surrounded by strip malls and beige buildings—but I want it to feel like we’re in this magical world where it’s modern and clean and colorful and the buildings are painted crazy colors.”
“There has to be a layer of unexpected and a layer of almost…impossible in every photo.” -Diane Villadsen
This alternative view of the world, slightly weirder and far more whimsical than reality, recalls childhood imagination. Often the aesthetic results in the unanticipated: “There has to be a layer of unexpected and a layer of almost…impossible in every photo,” Villadsen says. As an example, she describes two approaches to a photoshoot on a pretty green hillside. “Some photographers would just take someone attractive there and shoot them at golden hour and call it a day. And that’s a beautiful photo. But almost anyone can get to that point technically.” In contrast, Villadsen seeks to add that extra layer. “I might bring five different colorfully painted chairs to that hillside—either have one model that I’m going to clone five times or five models.”
In addition, Villadsen’s adult models reclaim the creativity of youth—particularly through how they play with shapes. The photographer gives them the space to interact tactilely with props, often in a goofy manner. One model might strike spirited poses with the halves of a grapefruit, holding the rosy circles over her eyes like some kind of bush baby. Or two friends might toss a cinnabar-red ball back and forth as they balance on giant building block cubes.
In her series Taking Shape, a collaboration with installations designer Claire Xue, she kicks it up a notch. Xue cut out amoeba-shaped forms from people-sized pieces of foam. Villadsen then captured her two models, Xin and Joel, interacting with the props as they followed the impulses of their imagination. With the enthusiasm and energy of kids exploring a jungle gym, the models entwined legs and arms around the curves, poked their bodies through large holes in the foam’s surface, and toted the giant shapes about the set. “My not even knowing the results made it almost cooler,” Villadsen smiles. “It made some magical combinations.”
The childlike wonder of these images is tempered with a more complex adult lens, most noticeably through rich representation. The photographer often recruits elderly models as well as minorities with skin tones as diverse as her color scheme. And her portrayals of women are anything but stagnant. A girl in Villadsen’s images is never simply a pretty face. “What can I do to make this not just a pretty person, a pretty photo?” she asks herself. “What’s the next level?
Curiosity, joy, energy—these attributes don’t have to be monopolized by the younger generation. They’re vital at any age. Let Villadsen be a reminder to play with your environment, indulge your inquisitive side, and savor those candy-colorful moments.
Born and raised in Fremont, artist Martin Malvar grew up in a house steeped in creativity. The son of an architect and drafter, Malvar came of age watching his father design and render figures with an exact, seemingly machine-like precision—all with a ballpoint pen. “I would watch him and just trip out,” Malvar recalls, laughing. With a brother and sister who also work as artist and illustrator, respectively, it was inevitable that Malvar would fall in with the family profession.
In high school he dabbled in drawing, his signature character a figure with spiky hair and wild eyes. But it wasn’t until a particular class at San Francisco State University, which he credits for igniting his artistic ambitions, that Malvar decided to take art seriously.
Starting with 30-page sketchbooks, Malvar dedicated himself to filling them—to the point that he couldn’t believe how much progress he’d made in such a short time. “It gave me confidence to look at it and see all the art that piled up day by day,” Malvar says.
Characterized by spare, bold arrangements, Malvar’s art often features figures without faces in articulated motion or stylized contemplation. In soft but definitive lines, Malvar’s art gently deconstructs people into their archetypal forms, their elemental feelings. From esoteric expressions of sweeping feeling to more pointed commentaries on the absurdity of life, Malvar constantly returns to his humanoid figures, working and reworking their shape and form. The figures are all cast with the same blank expression because, he says, they act as a conduit for his social perception. “It’s people in general, but I don’t know them, so their faces might as well all be the same.”
“Doing art for skateboards has been a dream for me since I was a kid.” _Martin Malvar
Although he prefers to work in gouache or watercolor, Malvar is no stranger to different media. Whether it’s using Photoshop to polish a design for a skateboard or working in oil to enliven a larger canvas, Malvar uses whatever tools best express his intent. Tonally, he often works in color—painting his figures in vibrant hues—but of late, Malvar has gravitated to the finality of black and white. Inspired by the brooding slice-of-life drawings of Raymond Pettibon, as well as art that adorns skateboard decks and clothing, Malvar draws with an illustrator’s acumen and an expressionist’s heart. He has also recently been experimenting with media newer to him, such as block printing, to challenge his creative perceptions.
Since he started putting himself and his work out there, Malvar has been amazed and gratified by the response. A long-time skateboarder, Malvar worked up the courage to pass some art along to the owner of Red Curbs Skate Shop, who loved it so much that he printed a line of decks featuring Malvar’s creations. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and Malvar plans to design more boards for the shop in the future, if not as a career. “Doing art for skateboards has been a dream for me since I was a kid. It’s so gnarly,” he says of the experience.
Beyond skateboard decks, Malvar has shown his art in numerous places in the Bay Area, including Philz Coffee in Cupertino, Red Curbs, and various student shows at SF State. His biggest and most exciting exhibition was last year at Chromatic Coffee in San Jose, where he filled an entire wall with his art, selling a few pieces in the process.
“People ask me what I’m going to do with my art degree. I always say I want to make skateboard graphics, since skateboarding is such a big part of my life,” Malvar says. “It has really been pushing me forward, so why would I want to stop?”
He’s still finishing his degree in fine arts, specializing in drawing and painting, but Malvar already has his sights set on the future. Currently he’s making T-shirts featuring his art, something he never before considered doing. “It’s a positive experience growing in art,” he says. “Learning, meeting new people, and establishing connections has been such a thrill.”
Scott Fulton began with San Jose Jazz 2013 to oversee the Summer Fest performing artists’ transpiration, getting them pick-up from the airport, taking them to hotels, and getting to their performances. Since then, his role has expanded to include helping write grants, managing the high school all-star big band and the U-19 combo, and organizing the summer camp.
Scott played a primary role in the development of the Boom Box, the mobile box truck stage. He has recently led the project to transfer a section of the 310 South First office space (home to SVCreates/Content Magazine and San Jose Jazz) into a performance lounge called the “Break Room.”
In our conversation, we talk about Scott’s influences as a musician and some plans for the “Break Room,” which will be open during Summer Fest 2021.
To find out more about San Jose Jazz, Summer fest 2021, and other program, visit sanjosejazz.org
B
envenuti! Welcome to Enoteca La Storia, an Italian wine bar run by Mike Guerra and Joe Cannistraci. The combination of the word “enoteca” (or “wine library” in English) with “la storia” (“story”) is as thoughtfully paired as the pasta is with the pinot noir. Fittingly, the focal point of the main room is the wine cabinet shelves. Bottles like oddly shaped books stock this “library,” waiting their turn to be selected and savored; they serve as a reminder that this place is a resource overflowing with knowledge. Providing thoughtfully crafted menus and a wide selection of offerings, Guerra and Cannistraci cultivate their customers’ palates, effortlessly easing guests past the chardonnay toward a sangiovese with muscular tannins.
Both co-owners agree that you can appreciate that bottle of zinfandel on a deeper level if you know where it comes from and the process vintners undergo to produce it. But although both co-owners share this affinity for the vine (as well as Italian backgrounds), their personalities are about as different as white grapes from red. Cannistraci used to be a plasterer, Guerra a social worker. Guerra describes Cannistraci as “an idea guy” and “good with his hands,” crediting him with hunting down the materials for their interior decorations. “As we speak, he’s putting a door in,” Guerra says, explaining that his partner is currently across town, executing the finishing touches at their recently opened second location (part of a project to recapture San Jose’s Little Italy). Guerra makes sure his partner gets the recognition he’s due, praising his drive most of all.
“We’ve got very different personalities, but underneath it, we have the same values: your word is your bond. You treat people with respect.”– Mike Guerra
To illustrate, he refers to when Cannistraci first resolved to grow tomatoes. After tapping into a number of resources—books, internet, other growers—he became the local expert. “It went from him having a few plants in his yard to ‘Mike, I think I’m going to plant a few extra plants, and I’ll get a crop, and we’ll make something out of it at the enoteca’ to ‘Mike, I’m going to put in irrigation in the backyard, and I’m getting this special organic fertilizer, and I’m doing worm castings, and I’m buying a water filter.’ ” He’s now on the board of the World Tomato Society, and every May and June, regulars start asking after the latest crop.
In contrast, Guerra identifies himself as more even-keeled. “I’m a little bit more thoughtful, a little quieter,” he says. “I like to think about things first and then do.” When a fired-up Cannistraci surges into the enoteca and ambushes his employees with a bunch of exciting new ideas, it’s Guerra who calms down the shell-shocked staff and steers them through a smooth transition process. It’s also Guerra and his expertise as a professional sommelier that members of the enoteca’s wine clubs have to thank for high-quality selections and for rotating regions and varietals. “We’ve got very different personalities, but underneath it, we have the same values: your word is your bond. You treat people with respect,” Guerra asserts. “We really want to do things well.”
To stay true to the enoteca spirit, everything Guerra and Cannistraci serve is either local or Italian. Guerra admits they’ve been tempted at times to add menu items that don’t fit either of those categories. “What’s kept us on the narrow path always comes down to ‘Is this who we are and what we’re about?’ ” he explains. “That helps us avoid pitfalls. We’ve got a good friend that says she always knows that a business is in trouble if it’s a retailer, but they bring in a slurpee machine.”
And this fealty to their values influences just about everyone they come into contact with. Not only do customers come away with a deeper understanding of wine, but the employees also experience benefits. “This gentleman here,” Guerra nods at a young man as he strides past, “he started out as a busser.” Enoteca La Storia slowly dissolved his initial shyness and replaced it with a newfound confidence and a promotion to server. “And now he’s a manager,” Guerra smiles. “We watched him grow as a person and as a professional. And we’ve had a bunch of people like that.”
Is your interest piqued? Come enjoy the bruschetta and a glass of syrah, and let Enoteca La Storia work its magic.
This article originally appeared in Issue 10.1 “Tech”
Ryan Melchiano and Ryan Hisamune met in 2002 after college while working at Hukilau in San Francisco. Melchiano was serving, eventually getting into management, while Hisamune was working as a barback. They found themselves having similar work ethics and ideas about the restaurant industry and found themselves having conversations about what they would do if they could ever open a restaurant of their own.
As a friendship developed, Melchiano and Hisamune worked together on various restaurant and club projects in San Francisco. When Melchiano was asked to help owners of Hukilau open the nightclub Suede, he brought Hisamune along to be a part of the team. Melchiano and Hisamune continued to gain experience and a track record of successful endeavors such as the opening of Big, which within a year was rated as one of the top 10 bars in San Francisco.
“You just know when you meet people and you like them and you get along with them, you’re just going to be surrounded by them for a while.”
The two Ryans met Pomaikai Shishido coincidentally at the Hukilau, where Shishido was managing and bartending at the time. The three starting talking. Melchiano and Hisamune were managing at 620 Jones and invited Shishino to bartend for a party they were having with the intention of seeing if he could sink or swim. Shishido swam.
In 2011, the trio decided to venture out together and try something new. Melchiano, Hisamune, and Shishido began to see that there was a demand in the South Bay when they polled their SF bar guests and found out 40 percent of their clientele were from San Jose. Recognizing there were customers in San Jose looking for a different dining experience, the three saw an opportunity to open a place that would combine their aesthetics and vision that had been brewing years earlier.
After a couple years of researching the nightlife and locations in San Jose, they found the space adjacent to San Pedro Square Market that was once an horse stable. But over the years, previous tenants, most recently – Tapas Bar & Lounge, had covered up many of the building’s original features. Melchiano, Hisamune, and Shishido wanted to bring back to the historical aspects of the stable and embrace its roots.
Doing many of the interior improvements themselves, people walking by found it hard to believe that the crew covered in drywall dust were the actual owners. Having that kind of commitment to their vision is what gives SP2 its unique aesthetic. Together they divided up tasks but always, quality was the thread that bound them together.
In August 2013, SP2 had its grand opening. Melchiano was married the same week that the restaurant opened and worked the day before and after his wedding. For the three co-owners, the restaurant is their top priority. “When someone doesn’t like what we do or complains, it really burns us because we do care. We built that chair and put that light up,” says Melchiano. “We are married to this place.”
With Melchiano’s leadership, Hisamune’s bar expertise, and Shishido’s knack for marketing and social media, SP2 (San Pedro Squared) has already made a mark in San Jose’s dining scene. Yet, even though with the SP2 team’s experience, Hisamune admits he was caught off guard by craft beer scene in San Jose. “I realize people down here are very knowledgable bout that scene,” explains Hisamune, “And they expect that, so we changed most of our taps during the first month.”
Walking through the doors of SP2, guests are welcomed by an open kitchen and the warmth of a wood fire oven. The reclaimed custom designed furniture by local craftsmen and large hardwood main dinner are inviting and blend the old with the new. Along the wall is a large wooden bar displaying not only a vast selection of beverages, but upon closer look guests will notice metal rings in the bricks where horses used to be tied to during the building’s original stable days.
Besides a wide selection of drinks, SP2 has a food menu that changes every month. As an athlete, Melchiano is very keen to healthy eating and it shows in his dedication to sourcing mostly local and organic foods. SP2’s American bistro menu has been developed with the help of chef and friend Executive Ola Fendert. Resident chef Kelvin Ott complements the owners’ passion with his own dedication to a perfect dining experience.
These elements make SP2 a welcomed addition to downtown’s expanding culture. And there is a sense that Melchiano, Hisamune, and Shishido have just begun. With their commitment to always improving, plans are in the works to redesign the back private dining room as well as opening the lounge into San Pedro Square Market’s courtyard in the spring of 2014.
“We’re always looking for other locations for other projects. You can be ambitious but you have to be careful to not be foolish. We want to make this our number one spot. We have a commitment to this community,” Melchiano says.
This article originally appeared in Issue 6.0 Discover.
A rt can do a lot of good things for people—it can make them feel like they never have, articulate previously unknown emotions, provide direction and open the heart, and given the right (or wrong) circumstances, art can even save a life.
Take South Bay–based sculptor Nicolas Echeverri (Nicola Stela). Born and raised in Colombia, Echeverri had a sense of art in his adolescence and later channeled it into architecture, the industry he studied in school. When Echeverri was in his early twenties, he was forced into a situation that changed the course of his life forever. Heading out on the town one night with one of his wealthy relatives, Echeverri never could have guessed what would happen next. Echeverri and his friend were kidnapped by guerrillas and taken into the mountains to be held for ransom. The problem was, Echeverri was by no means wealthy, and the $200,000 ransom that his captors demanded could not be delivered. In response, they held him longer and abused him for what seemed like an endless period of time. The pain and fear grew so great in Echeverri that, for the sake of survival, he mentally shut down. Reduced to a primal, trancelike state, he accepted his fate and what he was sure to be his death. “I went into a very weird state of mind in which I was finally in peace. I let the problem go,” Echeverri recalls.
Then, inexplicably, the guerrillas freed him…
Indeed, Echeverri was free, but only physically. The trauma from the situation slowly shut him down, isolating him from his friends and family and making even simple, pure feelings like love impossible to handle. Unable to have normal relationships or a job, he fell to the lowest place he had ever been. “I dealt with the stress for years. I began looking for answers in a lot of things, especially spirituality, but nothing was able to heal me. I was too much in my mind,” Echeverri says.
Meanwhile, he was waiting for his green card process to be approved. “I came here to look around and see if I liked it,” Echeverri says of his first trip to the States, adding, “And I decided to stay.” It was here that he found the School of Visual Philosophy, which he credits with helping save him, as well as cultivating his skills and philosophy as a sculptor.
“If for a moment I can make people reach into their heart, then I’ve completed my goal. My art is not about thinking. It’s about making people feel.” – Nicolas Echeverri
After 17 years of a mental war with himself, Echeverri came to a breaking point. Then, what seemed to occur out of pure fate, he met a woman, a spiritual healer who guided him. Never a religious person, after six months of interaction, Echeverri had a spiritual rebirth—then came the visions. “I found myself in spiritual ecstasy. I was finally happy again,” he says of the transcendental experience. “The first thing I realized was I need to do something with myself,” he says. “I was blinded by fear and anxiety. So I grabbed a piece of wood and started carving,” Echeverri says.
Echeverri’s sculptures are therapeutic and stunning celebrations of humanity. Composed and crafted almost entirely in bronze, his work articulates the deep pain and long-lingering trauma that has defined so much of his life. But his sculptures, often comprised of outstretched human figures whose appendages meld into larger, abstract shapes, do not dwell on the suffering that brought Echeverri to sculpting initially. Instead, they express a sense of wonder, a celebration of life presented through the human figure’s physicality, all arranged with a somatic harmony enunciating what Echeverri is trying to say. “If for a moment I can make people reach into their heart, then I’ve completed my goal. My art is not about thinking. It’s about making people feel.”
Echeverri devotes most of his time to his sculpture. To pay the bills, he’s taken on a bunch of gig-economy jobs that are in abundance here. He credits this on-the-fly work for giving him plenty of time to devote to his actual work—his sculptures.
And he shows no sign of slowing. After the success of an exhibition of his work at the School of Visual Philosophy this past June, Echeverri—who now goes by the artistic name of Nicola Stela—wants to expand his artistic horizon. Ultimately though, he wants to keep making work that embodies his personal philosophy that “the mind can break, but the heart is untouchable.”
What began as Koji Sake Lounge is now one-year-old Nomikai, a “social food and drinkery” (after the Japanese for “drinking party”) that specializes in premium sake and Japanese whiskey. Its owners, Kathy and Tone, are married high school sweethearts (talk about connected) who emphasize the fact that their establishment exists beyond the purpose of providing food and drink for patrons: through it, they aim to provide a place for all members of the community to feel welcome, to gather, and to flourish.
Did you grow up being interested in restaurants or cooking?
Tone: Not really, we both had corporate jobs before this. We were interested in having a place where people can come and hang out. For us, we wanted a place where we could go out and feel comfortable at the same time, and have people come together. [At Nomikai], you can be anyone: you can be a college kid and come in and have a few beers, you can be a sophisticated businessman coming in for some whiskey. That’s what we wanted.
Kathy: We don’t really have culinary backgrounds, this was more about filling a void. I mean there wasn’t even a place where we could really go. It was always just a dive bar or a club or a sit-down restaurant. We were like, “How come there’s nothing in between?” We figured there were people out there who don’t fit into certain “scenes.” So when we had the idea for our place, we were like, “Okay, this has a nice casual atmosphere where anyone can come and feel welcome.”
What other factors have made your establishment successful?
Kathy: We have a good family, a good team. That’s one thing that separates us from other places in the area: our service is really personable. People will recognize you by your name when you come in. It’s not just about creating a drink and being like, you know, “Here you go,” and then setting off to the next customer. Everyone here is really open and friendly and will greet you with a warm smile. It’s the team that makes this place what it is.
Tone: Yeah, a bar is just a bar, a restaurant is just a restaurant, but service is what keeps people coming back.
Why sake?
Kathy: Well, when I had my first encounter with sake I knew it was something really, really unique. I always said to Tony, you know, “This stuff is really good and there’s not really a place we can go to access it around here.” That’s when we decided to open our own place.
Tone: Not a lot of people knew what sake was at first, but after time people would come in and say “Can I have the Namazake?” They’d order by the Japanese names. We serve tasting flights [where people can become familiar with a variety of different kinds]. We also do occasional tastings where the vendors come by and they’ll bring their line, they’ll let you taste some and they’ll educate you. People have expanded their knowledge of sake and we’re pretty proud of that.
How have you made a place for yourself in this city?
Kathy: We’ve spent most of our lives here, so we do have a love for the city. When we opened, there were two other businesses on this street. Now ever since, it’s been growing and we’re really excited to be a part of that.
Tone: We know this is a small mom-and-pop business, but we operate it as professionally as we can. We hold staff and service to the highest standards. We’re very connected with the local community, also.
Kathy: Yeah, staying connected with the community is definitely something we’re on top of. We hold community mixers, fundraisers, and things like that. We try to give back as much as we can. This past Thanksgiving and Christmas we did fundraisers for Give Thanks, Give Back, so for every pizza sold we donated another to Second Harvest. And we did a toy drive for Christmas. Nonprofits will come in and do little mixers and we try to help them out as much as we can. So, yeah, it’s all about community. We can’t exist without each other.
Any advice for restaurant entrepreneurs?
Kathy: It’s been the most rewarding thing to start something with an entrepreneurial spirit so young. It’s different with this generation, from a business standpoint. You have to think out of the box, you can’t just open your doors and expect to be successful. You have to adapt and be really creative. You need to have passion and drive, I mean, that’s something you can’t learn in the corporate world. That’s something that comes from within. If you have passion, great, we need more of that in this world.
NOMIKAI 48 S First St San Jose, CA 95113 408.287.7199
The San Jose Downtown Association approached Veggielution to be a part of a temporary (approx. 3yr+) revitalization project at an underutilized parking lot in the SoFA District (South First Area). With funding from the Knight Foundation, Google, Urban Community, and with the property owner’s support, the space has been transformed during COVID-19 #SIP into a dog park managed by the Downtown Association and an urban demonstration garden that will be operated by Veggielution. The Veggielution section of the park will provide a space for a farm stand and mobile food vending hub.
With murals by eight local artists commissioned in collaboration with Local Color and the Quilt Museum, the park celebrated its official opening on June 30, 2021.
In this episode, we speak with Veggielution Environment Education Manager Rosa Maria Gordilla Garfunkel and Public Affairs Director Emily Schwing to learn about the project and plans for space.
To find out more about Veggielution programs, to donate, and to volunteer, visit: veggielution.org
Yazmin Hernandez Carbajal – “De la Granja a la Cocina” – Issue 11.5 “Dine,” 2019
J eremiah Kille creates art that blurs the line between figurative expression and geometric abstraction.
Born and raised in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Jeremiah Kille has liked art as early as he can remember. Though his family moved around from Arizona to Sacramento, Kille’s love of art kept growing. An avid skateboarder and snowboarder, Kille’s early artistic influences came from the bold graphics that adorned his decks. “Early on, I was exposed to a lot of skate art and culture,” he recalls, adding, “Like skateboarding, a lot of my art is pretty graphic.”
Kille drew more than the average kid, but it wasn’t something he took seriously until much later. He spent most of his twenties outdoors, working as a mountain guide at ski resorts, making and shaping surfboards—anything that was outside and required his hands. Kille credits all these almost-careers with informing his artistic expression. At the time, Kille was living in Santa Cruz with his then wife and was looking for a direction to take his life in. He considered nursing like his wife; instead, she encouraged him to go into art. “I was a late bloomer,” Kille laughs, “and it was pretty amazing how supportive of my art she was.”
He started attending San Jose State University in his late twenties, where he studied pictorial arts, including oil painting, printmaking, and drawing. “At that time, I was really focused on making surfboards,” Kille says. “But at some point, there was a shift for me, mostly with my son being born.”
He knew that making surfboards wasn’t a lucrative enough industry to support his family. Around that time, he also started hanging large paintings at Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz. Kille wasn’t expecting much, but the work hanging in Verve was a hit, and he sold a number of paintings while still in school. The positive reception of his work, plus the good money he was getting for it, really shifted Kille into being an artist full-time. “It sounds bad, but money was a big motivator,” Kille says. “Times were tough, so I gave myself a year window to really pursue art.”
A couple of months into his self-imposed time frame, Kille knew that he wasn’t going to quit art anytime soon. “I was all in,” he recalls, adding, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Kille’s art is a bold, explosively toned journey into his subconscious. Much like his juggling of jobs, Kille’s work is a kaleidoscopic expression of the warring sides of his brain, where one day abstraction takes the driver’s seat and on another day figurative composition bleeds in. Focusing often on living, breathing motifs, such as elephants, birds, and matadors, and on the more inanimate, like boats and hot air balloons, Kille transforms this familiar imagery into a vibrant, texture-hopping landscape of metaphysical possibility.
Working mostly in oil and acrylic paint, Kille creates geometric compositions that melt into graphic representations of dreams through the use of loud, wild color. By combining the familiar elements of different styles, Kille creates entirely unique and unfamiliar compositions. “I am drawn to art that has elements of abstraction with moments of realism or recognizable objects,” Kille says. “To me, that combination is provoking. When I look at art like that, I am drawn in by the tensions between the two worlds as well as the balance.”
Through most of his artistic life, Kille has been met with pushback to his desire to jump around between styles and techniques. He understands unifying one’s work and seeing the artist as a brand, but Kille refuses to be tied down to one style or forced into one direction. He says, “If you look at my work, I do a few different things. I think it’s natural for me to not be boxed in creatively.”
As for the future, Kille’s work is going to be featured in an art show in Sacramento, as well as at numerous outdoor festivals, where he hopes to expand his large-scale painting skill. Either way, Jeremiah Kille is going to continue making art on his terms—and sometimes get recognition for it.
H ere it is not just family-owned, it is family-operated, right down to Adolfo Gomez himself greeting you at the door.
Walk into 25 West San Fernando St. and the man seating you may be Adolfo Gomez, owner and manager of Mezcal. This is not your ordinary Mexican restaurant, it is a culinary treat straight from Oaxaca, Mexico. “If you look around San Jose,” Gomez says, “you will see a lot of Mexican restaurants and little taquerias, but they are mostly serving northern Mexican cuisine. Here, we do not have burritos on the menu.”
What they do have are rich moles made with fragrant spices, guacamole sliced, diced, and served table side, and of course chapulines, crispy grasshoppers sautéed with garlic, lime and salt. Not your ordinary menu, but that’s just the way Gomez likes it. “People come in and they ask, ‘Do you have chimichangas?’ No. ‘Do you have burritos?’ No,” he says with a laugh. “They ask me what’s good here, and I tell them ‘everything.’”
“You can have the best food in the world, but if the service is not perfect, no one will come back.” -Adolfo Gomez
When it’s your mother and brother in the kitchen cooking up recipes passed down over generations, the assessment rings true. Gomez knows these dishes because they are the same as when he was a child. “I ask people to think of all the meals their mothers made over the years. Can they pick only five favorites?” he asks. “We started with 125 of my mother’s recipes—foods I ate growing up as a boy. We chose 25 dishes.”
Oaxacan cuisine is known for its freshness and quality ingredients. The moles are slow-cooked, and everything is made from scratch. Gomez’s brother Octavio is chef, but his mother, Doña Libo, is Mezcal’s heart. It is her recipes, perfected over generations, that give the restaurant its spirit and spice. Mezcal it is not just family-owned, it is family-operated, right down to Gomez himself greeting you at the door.
“I tell my staff that service is number one, because you can have the best food in the world, but if the service is not perfect, no one will come back,” Gomez says.
The atmosphere also plays a large role in what takes this restaurant into the extraordinary. Throughout the space there are pieces from famous Oaxacan artisans. The warm, brick walls and lighting glow with rich color. Traditional Alebrije figurines, brightly-painted carved wooden animals, nest in alcoves. Tin lanterns hang from the ceiling, revealing images from Frida Kahlo’s “Las Dos Fridas” and katrinas with their skeleton grins hanging from the walls. It is this attention to detail that perfects Gomez’s creation. Gomez recalls that, after five years of hard work, Mezcal was set to open—and then the 2008 recession hit. Having chosen a location to catch crowds flocking to the Convention Center, the brothers thought Mezcal was doomed to shutter its doors before they even opened. “We were lucky,” he says. “Family and friends came through. They helped with loans. We didn’t want to wonder what could have happened.”
In 2008, Mezcal opened. Metro Newspaper named it Best New Restaurant in 2009. After four years, it is still going strong. While other establishments change hands and close doors, Mezcal is filling chairs and serving up quality cuisine in a stylish atmosphere.
Gomez’ secret to running his restaurant is simple. “To succeed in service, you have to love what you do,” he says. “And we love it.”
MEZCAL 25 W San Fernando St San Jose, CA 95113 408.283.9595
Engineers are known for being problem-solvers, so when Mark Williams found that his collection of mechanical musical machines had outgrown his living room, he did what any creative thinker would do. He constructed a building for them.
Not just any building. The atmosphere had to be right for his prized collection, so he built them a whole soundscape, authentic right down to the brick walls, the chatter of diners, and the hiss of the soda fountain. He built them the Orchestria Palm Court, a new restaurant located in the city’s theatre district.
Williams hails from a musically-inclined family and wanted to learn to play the piano, although he admits to not inheriting the gene, so he bought himself a player piano—just as a backup. The piano wasn’t working when he bought it so he learned to fix it himself and there began his fascination with the machines.
“You can’t find these songs on CD,” says Williams. “If you want to hear them, you have to find a roll.” He is referring to the perforated paper cylinders which allow notes and controls to operate the hammers inside the instruments via a vacuum. Each roll held five to ten tunes, usually the most popular songs of the time. Many of them are reminiscent of the soundtrack for old cartoons. Remember “Mack the Knife,” “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody?”
“No one is going to hurry you. Stay as long as you like.” -Mark Williams
I asked Williams to play me one of these classics and, after offering an apology for the quietness of the empty room, he disappeared to activate a control panel in the back of the bar. The machine that came to life was a Violano Virtuoso, a self-playing violin. The strings inside are played by small rollers and the fingers on the strings are metal. Combined with a piano frame, the Virtuoso is a fascinating mechanism to watch that puts out a powerful sound designed for public places—it is meant to be heard in tandem with clinking glasses, laughter, and conversation.
The Art Nouveau nymphs frolicking on the panel of his 1926 Electramuse Jukebox also adorn the walls, decorated with prints and posters selected by Williams’ partner Russ. Purely acoustic, the wooden jukebox spins ten records with no amplification, just the horn of the Victrola inside. Player pianos line the walls, and three stand side by side up above the bar.
But not all of Williams’ machines produce music. He also owns an automated popcorn machine which individually butters each perfectly-popped kernel. The machine runs on Sundays. “Otherwise, it smells like a circus in here,” says Williams.
He does not want the place to be a museum or a kitschy old-time throwback. The interior of the ex-auto showroom built in 1910 has been lovingly renovated by Williams. The brick walls were designed to recreate the original feel and acoustics of a bar or restaurant at the turn of the century.
The whole process took nine years. Retrofitting the exposed girders for earthquakes, installing A/C on the new roof and running all new electrics underground all took place while he was working for a startup. Then, just when he hit the point of no return, the startup folded. The restaurant, which was originally his retirement strategy became his full-time concern. “I had done everything except the final kitchen build-out. If I hadn’t done that, the building would have been useless.”
So Williams expanded his plans for the restaurant, designing a menu that features grass-fed beef, free-range eggs, and real creamery butter. “Not much comes out of downtown that isn’t deep fried. We just do cooking,” he says.
Specializing in the warm and familiar European favorites, the dinner menu includes pork chops and steaks as well as salmon and ratatouille. Comfort food made from scratch daily with natural ingredients. Williams feels strongly about healthy cooking right down to the fiber content of his whole wheat flour. He has given the food he serves a great deal of thought. The kitchen does not use microwave ovens or deep fat fryers. “It’s not low-fat or low-calorie,” says Williams, “but I have lost ten pounds eating this ice cream.”
Many of the dessert items have been recreated from period recipes. The ice cream soda fountain features organic ice cream from Three Twins in Petaluma. Even the drinks are made with freshly-squeezed fruit juices.
At first glance, the prices on the menu seem a bit high, but Williams decided to go with another nod to the practices of the past. The prices include service and tax. There are no waiters at Orchestria Palm Court. His customers order from the rear counter and pay when they are ready. No tipping is allowed.
So has the engineer found more than a perfect home for his collection? Will this gamble on affection for the sounds of the past combined with a healthy modern consciousness win over the downtown crowd? “The jury is still out on that one,” says Williams.
By adopting theatre hours and staying open until 11:30 PM, Williams hopes to encourage people to come just for a glass of wine or a dessert. “No one is going to hurry you. Stay as long as you like.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 5.5 Feast in 2013. Print Issue is SOLD OUT
#64- Connie Martinez – CEO SVCreates on “The Business of Arts and Culture”
In May, SVCREATES unveiled new local research on the arts sector in our region in The Business of Arts and Culture. The report hopes to help all of us understand who we are as a cultural sector and what we bring to this special community. And shed light on the particular challenges we face, how we are confronting them and, most importantly, your essential role in sustaining the business of the arts.
Join our conversation with SVCREATES CEO Connie Martinez on the Content Podcast as we discuss The Business of Arts and Culture. Listen in and read more on our website.
S tanding 18 feet high, Talking Heads is a sculpture composed of empty space surrounded by stainless steel. Artist Oleg Lobykin’s largest piece to date, some have compared it to intricate coral or a spinal column. Lobykin hoped to use the unique language of art to set humans to thinking about their technological impact on future generations. Talking Heads graced the sands of Black Rock City in 2019. “For 12 years I have been to Burning Man,” says Lobykin. “I was amazed and blown away when I showed up the first time, specifically by art and what people do, and creativity on every level—the juxtaposition of technology and nature.”
Born in St. Petersburg to a military officer and a midwife, Lobykin has always enjoyed creating. “I always liked to escape from reality, to be in your own world and look for things like curves in the clouds. I like to waste time like that—drawing during school lessons. Before I ended up in the US, I was drawing a lot of cowboys and Indians.” At art school, Lobykin studied to become a master stone carver, following architectural drawings and creating free designs, like gargoyles. After graduation, Lobykin went to New York to work on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and to Alabama, creating a 23-foot column carved into a mountain at the opening of a limestone quarry, training local stone carvers to help with the work.
When the Perestroika movement took hold, Lobykin decided to go back to Russia and “take a break from stone time to wear a shirt and tie and do something completely different” and set up a business. There he met his future wife, a Californian who happened to be in Russia. When she wanted to continue her education, they relocated to Palo Alto. “I am lazy and hate to spend time in traffic, so I started to look close by for a job.” When Lobykin saw the sandstone in the main court at Stanford, and found they had staff architects, he showed them his portfolio and was hired. Stonesculpt, his masonry restoration company, is still working for Stanford 20 years later—as well as for the Presidio and the City of San Jose.
Lobykin has a studio in East Palo Alto where he lives with his wife and daughter and continues to express himself in his art, selling some pieces and showing in a handful of galleries. He created No Swimming for Burning Man in 2008. Over the next few years, the piece went to Google HQ and then to Newport Beach. Now, Playa to Paseo, the Burning Man Project, and the City of San Jose collaboration has brought the 12-foot sculpture to SAP Center. “Its original meaning was about danger, fear, and hope for tomorrow; that is why it is a shark fin,” says Lobykin. “But at SAP, it is all about sharks, or whatever people see.”
Searching for the basic elements required to create complex form, Lobykin is experimenting with reflections and form in a massive conceptual piece called Pixel. “I actually look at forms in a different way,” says Lobykin. “How does it start? Where does it meet the form itself? In music you have notes. If you are talking about visual arts, specifically a three-dimensional object, what is the ABC over there?” Lobykin imagines Pixel’s polished curve as an interactive sculpture, more than 30 feet tall, that would allow the viewer to see themselves reflected in the surface. “If you come close to it, you appear in a normal way. If you go far away, you disappear and become part of your surroundings.”
Such process requires a combination of technology and natural material. Computer renderings don’t give the full picture. His process can involve 3D printing, traditional bronze foundries, and chromium-plated bronze. But he can equally explore found objects, like beach stones, turning them over in his hands before knowing what his stone will become. “I just take the stone, look at it. What can be done with this? I wanted to see how you could balance something made by nature—keep the natural shape but at the same time work with man’s interference.”
If you’ve ever sat on a project for a few years before starting it, then you’ll relate to Raul Lozano. “I wanted something I could sink my teeth in for the next ten years,” he says about Valley Verde, the nonprofit he started in 2012 which provides low income families the knowledge and materials needed to grow their own organic vegetable gardens at no cost.
Lozano had the idea to take his pastime—gardening—and make it available to anyone. He asked Health Trust CEO Frederick J. Ferrer for $30,000 in grant money to support his idea, knowing it was a long shot. Surprisingly, and without hesitation, Ferrer not only approved the proposed amount, but offered $50,000. Ferrer thought that it was a great idea and something that hadn’t been done. Though it was a big risk, Lozano thought it just might be a big reward too.
Valley Verde’s garden program provides in-home gardens—planter boxes, seeds, soil, and drip irrigation—to low income families who want to grow their own organic produce. Valley Verde also sells these in-home gardens to the general public. For every garden sold, Valley Verde can provide one low income family with a garden and enroll them in a year-round gardening program.
Prices for in-home gardens range from $85 to $400, depending on the size of the planter boxes. “The customer gets all the soil, we put in the drip irrigation system, and we deliver and install it,” says Lozano.
You don’t need a green thumb to keep an organic vegetable garden thriving. “The level of care these gardens need to be given is not as much as people think. As long as you have good sun and water them regularly, you’re going to be fine,” Lozano says.
New gardeners take three organic gardening classes throughout the year before finishing the year-long program. Families can also come to monthly classes if they have additional questions and want step-by-step help.
“My garden really helped me to feel better and be less lonely. I see how my plants are growing and changing every day and I feel good about growing my own food,” says Esperanza, a Valley Verde garden grower. “I haven’t bought lettuce or cabbage for the last four months.”
Valley Verde’s team wants to show that gardening is a valuable skill that is useful for the rest of their gardener’s lives. Most families aren’t just cash poor, but “time poor” as Lozano describes. “We’re trying to get as many people knowledgeable,” he says. “If we have these classes, it gives them the support to become self sufficient.” “If we can not only give them materials but teach them how to garden themselves and feel confident, then they are going to be able to provide it as long as they live,” Lozano says. But Lozano’s movement has helped more than the pockets of low-income families. It’s creating symmetry between families in any economic class, government officials, city planners, and corporations.
In ten years, Lozano hopes to have planted 20,000 gardens in Santa Clara County as part of Valley Verde’s Plant, Eat, Share campaign. They’ve partnered with city council members, corporations, and nonprofits. “If we’re successful, I’d like to create the same movement in other regions across the US,” Lozano says. “We are hoping corporations like Google will pick up the idea and collaborate on our Plant, Eat, Share campaigns with employees. They get their employees to eat healthier and we get to add gardens to the campaign. It’s a win-win,” Lozano says.
Three hundred gardens later, Lozano doesn’t rest. “What’s really got me through the really tough times is that I totally believed in what we were doing,” Lozano says. “I totally believed the community needed it. That’s how I wanted to start my new career. And it’s way more rewarding that I thought it would be.”
Jeffrey Lo’s high school crush wanted him to audition for a show. He had no fear of speaking in front of others, and he enjoyed making people laugh. So at 16, he walked into his first theatre. His confidence and willingness to learn on his feet have helped him succeed there ever since: acting, directing, and writing plays.
While Lo was a senior at Evergreen Valley High School, the class was given an assignment to write and direct their own shows using the Drama 1 students as their cast. Lo wrote a 30-minute play called “All I Have.”
Describing himself as a “smug 17-year-old,” he decided to write and direct a full two-hour play. Banding together with a close group of friends, they managed to nab the high school’s theatre for the summer before college, washing cars to raise funds. His play was about a psychologist and a troubled teenager whose mother is dating a drug addict. It nearly sold out its one-night run. Admitting the play had its imperfections, Lo said, “It was one of those things where we just didn’t know any better. We were going off pure adrenalin and emotion – all twelve of us.”
Lo still returns to Evergreen Valley High every other year to write and direct a show with high school students. He enjoys finding kids that are not too sure about performing. He said, “They don’t take it super-seriously, but they have that raw skill there that is not disrespectful, but ‘Oh yeah, I’ll do it – which is kind of like I was.” The last show he did there was about a Filipino high school basketball star. Although audiences enjoyed the play, “they laughed about the fact that there was an Asian American high school basketball star that was going to play in the NBA,” said Lo. “Six months later, Jeremy Lin proved me right – a Palo Alto boy.”
The wry humor that naturally flavors his work comes in part from his upbringing. “I’m Filipino, right? So my mom is a nurse.” As the only member of his immediate family born in the U.S., he admits to a childhood that involved not knowing much about his hometown of San Jose beyond the “coffee shop down the street.” His parents emigrated 25 years ago, and except for the occasional trips downtown for Christmas in the Park, his world was fairly insulated. With two older sisters, Lo is relieved that one of his siblings will be going to medical school, which “makes my mom happy.”
Receiving the Arts Council’s 2012 Laureate Emerging Artist Award also pleased his mother. The $5,000 award is not tied to any specific project and doesn’t require any reports, it is just intended to help an artist live. “None of my family is really involved in the arts,” he said. “So it was at least one gauge to let them know I wasn’t completely wasting my time.”
It is difficult to see where Lo could have wasted any time. He went straight to UC Irvine as a journalism major, but he then doubled and added theatre because he found that he “couldn’t escape it.” However, he still did theatre on his own terms, founding his own company, the Pipeline Players, rather than participating in University productions. “We did our shows the way we did it that one summer, and we did it for three years.” Fascinated by the craft, Lo also continued to read all the plays he could get his hands on.
At first, he was intimidated by the length of experience of most people working in the theatre department. So he quietly soaked up knowledge while beginning to embrace his own identity. “I came to realize that it was a huge advantage coming from a very different background. There’s a certain perspective that I come from that not a lot of people can write [about].”
Despite finding success down south, Lo came straight back home. He knew early on, although he wanted to go somewhere different for college, “San Jose was where I wanted to be.”
But college really paid off for Lo, especially his love of reading. A week after returning to San Jose, he was working as a soundboard operator at TheatreWorks. He was eating dinner in the green room when he overheard the director, Leslie Martenson, talking to some of the actors about her next show, “Superior Donuts” by Tracy Letts. As luck would have it, Lo had read every one of Letts’ plays because his college professor had compared the playwright’s style to his own.
As soon as that evening’s show was over, Lo ran up to Martenson and introduced himself, saying, “Hi, I’m Jeffrey. I overheard that you are directing “Superior Donuts” by Tracy Letts – I love his work, and I have read all his stuff. If there’s any way I can be of any help or be involved or assist you in any way, I would love the opportunity.”
So she said, “Go ahead and email me your resume and stuff and we’ll see if I can contact you.” Thinking fast, Lo said, “Well, actually, I have my resume in my backpack – give me one second.” He ran back to the soundboard and grabbed a copy of his resume and handed it to her. Ever since reading about Eugene O’Neill running away from home with a suitcase full of clothes and a suitcase full of scripts, Lo has always walked around with a backpack full of scripts and resumes. Hitting the books paid off for him again.
Martenson, who is now Lo’s mentor and number one champion, later told Lo it was the fact that he mentioned specific works by Tracy Letts that made it click for her that he really knows his stuff. He credits her as a “most remarkable woman who has done everything” for him, including nominating him for the Arts Council Laureate.
Although he is only 24, Lo has already written three plays – eight actually, counting his early stuff. But, like some of his favorite playwrights, he prefers to determine where we start counting. Lo explained that in Edward Albee’s foreword to one of Eugene O’Neill’s lost plays, he described his first play as “Zoo Story.” “The thing is,” Lo continued, “he wrote six plays before that. But he considers “Zoo Story” his first play. So I would say, for myself, I’ve written three plays.”
Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities to see Lo at work in the Bay Area. He just directed a world premiere called “The Strange Case of Citizen De La Cruz” at San Francisco’s Bindlestiff Studio – where his play, “A Kind of Sad Love Story,” will have a month-long run in March. His newest play, “Angel in a Red Dress,” just had a staged reading at the Impact Theatre in Berkeley. Lo said, somewhat sheepishly, “It all kind of came all at once.”
In December, the ’06 Ensemble, where Lo serves as artistic director, will return with a second installment of the Bench Project. The first one was a series of four short plays that were all set on a bench. The one-night-only event packed the Dragon Theatre in Palo Alto. This December, the Bench Project 2 will feature seven plays. The venue will be the Pear Avenue Theatre in Mountain View, and admission will be warm jackets for the homeless.
Some major Asian American playwrights are participating in Bench Project 2. Philip Kan Gotanda and Julia Cho both wrote for the project. How did he manage to get them to donate their time? Having worked with Cho and Gotanda before, Lo simply sent an email saying, “Hey, we’re doing this project, and we are trying to get ten-minute plays set on benches – are you able to write one? I am upfront with them. I say we have no money.”
Eager to help others make their work known, Lo is willing to read scripts from anyone who is interested. “I am always looking for new people to do readings or workshops. The point of the ’06 Ensemble is to give people an opportunity to express their voice.”
No longer a smug teenager, Jeffery Lo has indeed begun to develop his own voice. Playwright Philip Kan Gotanda once sat down for coffee with Lo, and they talked about the Filipino American story. “In terms of theatre and poetry, it is one of the Asian American stories that hasn’t been explored a whole lot. My generation of people is starting that. We are starting to build a voice and tell our story.”
Falling in love with theatre has given Lo a powerful platform to tell that story. Perhaps he owes that girl a cup of coffee.
Marie Cameron is a Los Gatos artist who usually works in oils and mixed media assemblage. However, during the pandemic, she has been embroidering silk rainbows onto vintage photographs. “2020 was really hard”, Cameron exclaims, and her typical work that focuses on the issues of environmental and social justice become too heavy for her, and a trip to the beach one cloudy day sparked her new series as she says a rainbow amidst the gray.
“I wanted something that was more hopeful and would fill me with a bit of joy,” she says, “I was really searching for that joy, and I thought, yeah, I need more rainbows in my life.”
Thinking about the rainbows, Cameron decided to sew silk threads into vintage photos to contrast the black and white images and the vibrancy colors of the threads. Cameron explored various themes she was interested in that we all were experiencing through 2020. For example, environmental pieces that are phot of forests done during forest fires we had last summer. Or, a firefighter with a rainbow coming down on him as sort of a “thank you” or prayer. As well as images of nurses, people of different races; as Cameron explains, “I wanted these rainbows to act as kind of like a blessing. Kind of like a manifestation of joy.”
“For me, these rainbows symbolize not only hope and inclusivity but a connection with spirit. They seem to offer a momentary connection to the universe and our place in it as they open a door to our sense of awe and wonder.”
Cameron is now opening her studio doors to share this work “en masse” to the community to view and purchase, hoping that others will experience the healing she experienced in the making.
Art Exhibition by Marie Cameron “Wall of Rainbows” Pop-up! June 15 -19
T he Japantown neighborhood is one of San Jose’s most unique treasures. Located just north of downtown, the quaint stretch of small businesses has been fighting gentrification in recent years as the surrounding blocks add new housing developments that threaten to whitewash the multidimensional history that can be found in one of the few remaining historic Japantowns in the country.
That the neighborhood has survived to this day is remarkable, having been established during a wave of immigration in the early part of the 20th century amidst a rise in anti-Asian racism, then seeing most of its residents forcibly removed to concentration camps during World War II. Despite these challenges, Japantown has survived and thrived, with many families and historic buildings still intact generations later—monuments to the cultural legacy of Japanese Americans in Silicon Valley.
“Augmented reality is a way that we can really bring culture, art, history to a community that will never go to a museum, never go to an art gallery.”–Tamiko Thiel
As a way to help preserve this history, community leaders Susan Hayase and Tom Izu have partnered with artist and engineer Tamiko Thiel to create a new project called Hidden Histories. Inspired by Thiel’s previous projects, Hidden Histories has commissioned nine artists to uncover stories of Japantown through new artworks using an open-source augmented reality (AR) platform.
“I had a lot of assumptions about my parents’ generation, and I didn’t understand some of the experiences they had,” explains Izu about why he connected with this project. “There’s so many different layers, so many stories that are buried, that aren’t visible. You really have to pry into it and be open to learning about it. People—Japanese Americans included—aren’t that familiar. Even though they know some of the history, they don’t know the stories behind it. [This project] could help them have a much deeper understanding of who they are and who their community is. These stories…there’s a lot more to them than people think.”
Izu and Hayase have both been active in the Japantown community for decades. Izu helped found the Yu-Ai Kai Senior Center, which provides important services for Japanese American seniors, works with the Japanese American Museum of San Jose, and was director of California History Center at De Anza College. Hayase’s work throughout the 1980s on the movement for redress and reparations for Japanese Americans impacted by internments during World War II resulted in passage of legislation under President Reagan; she has continued her community work ever since.
Through that process, she met a lot of people in the San Jose Japantown community and decided that this is where she wanted to live. “I also played in the San Jose Taiko group, so I was really interested in how art and culture deeply touch people and inspire people and really mean something in a community that is struggling to be seen and be empowered,” she shares.
Though Thiel now lives in Germany with her husband, she and Hayase have their own history: the two attended Stanford together, then worked at Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the late 1970s while rooming together, before Thiel departed the Bay Area for her work. In the subsequent years, the two have stayed in occasional contact, Hayase eventually urging her old friend to help her create a project for San Jose, a place where she has deep roots.
“My family had immigrated to the Santa Clara Valley in like 1908—that’s where my grandmother was born,” Thiel says, uncovering a story of her own hidden history in the region. Her grandmother met her grandfather at the Wesley Methodist Church in San Jose. For years Thiel has known a photograph of the two of them in front of a house, and she recently found out that it’s the Norman Mineta house.
Born in Oakland, Thiel grew up in Seattle. She returned to the Bay Area to attend Stanford and work at HP, moved across the country for grad school at MIT in Boston, and eventually wound up working as a product design engineer in Munich. Eventually, she decided her calling was to fuse her creative instincts with her engineering skills, and she became deeply involved with virtual reality technology, creating her first large-scale installation in 1995 with a piece called Beyond Manzanar, inspired by the concentration camp that was located in the eastern Sierras.
Later, her installations evolved into augmented reality (AR), including Mi Querido Barrio, another storytelling piece located in East Harlem in New York and Brush the Sky, a piece Thiel created with her mother, generating virtual calligraphy in the skies above Seattle.
When Thiel first started doing AR projects, Hayase was immediately wanting to bring it to Japantown and kept asking her if she would do a project in San Jose, because she could see that it would really enhance people’s understanding of deeper things that you can’t see with your own naked eyes.
AR is becoming more commonplace, used in cell phone games and in filters that map disguises onto people’s faces using the phone’s camera. For Hidden Histories, a visitor will download an app and use it in specific locations around Japantown, where they will point their camera to reveal the “hidden” artwork.
Despite being in the heart of Silicon Valley, technology doesn’t come easily to everyone just because they live here. The team made an effort to choose artists both familiar and unfamiliar with using tech in their work, creating an interesting dynamic of creative ideas.
“I thought being right in Silicon Valley, there’d be people who could instantly help us, they would just fall from the trees like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’ll just show you right now,’ but there’s this divide in Silicon Valley. We’re right in the heart of this high-tech world, but a lot of communities aren’t part of that infrastructure,” Hayase points out. “It’s very ironic that we’re going to take this specific community that predates Silicon Valley, and we’re going to take this technology that they want to sell us, but we’re going to use it for a purpose that they didn’t even think of. We’re going to use it to remind people about the actual people that lived here and the actual kinds of lives they had, the actual stories and their hopes and dreams. We’re very happy about that.”
With this subversion of Silicon Valley corporate culture in mind, Thiel insisted on using an open-source platform that would retain the content indefinitely, instead of one owned by a tech giant that could be discontinued on a whim, rendering the projects lost to history once again. This platform also keeps open the possibility of continuing to add to the project and creates an ever richer tapestry of art, history, and exploration. “Augmented reality is a way that we can really bring culture, art, history to a community that will never go to a museum, never go to an art gallery,” she says.
Set to debut in spring of 2021, Hidden Histories will showcase the stories of Japantown for a new generation, preserving an important part of our city’s heritage.
Toni Vanwinkle is the Senior Director of Digital Workplace Technology and Services, focused on keeping Adobe’s diverse and global workforce innovative, collaborative, and productive everywhere.
She is a seasoned digital transformation leader with extensive strategy development, program execution, and organizational change management experience. With over 22k employees in 37 countries, Toni has already been working with remote teams for Adobe before the WFH requirements began with COVID-19. She was honored by The Digital Workplace Group as “2019 Digital Workplace Leader of the Year,” recognizing the impact of her inspirational and innovative leadership leading Adobe’s Digital Workplace Experience organization focused on keeping Adobe employees collaborative and productive from anywhere.
In addition to her functional role, Toni always makes time for mentoring and community service. She founded Adobe’s Black Employee Network and serves as the Site Council Leader at Adobe’s Headquarters in San Jose. In her Site Leader role, she is an employee ambassador leading a Site Council whose mission is to amplify Adobe’s culture and connect employees to the communities they live and work.
In our conversation, we discuss her role at Adobe in the Digital Workplace arena and her experiences as a woman and person of color in tech.
In our conversation, we discuss her role at Adobe in the Digital Workplace arena and her experiences as a woman and person of color in tech. Follow Toni on her Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/toni-vanwinkle-530ba7/
A lifelong resident of San Jose, Pastor Danny Sanchez has always loved his city. And though many people come from a turbulent upbringing, rarely are they able to take that darkness and turn it into something positive and vibrant for those around them. Sanchez—a full-time youth minister and a member of the Mayor’s Faith-Based Gang Prevention Task Force—has worked tirelessly to help the often-overlooked populations of San Jose. Starting with the City Peace Project, Sanchez has filled roles as peacemaker, Latino community advocate, and a pastor of action in the streets of the city. He has received a number of honors for his community involvement, including being awarded the 2012 White House Champion of Change for his work with youth violence.
“The city and the community are a part of my heart, my passion. The types of problems I deal with will always be there, and we can’t fix them, but we can help. I don’t ever see myself not doing this, this type of ministry within the community, because I think it’s so vital. But another important part is training the people that I’m working with and equipping them—especially the youth—so they can go out and empower their own neighborhoods. I’ve seen people come out of it, but a large portion of the community is just stuck in negative cycles. I think it will always be important to be there for support. I’ve seen through Christ that everyone has the potential for transformation.”
In our conversation, we talk about Danny’s transformation that led him to found the City Peace project as well as discuss his book “Post Traumatic Quest: From pain to purpose, purpose to peace, his memoirs, which is accompanied by three songs he had written and remastered for the May 2021 release.
Post Traumatic Quest: From pain to purpose, purpose to peace. In 1999, Danny Sanchez was an inmate in San Quentin Prison. In 2012, he was commended for his work in youth violence prevention and named a Champion of Change by President Barak Obama. Experience his journey through the trauma that shaped his childhood, his spiral in self-destruction, then his radical transformation and quest to serve the community he loves. Danny grew up in the juvenile incarceration system and lived a violent life, including police brutality, suicide attempts, and surviving multiple stabbings. Today Danny is a city chaplain and the founder of The City Peace Project non-profit organization in San Jose, California, where he inspires youth through his innovation as a social entrepreneur.
Purchase at Post Traumatic Quest: From pain to purpose, purpose to peace on Amazon IG: posttraumaticquest
The music for this episode is by Danny Sanchez. Listen to all three tracks on Spotify (http://bit.ly/PTQDSanchez)
Danny was featured in issue 8.4 “Profiles.”
There’s a reason so many of us have such positive associations with coffee. Sure, it tastes great—but it’s not as if that flavor surpasses everything else you’ve ever passed over your taste buds. So what then? “It’s not so much about the coffee,” Bryan Chiem reveals. “It’s about coffee being the glue that brings people together.” He elaborates: “We can sit in a lab all day and talk about how it tastes or the science behind the coffee, but if we have no one to share it with then it means nothing.”
Chiem, founder of TÅno Coffee Project, acts as a sort of coffee ambassador. He’s one of the baristas who understand their impact reaches beyond the counter. “The farmers put in their work, they ship that over to the roaster; the roasters put in their time, then they hand it off to the baristas—and the baristas hand it off to the consumers. Anywhere along the process, things can go terribly wrong,” Chiem explains. “The barista’s very much the front line of that. If I’m not making something as good as I think it can be, then, not only am I not doing a good job, but I’m doing a disservice to everyone before me.”
But beyond his commitment to represent the coffee he serves well, Chiem also brings specialty coffee to unreached demographics by opening his pop-up in all sorts of unexpected locations: warehouses and weddings, barbershops and thrift stores, even the Rose Garden. “I like spaces that facilitate more conversation and curiosity,” he explains. For instance, “I think people who thrift are from all walks of life, and they have a little more time to hangout and talk story and ask about what I’m doing.”
For him, this industry is so much more than profit. “I try my best not to be a coffee schlepper,” he states. “My goal is always to contribute to a concept so people feel welcomed to hang out and talk to their neighbors or people around them. That’s how coffee transforms a space.”
One of his favorite pop-up experiences was selling Vietnamese coffee out of a 10 by 10 space in the parking lot of Eastridge Center during the Vietnamese Lunar New Year Festival. He considered it an honor not only to source and support this emmerging region, but to serve a demographic with a pride and connection to that particular country. “The East Side community doesn’t see much of the type of coffee services that I put on,” he adds.
East Side, the neighborhood of Chiem’s childhood, is where his lifelong passion first sprouted. “I consumed coffee since an early age. There’s a VHS with my dad feeding me coffee in the crib,” the barista chuckles. As a young adult, he considered owning a coffee shop—a retirement dream. “But I went through this period of life where I was tired of waiting for things, and I was just doing things—and coffee was one of the things I was doing,” he describes. And weary of the digital flatness of doing design work, Chiem determined a more tangible pursuit was in order.
After uncapping a dry-erase marker and brainstorming names, floor to ceiling on the glass sliding door of his home, he finally settled on “Tono,” a title taken from the word “tone.” The name acknowledges Chiem’s Vietnamese heritage and the tonal quality of Vietnam’s national language. Additionally, “When you’re drinking certain coffees you can pick out different tones or notes in the coffee,” he remarks. “Coffee as a beverage can also be a wholesome experience or it can be an exciting one or it can be a funky or funny one.”
Chiem also organizes events to introduce chain goers to specialty coffee and coffee lovers to each other. A string of successful latte competitions culminated in the Coffee Palooza this August. “There’s a lot of South Bay shops doing great things, but I don’t think we get as much coverage or hype as the cool hip shops in San Francisco or Oakland,” he notes. This event included the South Bay Regional AeroPress Championship, Waste-less Latte Art Throwdown, tastings, workshops, and a screening for a film about the odd yet iconic AeroPress coffee maker. Steve Cuevas of Black Oak Coffee spoke on roasting. Umeko Motoyoshi of Sudden Coffee revealed not only how to identify coffee notes, but how to discern which descriptions are subjective and which objective.
Like an ambassador, Chiem’s most basic function is to reinforce unity and forge connections. “Coffee is common ground for a lot of people,” he says. “I use it as a connector or bridge.” And, showing no signs of slowing, he will continue finding nonconventional ways to bring specialty coffee to the people.
Article originally appeared in Issue 11.5 “Dine” SOLD OUT
Juan Miguel Saucedo, 25, sits comfortably in an office chair at the helm of his cozy recording setup, intermittently burning sage. Reference speakers, keyboards, and a mixing console consume table space, and a drum kit is tucked away in a back corner of a converted cellar. It’s a concrete-walled nest of creativity that birthed the persona Miguel Kultura, Saucedo’s latest creative incarnation.
In a way, the space has come full circle, and Saucedo himself has returned to his origins. It was in these same confines a decade ago when he first set up a USB mic to start rapping over instrumentals with two friends as Money Hungry Click. Inspired by the thriving southern rap scene at the time, they sold copies of their first mixtape while freshmen at Willow Glen High School.
“[We were] just being hoodlums and trying to chase money and hustle,” he says of his first foray into music. For Saucedo, music became an alternative to the gang life he saw friends and neighbors fall into growing up. “I like to think of myself like Kendrick [Lamar]. I was always around it and was this close to joining a gang but never had the commitment to do it,” he shares, noting that he didn’t know if that was the lifestyle he wanted to lead.
Thankfully, those childhood years listening to Tupac in his older brother’s red Camaro Z/28 hinted that something else was written in his story. Once Saucedo got his hands on the PSP game Traxxpad, he shifted his energy toward making beats, later doing so under the aliases Beats by Fly and Funkadelic Fly. (Both are variations of his inescapable neighborhood nickname, “Mosca.”) After years of honing his craft with other young creatives at various community centers around San Jose, he joined up with young multimedia collective BAMN (By Any Media Necessary).
Miguel Kultura was birthed out of a time of serious physical concern and deep spirituality. While still with BAMN, Saucedo began dealing with a mystery illness that had him believing he was slowly inching toward death. Through visions and meditation, he heard a call to establish a new musical identity, one where he returned to rapping.
“Trabajando,” or “Working,” was his first foray into that new sound and the first time he wrote lyrics in Spanglish. With a buzzing synth and skittering percussion, Saucedo raps about the Latino struggle for visibility and acceptance, with lines like, “My father said we came here to work / Latinos go hard every day in the dirt” and “The son of a farmer can’t be tamed.” He dives more fully into that voice on “Conformar,” similarly Spanglish but more Spanish-forward. The song tackles the notion of conformity. It also alludes to the idea of resilience in the aftermath of losing friends too soon to depression.
“This is what I’m supposed to be doing. It was already written in the stars.”
“As a Mexican-American growing up, you have these two identities,” he points out. “People from Mexico look at you like you’re not one of them, and people here don’t look at you like you’re American either, so it’s always a challenge to be a Mexican American. As I get older, I ask myself, ‘How can I merge these two identities?’ ” By leveraging his proficiency in both languages (he grew up bilingual), Saucedo hopes his work as Miguel Kultura fosters a bridge of connection and understanding across cultural and language barriers.
The journey has also helped him better acknowledge his musical roots outside hip-hop, allowing him to reconnect with the traditional Mexican songs his father taught him on piano as a child and the continued influence of local Norteño music legends Los Tigres del Norte.
A video for “Conformar” is forthcoming, accompanied by a minidocumentary series that shares stories of young local Latinx creatives pushing in their own way to not conform to societal and cultural expectations. In that sense, Saucedo is using his creative work to speak to a greater cultural struggle.
Sometimes, Saucedo speaks about Miguel Kultura in the third person. It seems to be a recognition that his work under this banner doesn’t stem from his creativity alone. Based on all that’s led to this creative moment, Saucedo believes something greater is at play. “It’s not so much about the accolades, the rewards, whatever. This is what I’m supposed to be doing,” he admits, pointing to the significance legacy plays in how he views his work. “It was already written in the stars.”
Picking the perfect spot to grab a cold beer can be a formidable task. With so many breweries and restaurants with full beer menus in San Jose, the choices are endless. But if you’ve ever felt the options on tap were a bit underwhelming, Clandestine Brewing offers artisanal, small-batch brews to suit even the most adventurous palate. Originally tucked away in the Monterey Avenue manufacturing area—as the secrecy in their name suggests—this co-op of homebrewers is now serving in the SoFA District of San Jose. Rob Conticello, one of the co-owners, shares the brewery’s journey.
How did Clandestine Brewing get started? We have a rather interesting history. We’ve only been open at this San Jose location since November last year, and we had a grand opening in February. Before, from about 2014 to 2015, we ran a brewery that was a much smaller size. It was a great facility, but we ended up outgrowing that space. Everything there was handmade; we built out the whole thing ourselves, pretty much hammered every nail.
We knew we wanted to expand, so we went through an exhaustive search to find the right place. We finally found this place on First Street in San Jose, and it worked out beautifully for us, because there are so many breweries that are a close distance, so very walkable for people. Going through city planning took a lot of time. It actually took us longer to get permits than it took to build. It took us about 18 months, but it was worth it to have this location now.
How did you and the team meet each other? I’ve known co-owners Adrian Kalaveshi and Colin Kelley for a long time—since we started getting into homebrewing together. I’d homebrewed some in college, and they’d had some background in it too. We were all into craft beer, and we decided we could take up brewing just as a hobby. We ended up doing that for almost six years, and through that, met our other partner, Dwight Mulcahy, also a big homebrewer. We actually met through a homebrewing club, and after a while, we decided to take it more seriously and become a mini co-op.
Since we didn’t have a lot of professional experience, we knew we wanted to start small to learn what worked and didn’t work for us. We also learned what our customers liked and what they wanted to drink. For example, IPAs are a craze right now, but we want to have some diversity in our taproom. We didn’t want to become “just an IPA place.” There’s nothing wrong with that. Plenty of breweries are following that model, and people love IPAs. We love IPAs, too! We just want to have something for everyone.
“We finally found this place on First Street in San Jose, and it worked out beautifully for us because there are so many breweries that are a close distance, so very walkable for people.” _Rob Conticello
How does Clandestine work today as a co-op? We have five people that brew—myself, Adrian, Colin, Dwight, and Liz Scandizzo (Colin’s wife). At our old location, we all still had our day jobs, so it was a passion project to keep things going. Today, Adrian and Colin are managing the business full-time and brew during the week, while Dwight, Liz, and I spend a lot of time here on the weekends brewing. We all share the responsibilities of brewing, and it works great. Christine, Adrian’s wife, helps out around here, too.
How do all of you collaborate on a menu? It’s great to have so many brewers. We have ideas that we share and bounce off each other to expand and improve on. Right now, the only beer we’ve had on tap since we’ve opened is our Milky Way Stout, but we have a regular set of other beers that are available maybe 50 percent of the time on the menu. So we’ll have a Kölsch, a Pilsner, a hefeweizen, and always some number of rotating IPAs. We’ve had a lot of people follow us from our old location, and with the number of breweries in this area, I think it’s going to be great for everyone. We’re looking forward to collaborating with other breweries on some beers in the future. We’re still newly opened, but we’d like to begin some sort of partnership in the summer or the fall this year. We’re just getting started.
All appeared calm. The music pulsed, and the waves in the pool lapped against each other. But as the tempo rose, the water’s surface trembled, becoming increasingly agitated. The beat quickened and two heads popped up. Four arms gracefully followed, splashing upward for a second before shooting back into the water in perfect agreement. The swimmers twisted and somersaulted. In a blink, their heads, torsos, and thighs were again under the water, with only their calves and feet visible above. The legs began kicking in a series of synchronized, sharp movements, like two pairs of scissors slicing abstract shapes through the air.
But something was off. The music stopped abruptly, and the two girls paused. “Can you guys approach it more like bah-bap bah-bap bah?” their coach shouted, demonstrating the motions on the side of the pool.
To the left and right were two other coaches. One spoke into a microphone, running drills—figures practice—for six girls. The other used a bullhorn to coach three others.
“And then make sure you do the same thing underwater. How do you prepare…”
“You guys, do you know what happens if you’re going too fast? Do you know what happens? Instead of holding eight counts you’re holding 12…”
“OK, let’s do it again. Let’s go to seven. Five, six, seven…”
This was only the first hour of a four-hour practice. The girls, aged 13 to 15 years old, are competitive synchronized (synchro) swimmers, members of the Santa Clara Aquamaids, one of the most elite teams in the sport. Synchronized swimming often conjures images of Cheshire Cat smiles, exaggerated makeup, and the sparkly costumes seen in performances. The athleticism required is largely underrated—yet it combines the endurance and stamina of swimming, the flexibility and strength of gymnastics, and the artistry and expressionism of dance. The athletes are not allowed to touch the bottom of the pool. They hold their breath while spinning and kicking, often upside down. They throw each other in the air, requiring the coordination of the whole team. They practice hundreds of hours for a single performance, but the training goes much further than just practicing routines. For these younger athletes, a large portion is practicing figures—the elements of synchro, like different types of leg positions. They hold positions for 20 seconds at a time, often with weights on their legs, train three to five hours a day, Monday through Friday, with extra hours on Saturday, and do this year-round, getting only a few vacation weeks each year.
Synchro got its start in the US in the early 1900s and gained in popularity in the ’50s with Esther Williams, who became famous for her “water ballet” in films such as Million Dollar Mermaid and Dangerous When Wet. It became an Olympic sport in 1984 and was at its height for the US in the 1990s. The Aquamaids was founded in 1964, with Kay Vilen as head coach. But when the current head coach, Chris Carver, came to the Aquamaids in 1984, the club had lost some of its strength, she said. After about 10 years, Carver built the club back up to be the leader of synchro. “It’s not overnight. You have to keep striving, keep striving,” she emphasized. “And then once you have that success, you’re a magnet and people come to you.”
Carver is a legendary coach. She coached the US National Team for over a decade, taking them on a gold medal–winning streak from 1991 to 1996; and in 1996, under her direction, the US Olympic team scored the first perfect 100 score in synchronized swimming’s Olympic history. She has had a hand in producing dozens of Olympic synchronized swimmers, including Kristina Lum Underwood who competed in the 2015 FINA World Championships with Bill May and in the 2000 Olympics, Anna Kozlova, a 2004 bronze winner, as well as Heather Simmons-Carrasco, Becky Dyroen-Lancer, and Jill Sudduth Smith, all competing in the 1996 Olympics.
Besides the Aquamaids, the region is home to other elite clubs such as the Walnut Creek Aquanuts, the San Francisco Merionettes, and one of the strongest collegiate varsity teams, the Stanford Women’s Synchronized Swimming Team.
Last year, the Stanford synchro team started practices at 6am, earlier than most of the other sports at the university. The Stanford athletes also work on endurance. The first few months of the year are spent swimming laps and conditioning. This includes training outside of the pool, lifting weights, and stretching. They train 20 hours a week while balancing a rigorous course load, said Head Coach Sara Lowe, who was on the bronze medal–winning 2004 US Olympic team coached by Carver.
The girls often have to make sacrifices for synchro. Karen Li, a rising sophomore on the Stanford team, missed her junior prom to go to nationals. “After [practice] I am just so exhausted…It wasn’t like I didn’t have friends,” she said. “I just couldn’t make the time to hang out with them, which is definitely very tough.”
The Bay Area is the most recognized hub for synchronized swimming in the world. But while synchro remains strong here, synchro in the United States as a whole has fallen behind. It began to decline at the start of the 21st century, when Russia won the gold medals in the team and duet events at the 2000 Olympics. Russia has won the gold in every team event since then, and the US only came to the podium in 2004, with bronze medals in the duet and team events. Russia, China, and Japan dominated the leaderboards at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The US only sent two athletes for the duets—they placed ninth—and wasn’t represented for the team event. “They didn’t qualify,” Carver said of the US team. “And you know, that’s really hurtful because that’s the leaders of synchro.”
A variety of factors led to the decline in US synchro. When Carver was Olympic coach, Bay Area synchro standing remained high, feeding both the Aquamaids and the national team. But once she stepped down, there weren’t enough new coaches trained. Plus, there was a rise in popularity with collegiate synchro programs. Collegiate synchro athletes train for a different purpose. Because their focus isn’t on synchronized swimming, they train less—they’re there for school. These collegiate teams might attract athletes who would be fit for a national or Olympic team but have decided to compete just on the collegiate level. These collegiate teams aren’t competing in international competitions.
But Carver is working on building US synchro up again, and the effort starts with the youth and the participation and dedication of their families and follows through to new, exciting events. While the athletes swim, their parents are volunteering to support the sport. The Aquamaids is a nonprofit and runs a bingo hall that brings in $12 million a year. The club has about $3 million to invest in the sport, community, and athletes each year, said Lisa Christian, the Aquamaids’ executive director.
The bingo hall is staffed entirely by volunteers. For the parents, volunteering these hours means they are helping raise money for the Aquamaids to pay for coaching and traveling for the synchro community in the Bay Area. The Aquamaids also supports USA Synchro—for example, when Carver was the US National Team coach she was paid by the Aquamaids. “[Being a nonprofit] allows us to equalize the support for anybody who wants to participate,” Christian said. These parents are lucky, explained Carolina Espinoza, one of the Aquamaid coaches. In other states, many parents have to personally shoulder the high costs of synchro.
Another element in the effort to bring back synchro nationwide is the mixed duet. Synchro is known for its team events, but there are also singles, duets, and trios. There are two types of routines: the technical, composed of the same moves everyone must perform, and the free.
The newest event, the mixed duet, allows men—once barred from competing—to perform with female partners.
Bill May, one of the most famous male synchronized swimmers, came out of retirement when the event was introduced in the 2015 FINA World Championships, winning a gold in technical and a silver in free. The FINA World Championships are held every odd year. They are held for a variety of water-related sports, including synchronized swimming, diving, swimming, and water polo. May has been practicing with his new partner, Kanako Kitao Spendlove, for the 2017 FINA World Championships in July. Carver is coaching the duo, as she originally coached May when he joined the Aquamaids as a teenager.
Watching May and Spendlove perform is not like watching a usual synchro performance. During a recent practice, Spendlove’s arms, shooting in and out of the water, are both slippery and smooth while also sharp, verging on animalistic. She slithers around May, who is powerful and graceful. In their free routine, she’s Medusa and he’s Perseus. The two are in conflict. By the end of the routine, Medusa is slain and Perseus is victorious. “It should be a mixed duet,” Carver said of these new routines. “It should emphasize men and women swimming together, not two people looking just alike.” It’s a risk, as the judging system hasn’t changed—but Carver explained that if they lower their expectations, the world won’t see what’s possible for the event.
May and Spendlove have a tough schedule to train around. Both are performers in Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas and travel there constantly from the Bay Area, Carver following them. “Can you imagine getting to bed at one or two in the morning and then getting up at eight?” Carver asked. “You know, and starting to train, train all day, go eat something, and go right back to the same thing again?” But May and Spendlove are committed. May has a world title to uphold, and the new event provides US synchro the opportunity to once again become the leader.
Synchro goes beyond winning competitions, though. Both Coach Lowe and Coach Carver said their visions for their programs are to not only develop an athlete, but a better person. At Stanford, this means supporting the athletes in their studies and career aspirations, even if that means changing or easing practice schedules, Lowe said. “As much as it’s important for them to become a better athlete,” she continued, “it’s important for them to develop their skills for interviews and for jobs because they are eventually going to go on and need that.”
And even as Carver works on building US Synchro back up in international competitions, the goal for the Aquamaids is to be able to say the “heartbeat continues,” both for the coaches and athletes, to see these girls turn into strong women. “I don’t want it to ever be a puppy mill, where it’s just a business and you come in and you learn basic synchronized swimming, and maybe you go on and maybe you don’t,” Carver reflected. “I want it to be more than that. I want it to have more dimension.”
Whether they realize it or not, anyone who has been to an outdoor festival in San José in the past 20 years has probably encountered Filco Events, the aptly-named production company headed by Fil Maresca, one of the city’s most significant drivers of cultural community events since he moved here in 1989; and one of the original DTSJ pioneers who provided us with the South First Street arts area known as SoFA.
In our conversation, Fil talks about how he ended up in the Bay Area after a car breakdown during a road trip which eventually led him to open the famed FX (currently, The Ritz). And how Filco began to assist local organizations in producing their event including San Josè Jazz Summer Fest, Music in the Park, the SoFA Street Fair, and our Content Pick-Up Parties.
Find more about Fil in our 2015 interview in issue 6.5 “Dine”
Whether they realize it or not, anyone who has been to an outdoor festival in San Jose in the past 20 years has probably encountered Filco Events, the aptly-named production company headed by Fil Maresca, quietly one of the city’s most significant drivers of cultural community events since he moved here in 1989.
Maresca started his career working in nightclubs in San Francisco. In 1986, he was managing a club called the Oasis, and they were looking to open a new location in San Jose. Maresca was sent to scout out the downtown area to determine if it was a viable spot for expansion.
“At that point, the city was being torn up for light rail,” Maresca recalls. “There were a lot of problems downtown. But we looked around and thought it was a good time— there was a lot of opportunity in San Jose.”
Through researching for the Oasis, Maresca got to know other business owners who were also hoping to bring a scene to downtown— and who would go on to form the San Jose Downtown Association. They wanted to transform what had become something of a red-light district into a more livable place. So when another venue—the Pussycat Theater on the corner of First and San Salvador—shut down, Maresca was recruited to take it over, renovate it, and launch a new club of his own. In 1989, FX opened.
“The district became kind of a do-it-yourself, anything-goes frontier,” Maresca says. “We had coffee shops, art galleries, movie theaters, San Jose Stage, City Lights, and MACLA… all of this culture started happening all by itself. The Redevelopment Agency had a name for the neighborhood: the Market Gateway Arts & Entertainment District, which rolls off the tongue. We came up with SoFA [South First Area], so we went to [Dan Pulcrano at] Metro, and he said, ‘I think we can make that work.’ He gave it to his writers, and they started including it in everything.”
Thus, the section of South First Street from San Carlos to Reed had a new name and a new identity. Soon, the SoFA Street Fair launched, celebrating the music, the art, and the culture unique to the neighborhood. Maresca’s role in staffing these events came about almost by accident: he happened to be the guy on the committees who knew about permits and staffing for alcohol sales.
“Filco was originally a consulting business, and it morphed into an events company. I started with volunteer coordination with beer servers, and then that expanded.”
Maresca left FX in 1995 to run Filco full-time, bringing his expertise to events like Music in the Park, the San Jose Jazz Festival, America Festival, and many more—some of which have come and gone, changing along with the economic landscape and bursting bubbles of the region’s past two decades. Right now, downtown is clearly back on the upswing.
“The SoFA district—I gave it the name, and I’m very proud of that. But the reason it came around in the first place is that it was community-based. There was a community of people who really wanted it to succeed, and they were willing to put their businesses on the line and work together to make it succeed.”
Today, Filco continues to produce Music in the Park and San Jose Jazz Summerfest, and has worked with new events like the Electronic Sriracha Festival. Maresca also relaunched the SoFA Street Fair this summer and has been hosting a monthly outdoor food truck gathering called the SoFA Supper Club. He eagerly points out the efforts of others to continue creating events like SubZero and First Fridays, and he has even more ideas for future collaborations.
“I’m all about working together with people to figure out how to make the experience better,” he explains. “My name is on the company, but my company isn’t on the event. You don’t walk around and see big banners that say, ‘Filco is here.’ It’s not part of what I do; I work behind the scenes. I build a community. When you’re creating a large scale event, you take a bunch of parks and streets and you close them down and you provide music, you provide art, you provide toilets—you create this whole other world, then tear it all down. And everything goes back to normal. It’s a pretty cool thing, what I do.”
Ruben Escalante suffered a heart attack as a freshman in high school. But this is only surprising until Ruben reveals the trauma he endured as a child: the father who went out at least once a week and came home drunk, angry, and violent; the early death of the grandfather who was the only one that could subdue his dad’s temper; the constant and vicious attacks at school by bullies who could not accept a sensitive, poetry-loving brown boy.
“Because we’re all on these journeys, we’re all in progress.” _Ruben Escalante
Now Ruben is a youth advocate and community organizer who moves his audience through film, photo, and every other medium he can get his hands on. And, really, the reasons for his art and activism are the same reasons behind his cardiac arrest. His path to recovering from childhood abuse and depression was paved with books, music, and movies—with stories and characters that made him feel a little more seen and a lot less alone. After reaching stability and self-sufficiency, Ruben realized that he wanted to dedicate his life to amplifying that sense of inclusion, and he’s done just that by serving as the coordinator for Digital Music & Culture Studio at MACLA and by co-directing the Emo Kids of Color collective.
“These books, movies, songs that saved me, ultimately will save the people who are like me. It’s always been for that reason, to try and engage people—more importantly, kids of color. Because we’re all on these journeys, we’re all in progress; but it’s those ages where you’re starting to see different parts of the world, starting to understand your parents aren’t perfect, when you need the most guidance and direction.”
As a teenager, Doug Hughmanick’s creative outlet was graffiti: spray paint was his medium of choice, and the South Bay was his canvas. Someone suggested he channel his artistic abilities into art school, an idea he had never thought of before. Hughmanick found out about Academy of Art in San Francisco and was intrigued. Not so much for the art education, but to find new places to graffiti. “I was 18 wandering around SF with a skateboard and trying to figure the whole thing out,” Hughmanick says. Two years into the art school experience, he realized a career in design was his future.
“I started thinking, ‘OK I need to take this seriously,’ and flipped the script,” he says. “I got tired of getting in trouble and got a real design job and then just left the graffiti behind because I was getting the same satisfaction for my need to create with design as I was from graffiti.”
What’s the biggest surprise for you in starting your own agency?
Probably just all the different things that go into it. It’s not just design anymore when you take that on. You’ve got to think about hiring people. You got to think about giving people benefits and competing with all the tech companies around here—it’s very challenging. It’s tough.
You got to think about all your accounting, you got to think about how you’re going to pay rent on a building, and all that stuff is outside all of the creative stuff. And you still have to be a rock star in the creative world.
What part of your job that you’re currently doing do you love the most?
I really like when you get to work with a client like Autodesk or a client like Yummly, or—we have another client that’s pretty confidential right now—clients we get to help change the way old things are done.
For Autodesk, we got to work on a piece of software for them. It’s almost like if you’re building the controls of Photoshop. Their designers use it to build new parts of a city…infrastructure software. If a designer goes, “Let’s take a new part of San Francisco—Mission Bay or Dogpatch. We’re going to develop Dogpatch now. We need waterways. We need drainage. We need new bridges over canals.” This software is what they use to do all that. Someone’s going to use this to create a new area or a new park or whatever it might be. You’re involved in that process somehow. These projects really excite me.
What do you like most about the creative process?
I like the stage when we have figured out how everything is going to work and we begin marrying the design language to the functionality. I get excited when I start to see work come to life and begin to interact with it.
What do you do outside of work?
I love being outside, going on trips, and my wife and I love traveling. It’s getting harder and harder, but we took a trip to Patagonia a while back. We went to Argentina, Chile, Peru. Years before that we went on a two-month adventure all through Southeast Asia.
I’m also a huge mountain biker. Mountain biking’s really my thing, which is possibly because it puts me out into nature. It turns my brain off. I get out of the digital world and I’m surrounded by trees. It really balances me out, kind of recharges me. I come back to the land of computers and I’m refreshed.
Have you always been kind of an outdoors person?
I’ve always been into adventure and I think that’s one of the things that attracted me a lot to the whole graffiti world, just being out there exploring and finding the places that most people didn’t go to. It’s the same thing with mountain biking—finding new trails and exploring the woods. I think that that just helps me balance out.
Industry-wise, what trends do you see in digital design and digital advertising?
We do a lot of product stuff. We’re starting to get a lot more into designing things that are tools, as opposed to just straight marketing, as opposed to designing advertisements that might live on a website and die.
I think the minimalistic approach—less is more—is taking over a little bit. You hear some people talk a lot about having a lot less choices in interface design and making it very simplistic and guiding people through experiences. I think that is definitely a trend that I’ve been noticing happen: just a lot more simplicity.
How has being a designer changed your view of humanity? The way you look at things.
I look at everything as a user experience. It changes your thinking. You go into Philz Coffee, for example. I’m like, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. I’m standing at the counter. There’s a guy over here, there’s people over here. Who’s in line? Where do I pay?”
I walk up to the register. I’m like, “What happens if nobody pays?” He goes, “I don’t know. If it happens, we’re not going to worry about it.” Just things like that. You start thinking, “How can this be better designed to make this more clear?” You start looking at the physical world in user experience terms.
Was that already in your personality, you think, to problem‑solve? As you went from graffiti into design, then is your brain now thinking that way, or did you already have that….
No, it started with doing this interaction design. Before, it was all quick fixers. “Let’s make it look awesome,” all sorts of that. You get so caught up in that, you don’t think about if it’s the best way for it to work.
Think about your audience, don’t just design for yourself. Be willing to think, who is viewing this piece? Who’s using it? Because it could look beautiful, but if it doesn’t work, all you’ve got is a pretty picture.
I think that happened along the way when people started to question my work. They’re like, “How does it work? It doesn’t make sense.” I’m like, “But it looks cool.” They’re like, “If you just did this, it’d be so much easier.” I’m like, “No, I really like that little button I put right there. It’s shiny and it’s cool.”
Some people are siloed, like I only design user experience and I only do visual design, but I don’t feel like that creates the best end product. You need to consider both.
What is the most challenging thing for you on the creative side at this particular point?
Probably the most challenging part of it is staying fresh. You always have to stay ahead of the game. You always have to think into the future.
Is that as far as the tools that you’re using? Design trends?
The look. Yeah, flat design is super-trendy right now. What’s next? I don’t want to do just a flat design anymore, because if everybody’s doing that, how do you stay ahead of the pack? That’s always the challenge. You’ve got to stay on your toes.
Doug Hughmanick is the founder and creative director of ANML Design that has work with clients like: Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Roads & Kingdoms, JennAir, Yummly, and Whirlpool.
In our conversation, Doug talks about ANML’s style of work, what he looks for in a team member as well as the potential adjustment he sees for ANML in the remote-work atmosphere.
On working with clients: “What are the attributes that we’re trying to hit on? How do we want it to feel? What are the emotions we want to have surfaced when you look at this work? You get some key attributes, keywords, and principles. And then look at that and go, okay is this hitting those, and if it’s not, then something’s not right. So you have to take a step back.” – Doug Hughmanick
On finding inspiration for creativity: “If you’re doing web work and all you’re looking at is web work it’s hard to be innovative. If you’re following best practices and doing the stuff you see everywhere, you can find inspiration for digital through a piece of print” – Doug Hughmanick
Color is abundant in artist Erika Gómez Henao’s work. Through the use of several artistic mediums, including painting, performance, and ceramics, the vibrancy of Gómez Henao’s work captures audience attention, while her choice in subject matter commands it. Born and raised in Colombia, Gómez Henao credits her love of color to the richness of both her culture and the area where she grew up.
As a child, Gómez Henao used artwork as a way to keep herself entertained, often spending her free time creating and performing. After high school, Gómez Henao moved to the United States, joining her mother in Philadelphia and enrolling in community college. Of the experience Gómez Henao says, “It was very difficult to adjust. I didn’t know much English—only what I had learned in high school, and we were a working-class family. My mom was working in a factory, and, I mean, I had a home and food, but I had to work.” Despite these difficulties, she acclimated, learning how to speak English and earning an associate’s degree in art and design. With experience in design, Photoshop, painting, and composition, Gómez Henao began to explore the field and worked to find her niche. Reminiscing on her journey, she says, “I started testing the waters, and I knew that this was it. It felt like my calling in a way.” Working for the Mural Arts program in Philadelphia, Gómez Henao began to meet people in the art community, including mentor Meg Saligman, who, upon seeing Gómez Henao’s work on a mural, recruited Gómez Henao and opened her up to more work.
However, with the lack of art commissions available during the 2008 economic crisis, Gómez Henao ultimately decided to return to school and continue her studies. Upon receiving a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Gómez Henao found herself in an environment that she felt lacked diversity and creative freedom. “I was like the only Hispanic out of 300 students. I experienced a lot of racism and a lot of uncomfortable situations. I was learning a lot though, and I was so passionate, especially about the human figure. I was learning about using all these colors that never even crossed my mind. It was amazing, all that I was learning. But I was unhappy,” Gómez Henao shares. Ultimately, she and her husband decided to move to California, where Gómez Henao transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute. Here, she flourished as she made lasting friendships, experienced the open, conceptual culture of her surroundings, and experimented with her own work. Once Gómez Henao graduated in 2015, she and her husband moved to San Jose, where she quickly made connections and began working at the San Jose Museum of Art, in addition to having her studio space in San Jose’s Local Color. About her life in San Jose, Gómez Henao says, “I’ve met so many incredible people. I feel super welcome here, and I really just love it. I just came back from back home—from Colombia—and I love it so much there, but I tell people that this feels like home now.”
“I’ve had men come tell me that they’re intimidating. And, yeah, they’re kind of daring. Like, you know what? I’m not your subject to be looked at. There’s something challenging about them, and I’m definitely okay with that.” _Erika Gómez Henao
In terms of her work, Gómez Henao describes her art as an exploration of the sexualization of women in current consumerism, particularly in today’s social media culture. From her perspective as a female artist and a woman of color, she questions these often “shallow human connections” and the pervasive perception of women as fetishized objects. “I kind of stay away from the traditional, historical view of the nude female figure and what it meant, to be looked at, especially by men. My paintings are more…I don’t know. I’ve had men come tell me that they’re intimidating. And, yeah, they’re kind of daring. Like, you know what? I’m not your subject to be looked at. There’s something challenging about them, and I’m definitely okay with that,” she says laughing.
Gómez Henao explores these concepts through not only her painting and ceramic work but also through installations and performance pieces in which she uses bold colors, wigs, fabrics, and her own self-made props. Next month, Gómez Henao will be partaking in a group show, sharing paintings, a video, and a ceramic installation. The show, titled Raices y Alias, will focus on Latinx and Chicanx artists.
Instagram: erika_gomez_henao
UPDATE:
Since our interview in 2018, Erika has become a certified Angelic and Crystal healing practitioner and an energy healer.
#58 – Maryela Perez – Visual Artist, DJ, and Curator for MACLA
Maryela originally came to San José after graduating from UC Santa Cruz. She was looking to gain experience and develop a resume to become an urban planner. Through AmeriCorps and a program called Public Allies, she landed an internship with the Park and Recreation Department of San José. Once in the city, Maryela began to connect with the creative community, which led her to become a curator at MACLA.
In our conversion, Maryela explains how moving to Downtown San José and opening her home to artists and musicians changed her career path and exposed her to more artistic opportunities in the South Bay, including learning to DJ.
“It wasn’t with the intention of playing in front of folks, and even like being taught how to DJ was never with that intention, but it was really like I was propelled by the community itself.” _ Maryela Perez
Follow Maryela and tune into her Twitch channel every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month at 7:00pm.
Originally from South Pasadena, artist Fanny Retsek attended Loyola Marymount College for a degree in European history before relocating to the Bay Area in her late twenties. Her interest in art grew out of a study of art history, and after moving to the Bay, Retsek earned an MFA at SJSU with a focus on printmaking. Retsek considers her main influence to be nature, particularly the intersection of human-created habitat and the wild. Working in prints, Retsek creates stunning and nuanced representations of the natural world. Often rendered in flat, earthy colors, Retsek’s prints draw in the viewer with their layered, subtle textures. Her work often starts with an experience or reading something about nature—the idea gets stuck in her head, and Retsek attempts to compose permanent records of her impressions. Her most recent series, Coyote Sightings, documents coyote movements in and out of that line between the human world and the wild. Retsek has shown her art in countless shows around the world and currently has one of her series on display at the SJICA. As for the future, Retsek plans to continue exploring themes of equilibrium and man versus nature through the printmaking medium.
“I always liked looking at prints, the aesthetic of the work, the line quality you can get from printmaking, plus the way the flatness color is used really attracted me, so I wondered, ‘How do you make that?’ After one printmaking class, I was definitely in love. I also was always interested in chemistry; like, I would take chemistry classes in college for fun. So that marriage of chemistry and the way things were happening on a chemical and molecular level in making a print, as well as the drawing process and the final print aesthetic…it all just kind of clicked for me.”
Martha Sakellariou is a 49-year-old artist who began her journey earning multiple degrees from the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece. She went on to obtain her MA in printmaking from the Royal College of Art in London. In 2005 she worked as the Creative and Art Program director for a climate change awareness program for Friends of the Earth, London. In 2013, her family moved to the Bay Area where she now holds a studio space as an independent visual artist with the Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto.
Sakellariou’s work has strongly focused on the concept of home and the tensions, realities, mythologies, and allegories of everyday life—the rituals and relationships which shape what we consider our shelter. The shelter-in-place order has certainly challenged the process by which she composes her art, as the dynamics with family and her own internal dialogue reshape what “home” means. The concepts that had previously brewed and steeped internally have now played out in a myriad of forms, manifesting with new meanings. The very act of quarantining at home brings an unprecedented emotional toll, especially in the face of ongoing uncertainty. While intense, the situation has led Sakellariou to moments of profound creativity and learning opportunities. In her mind, reality is “a dichotomy—dream and nightmare scenarios overlapping—so I understood the significance of that moment not just empathetically but tautologically.”
“Nobody should direct what art should be, where it should take place, when and how and by whom it should be done.”_Martha Sakellariou
At the beginning of the pandemic, Sakellariou was in survival mode, shifting her attention to recalibrating home life and observing the world in transition. During her daily walks, however, her artistic instincts called to her, creating a need to communicate something significant. She came upon a serene and beautiful home, envisioning the image of a woman blowing a balloon projected onto the house. After introducing herself to the homeowner, she created a photo mural on the house of the woman inflating a balloon. “The balloon represents a bubble—a place of safety, protection, and containment, but also implies life in an echo chamber, isolated, disconnected from reality.” This beautiful overlay of realities speaks powerfully to many in their current situation. Even in isolation, Sakellariou has found a way to engage an audience and the wider world. She has since created a total of six temporary photomurals on various houses in her Palo Alto neighborhood, which just goes to show that art can be created anywhere. “Nobody should direct what art should be, where it should take place, when and how and by whom it should be done.”
Tony May’s 1920s downtown home is peaceful, with dried leaves hanging from strings, handcrafted cupboards displaying his and others’ work, and the soft hum of water boiling for a cup of tea. There is the normal collection of items that gather after living in a place for nearly forty years. But this house contains treasures a vintage enthusiast would love. An old paper cutter, a drafting table, an antique metal floor lamp—it’s almost a hipster paradise. There is coziness that draws you back to a simpler time. A time before electronics and the digital this or that, back to the days of craftsmanship, machinery, and the solidness of pulleys, wire, and string.
It is a home. It is a workshop. It is where Tony May lives and creatives.
THE MATERIALS
You work with a variety of materials. Do you have a favorite?
Wood is my preferred medium, so I think of myself as more of a carpenter than anything else. I studied painting in college, and I had about three or four years of ceramics.
I left ceramics when the teacher finally gave me a B. I just had automatic A’s [up to then]. My professor finally gave me a B and said, “You’re not really into this, are you?” That’s when I started making those sculpture‑like things that were made out of the materials used in stretching canvas. I started doing those because I was getting so tired of making these really big, heavy, ceramic pieces that I couldn’t get rid of. [laughs]
So was it necessity, or were you looking for a new medium?
A little of both. I was lacking inspiration, trying to come up with interesting new forms in ceramics. I was struggling with making abstract things that had some scale to them, but I wasn’t yet skilled at making really big things. Plus, the kiln facilities were not huge, so I made a few pieces that were supposed to be large, but they were made of individual components and needed to be assembled after firing. You end up gluing pieces together with epoxies and making this crazy, monstrous thing.
When you’re moving from apartment to apartment, you’re lugging all these things around. The joke was, how many different stairways did I end up jettisoning ceramic pieces down in my career of moving two or three times in college?
That’s how the desire to make things that were more portable emerged. Then, it seemed like I was moving every year. Yet since 1973, I have stayed put in this house.
THE WORK
Your work has a nostalgic aspect to it. Where does that come from?
I’m enamored of 19th century technology. I always felt that my own skill level advanced pretty much up to then; it reached a plateau and never quite advanced beyond that.
Minimal art became very popular when I was in school. There were a lot of influences coming from that sort of thing, but I was focusing on sculpture. I like to think I was making something that would be like a John Chamberlain, because that’s what sculpture was by a certain definition at one time. But mine would be light and portable and variable. It wouldn’t be just one shape of abstract. It would be like this piece of cloth, but you could push it into all these different shapes. And then theoretically, you could get all kinds of emotive responses from it.
I was trying to make devices that would allow for this infinite variability, which, of course, they never achieved. But they were headed in that direction. It’s interesting, because now so much of what is being done in the virtual world and with computers is [about] not being satisfied with one image, but only with the kinetic, constantly varied image.
At a certain point with any of those kinetic pieces, as soon as you have that feeling of, “I think this is where we came in,” they’re no longer of interest—they’ve exhausted their possibilities of being interesting because of their variation. You’re inevitably returned back to the need to just produce a singular, static image that has that potential for expansion mentally, even though it’s not physically changing. I still think there’s room in the world for that kind of art. It doesn’t all have to be moving and blinking.
“I often feel that the world is a big and complicated place that we can’t really do much about on the larger scale. If we can just oil a door hinge that is squeaking, I’m satisfied.”
I was very influenced by performance art when I was in school. Steve French had this class in Madison that was focused on installation and performance. We did a bunch of performances that involved manipulating the audience. You know, taking the audience and almost abusing them. [laughs] Locking them up or something. Putting them in a position where they were ordered to do something—“OK, now you guys are going to do this.”
Then…making these structures, where instead of me deciding what the expressive object would look like, I would have a device that would allow the audience to make their own.
I sort of hate that whole thing. [laughs] I hate it when I go to some gallery and they say, “Hey, here’s a bunch of cool things. Why don’t you guys start making your own art with these?”
Bullshit! [laughs] I’m tired of that. I’m back to where I want the artist to actually make the art.
How do you think your work was affected by being a professor?
Well, it was reduced in quantity, because I didn’t have enough time to do it. On the other hand, I seem to have had just the perfect amount of time. I had all of the time that I couldn’t be doing it to be thinking about doing it. Some jobs get in the way of your production, but they help in a way, by forcing you to filter out the stuff that you probably never needed to do. The stuff that you really want to do rises to the top of your list.
In my personal work, I started fixing things in this house. I developed what seems to be a house fixation…or a house-fixing fixation. [laughs] I got so involved in fixing it up, and then doing odd things to it, then documenting those with paintings. It felt like this was a bonanza—I can do these obsessive-compulsive activities and then I can document them with obsessive-compulsive paintings!
A lot of my own art-making tendencies were directed into working collectively with students. I did a stint where I was doing temporary installation things with them. We made so many. Those vanished rather quickly after we finished them.
When I was doing group stuff, we worked democratically. I did have some rules. They were not allowed to do something I was convinced was going to get me in jail, for one thing. Or be seen as a negative contribution to the community. I think a lot of contemporary art does take that approach. Like, “Well, the world is really screwed up, so let’s screw it up some more to dramatize how screwed up it is.” I never thought that worked.
I suppose I realized that when I began to feel more secure in my profession, and to feel that being an art teacher wasn’t a total drag on society. [laughs] That there actually was some social benefit in working with students, and trying to get students to realize that they could accomplish quite a bit with very little means, just by employing their brains and their technical skills.
I often feel that the world is a big and complicated place that we can’t really do much about on the larger scale. If we can just oil a door hinge that is squeaking, I’m satisfied. A tiny little thing that you have mastered and you have under control. That seems to be somewhat satisfying, at least for a time.
I don’t think I ever thought that my work was going to change the world. I became aware of the fact that I could have some influence of a positive nature in my immediate community. By paying more attention to see if I can’t, as an artist, be a way of making a community better.
THE FUTURE
Is there something that you always want to do with your work, and you feel like you never are able to do it, and that keeps you going to the next project?
I have in my head a lot of projects I’m pretty sure I will never finish in my lifetime. I don’t know if I need to, but they’re there as goals. I will never run out of things that I want to do, which I feel very fortunate about. I guess my biggest fear is that I will run out of the energy I need to do them.
I spent years having forgotten I was raised on a farm in Wisconsin; that somehow it was all behind me, and it was no longer part of who I was. It’s like I’d outgrown it, I’d evolved. When I was in college, I thought I had definitely evolved, and I was now part of the cutting edge of the avant garde. And my parents were these local yokels that were completely unconnected to art in any way, and very unsophisticated.
In the last decade or so, I feel more than ever like this Midwestern farmer. It’s ironic, because I wanted nothing more than to get away from that place when I was a kid. I find that so much of that upbringing is still deeply ingrained in there; that self‑sufficiency, making do, and not having extravagant amounts of anything. I’ve come full circle.
FEATURED in Issue 5.1“Sight and Sound” – SOLD OUT
After many years in a career dedicated to racial justice, through community activism, arts administration, and nonprofit leadership, I now find myself in the midst of a hot topic of the day — Racial Equity in Philanthropy. And it’s about time!
It’s exciting to be working with colleagues in the field of philanthropy to deeply investigate how we can change the nature of our work to advance equity. Racial equity has been defined as just and fair inclusion into a society in which all people can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. Said another way, a racially equitable society is one in which racial disparities in health, education, wealth, and other areas do not exist. (The Equity Manifesto, PolicyLink, 2018). It’s not easy to get to that place after centuries of structural racism. Structural racism refers to historical and ongoing political, cultural, social, and economic policies and practices that systematically disadvantage people of color. But funders nationally, regionally, and locally are making shifts to center their work in an equity practice.
Two examples:
The Monument Project, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will award $250 million to fund new monuments, memorials, or historic storytelling spaces, contextualize existing monuments or memorials through installations, research, and education, and relocate existing monuments or memorials. All in an effort to broaden understanding of how we define commemorative spaces and acknowledge previously untold stories.
The California Arts Council (CAC), after a year-long internal investigation of past practices, established an equity statement which acknowledges the historic role that the government has played in creating and maintaining racial inequities to guide all its grantmaking. In 2020, in collaboration with the Irvine Foundation, the CAC launched the Arts Administrators of Color Fellowship Program to begin to address the inequities in arts leadership across the state. This program is currently being administered by our own local School of Arts and Culture (with grant management support from SVCREATES).
Locally SVCREATES and other funders, are engaging in grantee perception surveys to better understand the needs of our diverse arts community and identify where they might be falling short in providing equitable access to resources. I commend them for this work to build an ongoing equity practice.
So let’s all dig in and do the work! Arts and culture give us the power to come together and imagine a new way of being. With every piece of work, artists challenge us to dream and reconceive what is possible. Together we can continue these discussions in every single room that we are in and build a just society for all members of our community.
Resources and Inspiration: Decolonizing Wealth Edgar Villanueva Emergent Strategy Adrienne Maree Brown Equity Manifesto PolicyLink
Tamara serves as a Program Officer in the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s Local Grantmaking Program in a new role leading the cultural and civic investments in the Vibrant Communities portfolio spanning the five Bay Area counties that the program serves: San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito. The portfolio invests $4 million annually to advance creative, environmental, and civic organizations that connect people with art, nature, and their communities, creating a unique sense of place for all.
Tamara joins the Packard Foundation after serving as executive director of the Leo M. Shortino Family Foundation, a San José, California–based foundation that focuses on youth and arts. Tamara has held executive, board, and director positions at various local, regional and national arts and community organizations, including the School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza; the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute at 1stAct Silicon Valley (now SVCREATES); MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana; and WESTAF (Western States Arts Federation). She currently serves on the board of SVCREATES.
Tamara holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish Literature with an emphasis in Chicano Studies from Stanford University. She has been a traditional Aztec dancer for over 20 years and is a member of Calpulli Tonalehqueh Aztec Drum and Dance.
McEwan-Upright has a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of California Santa Barbara and a master’s degree in art history from the San Jose State University, an education that fostered her love of research facilitates her quest for a variety of female voices. In 2019, McEwan-Upright took over a 1,200-square-foot storefront in downtown Gilroy to act as the home base for her feminist-minded art gallery. McEwan-Upright’s Gallery 1202 opened its doors that October, and by the end of November 2019, it was hosting its first group exhibition, Show Me Your Neon: A Feminist Dialogue.
“I definitely have a mission for the gallery. I want to elevate the artists in Gilroy, but also elevate these marginalized voices that haven’t been able to be represented because of either sex, race, or materials. That’s my big thing—do that while exposing people in Gilroy to more artists.” – Emily McEwan-Upright
In our conversation, Emily shares her mission for Gallery 1202 and her large aspirations to provide the South Valley arts community affordable creative spaces to pursue their dreams through the recently formed non-profit 6th Street Studios and Art Center.
Episode #56- Chris Jalufka – Writer and Founder of Evil Tender
Chris Jalufka is a Bay Area-based artist and writer focused on the world of design, illustration, and limited edition posters. His articles have appeared in Content Magazine, HOW Magazine, Print Magazine, Juxtapoz, and various sites and his venture, Evil Tender.
He started Evil Tender, an online arts magazine, to focus on the working artists, to help promote their work. After explored screening writing, sound engining, and marketing, he finally found his niche.
In our conversation, Chris discussed the meaning behind the name “Evil Tender” and his commercial and fine art realms journey.
W hen Chike Nwoffiah arrived in the Bay Area from Nigeria to pursue a career in biotech, he was shocked to see the way Africa was portrayed. Home to over one billion people, it’s a vibrant land full of both modern cities and rural villages, yet few are exposed to the rich diversity and vitality of the continent and its people. Leaving his corporate life behind, Chike pursued the arts, becoming an accomplished actor, theater director, and filmmaker. But of all of his endeavors, founding the Silicon Valley African Film Festival—a celebration of African film, music, food, art, fashion, and culture—feels closest to his heart. Now in its 10th year, the festival is transforming perceptions and giving Africans a chance to share their stories.
“Until the lion learns to speak, the tale of the hunt will only glorify the hunter. This is the impetus behind the founding of the film festival.” -Chike Nwoffiah
“For far too long, the story of Africa has been told through lenses far removed from the continent, leading to blurred perceptions and historical distortions. When those of us from the continent come here and see, feel, and touch the Africa that is projected here, it’s disheartening. It’s either the Tarzan narrative of people living in the jungle, swinging from trees, or the National Geographic narrative of children starving with flies on their faces. Until the lion learns to speak, the tale of the hunt will only glorify the hunter. This is the impetus behind the founding of the film festival. We want to present the real stories of Africa—good, bad, or ugly—and we want Africans to tell those stories.”
Article originally appeared in inissue 11.4 “Profiles”
SOLD OUT
As the bandleader of War tribute band Cisco Kid, Joey Flores is loyal to one vision: do it for the OGs. Though covering classics like “Low Rider” can be hit or miss, this eight-person band balances passion with the discipline and faith to pay good, honest tribute. With the support of original and current members, Cisco Kid honors War’s music through opportunities that have multiplied since they started in 2017—and it all started with a family business.
When Joey was in high school, his uncle Sonny Madrid started Lowrider Magazine, the ongoing publication that first came out in 1977. Uncle Sonny was a photographer, and he wanted to do something about the gang warfare accompanying lowrider culture in pockets of San Jose. “He would take his camera to the corner of King and Story,” Joey recalls, “where he would cruise and talk to some of the kids: ‘Hey man, if I was to take pictures of you and your cars, would that stop this madness?’ ”
Joey recalls that the magazine was not even 10 pages, black and white. “We were in Mom and Dad’s garage stapling—we had a little assembly line.” When Uncle Sonny showed those kids on the corner of King and Story the pages, their expressions said it all. Joey sensed the impact his uncle had made in his community. Put in charge of mail, Joey opened their first international subscription request: “I showed my aunt, like, what is that? She saw the address said Germany and another one that said Australia: ‘Oh shit, Sonny, we just went international!’ That’s when the whole Lowrider Magazine became a thing.”
Sonny, the visionary, and Rudy Madrid, former bandleader of the Cruisers, both mentored their nephew. By the time Joey started Cisco Kid, a ready fan base had gathered around their legacy. “We had over 425 paid attendance in the ballroom. They had never even heard us. All they knew was it was Joey Jam, the nephew of Lowrider Magazine, and he’s got the Cisco Kid tribute band.”
Though Cisco Kid began with six members, most of whom Joey met at his home church, Cathedral of Faith, vocalist Stefan Jones and guitarist Cory Clar make a total of eight. He credits his managers for keeping them focused, allowing one door to open after another. “Robert and Anita always tell me: stick to your vision,” he says. “When you start asking five or six other people for their opinions, you start getting sidetracked.”
A gush of pride animates his story about finding his youngest band member, harpist Ryan Walker. While Joey had known other band members through close connections, finding Ryan was a matchmaking game. A harp teacher recommended him to Joey. “He sent me a picture. I was like, oh, white dude in San Jose has a ’fro like that?! And plays harp,” he exclaims. “Every band has that signature sound. With War, it’s that harp, that Lee Oskar sound.” When Ryan joined the band, the remaining original member of War mailed the band his blessing in the form of nine hundred dollars worth of harps, reeds, and cases last summer.
But Cisco Kid is not limiting their repertoire to War’s hit singles. A lesser-known album released in 2014, Evolutionary, caught Joey by surprise. “I’m looking on Spotify going, War?! Wait a minute.” He anticipates similar reactions when he shows other fans the songs. “Oh man, is that Prince? No that’s War.” Joey tells the band, “Play it just like the album. Don’t rewrite the song. Listen to your parts.” But there are still moments during a performance to treat the audience to a solo. Like War, a “band’s band,” Cisco Kid’s musicianship is tight. “I invite musicians to come check us out.”
On stage, Joey still remembers the first supporter of Cisco Kid. “Right before my uncle passed away, we were playing Music in the Park, and I made sure he had a front row seat right at the rail so he could be there next to me…and he had this beautiful grinning smile.” With that reminder, Cisco Kid is on the right path.
Like locking puzzle pieces, Scott and Shannon Guggenheim—or “Stannon” as they are fittingly known by their staff—are the producing entity and owners of 3Below, the new home of Guggenheim Entertainment since the closing of the Retro Dome, San Jose’s previous realm of movie and sing-along fun. At 3Below, expect top-quality surround sound as you view an indie film or enjoy a classic flick in the cozy Theater 2. Participate in a ComedySportz show or take an acting class in Theater 1. Sing along to The Rocky Horror Picture Show or see a play in Theater 3 for a family night out. No matter what you come for, your experience is curated by creators driven by the need to provide entertainment that promotes joy.
You used to be the Retro Dome in West San Jose. How is this downtown location treating you? SHANNON: The audience we’ve grown in Saratoga hasn’t really followed us down here. I don’t know if they just haven’t caught on that, there’s something family-friendly out here to do. Usually, we announce Sound of Music and sell out a thousand seats in a weekend. We’re really trying to explain that we have this lovely little bubble you can just pull into. It’s tricky being a movie theater. With other businesses—restaurants, salons—you see the hustle and bustle of activity through the front windows. When we’re busy, everybody’s in here. SCOTT: We’re a safe place, too. Here, we have validated parking. You can just park in our garage and walk downstairs; it’s lit, there’s security in the building, and afterward, you can walk right back out to your car.
How have you applied your artistic background to the challenges you face every day as a business? SHANNON: If there’s any testament to art’s importance in schools, it’s that when you learn anything relative to being a performer, you immediately have a skillset you can take with you your entire life. You can’t be in a show without multitasking: you need to be a good communicator, understand conflict resolution, and give-and-take. Being tenacious and not wanting to give up are the traits of a performer. Who but a performer will subject themselves to rejection after rejection?
One of our bread and butter concepts throughout the ‘90s was doing kids’ club programming for shopping centers. We had fashion shows with jeans that the kids in the audience decorated; we did Retail Star, a competition to see which storefront would be occupied by a new tenant.
That was all well and good, frankly, until 9/11 happened. As the climate changed in America relative to what your third place could be, people didn’t feel safe in those environments the way they did the day before. So marketing managers in shopping centers completely changed their focus. They weren’t hosting events or fun things for crowds anymore. All that money was reallocated to security. So we had to adapt really quickly.
SCOTT: For seven or eight years, we exclusively did the Christmas rollouts at Stanford and Bay Street in Emeryville, at Montgomery Village, and at Pier 39. So when you see elves or soldiers or bands performing or carolers out there, most of the time, it’s us doing that. SHANNON: There were definitely things you did because they paid the bills, and there were things you did for your artist’s soul. Very often our Christmas events were paying for the Hanukkah show we wrote. As that trend changed, we had to find other ways to survive. Our synagogue employed us to create a theatrical program for their school or synagogue. That lets us keep paying the bills while enjoying some aspect of our own selves.
Not everyone gets to start a theater company with their best friend and stay married for 30 years. Through all the co-writing and co-directing, marketing, and administrative work, how have you managed to keep the family together?SCOTT: We’ve been very lucky in that we found each other when we were young. Shannon and I met doing children’s theater in the late ’80s. We ran a children’s theater for nearly a decade, and our exit from that was producing Schoolhouse Rock Live. We have the same sensibility. We’re both really good event planners. That’s probably our biggest strength. SHANNON: For everything I’m not good at, Scott is. And vice versa. We’re very lucky in that way. And we know each other’s weaknesses, too. It’s possible that having Ally in our life was a big reason for that. SCOTT: Our second-born, Ally, has been in and out of a hospital her whole life. She’s 100 percent dependent on us. SHANNON: With Ally’s severe disabilities, what’s the alternative? We can’t just say never mind, I’m not going to be the adult today. The strong get stronger, and the weak get weaker. Whatever you have in your life that’s already strong it’s going to be crystallized as a result of having to get through it.
We’re here to create. It’s just some sort of knowledge that we’re here for a purpose. And if we have the opportunity in our lives to figure out what it is and go do it, well how lucky are we?
What do you want the South Bay to know about 3Below?SCOTT: If you want to come to experience a show and know the quality of entertainment will be a top bar, this is one thing I say because it’s true: both Shannon and I are directors and choreographers, and we find the best way to get the best performance out of our actors. My brother Stephen is able to find the means to get the best vocals from the performers as well. SHANNON: We love the idea of having creative control over everything, but we would love a couple of other people to share this with. People are moving away because they can’t afford to live here. It’s been hard to cast actors, fill slots behind cash registers, or find set builders. Every industry that supports what we’re creating seems to have ebbed off as far as an abundance of talent. We’re talking to other theaters, the opera, and symphony—and they agree; it’s just really lean out there. We’re all using the same wig mistress. Our designers are fantastic, but we’re afraid we’ll lose them.
If people don’t support the arts, they will go away. You can’t let the convenience of insular entertainment change you completely. No filmmaker ever said, “I can’t wait for you to see it on this little screen!” They want you to see it on a massive screen with great sound with other people. Technology makes what we do even better, but if you let it bleed you of any enjoyment found in other ways, those ways won’t exist.
Through all the turmoil we experience in our news, why are you rebuilding? When you’re done rebuilding, then what are you going to do? Just because we can get to the moon, what are we going to do when we get there?SCOTT: We create new programming to keep us going, but also to make sure we’re meeting our basic needs of building better people, creating a better world. We choose things that promote joy.
Like locking puzzle pieces, Scott and Shannon Guggenheim—or “Stannon” as their staff fittingly knows them—are the producing entity and owners of 3Below, the new home of Guggenheim Entertainment since the closing of the Retro Dome, San Jose’s previous realm of movie and sing-along fun. 3Below delivers top-quality surround sound as you view an indie film or enjoy a classic flick in the cozy Theater 2.
3Below is also the home of the ComedySportz show and provides acting classes, sing-along to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and theater productions. No matter what you come for, your experience is curated by creators driven by the need to provide entertainment that promotes joy. In our conversation, Shannon was sure about the journey to opening, the road they have been on through COV-19, and the spark of hope they feel as they can see the light at the end of the tunnel as they slow to reopen.
Shannon shares her own experiences through SIP and announces a new production series they are dreaming about called “San Jose Stories.” The series will consist of interviews with locals that are then developed into an improv interpretation.
Social Media: 3belowtheaters 3below if featured in issue 11.0 “Discover” 2019. ________________ This episode’s music is “Tang” by Chris Emond. Follow Chris on Spotify, http://bit.ly/ChrisEmond.
John Warnock and Chuck Geschke met at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) in the late ’70s but left to form Adobe when they could not convince Xerox executives of the potential market value in developing a printing language that would generate quality fonts and graphics on any printer. The decision to launch their own company has led the revolutionary direction of computer graphics and shaped the publishing and creative communications industries. The influence and effect that these two humble computer engineers and scientists have had is a testimony to their vision, character, and partnership.
Content Magazine: Your first day with Adobe, what was that like?
John Warnock: We didn’t have an office, the first day we started Adobe. We worked out of our houses for a while. We had a computer that we could dial into, and so we started that way.
Chuck Geschke: You know, it’s interesting, there we were, the two of us in this building. You sort of felt like you should shout down the hall, “So, you still there?” Then we began to hire people, so within a couple of months, it at least felt like we were a team of people engaged in working on what was our initial business plan and idea, which of course changed within our very first year in business.
“I’ve always told our employees who want to rise in management, just go out and hire people who are incredibly smart. Smarter than you are, it’s a bigger population from which to choose.” —Chuck Geschke
What was the original plan?
CG: The original idea that got us our funding was to build a complete turnkey publishing system for marketing inside the Fortune 500, so they could bring a lot of their creative work and their print production in-house.
We were going to build and bring together computers, laser printers, and plate-making equipment, along with all of the software to go into complete production. One of the key ingredients of that was our technology called PostScript, which is a higher level language for describing the appearance of a printed page.
JW: At that time there weren’t PCs broadly available. The workstations at the time were made by Sun Microsystems and Digital Equipment. Those workstations were what people developed software for. The PCs were really very small, just starting to come out, so they weren’t a factor. There were companies like TechSAT and Interleaf that were also building publishing software. There were about five or six competitive companies in the space that we thought we were going into. CG: So shortly after we got into business, one of my professors from Carnegie Mellon who had since left and gone to work for Digital Equipment, Gordon Bell, came by to see what we were doing.
He looked at it, and he said, “Wow that’s interesting. But I don’t need computers, I’m Digital Equipment. And I got a deal with Ricoh in Japan for this laser printer, so I don’t need that, but my problem is they’ve got two or three development teams trying to figure out how to get the computers to talk to the printers in such a way that they can produce the kind of output we want, and they’re not getting anywhere. I see you’re starting to work on the key software that would make that possible. Why don’t you just sell me that software?”
We said, “Well, you know we have this business plan, and it raised two and a half million dollars for us, and we think that’s what we need to do, so we’re going to continue doing it.” He said, “Well if you change your mind, call me.”
JW: About four months in, we got a call from Steve Jobs. Steve had been hiring people away from Xerox PARC, and they were people that we both knew. He said, “I would love to come see you guys and see what you’re doing.”
At that time, that was the beginning of the development of the Mac. First the Lisa was developed, and then the Macintosh. But at that stage he was mostly interested in the Macintosh platform. His problem was, what they could see on the little bitmap screen they could print on a wire-matrix printer—which was horrible. I think he sensed that that was not an ultimate printing solution.
He saw what we were doing, and the people who worked for him knew what we were doing, and so he became very enthusiastic about this software we were developing, which was PostScript.
CG: The first thing he said was, “Why don’t you sell me your company, and come work for me?” We said, “Well, you know, Steve, we really want to build our own business.” He said, “Oh, well, OK, I can understand that. So, how about selling me that software? Because the team I have trying to figure out how to get the computer, the Macintosh, to talk to this laser printer, which I’ve already got a deal for with Canon, aren’t getting anywhere.”
And we said, “Well, you know we have this business plan, Steve. That’s what we think we need to do.” He said, “Well, I think you’re nuts.” So then John and I went to talk to the guy who was chairman of our board, that Bill Hamburg had put in as chairman. We explained to him these conversations we were having. And he said, “Those people are right, you’re nuts. Now you know what your business plan is, go do it.”
When you began Adobe, were you already thinking in terms of adjusting based on market need? Is adapting just part of your personalities?
JW: I think we were flexible. Both of us had a very deep background in technology. What you’re trying to look for is markets and customers. Steve wanted to invest in the company, which he did. The strongest part of our software was the PostScript software. We would have had to develop the rest of the software from scratch, and that was going to take a lot of time and a lot of effort, and since we had ready customers both in Digital Equipment and in Apple, I think that’s what guided us in the direction we went.
CG: You do ask a good question though, “Did we originally think about the fact that we should be building something that was unique and different?” Of course, that’s instinctive to want to do that, but when we got the first check from Bill Hamburg and we were driving home from San Francisco, I asked John, I said, “John, did you ever take a business course?” And he said, “No.” And I said, “Well I haven’t either.”
So we looked at each other and I said, “I think we should stop at Kepler’s and get a book on business.” We did, and there was a chapter in that book called “market gap analysis.”
What it said was, if you want to start a successful business, find a place that isn’t being served, come up with a brand new solution, get it into the market, and by definition you have a hundred percent market share, and shame on you if you can’t keep it. That’s actually pretty much always been our philosophy.
JW: PostScript became a very successful product. It became the standard, and it was saturating the company’s resources, to just keep up with the number of corporations we had to build printer software for. But it was also obvious that you never want to be a one-product company. And so we first started with typefaces for the PostScript printers, but we had worked with drawing programs at Xerox PARC, and thought there was a natural way to map the way that PostScript fundamentally worked with a user interface, and that became Illustrator.
“You don’t have to be ruthless to be a successful business person. You can be understanding, you can be compassionate, you can have all those qualities that make you a good person.” —John Warnock
You’ve been in partnership for…?
CG: 37 years.
Thirty-seven, which is longer than some marriages.
JW: Probably most.
CG: Except ours.
JW: Chuck and I have a huge amount in common. We have the same number of children, roughly the same ages, roughly the same educational backgrounds in mathematics and in engineering. We both refereed and coached soccer. We’ve been married roughly the same number of years to our wives. We’ve never had an argument, in the 37 years.
Never?
JW: Never.
CG: Never parted company at the end of a work day in anger.
JW: I think our personalities mesh very well. We both have a sense of responsibility to the communities, to the customers, to our stockholders, to our employees. We take very, very seriously the balance that we have for the constituencies of the company.
And I think we both work—with each other and with others—as teams. I don’t think we’re dictatorial in any way. I don’t think we try to micromanage people.
John, how has Chuck balanced out your skill set?
JW: I think we’re great sounding boards for each other, and are both technically very competent. What more do you need? [laughs]
Chuck, what about John? How do you think he has balanced out your skill set?
CG: I think the uniqueness of John is built around his inventiveness, and thinking of things that other people have not thought of before, in terms of what can be done with technology. I’ve always greatly admired that skill.
I think in terms of implementing ideas, we’re very comparable in that regard. I ended up doing a lot more of the negotiating and contract work, particularly in the beginning with PostScript to close deals all over the world that would allow us to make that a universal standard.
John, on the other hand, was the person who really kept focus on what the company needed to do to continue to expand its markets. The thing I found most comforting about our partnership was whenever we needed to do something outside of business—deal with something in our family, or just take a break—we had a hundred percent confidence that the other person would do and make the right decisions. That gave us great freedom. It allowed us to explore and to do things that wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t had that confidence in each other.
When you acquired Photoshop, there wasn’t any digital photography [laughs]. You had to see into the future of technology. Even with the cloud, you were one of the first companies to move all your software exclusively to be a download. What led you to innovate?
JW: There was no such thing as illustration programs. There were programs back at Xerox PARC that started to do that kind of thing, but they were never commercially available.
I think, as Chuck said, you’re looking for gaps. You’re looking for problems that have no solution. It was so funny, when we went out on one of our first road trips, the investors said, “Well, how big is the market?” We were puzzled by that, because there was no market. We were in fact creating the technology to create a whole brand new market, and they didn’t understand that and we didn’t understand their question. It was sort of a humorous thing to think about ideas and uses of technology where you’re entering a completely void space.
CG: I think the thing that never concerned us about how big this opportunity was, what we were beginning to understand was, that all visual information was going to transform itself from physical media and distribution to electronic.
If you look at the size of that industry—printing, publishing, entertainment, the whole paper flow business—those are huge. We never felt like we would be constrained by the market opportunity, only by our own ability to invent fast enough to be the first product into that market so that we in fact could have significant market share from the very beginning.
How would you describe yourselves? What are your natural passions?
CG: When I think about myself, first of all, as I already mentioned, no formal training in aspects of business. Throughout my life I’ve been a teacher, I’ve been an engineer, developing things, and I’ve always worked with teams of people.
I think one of my strengths is that I understand what makes a team work. I instinctively believe in people and their ability to do more than they think they can. I really have no fear, never had any fear, of hiring someone who is brighter than I am. I hired him [pointing to John] at Xerox PARC, and I’ve always told our employees who want to rise in management, just go out and hire people who are incredibly smart. Smarter than you are, it’s a bigger population from which to choose. If you do that, eventually there will be nothing for you to do but move up the ladder of the chain of management.
John and I decided early on that we were not going to write elaborate manuals of behavior of what it meant to be an employee at Adobe… The trick is to balance what’s good for each of [your constituencies] in such a way that everyone feels like they’re being well-served. The core principle is you always treat any of those people, including your fellow employees, the way you would want to be treated. And if you do that, you’ll succeed.
JW: In my hobbies, I’m a photographer. I do a lot of drawing and painting, I’m primarily a visual person. It’s funny, it’s a funny balance between mathematics and that visual left-brain / right-brain connection.
The internet today is the perfect communication vehicle, when you want to know something. All my children and grandchildren, they pick up their phones and do the appropriate search, and find out the answer to almost any question you’d want to ask. I think that in some sense amplifies the progress of the society in what you can achieve. In the past, you had to really do research in libraries and go the hard way to find out information. Now information is flowing very freely. And building the tools that allow that to happen, that allow people to communicate in a frictionless way, is what it’s all about.
What would you say, then, is your guiding philosophy?
JW: I think it’s exactly what Chuck said, you treat people the way you would like to be treated. You don’t have to be ruthless to be a successful business person. You can be understanding, you can be compassionate, you can have all those qualities that make you a good person.
CG: I think oftentimes people view two guys who go into business and have the good fortune that we did to be very successful as—they did it for money. But we’re both engineers, and what motivates an engineer is to build something that millions of people will use. We achieved that dream.
JW: It’s not money.
CG: And the money is wonderful, you know, I wouldn’t throw it away. But frankly, I would prefer to take that money and do more things to help other people than use it myself.
What drives your passion, outside of business?
CG: The things that I tend to focus on, are really my family. We’re blessed with seven grandchildren, all the way from second grade to college. Spending time and working with them is part of my passion.
My wife and I have always loved travel, we’ve had a long bucket list of places we wanted to go, many of which we’ve already been to, but we still have some more. We’re going to the Arctic. We’re going to take the whole family on safari next summer. Things of that kind are passions of mine.
[And then the other thing] is to focus on some nonprofits that really make a difference in their community. I just finished a project with a good friend of mine on Nantucket Island, rebuilding the entire Boys & Girls Club, because it’s so critical to the survival of that island. It’s things like that that I spend most of my time on.
Of course, I do think a lot about Adobe, and its business, and where it’s headed, but over time I’ve diversified.
JW: I’ve always been fascinated with the media business. I’m on the board of Sundance. I’m chairman of an online magazine called Salon. I was on the Knight-Ridder board in the newspaper business. I love tracking the media business.
As you see the growth of the internet, and the transitioning out of old media into new media, you see a huge shift in the dynamics of advertising, communication, and how all of that works. Watching the way television and streaming media is changing people’s fundamental behavior, I find fascinating. I’m a student, when I think professionally, of media, and how it works, and how it’s changing. I think the most important thing is how it’s changing, and what the implications are of that to everybody’s life.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
JW: It’s been a hell of a run. [laughs]
CG: We’re the two luckiest guys on Earth.
Full article originally appeared in Issue 8.0 Explore. Print Version Sold Out
Elizabeth Jiménez Montelongo is a visual artist, poet, teacher, and 2021 Creative Ambassador with the Office of Cultural Affairs for the City of San Jose.
Her work addresses themes of identity, transformation, and empowerment. Her work is influenced mainly by her indigenous Mesoamerican ancestry, Mexika (Aztec) artwork and philosophy, Mexican culture, Chicano history, and her experiences as a woman in the United States.
Join our conversation as we discuss her influences and her work that addresses themes of identity, transformation, and empowerment
Follow Elizabeth at ejmontelongo.com (https://ejmontelongo.com/index.html)
Follow Chris on Spotify, http://bit.ly/ChrisEmond Featured in issue 13.2 “Sight and Sound” 2021 https://www.content-magazine.com/issue/issue-13-2/
Robert Ragazza seems to know everyone. He greets every patron and server at the small coffee shop downtown with a smile, perhaps a carry-over from his full-time position as the award-winning concierge at the Hotel Sainte Claire in San Jose. He does know everyone, certainly in the city’s small but incredibly self-reliant art scene. He rattles off a who’s who of artists and patrons, proud to be a part of this pool of talent and vision.
But Robert Ragazza really knows everyone. He knows the guy sitting outside with his dogs, hoping for spare change. He knows the man wrapped in blankets who stands on the corner of Santa Clara and First Street. He knows the woman camped out not far from his work, who always flashes him a mega-watt smile. These are all people that he encounters regularly, and while others bustle past, Ragazza captures them in striking black and white photographs.
As he browses through his portfolio of portraits, he tells the stories of his subjects, how he managed to convince them to pose for him, or whether they were eager to volunteer. It took two years of friendship for the man wrapped in blankets to agree to pose. The relationship was based on trust and whether he believed Ragazza would look through the viewfinder and see his dignity.
Ragazza knows precisely where each photo was taken, the exact street corner or bus, mapping out the city’s humanity through his compassionate artistic eye. The portraits are deep, almost textured and layered, as the richness of the black, white, and shades of grey and light reveal stories of sorrow, pain, hope, and life.
While Ragazza himself is young and stylish, he is a traditional, even old-fashioned, photographer. With the exception of a few iPhone photos, he shoots exclusively on film and shudders at the thought of using Photoshop. Averse to cropping, he lines up each shot in the viewfinder so that when he develops the photos, they come out exactly as he had seen them in the moment. He is patient, limiting himself to only a few frames per subject, knowing that more than five frames feels invasive. His compositional eye is practiced, as he finds the most interesting lighting and sharp contrasts. “You have to wait for the right moment,” he explains. “It’s how you know you’re in sync with the world.” He describes a magical moment in a natural setting when everything falls into place. The results are a testament to his method and skill, each photo meticulous yet with the feel of spontaneity.
He sees his photos as part of a larger series and story. While every shot carries its own weight, he arranges them so that each one plays a role in a larger context. His street portraits could almost be viewed as social documentary, recording everyday scenes and the humanity that makes them exceptional. His photos reflect the souls of those who make up the fabric of the city: weary on the bus, joyful with a grandchild, proud, compassionate, serious with a threatening tattoo, often hopeful but sometimes hopeless. Ragazza captures these moments that become timeless representations of the people he comes to know.
Ragazza would have every reason not to seek out those wearing “death” tattooed across their necks, or subjects on the bus who later join gangs and disappear from his radar. While a student in Los Angeles, Ragazza was the innocent victim of a gang-initiation drive-by shooting, an event that forever changed the course of his life. The bullet wound healed, but seems to have given him a deep sensitivity to the desperate side of life. His experience with senseless brutality makes the human images reflected in his viewfinder all the more poignant. While he still jumps when he hears fireworks, he took the incident in stride, finding the positive, and moving forward with new perspective. “That’s what life is,” he says with a thoughtful smile.
Today, he and his close-knit community of artists and supporters work together to be the city’s cultural heartbeat. Ragazza is a collector himself, identifying and fostering young talent, purchasing pieces when he can. When his resources are stretched, his own patrons step in, bartering the special printing paper he needs in exchange for a photograph. Ragazza’s works can go for top dollar, but they are an investment, not only in his talent and skill, but in his deep, complex portrait of life in San Jose. As he says, his work “is all about dignity and civility,” which is a real gift to this city and all who know him.
At his show “Almost Famous,” held at Cukui last March [Article orginally from 2017], Jay Aguilar completely covered the single wall he was given with his photography. From nearly floor to ceiling, each meticulously placed, independently developed square shot portrayed various local scenesters and musicians. The sheer volume of his work was overwhelming, but what made the evening extra special was how each portrait brought back memories of the many shows he had memorialized on film.
Aguilar never expected that people would notice what he was doing, much less invite him to display his work, which he has done at Curate Good in San Jose and SoundCloud headquarters in San Francisco. His approach—capturing his favorite artists in informally posed snapshots—didn’t arise from a master plan. Over time, he’s simply taken on the role of cultural archivist, photographing the many musicians, DJs, and passionate supporters who visit the Bay Area. He wanted to prove that culture does exist here, even if some would witness it only the morning after on social media.
“I want people to know that this format of film is still alive…” _Jay Aguilar
It’s crazy to think that all of Aguilar’s photos, in theory, might never have happened. He’s reminded of that every time he stares at the hundreds of portraits he’s taken over the years. Each one serves as a reminder of what he accomplished by taking a chance. “I just think ’You’ve got to get out there and do your thing,’ ” reflects Aguilar, who’s earned the name “Polaroid Jay” for his choice to shoot exclusively with Polaroid cameras. “You’ve got to take a risk. You might miss, but you might get it, so just go for it.”
When Run the Jewels recently played the City National Civic in downtown San Jose, Aguilar and his brother waited outside in the rain for over an hour for two portraits. A handful of fans still stood alongside him, but most had trickled away, lulled to bed and wary of the raindrops. As security turned over, one guard told them there was no chance the group was coming out. In a case like that, experience told Aguilar otherwise. “I knew that they hadn’t exited the venue,” he says. “I pay attention to the details.” He could see the tour bus sitting right outside the only exit. Sure enough, Killer Mike and El-P eventually appeared. Killer Mike even gave him a hug.
Aguilar is exceptionally good at waiting, because in his craft, patience and perseverance often lead to results. As long as he hasn’t witnessed the getaway, there’s still a chance he’ll get his shot.
Why wait for an interaction that will last no more than a minute? “It’s an adrenaline rush,” he says. “There’s nothing that can compare to it.” Whenever Aguilar heads out with one of his cameras, he’s bound to experience an emotional journey—the anxiety of waiting to get the shot, the uncertainty of meeting the artist, the joy and relief of capturing the portrait. There are no guarantees when it comes to artists or to instant photography.
Growing up, Aguilar was always fascinated with Polaroid cameras. He remembers the ads starring celebrities on TV, but never asked for one because they were too costly. He finally asked anyway in 2004, and his dad bought him a camera and four packs of film. He began shooting regularly in 2009 after he picked up an SX-70 with auto-focus from a coworker. Soon, he was scouring thrift stores for any model he could find and searching for deals on expired film on eBay. At one point, his collection included 40 cameras. It has since been whittled down to around 25, with six in regular working rotation. “I want people to know that this format of film is still alive, that you can go out and buy it and do it yourself,” he says.
After he lost his girlfriend, his photo crew, and his job in 2013, Aguilar began to pursue his craft with renewed focus. Capturing show portraits became his refuge, his therapy. “I didn’t think it would lead to super awesome stuff, but it did,” he says. “I feel like I’m in a better place now than I was when all that stuff happened.” He has since cultivated a following of over 4,500 followers on Instagram, and an online archive of more than 4,000 photos.
But Aguilar, as cultural archivist Polaroid Jay, has not just helped renew interest in instant photography, he has also created a link to the past. When thinking about the countless memories a single photo can evoke, he is reminded of times when his mom would ask if he remembered something and he would have no recollection until she produced a photo. Instantly, he’d be transported back to that moment. His own photography now provides that same refresher for an entire community. It also provides a tangible photo trail of timeless mementos in an increasingly digitized world.
For being the 10th-largest city in the United States, San Jose’s local news offerings are startlingly sparse. In recent years, The Mercury News has reduced its staff reporters, even while buying out many of the surrounding community newspapers. Metro fills some of the holes in local coverage, but as a free weekly paper, its scope is limited. Online publications like Patch have struggled with readership, while TV news outlets spread their resources across the entire Bay Area. All of this leaves Silicon Valley residents with few opportunities to read about local politics, community issues, and other important news affecting their lives. In 2019, Josh Barousse and Ramona Giwargis set out to change the news landscape and launched the nonprofit news outlet, San José Spotlight.
San José Spotlight is a digital-only publication with a completely free website, no paywall, and no pop-up advertising. Funding comes from individual memberships, business partnerships, foundation grants, and special quarterly paid events that will feature educational opportunities, panel discussions, and community engagement. “For years, newspapers have relied on advertising to sustain themselves, but I personally feel that model is no longer working,” Giwargis explains. “People just aren’t buying print ads anymore; newspapers are reducing the size of the paper and the coverage, and yet they expect to be able to continue selling ads.” She also adds, “Looking to other [nonprofit publications] that have cut out ads and are relying just on those revenue streams we’ve mentioned—they’ve been able to make it work.”
In this episode, we discuss San José Spotlight’s mission and the role it plays in our community.
Follow them at, San Jose Spotlight (https://sanjosespotlight.com/) Instagram at SJSpotlight (https://www.instagram.com/sjspotlight/)
What are folk and traditional arts? The definition can vary from where you live and the cultural community in your neighborhood. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has the following description:
“The folk and traditional arts, which include crafts, dance, music, oral traditions, visual arts, and others, are those that are learned as part of the cultural life of a community whose members share a common ethnic heritage, cultural mores, language, religion, occupation, or geographic region.”
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) states that California is a “leading creative and cultural capital in the world. With 1 in 4 Californians identifying as first-generation immigrants, our state is at the forefront of the country’s shift toward racial and ethnic plurality.” ACTA also states that their partnering traditional artists are “tradition-bearers in their communities, contributing what they believe, know, do, and create with others who share a common heritage, language, religion, occupation, or region.”
Traditional art draws from ceremony, celebration, and community. These are important for passing on the cultural values in our ethnic communities from generation to generation. The richness of our neighborhoods is the displaying and sharing of the traditional arts in the community.
It is essential to understand that traditional art is not a static form and never changes. Like any other art form, it is a creative process; however, the inspiration comes from tradition, history, and community practice. It can change and expand as the artist explores their roots and the communities in which they live. Many of our traditional artists and teachers are immigrants. It is of the highest importance to protect and preserve these tradition-bearers, teachers, and artists in our community. Traditional artists are often overlooked and ignored in the funding world because they are not known or understood. Our world and community would be a better place if we could better understand our immigrant communities’ cultural roots, practices, and arts.
We can all live in a safer and vibrant community by accepting and celebrating those who have other languages, foods, religions, clothing, cultural values, ceremonies, music, dance, art, and customs. We can learn to be more respectful of others who look and act differently from ourselves.
We can all be tradition-bearers. What we do today can become the roots of traditional arts tomorrow.
Roy is a leader in North American taiko and a Northern California leader in the arts community known for starting organizations, fiscal management, fundraising, and empowering the next generation of leaders. He is co-founder of one of the seminal taiko groups in North America, San Jose Taiko, and the group’s former Artistic and Executive Director. Roy is also a co-founder and current director of the Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute at the School of Arts & Culture in San Jose. He has been active in developing San Jose’s Japantown and arts community, and has been a champion for social justice, multicultural arts, and cultural preservation. He is past chair of the board of the Japantown Community Congress San Jose and of the School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza. As a nationally recognized folk and traditional artist, composer, producer, and collaborator in international projects, he is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow and an American Leadership Forum John W. Gardner Leadership awardee. He is currently on the board of SVCREATES.
Art was always a big thing in Piñon’s household. She remembers seeing different types of drawings and architectural renderings laying around her house, an early inspiration for her own creative pursuits. Her father was an artist and a tradesman, and he encouraged his children to follow in his creative footsteps. “He was always drawing and painting, and he kept me and my sisters busy with different drawing and painting projects,” Piñon recalls.
In high school, Piñon really started to get more serious about art. Starting with a photography class, Piñon enveloped herself in creative projects and credits different teachers with pushing her and other students to get exposure for their art. “They would show us a lot of types of art and really encouraged us to submit our art to galleries and festivals,” Piñon says. “Looking back, they were really progressive.”
Born in San Jose, Piñon’s family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, when she was 10 years old. After graduating high school, she moved back to San Jose, which she’s called home since. Piñon enrolled at De Anza College, where she was part of different group art shows and helped run a creative nonprofit in San Francisco. Around this time, Piñon started drawing tumbleweeds. “When I was a kid, we lived on two acres of land,” Piñon recalls. “So, I go from busy, multicultural, and diverse San Jose to Albuquerque, where one of my chores on the farm was to pull weeds.”
“I’m driven by very simple things in life, so I’m inspired by just having time to devote to an artistic project. I’m also inspired by what artists around me are doing currently and the kind of impact they are making during their time.” –Anabella Piñon
The memory pleased her, so she got a tumbleweed tattoo. From there, the obsession with the weeds only grew. Then a couple years ago, Piñon started drawing tumbleweeds, making them bigger and more colorful and complex. “To me, the tumbleweed represents something that’s constantly growing and moving forward—even when they dry up, they move on and plant their seeds,” Piñon says. “I relate that to how I live my life: even if I get stuck behind a fence, I’m still going to push forward; I’m still going to be blown away and get planted somewhere else.”
Piñon soon found that aesthetic representations of tumbleweeds had some interesting applications. Using a variety of mediums, from 35mm film photography to acrylic paint, Piñon finds visual symbolism in the tumbleweed’s transient form. She also creates large-scale tumbleweeds and wheat pastes them or renders them with spray paint in public spaces, giving the tumbleweeds a more appropriate home—out in the wild. Piñon experiments with as many mediums and materials as she can to create the tumbleweeds. One of her more recent experiments used linoleum cuts to portray a skeletal tumbleweed form.
Her most recent pieces incorporate tumbleweeds into figurative portraits, with the spindly shapes substituted for Frida Kahlo’s hair or Pancho Villa’s bandalero. The effect is harmonious, with the tumbleweeds dissolving into expressive shapes and tones, synthesizing the contrasts between real and artificial, manmade and natural. “Those recent pieces were born out of me thinking about how much weight these people, like Pancho Villa, had to carry and what that represents,” Piñon says. “I really wanted to give a value to the tumbleweeds, something most people walk right by or rip out of the ground.”
Beyond the tumbleweeds, Piñon has an extensive background in the arts community, something she is quite modest about. She used to teach art, and she was heavily involved in curating and organizing art shows and volunteering at art workshops. Nowadays, Piñon mostly makes art for herself. “I’m driven by very simple things in life, so I’m inspired by just having time to devote to an artistic project. I’m also inspired by what artists around me are doing currently and the kind of impact they are making during their time,” Piñon shares.
As for the future, Piñon plans to keep it low-key and cultivate the feeling of making art for herself.
Drive All Night is a stylized neo-noir thriller that follows a taxi driver through the night as his mysterious passenger leads him to surreal excursions. Staring @iamsarahdumont, @yutaka2011, @lexyhammonds_
Peter Hsieh is a writer and director from San Jose, California, who has written over 30 staged-plays. His full-length play Tangerina was a finalist for the 2015 Orange County New Play Festival, and the short play A Room with Modern Furniture won 3rd place at Playwrights CageMatch 2013 at Douglas Morrisson Theater. His feature film, Drive All Night, which he wrote and directed, is premiering at Cinequest Film & Creativity 2021 online festival and was shot in San Jose.
In addition to the film, Peter, executive producer Sam Chou, and producer Jonathan Quesenberry developed a mobile app game to gives you trans-media experience. (Available in App Store)
In our conversation, we talk about writing, producing, and directing his screenplay. The lessons he has learned from making Drive All Night and insights into writing and the film industry.
As the 10th-largest city in the United States, San Jose’s local news offerings are startlingly sparse. The Mercury News has reduced its staff reporters in recent years, even while buying out many of the surrounding community newspapers. Metro fills some of the holes in San Jose coverage, but as a free weekly, its scope is limited. Online publications like Patch have struggled with readership, and TV news outlets spread their resources across the entire Bay Area. All of this leaves Silicon Valley residents with few opportunities to read about local politics, community issues, and other important news affecting their lives.
“It’s a news desert,” says Josh Barousse, who, with his wife, journalist Ramona Giwargis, launched a new, independent, online news outlet called San Jose Spotlight in January. Spotlight is based on a nonprofit model, with the goal of addressing the dearth of news in the South Bay by delivering “an alternate source for high-quality, reliable, and truthful news.”
“[San Jose] It’s a news desert” _Josh Barousse
“It’s a new model in San Jose, but nationally, it’s a growing model,” says Barousse. This approach has seen success in cities and regions across the country, including San Francisco, Denver, and Vermont, but also has national support through news outlets like Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting. “It’s the fastest-growing news model—it’s the fastest-growing field in journalism,” Giwargis says. “There are, at this point, close to 200 nonprofit news organizations across the country.”
San Jose Spotlight will be a digital-only publication, with a completely free website, no paywall and no pop-up advertising. Funding will come from individual memberships, business partnerships, foundation grants, and special quarterly paid events that will feature educational opportunities, panel discussions, and community engagement. “For years, newspapers have relied on advertising to sustain themselves, but I personally feel that model is no longer working,” Giwargis explains. “People just aren’t buying print ads anymore; newspapers are reducing the size of the paper and the coverage, and yet they expect to be able to continue selling ads.” She also adds, “Looking to other [nonprofit publications] that have cut out ads and are relying just on those revenue streams we’ve mentioned—they’ve been able to make it work.”
“If this model could be successful in Nevada, why not in Silicon Valley, the heart of innovation?”_Ramona Giwargis
Just as is the case with other nonprofits, fundraising will need to be a focus, and the goal is for Spotlight to receive most of its funding from individual donors so that they don’t need to rely on large grants that can disappear unexpectedly. Barousse, who will manage the development and operational elements of the organization, sees this as key to long-term sustainability. Memberships to the site will be similar to a donation to a public television station or to your favorite podcast network, with levels ranging from five dollars to $200 per month.
The Spotlight duo met when Giwargis was covering the 2016 City Council races, in which Barousse had an unsuccessful bid for the District 8 seat. Both of them grew up in San Jose and went to school locally, and they made a good connection. After Barousse moved on from policy work at City Hall to doing advocacy for Silicon Valley at Home, they kept in touch, and a relationship blossomed. “It’s a winning combination,” Barousse points out, referring to both their personal and professional partnership. “Her journalism background and my development background can really make [San Jose Spotlight] successful long-term.”
Giwargis brings with her more than 10 years of experience in journalism, much of it working the city hall beat for The Mercury News. But when she lost her job in December of 2017, a new opportunity came up quickly at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, so she and Barousse put a pin in their San Jose roots and made the move. Her new position was covering politics and government, including the recent, highly-contentious US Senate campaign. “It was one of the most closely watched senate races in the nation,” she explains. “It was a great experience.”
While living in Nevada for just over a year, the couple discovered a newspaper called The Nevada Independent. “It’s a nonprofit model and they’re doing incredible work,” Giwargis says. “I was curious to see if we could do something similar in San Jose; we had been talking about it for years, and this was the first time it kind of clicked for me that the nonprofit news model might be the way to do it,” she adds. “I came home from work one day and told Josh, ‘I want us to do this for our hometown, in San Jose.’ We felt like if this model could be successful in Nevada, why not in Silicon Valley, the heart of innovation?”
Their move to Vegas always felt temporary, and they have kept close ties to friends and networks back in San Jose for the past year they have been away. “People who realize that through my years at The Mercury News I was always fair, continue to come to me with stories,” Giwargis says. “Even when I was in Nevada, I would often get text messages and phone calls from sources back in San Jose saying, ‘This is happening; no one’s writing about this’ or ‘Wish you were here. You could cover this.’ So we still have those relationships.” Barousse and Giwargis are tapping into a network of journalists known in the community, who have covered the South Bay, who have sources, and have built relationships. “Josh is very respected and very well known as a man of high integrity who’s built a lot of relationships in the community—and I have, too,” Giwargis says.
Making the move back to San Jose to create San Jose Spotlight has been an exciting one. When the full site launched, it already had well over 100 members signed up, along with grant money and support from some prominent local leaders who are eager to see what a new news source can bring to the community. Success, the two founders agree, would be to create something reliable and sustainable that is community driven and community supported. “This is a movement. This is a new day for San Jose,” says Giwargis. “This is an opportunity to do things completely differently than we’ve done in the past.”
For a city that has been fasting in a desert for years, San Jose Spotlight might be just the thing to quench the community’s thirst for news.
Founded in 1967 by Pat and Joan Hayes, Recycle Bookstore has become a San Jose institution, where visitors can wander through cases of books, from literary classics to special interest texts, in the company of the shop’s well-loved felines. The distinctive character of each cat, detailed on the bookstore website, matches the character of the shop’s offerings—many of the books are rich with the history of previous readers. In 1998, Eric and Cynthia Johnson bought the store, and in 2004, they opened a second location in Campbell.
“When people enter a bookstore, they aren’t entering a retail store, but a magical portal—they can go anywhere they want to go and be anyone they want to be…”
In his own words, Eric’s mission is to “create a bookstore with thousands of books, constituting a mix of standard classics and books with topics to inspire curiosity, in an atmosphere that encourages browsing and quiet exploration.” One technique he has learned over the years to better cater to his customers is stocking plenty of the standards that are requested on a regular basis. Books by Hemingway, Steinbeck, Sartre, Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Robert Heinlein can always be found on the shelves.
Eric doesn’t seem worried about the idea that bookstores might eventually be replaced with online stores like Amazon. “Bookstores, I think, will always be part of the cultural landscape of cities,” Eric says. “A certain number of people will always gravitate toward a physical place dedicated to the concept that books are gateways to explore ourselves and the world.”
Bookstores also offer satisfaction for curious minds and dreamers. “When people enter a bookstore, they aren’t entering a retail store, but a magical portal—they can go anywhere they want to go and be anyone they want to be: a nebula, the Ottoman Empire, the American Revolution, the beginnings of humankind, their inner selves, far-off lands full of treasure, lands populated by dragons, the quantum world. The choices are almost infinite, which sort of makes bookstores transdimensional spaces.”
To understand the approach and philosophy of BAMN—By Any Media Necessary—it may be best to start with a music video. Opening with a crowd shot of eager performers ready to audition for America’s Got Vocals, “I L*** You” establishes a spoof world akin to American Idol and America’s Got Talent, with Andrew Bigs at the forefront of the story. The judges mock Bigs before he launches into his song, a confrontational affirmation of self-love. He soon turns the tables, flipping off the very people who could, in this alternate reality, send him to Hollywood. During the video’s crescendo, dismissed contestants infiltrate the room, taking back their inspiration and creativity from the judges, established in shows like these as gatekeepers of opportunity.
Beneath the light-hearted narrative frame, there lies the distinct punk-rock ethos of urging viewers to “do it yourself,” despite what supposed gatekeepers may say. The storyline mirrors the way BAMN’s core unit of creative partners feel about their own road to success. Self-described underdogs of the scene, BAMN strives to share compelling stories that inspire community pride. That inspirational, and at times political, message stretches across several forms of media.
Andrew Bigs explains that BAMN rose out of a need to find a working solution to the conundrum of the creative artist—work diligently in your off-time to pursue your dream, or quit your job and grind to make your dream a reality, without going broke. That working solution was to create an infrastructure that would allow them to sustain and fund themselves. “To be independent is to be free,” Bigs says, “and you have to build the team in order to do it.”
That’s the challenge BAMN’s seven-member team took on when they left their day jobs to make their collective passion their livelihood. Though the company has been up and running for a year and a half, its conception came from a series of chats among local artists, videographers, and community leaders at Eastside shop Coffee Lovers four years ago. The crew began to blossom in earnest in 2015 when these disparate voices reunited to help Bigs create his video for “Dollaz.” The project clicked into place. “We were just trying to figure out what we could do for the city of San Jose,” recalls Marlo Custodio, videographer and BAMN’s creative director. “There were not enough stories being told, and not enough unity within our generation in terms of the content and stories we wanted to tell.”
“There were not enough stories being told, and not enough unity within our generation in terms of the content and stories we wanted to tell.”
_Marlo Custodio
BAMN has struggled with viewers grasping the full scope of its output, projects spanning music videos, artist releases, video skits and short films, and immersive themed events like Open Pad Party (OPP). The event rollout for OPP incorporated a series of skits that established characters who extended the concept of the event, including an antagonist who was ceremoniously booed during the show. In line with their mission, this multifaceted approach came from a desire to throw a rap show with a brand new spin. “Some people see us only as entertainment because they see our events or music videos,” says Phillip Du, a former designer at Microsoft who generates much of BAMN’s branding and messaging. BAMN, however, pushes the boundaries. “We’re always trying to find new ways to do what we love,” Du says.
Back when they operated under a four-quarter format akin to a record label, complete with an artist roster of in-house producers and rappers, the team called themselves an entertainment company. They now prefer “new age content studio,” which better portrays their desire to craft engaging narratives through various forms of media and to leverage social media messaging to maximize their reach.
BAMN has also recently extended that reach into new markets. Through its sister agency, NEEBA, BAMN’s creative core focuses on delivering engaging content to Fortune 500 clients. As NEEBA, the team has worked with clients like Intel, ASUS, and the Vernon Davis Foundation, once more pushing their own boundaries. Telling stories now for a whole new audience.
BAMN’s core is similarly fluid when it comes to roles. Bigs may be most visible as an artist, but he also works behind the scenes. “I could go from recording to being an assistant director or emailing people we’re partnering with,” he notes. “We’re all capable of more than just one thing, and we utilize ourselves in that way.” That team-minded approach is a centerpiece of their working philosophy.
Also at the center is respect. Though they’re the creative team on a wide range of projects, functioning together tightly as a unit, the core members of BAMN are partners, Custodio notes, each with their own brand identity. As BAMN, they thrive collectively, individually. Artists, partners, teammates, brothers.
Article orogoanll apperar in issue 9.2 “Sight and Sound” 2017
For current information and video prodcution details contact Marlo Custodio
Since leaving his native Hawaii for UC Berkeley in 1985, writer and scholar Jeff Chang has emerged as a potent contemporary cultural critic and one of hip-hop’s leading advocates. Jeff Chang may be one of today’s leading contemporary cultural scholars, but there are plenty of signs that he’s still very much a fan of the culture he writes about so eloquently and thoroughly.
Inside his office at Stanford’s School for Diversity in the Arts, filled with family photographs, an overstocked bookshelf overflowing onto the floor, and playful notes from students, he joyfully tells of how hip-hop has become a cultural bridge for him to connect with his children.
Periodically, he’ll go through massive trading sessions with his two sons, aged 18 and 13. In exchange for schooling them on old school hip-hop and soul, he gets to find out about emerging acts like Makonnen, Bobby Schmurda, and Father. Such examples of art breaking down barriers and changing minds has been a critical narrative through-line throughout Chang’s illustrious career, in which he has penned two books, edited a hip-hop anthology, and contributed to such storied publications as The New York Times, the Guardian, The San Francisco Examiner, URB, and The Village Voice.
Though he’s been writing about hip-hop since the ’80s, Chang exploded onto the landscape with Can’t Stop Won’t Stop in 2005. With its exhaustive research and accessible, anecdotal storytelling, the book emerged as a seminal case study on hip-hop, helping cement the oft-maligned culture as a culturally rich domestic movement. The book won both the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award.
The son of working class parents, Chang grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii and attended the ‘Iolani School, one of the state’s most prominent private prep schools. He attended on scholarship, which involved him serving and cleaning up after his peers, an experience he says was his “introduction to class issues.”
Raised in a family with Hawaiian ties that traced back several generations, Chang grew up with a pretty open notion of race.
“It was natural for me to be around people who were literally my blood, but who were much darker skinned or lighter skinned than I was,” he recalls. “The whole Benetton [concept of] all the colors of the world in the spectrum intermarrying with every single race—that was my family.”
It was a bit of a culture shock, then, for Chang when he arrived on campus at UC Berkeley in 1985. He remembers being called chink and told to go back to where he came from within a month of his move to the Bay Area, a shocking revelation for those who view the region as a beacon of social progress. As Chang notes, his freshman class was the first at Berkeley to be majority non-white, so he saw the Bay Area’s cultural progress manifest itself before his eyes.
It was around this time that he started writing for different publications in hip-hop’s emerging zine scene. “I found that it was a really good place to be able to capture a lot of the things that I was feeling about hip-hop, race, and culture at the time,” he says. That experience was rounded out by a stint spinning hip-hop at Cal’s radio station KALX.
Chang graduated with a degree in economics to please his parents. However, classes taught by Ronald Takaki—characterized as a superhero by Chang and his classmates—were crucial to his development as a burgeoning activist.
Upon graduation, he ended up in Sacramento working in state legislature from 1989 to 1992. He kept his love for hip-hop alive by scoring a spot on-air at UC Davis’s KDVS. During this time, he played a part in helping form the Solesides collective (now known as Quannum Projects), comprised of hip-hop luminaries DJ Shadow, Latyrx, and Blackalicious.
Five years their elder, Chang remembers Lyrics Born (one half of Latyrx) as the guy who won all the contests. DJ Shadow was the encyclopedic music nerd who made all the requests. “I was the ideologue, if anything,” says Chang of his place in the collective. Reluctant to take credit for forming the crew, he insists Solesides would’ve happened anyway—he just made the suggestion at the right time.
Chang left for UCLA, where he studied Asian American Studies, in the summer of 1992. He continued pushing Solesides, acting as the crew’s de facto manager when they pushed out their first release in 1993. Over 20 years later, he’s proud to have contributed to something that’s ensured fruitful, lasting careers for his close friends.
Despite his accolades, when he recounts his six-year process for writing Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Chang admits, “I’m a late bloomer as a writer.” Though the book wasn’t released until he was almost 40, it had a sweeping impact. His prose thoroughly contextualized hip-hop’s cultural explosion in the Bronx in the ’70s as an empowering cultural response to the rampant poverty and violence present in the borough at the time. A decade after its release, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop stands as a defining statement on hip-hop culture.
Around 2009 or 2010, Chang was approached by Sami Alim, Faculty Director for Stanford’s Institute for Diversity in the Arts (IDA). A hip-hop head, Alim informed Chang that he had an opportunity for him to use hip-hop as a lens to explore notions of diversity and social change in the arts. Stanford provided Chang with a chance to once again work directly with students.
Chang maintains that IDA’s hip-hop studies program is among the best in the country, adding “We’re getting to do research that is cutting edge and that has the possibility to change the way a lot of people think about arts education.”
While touring Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, Chang stumbled upon the idea that eventually became Who We Be, released this past October. At one event, he was part of a panel that looked to contextualize hip-hop within the multiculturalism movement. It was there he realized the topic was rich enough to cover in a book. The only problem was that his editor didn’t bite, saying no one was interested in multiculturalism at the time.
He abandoned the idea until 2008, when Barack Obama’s presidential campaign provided the flash point he needed. As Chang began to ask, if we were really past race—if multiculturalism helped us overcome inequality—why was Obama’s campaign proving so divisive?
“Multiculturalism taught us what we can’t say to each other in civil company,” explains Chang, “but what it hasn’t taught us is the conversation that we need to have to move beyond just being civil to each other and to really treat each other as equals.”
Who We Be has proven incredibly timely given the recent fervor surrounding the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, black men killed by white police officers. He feels both examples display the split-second implicit bias that still exists underneath our notions of living in a post-racial society, and it’s an idea he explores in the book.
“Noticing difference isn’t in and of itself a bad thing. Although many people want to demonize that as such, what I think happens is that difference gets attached to notions of what’s superior and what’s inferior, who belongs and who doesn’t belong,” he says. “Who We Be as a book is about two things. On the one hand, it’s a celebration of the way that artists can change the way we literally see each other and [can help us] see the world for the better. But on the other hand, it’s asking some hard questions. After multiculturalism, after hip-hop, after all of this cultural desegregation, why do we still have rising rates of inequality and cultural resegregation?”
Exploring these ideas of social justice always seemed to run counter to his moonlighting as a DJ and hip-hop writer. Only recently has he discovered that these were simply two parts to the same mission.
“I started out as an activist interested in helping to further social change and social justice. At the same time, I was a DJ. I took for granted that I was engaged in something that had already changed my mind millions of times over. After I’d been writing about hip-hop for years, I realized, ‘Wait a minute, all this is part of the same spectrum.’”
Though Who We Be only recently hit shelves, Chang already has his next two projects lined up. Youth will explore many layers of being young. He’s also starting to work on a Bruce Lee biography.
“What’s cool for me is I get to disseminate hip-hop to folks who are at the age I was when all these things were in the air for me,” he says.
Chang’s role at Stanford speaks to the lasting impact hip-hop has had on the global consciousness, not to mention his role in helping redefine the movement’s cultural significance. The chance is not lost on Chang, who recognizes his unique opportunity to spread the message of hip-hop’s power and relevance to a room full of bright young minds at one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Not a bad backup plan for a cat with an econ degree.
Article originally appeared in Reveal Issue 7.0, 2015.
Gabriel Edwards, who goes by Gabe, is a full-time artist and dad, living with his wife and daughter in San Jose, and with a son on the way. Over the past six years, Gabe has been working on two large, ongoing projects: drawing collages of objects from horror films using a style called “knolling,” where the artist arranges various objects in parallel with each other on paper, and recording his own audiobooks on cassette. At their core, both projects are about transforming content from one medium into another, with Gabe putting his own interpretive twist on the original book or movie.
Gabe graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a master of fine arts in painting. It was there that he created some of his earliest collages and audiobooks, starting with self-recorded audiobooks complete with hand-drawn cover art for each cassette. It started when he decided to record Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach, on cassette. He then drew reproductions of the book’s cover art for the cassette case cover in black pen. Gabe realized that he’d really enjoyed the process, and he wanted to keep doing it. “In grad school, there was a guy that started making ceramic masks in the seventies, and because he had a group of collectors, whether he loved it or hated it, for the sake of the collectors, he still had to make them,” said Gabe. “So I thought, maybe if that’s what being an artist really looks like, what’s a project I can do that I’ll be glad to keep doing? I really wanted to just read books and be really well-read; that sounded awesome.”
Hundreds of recording hours after that moment, Gabe has an honest perspective on reading: “I don’t like reading books so much as I like having read them. And maybe that doesn’t make me a true reader. I know people who for fun will curl up all day with a book. For me, it’s like, ‘Gotta go to work now; gotta spend an hour reading this.’” Gabe has completed 85 books on tape, though with a new baby coming, he plans to tackle shorter books next year.
As with his audiobooks, the first inspiration for drawing the horror film object collages came in grad school. “The film drawings are part of my compulsive list making,” said Gabe. “The first time I did this in grad school, some money was supposed to come to me, but it hadn’t yet. And I was making a list on my wall in my studio of things I wanted to buy once that money came in. And then I started to make a list and draw all the things I’d regretted buying.” A few years later, Gabe started drawing objects from horror movies using knolling. “When I started making these, I got about 10 deep, and then I thought, ‘Well how many more of these am I gonna make?’ I think numbers are important, so it was either going to be 13 or 666, and since 13 wasn’t enough, 666 it was,” said Gabe. He’s completed 134 horror film drawings so far, which he’s sold at various events and zine festivals along the West Coast.
To make these, Gabe takes notes on key objects that appear in a film, such as the hockey mask in Friday the 13th. Using pen and marker, he then draws a collage of the items to represent the movie as a whole. He deliberately does not include the name of the movie, leaving it for the viewer to deduce on their own. Having completed 134 horror film drawings so far, Gabe plans to create one single printed collection when he’s finished.
Gabe brings an original touch to interpreting movies and literature. It’s rare to find an artist who finds new ways to pay homage to someone else’s art, but Gabe has achieved that with his work. While he’s exploring future shows in galleries along the West Coast, Gabe’s main focus is to keep creating new audiobooks and knolling drawings and to prepare for the newest member of his family.
gabrieldedwards.com Instagram: gabrieldedwards
Article originally appeared in issue 12.0 “Discovered.”
#51 Eric Bui- Multimedia Artist Look through Eric Bui’s social media feed and you will notice that he enjoys drawing with ink and pen as well as digital tools like Procreate. Recently, Eric found himself in the local spotlight because of a piece he submitted to a group exhibit curated by the City of San Jose called “Holding the Moment,” a series of works by 77 artists displayed at the San Jose International Airport. One of his selected pieces, “AMERICANA,” received complaints, prompting the City to rotate the show earlier than scheduled. In our discussion, Eric shares his creative path, the intentions behind the piece, and the encouragement and support he received from the San Jose creative community following the illustration’s removal.
This episode’s music in “Tang” by Chris Emond. Follow Chris on Spotify, http://bit.ly/ChrisEmond Featured in issue 13.2 “Sight and Sound” 2021 https://www.content-magazine.com/issue/issue-13-2/
Allan Barnes creates stunning photographs that look as if they were unearthed from an antique book in an old library, and that’s because the process he uses is more than 150 years old. The technique, called wet plate collodion, results in monochromatic pictures that are haunting, soft, and beautiful, with a grainy depth that can’t be recreated with modern film or filters.
Finding his way to an antique photo method has been a long journey for Barnes, who grew up in Detroit and had an early love for complicated large format photos before pivoting to more traditional 35mm film as his career developed.
Barnes fell in love with a large format camera and started making landscapes of Detroit, and later went to live in Spain for a year, where he tried taking a giant large format camera with him. “It was so impractical to take on public transportation, so I quickly gave up and started using 35mm pretty much exclusively,” Barnes says.
After returning to Detroit from his travels, he began a successful career in photojournalism, getting assignments from local and national publications and doing a lot of traveling. Eventually, he was offered a unique gig as a staff photographer at a magazine in Guam. The magazine was started by a photographer he knew from Detroit, who was originally from Guam and moved back and started a chain of print magazines.
“I got encouraged to try lots of new formats there, like do some Polaroid transfers, try some large format, do a travel piece,” Barnes says. “I had morphed into a 35mm photojournalist guy.” He returned to large format and began the journey he’s on now—working large format.
Barnes’s passion for specific film stock and the technical details around the process of photography comes through in conversation with him, and it’s clear that he enjoys challenging himself through his work. “I was starting to do a lot of experimental work with Polaroid material,” he recalls. “The doomsday clock for Polaroid was ticking as digital became the new technology.” His film of choice was Polaroid Type 55—black and white. “It was amazing film,” he explains. “It gave you both a negative and a positive, so if you were doing travel stuff you could take somebody’s picture and give them a copy, and then you had the negative. It was beautiful film, so I really was in love with that.”
But Polaroid went bankrupt, eliminating his favorite film stock. Meanwhile, the journalism business was also changing, and Barnes found himself wanting to explore his artistic side. Inspired by work from photographer Robert Maxwell, he immersed himself in learning wet plate techniques, and in 2006, he moved to Los Angeles, into a giant shared loft with a bunch of other artists.
“I started doing this antique process, collaborating with clothing designers and circus performers, clowns, magicians, musicians–there’s just a really amazing pool of people. So I started doing a lot of portraiture in this space behind my studio,” says Barnes. “Photography has taken me to all these places [where] I might not have spent any time and taken me to events and introduced me to people. It has been a really good journey. You have this passport to be kind of an anthropologist/investigator.”
After developing his photos, Barnes scans and transfers the images to a digital format to clean up in Photoshop, merging his antique technique with modern technology. He has embraced Instagram and Tumblr for sharing his work.
“Technology is a banquet,” he says. “You can do these crazy old processes, but then you can enhance them with Photoshop and Lightroom and make inkjet prints of them. I just made my first inkjet print of one of the pictures from yesterday and it’s gorgeous.”
Today, he teaches digital photography at Morgan Hill High School while living in San Jose, where his apartment doubles as his photo studio. He also teaches workshops on the wet plate technique at Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco, temporarily on hold until after the pandemic.
“It’s such a fickle process, but when you get a good plate, it’s like random reinforcement–which is the way people get addicted to gambling.” –Allan Barnes
Barnes came up to the Bay Area for a teaching job, but didn’t plan on living here. “I set my sights on Los Angeles, and it was a struggle. I had to reinvent myself,” he shares. “I was like, ‘Are you still a photographer if people don’t call you and offer you money to take pictures of things?’ Well, I’m still a photographer, and I’m still going to produce work; it just became my own journey instead of a journey inspired by people paying me to do stuff.”
Between teaching gigs, he has been exploring landscape photography, traveling up and down the coast to capture the stunning views that can be found across Northern California. But the antique technique doesn’t travel well. A mobile darkroom is required, as the negatives need to be developed quickly. His solution was to buy an RV to do the job, another example of his dedication to the craft.
“It’s intensely physical,” he explains. There is a lot of equipment involved, and it’s very slow. The exposure times are long and there’s all kinds of stuff that can go wrong. “It’s such a fickle process, but when you get a good plate, it’s like random reinforcement–which is the way people get addicted to gambling. You spend a lot of time making a picture, and when it comes out really good, you’re holding it in your hand; it’s grains of silver, it’s tangible.”
Featured in issue 13.2 “Sight and Sound,” Spring 2021
Since childhood, Aaron Schwartz has never stayed in one place very long, and over the years, that traveling spirit has carried him, sometimes on a whim, to places as far-flung as New York and Israel. Wanderlust is in his bones, but his one constant has been music—making it, sharing it, celebrating it.
Schwartz, known by the stage name DirtyBeats, jokes that being born in Miami meant he was destined to love bass. In his early years, he moved back and forth from the North Bay to Boulder, Colorado, always emphasizing music in his life. “My mom always forced me to take some type of musical instrument class. It stuck with me,” he shares. Strangely enough, his mom is also the one who introduced him to electronic music. After returning from a trip to India in the late ’80s, she encouraged him to listen to a new type of music she had heard called acid house. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s, when electronic music was becoming more of an underground force stateside, that those sounds truly grabbed ahold of Schwartz.
“High school is when I got into electronic music kind of hardcore, just going out and partying more. I started going to a lot more raves then,” he explains. Acid house may have been his entry point, but drum and bass was where he found love. His stage name, DirtyBeats, for instance, is an homage to a Roni Size track; Goldie and the Metalheadz crew remain an obsession, and it has long been his dream to sign to that label.
“A lot of electronic music is creating loops then breaking them apart and arranging them. Usually, I’ll hear something. I won’t know what I’m doing half the time. That’s kind of what the art of it is.” –Aaron Schwartz
At 16, he had his first shot on the decks, jumping on at an after party. “I know I didn’t sound good,” he laughs when thinking back. “When I started buying records, I didn’t understand sorting through and mixing by beats per minute, so I know it sounded jumbled.” Early on, his mom’s friends tried to start him off on slower music, but he insisted on mixing breakneck breakbeats, often moving at 160 beats per minute—an insanely fast and precise task to transition into for a beginner. However he did pick it up in time and, at the age of 18, won a DJ competition put on by San Rafael music shop Bananas at Large, which earned him a free mixer.
His fascination with manipulating sound led him to study audio engineering at SF State. That experience also helped him discover that anything
he encountered could serve as source material for his music. Schwartz got into the habit of capturing everyday sounds with his field recorder, bringing the device along with him to capture a busy restaurant at night or the metallic clang of the light rail slowly chugging through the streets of downtown San Jose.
“A lot of electronic music is creating loops then breaking them apart and arranging them. Usually, I’ll hear something. I won’t know what I’m doing half the time. That’s kind of what the art of it is.” A spark may come from one of the files in his huge sound library—a cache that’s crashed his computer on more than one occasion.
Take the title track from his Anubis EP, released in May 2017 through Dubstep SF. A phased-out Muslim call to prayer, recorded on his phone during his time in Israel, slowly builds to a drop that reveals a floating flute melody slinking in between metallic yelps and scratchy swoops, all underscored by sub-bass moving at dubstep’s signature half-time pace. It highlights his point perfectly: electronic music can build from practically anything to create an evocative mélange. Last year also welcomed the release of a more drum-and-bass focused effort, the Preon EP, through Bass Star Records.
After some hiccups and uncertainty, he recently received some good news: he’s back onboard with 50/50 Global EDM, a label associated with Sony Music. He’ll be rolling out three singles this year through their imprint: “Bring the Hype,” “Lahav,” and “The Giants.” Keeping in line with his established sound, the songs will feature elements of dubstep, drum and bass, and grime.
“Part of me feels like when I do more production, the better events will come—festivals and that kind of stuff,” he states of his hopes for 2018.
Article originally appeared in issue 10.2 “Sight and Sound 2018
SOLD OUT
#50 – Brendan Rawson – Executive Director San Jose Jazz
“I sure hope that we keep growing a local culture scene that keeps presenting opportunities to folks to find their area that they’re able to grow themselves and contribute.”
South Bay native Brendan Rawson has worked in the local arts scene for more than twenty years. Since joining San Jose Jazz (SJZ) in 2012, Brendan has worked to increase their education programs’ impact and conceived many of their most successful initiatives, including Jazz Beyond programming and the mobile Boombox Truck stage.
Brendan is a long-time community supporter — a dedication sparked while he was working as a barback at the infamous Ajax Lounge in Downtown San Jose. That passion and experience set him on a path to not only become the executive director of SJZ but also to serve on the boards of various arts organizations, including San José Arts Advocates.
Music for this episode is “Time Alone” by Mild Monk. Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
Collaborative artist duo t.w.five works exclusively with adhesive-backed vinyl, using the medium to create everything from small canvases to large-scale wall art—colorfully depicting people, environments, and abstract shapes at festivals, in public spaces, and brightening the environment of numerous office complexes around the Bay Area.
Both immigrants (one from Brazil and one from Sweden) graduated from San Jose State University (at separate times). They met through the tight-knit South Bay arts community and soon began an informal collaboration that would eventually lead to their artistic partnership. Now based in San Francisco, t.w.five has had residencies at the de Young Museum, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the Kala Art Institute, among others; has exhibited work worldwide; and produced commissions for offices, billboards, and recently at the UCSF Precision Cancer Medical Building. They are now based out of a studio in San Francisco.
Can you describe a little bit about your background and your journey into becoming artists in the Bay Area? How did you find each other to become collaborators, and how did you wind up working in vinyl, specifically? Both of us graduated from San Jose State, but years apart, so we first got to meet through some common group of artist friends from the South Bay. Our collaboration started without us knowing it, with a trip to New York City, with only one Canon camera between the two of us. We spent our time walking around neighborhoods all over the city and taking some photos that we thought were pretty nice pictures. We both have different art backgrounds, but we realized that we shared the same aesthetic in how we viewed things around us.
When arriving back in San Francisco, one of us needed to use some of the photos from our New York trip for an upcoming show. From that, the idea of us collaborating came up. But [it] was alien to both of us, since we both have always created art in solitude. We were also aware that our personal art styles are very different from one another, as well as our material choices, one of us being photographer/screen.printer of urban culture, [the other a] painter that practiced expressive, mostly figurative/landscape paintings. Needless to say, we decided to give the collaboration a go, and it was the first time we introduced adhesive rolls of vinyl as our primary material.
Who and what are some of your biggest influences and inspirations? That’s the thing. Since we both came from different backgrounds, we also have different artists that we liked and shared between us. We will say, anything that came out from the Bay Area figurative movement from the ’50s and ’60s—David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bichoff, Nathan Olivera, and Joan Brown, also a HUGE inspiration from Andy Warhol that we can never get enough from, and the Bauhaus movement of combining craft with art. We also love looking at architecture, design, street art, Pop Art, Brazilian concrete art and poetry, Japanese contemporary art, Cy Twombly, photography, music—lots of it—film, and filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Neill Blomkamp, Lukas Moodysson, sci-fi…
What are some of your favorite pieces you’ve created or experiences you’ve had creating and exhibiting large-scale art works? Tough question—it is hard to pick out favorites. But we have a special love for a 44-foot piece we did for the Headlands Center for the Arts benefit auction in 2016. The piece is called it’s all fun at 2:15 am and was based on the dynamics and a moment being in an art studio. We used multiple images from Warhol factory, which we made into our own composition and colors. This piece is now part of the Facebook collection.
We love so many. Making each one is a unique experience that we dive into completely.
We finished a six-floor commission at UCSF’s new cancer wing at Mission Bay. That commission was a year and half of meetings with the board, the architects, and designers. It was a lot of learning. Every single step of the way had to be looked at and approved because we were dealing with a sensitive audience: the patients. It was a beautiful journey for us.
You’ve also been commissioned to create works for some of the tech giants of the area. How did these come to be, and what were your experiences like? Yes, we have done artworks for Google, Facebook, GoDaddy, Checkr. The GoDaddy piece was the only one that we did at the company and straight on the wall. All the others, we did the majority of the work in panels at the studio and then installed at the headquarters and did some add-on there. That is the part we love, because we get to interact with the workers and hear their opinions and feedback—and be part of their culture, too.
Usually, once [companies] contact us, we go to meetings to exchange ideas about what they envision. We always try to bring to the table our ideas that we can see it incorporating into what they want. With some, we have absolutely had freedom to do what we wanted, and those are super fun.
How would you describe the way you conceive of and create your pieces? How does your collaboration work? Do either of you focus more on specific elements of the creation process? The ideas come from things we are interested in or something we see that inspires us. We both bring our ideas to the studio and show them to one another and feed on each other’s ideas and inspirations.
Once we are set on the subject, we start to look for images on the internet, read and research a lot about it. After we find the images, we work on them a bit on Photoshop—adding colors or subtracting things in the image we don’t want, etc. Then, if the work is big, we project [onto a surface] just to get the basic outline of things, then turn off the projector and improvise everything. We do everything in vinyl, and it is all hand-cut. The only tools we use are an Exacto knife, scissors, and ruler.
We work on different parts of the artwork together and then we switch. When we step back to look at the work, we always like and dislike the same things. It’s incredible how our minds work together in such harmony.
How has the time of COVID-19 and shelter-in-place changed your process or perspective as artists, if at all? First, it was a bit of adjustment, but then we both turned to our studio as much as we could and started to work all the time. It was actually what kept us sane to navigate through these new, different times. All our exhibitions and commissions got either canceled or postponed. So, we had to figure out other ways to promote our work or apply for new projects. But it turned out that we found a lot of inspiration and ways to communicate with fellow artists or our collectors via Zoom.
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.1 Discover (Print SOLD OUT)
Although a visual artist now, Matthew Heimgartner was initially drawn to the creative world through storytelling. Writing stories throughout his childhood in San Jose and adding doodles in the margins, it wasn’t until 2017 that he made what he considers the official switch—that is, showing his artwork publicly. Thankfully so, as Heimgartner’s work is expressive, vibrant, and intimate—so intimate, in fact, it almost feels as if his art is only accidentally seen by the public eye. Working in a mixture of pen, pencil, and watercolor, Heimgartner’s surrealist influences are apparent but not overwhelming. By finding a careful balance between absurd and defined, his art exudes a raw emotion that is hard to ignore and even harder to forget.
“I want people to look at my art and feel like they have had a conversation with me. My art is very personal, because I have a hard time being personable. I feel like I have lived so many different lives in my 28 years, and I have a hard time jumping between those lives and reconnecting with the people that were once really close to me. I feel like I can talk about and express that in my art, and people will understand the feelings that I feel, but the viewer gets to add their own connotation of that feeling.”
#49 Halfdan Hussey – CEO and Co-Founder of Cinequest and Creatics
Halfdan (hallf’ dun) Hussey is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cinequest Inc. and Creatics Enterprises Inc. Launched in 1990, Cinequest fuses innovations with creativity to empower youth, artists, audiences, and innovators globally. His passion for creating positive and transformative impact in our world is ever-present in his work. Having produced five films, written two books, and successfully built companies, Halfdan demonstrates his love for the worlds of leadership and creativity, and youth empowerment.
A year ago, 48 hours before the opening night of the 30th Cinequest celebration, COVID hit.
Cinequest was one of the first California institutions to make the tough choices to postpone the festival after six days of safe in-person events.
Fortunately, Cinequest leadership was already working on a digital media platform called, Creatics that they could alter to include online screenings in the summer of 2020, which has been a great test run for this year’s Cinequest Online Festival coming March 20-30th.
In our conversation, Halfdan talks about the changes they have had to make to their programming and how those adjustments will roll out to this year’s festival.
Follow Cinequest and register for this year’s festival at cinequest.org and their new platform Creatics.org.
Cinequest Virtual, entitled Cinejoy featuring the Artists & Movies of Cinequest, will occur March 20-30, and tickets will go on sale in early March. You will find your logins, profile, browsing, and shopping experience easy and fun! You will discover a lineup of live events, community interactions, and movies that fulfill the Cinequest legacy: vanguard, stellar, and inspiring.
If you want to visit a real-life Moe’s Tavern, visit the Caravan Lounge, San Jose’s grand dive bar. You won’t see Homer Simpson or Barney, but Jägermeister is on tap and on Wednesday nights you’ll meet Ato Walker, who hosts its weekly comedy show.
Walker, 36, is a professional comedian, dad to three-year-old Atlizel, and a volunteer at Sacred Heart Community Services’ La Mesa Verde, where he helps families in need access healthy food.
He calls himself “Mr. Walker.” He started out hosting comedy nights at San Jose’s Britannia Arms and now performs at the Ice House, San Jose Improv, Laughs Unlimited, Rooster T. Feathers, and the Caravan Lounge. He’s also emceed Music in the Park and the San Jose Jazz Festival.
Raised in Pasadena, as a child actor he appeared in NBC’s Shannon’s Deal and in Nike and Pepsi commercials. He came to San Jose after high school to work for City Year Americorps and stayed on working for nonprofits and doing comedy.
San Francisco is known as a comedy city, famous for Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Cho, and Ellen DeGeneres. Is San Jose a comedy city? San Jose definitely has its own scene but I think what differentiates us is that the audiences here like smart comedy, but they also like dirty stuff. It’s kind of a weird dynamic. Whereas in San Francisco you have to be smart and quippy and avant-garde because San Francisco comedy is very “hipstery.” I think there’s more of a sense of fun in San Jose comedy. There’s more of a sense of “anything goes.” We push boundaries and audiences here like that.
Do you have a favorite joke? Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine. [Laughs]
What makes good comedy? Successful comedians really try to connect the audience with their personal stories or something that they’re really passionate about, even if it’s something terrible. It started with Richard Pryor. He was the innovator of telling it like it is and telling it from your perspective. A lot of comics mimic that. I think it’s successful because it’s the most honest. It transcends gender, race, and politics, and people understand what you’re saying. You tell your truth in a funny way and people love it.
A theme you work with is your experience being black in liberal Silicon Valley, is that accurate? Is there a better way to say it? That’s very accurate. I am a black person. I am a male. I think I identify as a feminist, as having different views toward relationships. I’m struggling with all of that stuff, but I struggle with it openly as a comic.
There are comedians who have achieved greatness using material that made their white audiences feel uncomfortable: Mort Saul, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Dick Gregory, and W. Kamau Bell. My whole thing is that white people have been making black people feel uncomfortable for six hundred years. It’s kind of funny that white folks laugh about themselves when we’re pointing out the ridiculous nature of their privilege. It also eats into you a little as a black man because you’re explaining to them “Hey, this needs to stop, it’s ridiculous,” and they’re like “Ha ha, we’re going to keep it going.” It’s disheartening.
The thing that comics have done throughout the ages is always question powerful people and always point out what’s really going on. Mark Twain is one of our greatest comedians and he was excellent at this!
That’s so profound. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was all about bigotry. All about it! Read his short stories, they’re hilarious—and it’s because he questioned and poked and prodded the powers that be during his age. He was well liked, he was controversial, and all of the different things that come with being a public figure, and he was sought after because of his opinions.
“Successful comedians really try to connect the audience with their personal stories or something that they’re really passionate about, even if it’s something terrible… You tell your truth in a funny way and people love it.”
Mark Twain! He even wrote under a pseudonym. His name was Samuel Clemens and a lot of people really didn’t know who that dude was. He floated under the radar and made fun of everybody. You have to understand that a lot of comedians do that.
Comedy is this fluid, unpredictable, and challenging thing to do that’s super fun when you’re on your highest high. It’s hard to deal with when you don’t have a good set, but it gives the comic and the audience self-awareness, and we all learn from it.
Mikomi Yoshikawa-Baker, “Miko,” desperately wanted to protest the murder of George Floyd. But, given the police’s rampant use of tear gas and rubber bullets, she also wanted to keep herself and her young daughter away from the crowds. So she looked around the downtown neighborhoods, noticed all the boarded-up windows, and discovered the best way to join the movement—by calling in an army of creatives, buying up gallons of paint, and depicting powerful antiracist messages on the ubiquitous blank lumber.
First, Miko contacted her artist friend Andrew Gonzalez, who then connected the Cinnaholic with tattooist Your Homeboy Harv and graphic designer Dion Rollerson. Harv painted a brown-skinned Bart Simpson leaving playful tags on the bakery walls, and Rollerson created a glowing portrait of Colin Kaepernick under the banner, “United We Kneel.” Then, while assisting on this initial project, Miko went on a coffee run and bumped into a Philz franchise owner. She pitched the idea of painting their boards and won approval on the spot—resulting in a series of geometric shapes, grinning faces, and motivational messages designed by Fernando Force 129 and Andrew Gonzalez in front of
the coffee shop.
From there, Miko didn’t really have to convince local enterprises anymore. They started calling her. All through Paseo Plaza, then Santa Clara Street, all the way down to 11th Street—everybody wanted to contribute their storefront to the cause. Some owners gave total creative freedom. Others asked for a particular theme. The Korean proprietors of La Lune Sucrée, for example, requested an image to represent Yellow Peril—a tiger, painted by Alicia Nodarei, to express solidarity between those of Asian and Pan-African descent.
In return, the restaurant owners made sure to show their thanks. Spoonfish plied Miko and her team with free poké bowls; La Lune Sucrée offered fresh watermelon and homemade bread; Philz provided much-needed business advice, as the grassroots effort—now operating as Stories for Solidarity—navigated a sudden flood of attention. Every gesture and every day was full of mutual care and appreciation. As Miko said, “[This initiative] gained a lot of support really quickly, because the owners felt the intention and the love behind this project.”
“Solidarity is the fact of, I might not look like you, I might not be like you. But I can empathize with you, and I can stand with you.” _Mikomi Yoshikawa-Baker
And it wasn’t just the shop owners who responded so well—it was also, of course, the people on the street. They took pictures, asked questions, or rode by with one fist raised in the air. Sometimes the reactions ran even deeper. Miko recounted her favorite success story, “This white family happened to be walking past, and the kids loved the artwork. And the parent used it as a teachable moment, to then explain to her kids what Juneteenth is, and why it happened, and why a bunch of kids were making these paintings. So that was like, “Wow!” For us, in terms of our mission for creating solidarity through art, sparking emotion, having dialogue—that just kind of hit the nail on the head for what we were trying to do.”
But not every spectator was quite as inspired. Miko said, “A gentleman drove by in—I hate to stereotype, but—in his truck. He rolled down the window, and he was like, ‘You f*ckers are disgusting. If it’d been a cop that had been shot, you wouldn’t be doing this sh*t.” Though Miko was not on site at the time, her friend Bella DiLisio retorted, “Sir, move along, you’re talking to teenage girls.” The stranger went on to share his experiences as a former cop—almost 30 years in law enforcement—and then he left. And though this wasn’t the most pleasant experience, the team still counted it as a win. “That’s part of our initiative,” said Miko. “We’re here to spark that dialogue. We’re here to have those uncomfortable conversations.”
And it’s not just in San Jose. The mural project soon caught on in Sacramento, Redwood City, and Bakersfield, connecting the local artists and businesses of each city, and catering to the needs of each unique community.
It’s also not just in this singular moment. As the shops reopen and quarantine winds gradually to an end and the boards slowly come down from the windows, the Stories for Solidarity team hopes to showcase their work in gallery exhibitions and keep engaging in socially conscious conversations.
Even then, street art was only the beginning. Miko has since turned Stories for Solidarity into a fully-fledged non-profit organization, with a far-reaching vision of empowering others through content creation.
The immediate next step is to transition from storefronts to school fronts. Miko plans to contact local schools—particularly the ones in lower-income, ethnically Black and Brown neighborhoods—and paint murals on their walls that directly reflect the student demographics. She wants to transform the drab concrete that so closely resembles prison exteriors, into vibrant depictions of resilience, hope, and strength.
As for other projects, Stories for Solidarity also plans to print T-shirts with activist designs, cut a series of podcasts called “The Karen Chronicles,” dissecting public policies with business owners and clergy, and compile a library of books and other resources to make learning accessible to all. And in the next few years, Miko hopes to become so fluent in starting these initiatives, that she can help found more branches of Stories for Solidarity in other cities and coach newer community leaders through the process.
So where does all this drive come from? Why does Miko work so hard and dream even harder? The answer lies deeper than all of her degrees—one in liberal arts, another in the social sciences, and a couple more in progress at San Jose State University: a double major in sociology and African American studies, with a minor in human rights. It lies deeper than her professional background—from serving as president of her high school’s Invisible Children’s Club, to almost a decade of working at the YMCA. To find the true source of Miko’s motivation, look to the makeup of her family—and see all the opposing identities finding a way to coexist.
Her mother was Welsh, Scottish, and Japanese—and worked as a correctional officer for almost 20 years trying to change the criminal justice system from within. On the other hand, Miko’s father was Nigerian and South African and once topped the charts as a musician—before getting shot and killed by the police. “When you lose somebody like that, all the rage, all the policy change in the world is not going to bring them back,” said Miko. “But what I can do is change the system—change the world that they died in, so that nobody else has to
experience it.”
And what kind of world is Miko striving for, exactly? “I just want to be in a place where I don’t have to pick and choose which family I love, where they can all come together, and we can have those uncomfortable conversations,” she said. “I think [Stories for Solidarity] is a great place to start acknowledging the double consciousness that exists—the conflicting identities, or, the concept that people have to pick and choose their identity based off of who they’re around, because they need to fit in.” And only then can we begin embracing all our differences. Because, as Miko said, “Solidarity is the fact of, I might not look like you, I might not be like you. But I can empathize with you, and I can stand with you.”
4. Viris Alcaraz @boy.s & Jordan Medina, @jordanthebasedgod
5. Nate Lopez, PR Coordinator
6. Dion Rollerson, Co-Creative Director
7. Dion Rollerson, @brownnbear408
8. Dijorn Anderson, Web Design
9. Uriel Ramirez, @urizzy
#48 Marianne McGrath – Independant Art Curator and Consultant- MKM Art Consulting
Marianne K. McGrath is a Los Gatos, California, local who used her background in art and art history to build her own business, MKM Art Consulting, LLC., to practice curating, art consulting, and art education. Marianne holds a BA in art and 3-D design, as well as an MA in art history from San Jose State University. Her passion for art led her to a career focused on sharing art with the community, especially seen through her work with the New Museum Los Gatos (formerly The Museums of Los Gatos). Art exhibits and projects hosted by MKM Art Consulting include “To Hear and Be Heard” and “31 Women.”
In our conversation, Marianne explains how her life path led her to be an art exhibit curator which she see as vitaul role in helping advance artists’ careers. “I think art is a reflection of the community. Art gives us an opportunity to know each other better, and to understand ourselves, to make us think and ask questions, help us change, and foster empathy.”
Music for this episode is “Time Alone” by Mild Monk
Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
Chad Johnston, CEO of CreaTV San Jose, sees immense opportunity and a chance to reshape what we’ve come to know as Public Access TV, and transform it into a powerful public tool for local storytelling and media activism.
“Teaching people to tell their story can change their position,” says Johnston. “It empowers you in a way where you say ‘My voice does matter. I’m as important as Wolf Blitzer!’ When that happens to someone, that’s the transformation that I think is relevant and important to doing community work.”
In our conversation with Chad, we discuss the programs and value of Public Access TV to the community, the opportunities that CreaTV provides, and the new media center that will launch later this year.
Chad also shares his life insights that have been inspired by the Horace Mann quote, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
FEATURED in Issue 11.3 “Perform”(https://www.content-magazine.com/articles/chad-creatv/)
Written by: Kevin Marks | Photography by: Daniel Garcia
Podcast production assistance by Madison Cleeland @marie__madison (https://www.instagram.com/marie__madison/)
Music for this episode is “TIme Alone” by Mild Monk
Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
What is Public Access Television in 2019? Is it knitting shows and city council meetings, or is it one of the last remaining fibers of a truly local public discourse?
The Birth of Public Access Television as we know it came at an inflection point for American media. The Barry Goldwater-authored Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 sought to harness the bursting financial power of the fledgling cable TV industry and preserve a fingernail-sized slice of that power and money for local communities. Cable companies had to pony up for the right to dig up public streets to lay their massive networks by effectively financing public studios where anyone could shoot something and throw it up on television. Public Access existed before all this, with centers popping up in the late 1960s and ’70s as literal First Amendment platforms dedicated to truly public-run media, but the 1984 Cable Act gave them built-in funding and staying power. Today, Public Access Television is surely one of the more unique tributaries of the ever-changing media landscape. In an a-la-carte, on-demand world where even grandmothers can launch a streaming service, how does Public Access fit the future?
Chad Johnston, CEO of CreaTV San Jose, sees immense opportunity, and a chance to reshape what we’ve come to know as Public Access TV, and transform it into a powerful public tool for local storytelling and media activism.
“Teaching people to tell their story can change their position,” says Johnston. “It empowers you in a way, where you say ‘My voice does matter. I’m as important as Wolf Blitzer!’ When that happens to someone, that’s the transformation that I think is relevant and important to doing community work.”
When Johnston looks at his staff and their serviceable arsenal of camera gear and broadcast equipment, he doesn’t see a ‘studio,’ he sees the beating heart of a non-profit.
“Teaching people to tell their story can change their position.”
Public Access has long been a stepping stone for people looking to break into network TV. Yet, the prime directive for CreaTV is not as simple as “Come learn how to operate a camera and make a TV show.” Rather, Johnston and his staff are going into underserved communities in and around San Jose to ask the simple but powerful question that the best non-profits begin with; “What do you need?”
“What are the challenges in your community, and how can technology and media help empower your community?” Johnston asks. “Content may be a piece of that, but there’s probably something deeper in there.”
The power and reach of cable TV has grown exponentially in the last half-century, culminating in an all-out war for bandwidth and eyeballs in the postmodern era. San Jose kids today are growing up watching ‘screens’ and ‘content’ rather than ‘television.’ Hard to believe this all started as a way for households in remote communities to get in on the Television Age.
“Cable TV was originally used largely for rural communities,” says Johnston. “It was born out of the fact that they couldn’t get TV reception in the hollers of Appalachia. Suddenly you had fifteen crystal clear channels and no reception issues.”
Times have changed. In 2018, Comcast alone generated close to $90 billion in revenue.
Johnston grew up making his own media and skateboarding videos by borrowing camera gear from his mother, who worked in Teacher Education at Ohio State. Later he embarked on his current path of digital activism while studying theater and media with a focus on social change at Antioch College in Ohio—a place he describes as “a training ground for activists.” At Antioch, Johnston met Bob Divine, a mentor and professor who championed and opened Public Access TV studios, and viewed them as “electronic greenspaces,” where the community at large could gather, trade ideas, and flex their First Amendment muscles with broadcast technology.
“At some point I realized I couldn’t just be an artist,” says Johnston. “I got nagged enough.” Becoming a responsible artist wasn’t just something his professors taught at Antioch, it became something that Johnston sought to embody, and it informs the vision of CreaTV. In the often anemic, sleepy world of Public Access Television, it just might be the thing that helps CreaTV weather the changing climate of media and thrive in the emerging entertainment landscape.
“I’m always telling our board and others in our field; ‘I don’t know what media is going to be. But what I do know is that if we’re going to play in that space, we have to be really responsive and nimble just like every other media outlet,’” he says. “This is the most exciting and terrifying time to do what we do.”
Johnston and CreaTV are poised to launch their Summer Documentary Institute this year, where young people are invited to tell the stories that matter to them and their communities. Through this and other programs like it, CreaTV looks to cultivate a true Electronic Greenspace for San Jose, and redefine what Public Access Television looks like in the digital years to come.
He calls himself “Mr. Walker.” He started out hosting comedy nights at San Jose’s Britannia Arms and now performs at the Ice House, San Jose Improv, Laughs Unlimited, Rooster T. Feathers, and the Caravan Lounge. He’s also emcee’ed Music in the Park and San Jose Jazz Festival stages.
In our conversation, Ato tells us about how he got into comedy, his first performance, and the role comedy plays in society, especially as a Black man in the US.
Follow on his instagram @mratowalker
Read more about him in our 2016 interview in issue 8.3 “Show.”
Music for this episode is “Time Alone” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
Print issue interview available on our website here.
Jorge “J.Duh” Camacho uses the symbiotic duality of his creative process—fine art versus street—to create unique, vibrant, and witty works of art.
Since jumping into the local art scene as one of Local Color’s first tenants, Jorge has expanded his skills, network, and portfolio with projects from the “Greeting from San Jose” wrap on the PCW building to POW! WOW! San Jose.
In our conversation, we talk about his connection to the community, his growth as an artist, and the personal art project series he started during SIP.
Jorge “J.Duh” Camacho fell in love with art right around the time he got into skateboarding in 4th grade. The San Jose–based artist and muralist was immediately attracted to the art on skateboard decks and apparel but couldn’t afford to buy the brand names. Instead, his mom would get him blank shirts from Goodwill, and Camacho would flip them inside out and draw his own designs.
“At that age, the only artists I knew about were taggers,” recalls Camacho. “Those graffiti artists showed me from a young age how to be consistent with my art, how to travel and network with other people, and more importantly, how to obsess over it.”
In high school, his obsession grew to the point that Camacho would almost always be drawing or doodling—on his desk or in the margins of an assignment. This adherence to practice is arguably one of his greatest artistic assets. Rain, sleet, or snow, Camacho is always drawing, painting, or creating. “I feel empty without it,” he says. “I could win the lottery, but if I didn’t draw, I still wouldn’t feel content.”
Now at age 22, Camacho is focusing on his art full-time. When Local Color opened last year, Camacho knew he wanted a space with like-minded individuals where he could evolve his style, so he got a booth. When Camacho was brought into Local Color, he was under the impression that the space would only be active for two months, so he eschewed all other life obligations and got to work fast. “I took a leap of faith and quit my job in February. I’ve been starving-artisting it since,” he says.
I feel empty without it. I could win the lottery, but if I didn’t draw, I still wouldn’t feel content.
In many ways, Camacho is an artist of practicality, usually working on small canvases because they are cheap. Moreover, he tries to go for speed—his graffiti background has instilled an efficiency in his technique—often making a base layer in spray paint before bringing in a brush for the details. Suffice it to say, he’s prolific. All of the artwork on display in his space at Local Color, from large, mural-style works to smaller acrylic paintings and calligraphic works, have been done in the last couple months, and he shows no sign of slowing down.
Camacho prefers to work with anything that’s smooth. As a self-taught artist, he uses whatever supplies he can to make his creations come to life. Often that involves spray paint, acrylic paint, and pens. Camacho’s inspiration comes from music, culture, skateboarding, and his own life experiences. While many of Camacho’s pieces are symbolic and point to greater social or cultural issues, his art is always infused with sarcastic humor. “I want to make pieces of art that make somebody laugh or feel comfortable.”
Camacho’s art also comes from a place of love. His artist moniker “J.Duh” was also his sister’s nickname. After her untimely passing, he started signing all of his work in her honor. “I think that’s one reason I obsess about my work so much, because it’s all a tribute to her,” Camacho says.
Whether he’s painting logos, selling canvases, making T-shirts, or painting murals for people or local businesses, Camacho is keeping himself afloat through his art. “I really don’t have a plan B,” he says. Besides his own personal hustle, Camacho’s work has been featured in numerous art shows across the Bay Area. His most recent show was also one he curated: The Letter Show at Local Color, which featured over 20 notable local artists interpreting the letters of the alphabet.
Camacho recently started going around to businesses he frequented and seeing if they would like murals. His enterprising idea has been a big success. Camacho has created numerous murals and installations for local companies including Bosch Appliances and C’est Si Bon Bakery. He also painted the new San Jose mural on Balbach Street next to the Convention Center.
As for the future, Jorge “J.Duh” Camacho has simple desires—he just wants to keep making art.
Article originally appeared in Issue 10.0 “Seek” 2018
ISSUE SOLD OUT
Hailing from Monterey and San Jose, Rachel and the Soul Service deliver sparkling musical freshness—a groovy yet unprocessed blend of soul and R&B. The group’s tight chemistry is the clearest quality of their performance, resulting in a unity of sounds that comes across as fun, entertaining, and constantly innovating.
Rachel, how did you find your sound as a singer? Rachel Spung: Growing up, I played classical French horn for seven years. At 15 I started playing guitar. Then I started my own rock band in my hometown, Monterey. I was in that band for two to three years, and I always wrote for other people to sing.
I feel like rock music is easiest to write and play when you’re just starting out. Eventually, I wasn’t into writing rock music anymore. I’d always been influenced by soul and R&B music.
How did this group get started? Brandon Earley: After her band broke up, we started writing, just the two of us. Alonso Sanchez: My other group had a last minute gig, and we needed an opening band. I met Rachel through a mutual friend, but she needed a bass player, so I decided I’d be the bass. Then I brought in Daniel because we’re both in the SJSU jazz program. RS: In the beginning, I’d ask Alonso, “What connections do you have?” I didn’t have any in San Jose. And here in San Jose there’s a lot more openness for younger-generation musicians. AS: I had another group prior and knew a lot of places to play. Eventually, I emailed the Come Up and almost every gig in San Jose is thanks to them.
“That’s the jazz influence; I’m trying to sing it a new way each time, engage people differently. Make people think. We care about that.” – Rachel Spung
What do you each bring to the sound of Rachel Spung and the Soul Service?BE: I really like heavy music and lots of unison between guitar and bass. Sometimes we’ll be playing the same line, and it sounds really fat and thick. Then we split off. I like varying that in whatever way we can. Daniel Williams: I think the real keen listener will be able to hear our influences if they listen to the same kind of music. They’ll hear that melody quoted from this artist, that chord progression sounding like that song, or the way Rachel sings reminding them of their favorite singer. RS: What I appreciate about Daniel is when he came into the band, he brought out the genre of music I fell in love with on my own—hip-hop and rap, old-school G-funk, music out of Long Beach.
As a singer I listen to the drums a lot, because I want to be syncopating and deliver a certain cadence. I could be singing a pretty jazz melody, but I’m feeling the backbeat, the groove. DW: A bad musician doesn’t listen to the players they’re playing with. They’re off in their own world. Nothing clicks. But all four of us click. We all listen to each other.
Describe your live performances.AS: Lots of energy. Rachel’s an amazing performer. All of us are, in our own right. RS: As a singer, I try to not let it get stagnant or let myself get used to it. That’s the jazz influence; I’m trying to sing it a new way each time, engage people differently. Make people think. We care about that. BE: It’s cool we’re all diverse enough that we can successfully communicate what we want. I play a little bit of drums, so sometimes I’m thinking in my head, what if the drum was a little more like this…and Daniel’s like, you mean like THIS? And I’m like, YES exactly! The thing you did! AS: Brandon’s more a rock/jazz guy; I’m rock/funk. You can hear all these different influences coming together when you hear us play. It’s not straight out of the can or processed. Overall, it’s just creative.
Tell us about your EP and the songwriting behind it.DW: We took our time with this EP. AS: It’s the first taste, like when you go to the ice cream shop and they give you a little spoon. You’ll be like, aw, I like it! Get me three scoops! RS: A couple of the songs started as open-word vomit, like rap. I’d think, “Okay, how am I feeling?” as these guys play the song progression and we spit out the song in ten minutes. That’s where the lyrics are most honest. I hope people listen to it and take something from it.
As the songwriter, I’m never going to get exactly what’s in my head, but I’m in this group because I know these people are talented and I trust them.
As artists and art educators, Yori and Danna Seeger took the plunge a little over a year ago, not only to live out their dream for a community studio space, and not merely to provide a place for artists to rent studio space and create, but to change the value, perspective, and role of arts in culture.
The couple repurposed an 8,700 square foot glass and cinder-block 1970s warehouse on 425 Auzerais Avenue with their personal stash of art supplies and tools collected over the years. The result is a hub for creative activity with 13 rental studio spaces and weekly classes ranging from welding to painting. You’ll find monotype, lithography, and screen printing presses; fabrication tools for metal to wood; and anything you’d need to undertake projects from mold-making to stone carving. With windows and portable walls for gallery space, a foundry for bronze and aluminum casting, the Seegers are just beginning. Their long-term plan is to develop a new Master of Fine Arts degree…A School of Visual Philosophy.
What’s up with the name?
Yori: The last school I went to was the San Francisco Art Institute, and I had a roommate and we were talking about what art was. He said, “Well, it’s like visual philosophy,” and I thought, “Oh, that’s perfect.” I looked at him and I said, “Someday, I don’t know when, but someday, I want to use that. Do you mind?” and he was like, “Yeah, whatever.”
We didn’t talk for several years and I called him up or emailed or found him on Facebook or something and I said, “Hey, you remember that phrase I said I was going to use? I’m using it.” He was like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” [laughs]
Basically, art is a language, so our concept is to study the philosophy of it and how to use it to communicate or educate. We think that art education needs to shift and change with society. That’s what we’re trying to do.
Danna: I think it says more. What we’re trying to do is not just strictly art or what people formally think of as art. By having a name like “visual philosophy,” it’s more the spirit of what we’re trying to incorporate, to be more inclusive of art and theory.
We’re both artists, so we were working in our backyards, basically. We both teach, too. I had taught at Monterey Peninsula College, and Yori works at West Valley College. The way that we approach teaching is more than just our jobs and the curriculum.
Y: As a student I went to about eight different colleges, universities, apprenticeship programs, always looking for something more than what was offered in the art educational systems. I don’t have regrets doing some of those things, but I kept searching for that something more.
When we were dating, we’d go and have a beer or two and we’d always go back to the same conversation. If we won the lottery, we’d start an art school and make art education the way that we think it should be. Because we just can’t change the system. We think that art education needs to shift and change with society. That’s what we’re trying to do.
What is that shifting? What is the difference that you seek to develop?
D: I went to San Jose State for my master’s program. After graduating, I felt like I was lacking a sense of professional development. They encouraged a lot more portfolio development, but not, “You’re going to be a professional artist. This is how we get you to that place.” I had to figure out those things out on my own. I’m still trying to figure those things out.
So, pairing artist development with business skills?
D: Being an entrepreneur. Because as an artist, you obviously have to have some other form of income at first. You have to be an entrepreneur. You have to be a business owner. You have to be a marketing person, and also do your own work. I think part of what our goal is with the school is to not only have it be part of the community, but also to start an MFA program that addresses these things that we feel are lacking in education.
Y: Our goal is very simple. We want to change the way that artists view their responsibility in society and the way that society views artists and who they are. The major reason why art should exist is it’s creative thinking and problem-solving and thinking outside of alternative methods. But in reality, in the classroom, it’s very rarely delivered. We want to bring back apprenticeship programs. We want to bring back art as a very viable occupation.
Traditionally, all education, all crafts, were like an apprenticeship program. Is that more what you are thinking?
D: That’s one of the ways, yeah. I think what we’re trying to do is find ways that all these things maybe had worked in the past or were working in different areas, and then put them into a cohesive educational development process. Our long-term, our ten-year, plan is an MFA program. More than that, we want it to be a tuition-free MFA program—if that were to work—instead of a two- or even a three-year program, because, let’s face it, you can’t go to school for two years, walk out, and say, “I am a master.” I don’t think the term and the degree are valid, really.
Y: What if instead the program were five or even six years, and what if your teachers were also very specific? Had great skill sets in various areas. And you would apprentice under one of these people, actually produce a product of some type that could be sold, and the revenue then funds room and board and tuition. Funds the school. Then after that, once you’ve developed a skill set, then you’re going back into the philosophy and you really home in on your own ideas of what art is and—within your social context or whatever it might be—really, truly develop that. Then by the time you leave, you have gone through a business, basically. Each teacher would more or less be…helping you shape your whole career.
Then, financing the school, how does that work? Endowments, grants?
D: We started as a partnership and are now getting our 501(c)(3), in the process of getting our tax-exempt status as a nonprofit. Hopefully grants will can be part of that.
That’s the hard part, beginning. With the business plan, it makes sense that once it’s rolling it can sustain itself.
Incredible long-term goals to strive for, but in the short-term…
Y: It’s about community and it’s about building an idea that people can get ahold of. We’re very careful, too, that art is not just for a certain person. Art is for everybody, and all it is, in my opinion, it’s just a way of communicating. That’s really what it’s about. What we’re doing, before the MFA and all that, we are creating a place where people from the community can come in and we can talk to them. Maybe that’s through teaching a class on ceramic sculpture, or maybe that’s through movie night or whatever. But it’s just building something that can grow little by little.
I still have my day job, my average day is an eight-hour day at the college, and then an eight-hour day here, and then drive home, which is a 16- to 18-hour day. It’s more stress, more time than I thought it would be. But it’s worth it.
D: But would you do anything else?
Y: That’s what we said. If we won the lottery, this is what we’d do, and it’s true. If we had millions of dollars, we’d just own our own buildings, so we could survive longer, and pay teachers and whatever, but…that’s what we would do.
What would you say has been the greatest, most joyful, unexpected thing about launching this project?
Y: I am amazed at how much the community has stepped up. In all honestly, we put our life savings into it, which was not much. Then we did a Kickstarter campaign, which we were extremely naive about. We thought we’d buy tools, and it all went to city permits and then plus some on top of that. But people just keep coming in and saying, “Hey, I have this tool. Can you guys use it?” Or, we just had an anonymous donation to help us build a little roof over our foundry. The community just keeps coming in, which is amazing.
D: I think also our interns are really awesome. Having people who care about this space and our vision as much as we do. That was another thing we were worried about. Especially trying to become a nonprofit. Because we have this vision, obviously, and who knows if other people will want to carry that out? I think the people have gravitated towards us, we didn’t go out and search for these people. But they’ve really surprised me in how dedicated they are. Their dream is like our dream too.
Y: From the very beginning we had two interns right away, Nicholas and Karen, and they…I have a day job, and we now have a little one, and so there’s a lot of time that we can’t be here. I don’t worry about it. I can leave and I don’t worry, which is very nice.
Then what was, say, the unexpected burden?
D: [laughs] City.
Y: City permits were not easy.
D: Everybody tells you, “Oh, starting a business, you’re going to have to put in all this stuff and spend your days at the city building.” It’s hard to imagine how much they need and they want and require.
Y: I knew it was going to be stressful, and I knew it was going to take a lot of time, and Danna and I sat down and had many conversations about, do we really want to do this?
Everything we have is now on the line and everything we had was basically used up and we’re trying. We had that conversation. We thought, yeah, if we do it and if it doesn’t work, we’ll move in with one of our parents and we’ll start over. But then we tried. But I think the thing that I didn’t realize was how much stress it really would be and how much…
D: I keep having to say, “Look, we’re not even a year old. Look at all the stuff we’ve done…” People are taking our classes, all our studios have filled. It’s not a bad place to be.
You’re both from the Santa Cruz area and have roots there, why here? It seems like in Santa Cruz there’s a great artist community and it might even be…
Y: But they’re not ready. Honestly, they’re very relaxed and comfortable with who they are and where they are. But I feel like San Jose is ready to do something different. Every once in a while, there’s a time and a place where people are wanting and ready for something. I really feel like San Jose could be that place. If you think of what’s happening in the world, in some ways we are Florence in the Renaissance, except that now it’s computer sciences. But it’s the hub of the world for that. I also strongly think that artists have been studying social science for so long that if we’re smart enough to get ahead of the game, we can be part of this, and we can really change the way that we’re viewed in the social realm and do something fantastic. I think that if we can create enough of a spark, it really could ignite. I think people are ready, if we can figure this out.
Article originally appeared in Issue 7.1 “Sight and Sound” 2015 (SOLD OUT)
#44 Dana Harris Seeger and Yori Seeger – Artists and School of Visual Philosophy Cofounders
Both accomplished artists, Dana’s practices include painting, printmaking, and interactive installation, while Yori can be classified as a sculptor working with blacksmithing, bladesmithing, metal casting, and 3D printing — it would be a disservice to limited either of them to one genre.
Their passion for art and community lead them to launch the School of Visual Philosophy in 2013. Their vision was to provide a place for artists to learn, create, and develop a new pedagogy for creative craftsmanship and art.
Despite many changes, from expanding their family to changing locations, the Seegers have continued to apply the innovative skills to establish the School of Visual Philosophy as a landmark arts space in the South Bay.
In our conversation, we discuss their vision, transitions, and the new opportunities they’ve developed during COVID-19, which includes a new interactive “Online Atelier” featuring in-depth art courses in a range of techniques and subjects.
Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk
Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
Content Conversations 2021
Thank you for being willing to talk.
Here are a few notes.
1. Below are few preplanned questions, “General Questions.”
2. But I like spontaneity.
3. Please use your earbuds/headset for this call. This will make the audio quality much better. The earbuds/headset usage seems to help the microphone quality than hand-held.
4. Please plan on being in a space that is free from ambient noise. Not squeaky chair, floor, or desk objects/papers.
5. We will be recording on a platform called Zencastr (like a “ZOOM” meeting, but without video). You will need to be on a desktop/laptop and not iPad or mobile. Also the interface does not work with Safari, you need to have Chrome or Firefox. (I will email the link.) 6. After the “call”/conversation, the website will still be uploading the data, so please do not close the browser or computer until we are notified that the upload is complete.
Please, prepare a simple intro: Explain who you are and “what you do.” Example, I would say, “I am Daniel Garcia, and I am the Cultivator of Content Magazine, which I start because I love portrait photographers and people.”
GENERAL QUESTIONS What have you learned about yourself in the last year? What has been the most challenging experience for you over the last year? What is your personal “mission” or purpose in life, or this season? How does that impact your personal and professional life? What do you look forward to in the next few weeks/month/year? These are some general ideas. I am not looking for anything in particular. I’d love for you to promote what you are doing, and ways you have adapted in work of personal life with the Shelter in place. How-ever, I am really just looking forward to talking and learning about you and the way you are sharing yourself without community. Looking forward to talking.
#43 Sinjin Jones – Transmedia artist and Artistic Director at Pear Theatre
Sinjin Jones is a multimedia jack of all trades. He loves experimenting with and practicing directing, choreography, creative writing, slam poetry, painting, lighting design, and sound design (to name a few). His passion for the arts led him to found the Otherworld Collective in Colorado as a way to experiment with storytelling through different media, and to serve as Artistic Director and Board Vice President of A Theatre Group in Silverton, Colorado.
In 2019, Sinjin moved from Colorado to the Bay Area and is currently rounding up his first year as the Artistic Director at Pear Theatre in Mountain View, California. Sinjin has been able to use his skills in multiple medias to innovate creative solutions to keep Pear Theatre running during the global pandemic.
In this conversation, Sinjin shares with us how humans have always told stories from the beginning of time, how connection is made through storytelling, and how storytelling is the cornerstone of humanity.
Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
Guerilla Wanderers
Some storytellers steadfastly hold that plot should sweep a narrative’s characters along on a journey. Others adamantly advocate that characters’ reactions to their surroundings and circumstances should drive the plot. It’s a heated debate among fiction aficionados. Sean McCarthy, founder of video production company Guerilla Wanderers, seasoned director, writer, producer, visual effects supervisor, and actor, lands in the character-driven camp. “Plot is what happens from A to B,” McCarthy points out. “But why? And how do the characters react?” For the past four years, he has poured heart and soul into writing, producing, directing, and acting in a satiric comedy series that’s released a motley crew of antiheroes onto our screens. Doucheaholics, a Guerilla Wanderers production co-created with partner and fellow wanderer Elizabeth Mitchell, follows a support group. (Think AA, but for jerk addicts.) All the characters are riddled with flaws, but it adds a refreshingly and realistically human quality to the show.
Each episode explores a new category of jerk. There’s classic douche T-Bag who comes up with far-fetched excuses to whip off his wifebeater tank top and flaunt his six-pack. There’s Melody and Madison, whose passive-aggressive posts on social media establish them as predouchelescents (“tweens displaying beginning stages of traits, interests, and psychologies common to the fully matured adult douchebag”). And there’s Wilhelmina whose complaints of mediocre foie gras and the erroneous use of salad forks for the main course earns her the diagnosis of gourmandouche (“a douche who reserves an opulent amount of attention on the proper preparation, presentation, and service of food”). Unfortunately, attendees of the support group end up feeding off of each other’s bad behavior rather than bettering themselves. Hilarity ensues.
McCarthy applies philosophy, psychology, and human behavior to his work both in front of and behind the camera. “Our subconscious plays a big part in how we behave with other people,” he explains. “That’s an endless fascination for me.” It’s all about climbing into the character’s brain to understand how they tick. It’s why, when McCarthy writes his scripts, he often paces his office and alternates between character voices. It’s why he weaves layers of subtext into dialogue and why he incorporates surreal imagery to reveal how the protagonist sees the world.
Another of McCarthy’s creations showcasing his fascination with the human mind is the psychologically complex lead in his mockumentary short Suparhearo: A True Tail by Chance. The story follows Montgomery, a subpar vigilante whose idea of camouflage is strapping grass to his back and flopping down on people’s front lawns. He’s also convinced that the soccer mom down the street is a femme fatale. The gravelly baritone narrator — Montgomery’s delusional inner voice — lets us know that he doesn’t “get beat up.” He heroically blocks pipes with his stomach and intercepts bats with his kneecaps.
Naturally, it follows that McCarthy is a bit of a character himself. For starters, he recorded over 50 shorts in high school alone. “To really learn the craft, you’ve got to do it a lot of times,” he endorses. He’s also endlessly inquisitive. “Filmmaking gave me a lifetime pass to curiosity,” McCarthy notes. His motivation to continue growing as a filmmaker and developing meaningful plotlines has led him toward many fields. “I consider myself the eternal student. If I’m not learning, I’m either dead or dying!”
As a teen, McCarthy was a bit of a rebel. He admits to ditching class for Cinequest (a film festival he now creates event trailers for) and venerating Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese (directors unhesitant in their depictions of gore). During that period, he ended more than one filming session in police-issue handcuffs — the result of concerned citizens calling in all too realistic action sequences and fake blood along their Almaden Expressway route. Though these days he calls the San Jose Police to let them know the only shooting he’ll be doing is the kind done with a camera, McCarthy in some ways retains his inner kid. After all, he’s getting paid to craft make-believe worlds. “It’s like I’m playing still,” he marvels. From that sparkle in his eyes, it’s evident he’s just as in awe of movies as the day he fell in love with them watching Ghostbusters at the age of three.
Every show began with the same battle cry, followed by a vocal roar and a flash of the 408. Daniel Martinez—known around the globe as Dirtbag Dan—always made it a point to shout out his hometown at the start of every one of his rap battles. His stage presence, signature style of ruthless takedowns delivered with comedic wordplay, and precise timing allowed him to become one of niche scene’s more distinct characters. This combination of talents also prepared him for his second act in entertainment: stand-up comedy.
As a teen, Dan’s entry point to hip-hop came through the underground Bay Area sounds he heard on skate tapes. “Rapping, hip-hop music in general—everything came through skateboarding,” he explains. “That was my identity as a kid. I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I found a skateboard.”
Dan remembers hearing hip-hop on the radio, but the sounds of regional heroes Souls of Mischief and Hieroglyphics on those tapes inspired him to dive more fully into the culture. He began freestyling with friends, and in high school, he developed a reputation as a ruthless battle rapper. During his final year of high school, he faced 15 challengers and never lost.
Dan soon made his way to the West Coast’s freestyle battle scene and in the mid-2000s witnessed its shift from 8 Mile–style battles over beats to today’s favored a cappella format. In 2008, he participated in the West Coast’s first battle of this kind, and he continued to build his name as outlets like Grind Time and King of the Dot gained prominence and their battles on YouTube started clocking hundreds of thousands of views. Throughout his 75-battle career, he sparred with legends and upstarts alike, among them The Saurus, NoCanDo, the late Cadalack Ron, and DNA.
“I’d like to think that in those 75 battles, I did everything,” he notes. “I rapped my ass off. I was super funny. I did super ‘unrappy’ things and took risks in that regard. I also was mean when I needed to be. But I definitely was always more on the lighter side, which I think made me more watchable, and more likable, to a general audience.” At one point, he called himself the “most traveled battle rapper,” since his name helped him book appearances at battles in the Philippines, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, the UK, and various locations throughout Canada and the United States.
However, his style was divisive in battle rap circles, loved by some and hated by others. In a scene that could be defined by violent lyrics and no-holds-barred personal attacks, Dan used his stage presence to craft an approach that emphasized punchlines and comedic timing. Above all, he seemed to understand that despite the huge stakes and cage-match-like depictions, battling ultimately was entertainment. “As much as I’m proud of my ability to rap, I think my humor was the thing that made me an endearing character and helped me stick around for as long as I did,” he adds.
“As much as I’m proud of my ability to rap, I think my humor was the thing that made me an endearing character and helped me stick around for as long as I did.”
For years, friends had nudged him to try to develop comedic material, but he didn’t make time until he stepped away from battling in late 2015. He began writing immediately, but waited six months before finally taking the stage, making his first appearance at a Brainwash open mic in San Francisco. Dan was hooked immediately. He started finding more spaces to share his material, and now with nearly two years committed to this new form, he just secured a weekend spot at the Punchline in Sacramento.
Though he recognizes that his ascent feels accelerated at times, he also notes that his extensive experience with battle rap prepared him to take the stage. Developing material, being aware of an audience, and feeling comfortable in the moment are all elements he’s already explored while battling.
One might ask if there’s anything more daunting than standing in front of a room full of people equipped with nothing but a mic and some wit. Dan says yes and compares stand-up comedy to stepping into a high-profile rap battle. “You’ve got to go into a room, and someone has to die for the audience to be entertained. Some other dude’s going to make fun of you. You have no control over what he’s going to say. You have to memorize nine minutes of unique material that you only get to do one time, and if you mess up, it’s on camera, forever.” Bombing doesn’t faze Dan: he sees it as part of the comedic process. Not everything is going to work, and at least when a joke falls flat, it won’t be criticized in YouTube comments for years to come. Dan has retired from battling, but he’s still very active within the culture. He calls his weekly podcast The Dirtbag Dan Show, the “ESPN of battle rap.” He’s a fixture as a commentator for various pay-per-view battles. He’s also working to cultivate a path for others in the scene to cross over. “There’s a lot of people who can make the same transition I’m making,” he says. “There’s a connection there, and I’m trying to build that bridge so that when I go out and cover a battle event, I’m also doing a comedy event the night before. Most of the time, there’s another battler on that bill.” He’s also helped establish a battle league in San Jose in an effort to ensure the city’s name recognition in the battle rap scene.
His newfound passion for discovering jokes with universal appeal has shifted his creative focus from developing bars to developing bits. He has, however, decided to bring one major piece of his legacy with him. At every show and open mic he steps up to, he’s still being introduced as Dirtbag Dan. “It’s been a fun ride, and though I’m not in the ring anymore, I’m still in the world. I’ll never get all the way out,” he says. “No matter what I do in comedy, no matter what I do in rap and hip-hop and making music, I’ll always be in the world of battle rap in some way, shape, or form.”
#42 Juan Sanchez – Founder and Creative Director of Baunfire Digital Agency
Juan founded Baunfire in 2003 to provide “great work” for his clients and soon realized that a “great team” is the key to the quality of Baunfire’s service. As a digital design agency based in the heart of Silicon Valley, downtown San Jose, they have partnered with leading global brands and forward-thinking startups to design and develop elevated platforms on the web. Baunfire has partnered with a diverse group of high-profile clients including Nike, Netgear, Honda, Cisco, The Walt Disney Company, and more.
In our conversation, Juan talks about his recent challenges, the expansion of his team and team-building culture, and working remotely during COVID-19. Which was surprisingly seamless since his team had already had moved to a cloud-based work environment.
Baunfire was featured in Issue 8.3 “Show” and is the agency that designed our current website.
Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: @MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
T he Lucas Residency Program is a multidisciplinary artist residency program that continues Montalvo’s 75-year tradition of hosting artists in the heart of Silicon Valley. From local cities like Saratoga and Los Gatos to much farther places like New Zealand and Australia, the program hosts painters, sculptors, dancers, writers, filmmakers, and architects all at emerging phases of their careers.
The residency space, built in 2004, was specially designed for artists with the help of the artists. During the building and planning, architects collaborated with the program residents, resulting in unique live/ work spaces for ten different discipline-specific studios. The end result is a community where the artists can feel free to explore their creative mediums while building relationships with other residents as well as the public.
Since Montalvo is a public park, the artists have opportunities to engage with some of the 200,000 people who pass through the property every year. The artists often display their work to the public, such as the Final Friday program (which is the last Friday of every month), and they frequently partner with local organizations and schools, such as the San Jose Museum of Art, Stanford, or San Jose State.
A current project of the Lucas Residency Program involves providing local public schools with teaching artists. Montalvo had a number of teaching artists in residence from 2007 to 2010, and they’re now offering elementary schools in the Campbell Union School District the opportunity to have artists visit classrooms and teach the students.
One of the many unique feature to the LRP is a culinary fellow which provides the chef not only time to create, but to also bring the artists together several times a week at the dinner table. Around the meal, relationships are forged, collaborations begin, and creativity flourishes.
Below, you’ll find a cross section of the artists that were a part of the LRP during the Summer of 2013.
Shelly Silver
Medium: Movie Image, Film, Photography and Video Installations Home: New York, New York.
Shelly has been working on a video project to understand why people live here and why they have moved to the Bay Area. Thinking of herself as an “alien” or outside observer, dropped into our community, Silver remarked, “everyone here says they are an entrepreneur.
shellysilver.com | 5lessonsmovie.com
Revista Bostezo
Medium: Journalism and Education Home: Valencia, Spain
(Left to Right)David Barberá is Associate Editor of Bostezo since 2008 and Assistant Professor at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV, Valencia, Spain). Barberáis interviewing Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and artists as part of his academic research on failure. Itziar Castelló Castelló is Associate Editor at Bostezo, Assistant Professor at Carlos III University (Madrid, Spain) and researcher at the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Copenhagen Business School. Castelló and Barberá are also conducting research at SCANCOR at Stadnford during thier stay at Montalvo Arts Center. Francisco (Paco) Inclán is a writer, journalist, activist, and Managing Editor of Bostezo. As part of a coming issue of Bostezo on failure, Inclán is interviewing and doing research in the Bay area to better understand how people learn, handle and overcome failure.
Medium: Participator Based Installations Home: Auckland, New Zealand
Singh has been working on a project called “Bells of Mindfulness”which focuses on the calming of the mind in our western business culture. Stringing 1,000 bells and colorful hand (?paper instead of hand?) cranes, Singh asks participants to listen to a bell that “speaks to them” and then transplant it to a place they find sacred; then send an audio file to Singh explaining the location and reason for the placement there. Through this we can all track with Singh and learn what our community finds sacred.
tiffanysingh.com | Facebook: tiffanysinghsart
Sally Ashton
Medium: Writing, Poetry, Education and Editing Home: San Jose, California
Ashton has been diving into a manuscript that had to be put on the back burner while serving as the Poet Laureate of Santa Clara Country. In addition, she is working on a journey project and a few poems. She describes her time at Montalvo after a few days as being “like a hundred years and it feels like three days… the time warp is a strange river of experience.”
poetryonastick.blogspot.com | dmqreview.com
Enna chaton
Medium: Photography and Education Home: France
Chaton’s primary question is about the politics and social aspects of the human body, specifically about nudity. “Without clothes, we are all the same. Maybe not our shape and physicality, but when you are nude there is no idea of rich or poor and other social classes. We are equal.” Chaton places in her photos different elements from the surroundings to demonstrate a sense of place, but also the contrast of human and nonhuman.
ennachaton.canalblog.com
Andrea Blum
Medium: Culinary, Journalism and Photography Home: USA
Andrea Blum is not only the person to set the tone and table for the meals and conversations, she is a reporter, journalist, photographer and entrepreneur. With many interests and talents, Blum has also founded My American Pantry, an Interactive marketplace of American Food and Drink, as well as working on a cook book while cooking for the residents. Blum is working on aerial photographs connecting American food, the artisans, and the land.
Juan Sanchez’s journey to founding a digital agency
Act I Juan Sanchez loved the city. He would wander the streets, marveling at the cool morning fog, the majesty of the skyline, and the fact that everyone seemed to be smart, creative, and interesting. This was the place for the young and bright, and he thought for a time that it was his place, too. After all, living the dream life in San Francisco means you’d made it big.
But success had always seemed to come easily to Sanchez, a wunderkind who rose quickly through the ranks at a high-profile tech firm and then realized his dream of starting his own company, a boutique digital marketing firm, Baunfire. He possessed both the rare, adventurous spirit of an entrepreneur who strikes out on his own and the charming personality that made people want to help and support him.
With Baunfire, he made enough to afford valet parking and a trendy loft apartment. His small team was turning out good work and had satisfied clients, all of which he managed from his perch in a San Francisco high-rise. But slowly, Sanchez was realizing that despite his vibrant city life, his passion and drive were melting away. He felt hollow. When eventually business couldn’t keep up with his lifestyle, finances forced him into a decision: let Baunfire die a quiet death and go work for someone else, or reinvent his company. It would have been easy to end the entrepreneurial adventure and continue with life in the city with a big salary at another tech firm, but Juan Sanchez, it turned out, was a fighter. “I felt, deep down,” he says, “that if something great is possible, why not do it?”
Act II He gave up the loft, moved back to the valley, set up shop in a charmless office park in Santa Clara, and gave his company everything he had. “I had to really reflect on how we got here, on why this happened. It came down to my focus on money, not quality.” He devoted his time, his energy and, most importantly, his passion to creating something that he could be proud of, something that offered fulfillment.
Within a few years, Baunfire had recovered and evolved into something special. Sanchez, confident in its future, was ready to take on a new challenge for the company. Eager to leave the drab offices, he discovered a space for rent in the historic downtown Alliance Building on East Santa Clara Street. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in natural light, warming the ochre brick. This, thought Sanchez, could be home to the next phase of Baunfire. “I wanted the office to set the tone,” he says, “so I put my heart into its look and feel.” The team moved in and added sleek shelving, modern white furniture, and the finishing touch: original artwork from their top designers.
“You can’t make something great without passion.”
Act III The new space set the stage for the company’s final reinvention: a focus on the team that made Baunfire so extraordinary. Sanchez had the happy clients, but he wanted a happy team. He was determined to create a place that attracted the most talented, dedicated, ego-less creatives and then give them the space and support to do something exceptional. He wanted to understand their dreams and ambitions and then use Baunfire to achieve them. Sanchez hoped that every employee felt invested in what they were building and accomplishing together—and proud to be doing it. “I want everyone here to feel as though they own this place.”
Today, with the help of his team, he’s created a culture that does just that. And with his inventive design and marketing, his dozens of valued employees, and scores of loyal clients, he is moving yet again. Within the year, Baunfire will settle into a new, larger space on the 14th floor of a downtown building, an office full of personality and talent, overlooking the foothills and busy city below.
Sanchez is the first to admit that he could have been another Silicon Valley story of youthful boom and bust, that when he lost his passion, everything could have easily slipped away from him. But now, there’s no end to what Baunfire can accomplish. After all, he says, “You can’t make something great without passion.”
Gone are the days of stuffy networking events in a conference room and cookie-cutter wedding ceremonies. At Asiel Design, Jonathan and Linnae Gomez believe the environment represents something more than a space where people gather. From steampunk weddings to dark circus charities, the two bring an Asiel touch to make every occasion look and feel one-of-a-kind.
Jonathan and Linnae’s wedding and event design boutique grew out of a flower business in San Francisco. Jonathan’s dad worked as a flower broker importing roses from South America, and Linnae took a part-time gig doing the books for his dad during college. As they put it, things quickly took off from there, with them starting out in Jonathan’s dad’s studio in the city and eventually moving to San Jose in 2003.
Ever since, they have been operating out of a 10,000-square-foot warehouse converted from what was a grain mill for dog food around the 1800s. Jonathan refers to the space as their design lab, where they’re constantly constructing, tweaking, and experimenting with materials. Asiel builds its events from the ground up: every client starts off with what Linnae calls “design therapy.” They meet for a consultation to get on the same page about goals, ideas, and budgeting before building the venue in mind. “First, I’m getting all the information from them and building the trust,” Linnae says. “Once I have that down, then I’ll start to open their eyes to new possibilities.”
The design duo and their distinctive style are known in the designer world simply as Jonathan and Linnae Asiel (Jonathan says people often confuse his last name), but to the rest of the world, they’re Jonathan and Linnae Gomez, new parents to baby Phoenix, and wedding and event trendsetters. “We’re kind of known for doing the difficult, get-in-get-out, bust-out jobs,” Jonathan says. “We’ve done a lot of complicated events with a lot of moving parts.” To date, the couple and their staff of seven have worked more than 700 events in the Bay Area, with the occasional out-of-state project.
For any given event, they could be managing everything from lighting and rental companies to kids’ game rooms and production groups. As a team, they bring differing skill sets and visions that complement each other on the job. Whereas Linnae focuses on fine-tuning the details to the space, Jonathan takes care of the big picture, looking at the room as a whole. “We have different styles,” Jonathan says. “It’s nice, though, because Linnae has a feminine part of design, and I’m very much the masculine part. It’s a very yin and yang type of thing, dark and light. We feel like it’s a balance.”
When not tending to events, they’re also the style and design directors for Today’s Bride, the Bay Area go-to bridal publication. And their inspiration comes from everywhere: fashion, television, flea markets, Pinterest, and Google searches. “I’m really trying to see beyond the scope of what my peers are looking at,” Linnae says. “I have this thing where I usually spend 15 to 20 minutes a night doing searches. I’ll screenshot all my favorites and pin stuff I find helpful.”
One of those ideas led Linnae to put together an upcoming photo shoot inspired by Frida Kahlo. After researching Kahlo, she set out to bring elements from Frida’s life into the design—back braces, intense colors, flower halos, and Bohemian textures and prints. “It’s going to feel really, really pretty, and if you look at it just long enough, you’re going to realize how dark it is,” she says. “It’s going to be the first spark of the Frida train. I would be not at all surprised if in a year there’s a model dressed like Frida, that exact same backdrop, playing the cello in the middle of a dinner party.”
In the last five years, Asiel’s latest undertaking is exploring a new signature event they call B.SPK.N, short for bespoken. In these special events, they’re not just handling the designs, but taking concepts to the next level with live performances, dance parties, and bringing to life themes like Burning Man and Game of Thrones. “It’s the fullest experience of our art,” Jonathan says. “We like to create what hasn’t been created yet.”
“I feel like good modern design is steeped in old-world sensibilities. A lot of times people try to do modern but forget the building blocks it takes to get there.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 7.3 Style (Print SOLD OUT)
What kinds of people become full-time artists? Sometimes it’s the kind that meticulously plotted their futures, enlisting in daily portfolio camps and yearly summer intensives. Other times, it’s the kind—like Kristina Micotti—who let their careers evolve naturally, flowing with the course of their lives, somehow winding up exactly where they wanted to be. In every way Micotti interacts with her creative practice—whether in choosing it, developing it, or taking it full-time—Micotti proves that you don’t always need to plan. Sometimes it just works out.
Choosing art
Micotti didn’t start college as an art major; she didn’t even take art classes in high school. She focused, instead, on swimming and water polo as a teenager and made drawings purely for fun, making her friends laugh with cartoons, birthday cards, and caricatures of teachers (hidden carefully in her backpack so they would never find out).
The most formative art training she received in her youth actually took place when she was a kindergartener, rollerblading to lessons at a neighborhood woman’s house. The classes were fun, but Micotti’s deepest impression of the experience came from the gallery shows at sessions’ end. “I remember feeling really special, really cool,” she said of the exhibits. “Because, when do you ever see your art in a frame when you’re six or seven?”
When it came time for Micotti to pick a college, she stumbled into San Francisco State as a communications major. It never felt right—dropping in and out of classes, struggling to find a good roommate—until she tagged along to a friend’s orientation in the School of Art. That room of painters, printmakers, and photographers was like a lightning clap for Micotti. She said of the moment, “I realized this is where I’d love to be—this is what I want to do. I feel like when you’re around other creatives, you speak the same language, and you instantly click in. You just instantly know when you meet someone else like that.”
“I feel like when you’re around other creatives, you speak the same language, and you instantly click in. You just instantly know when you meet someone else like that.”
Developing style
Shortly after finding her calling, Micotti transferred to Point Loma in San Diego as a graphic design major. She took Drawing 1 with classmates who had a much more formal art education—but she was never intimidated by it. In fact, it became an advantage. “Since I didn’t have traditional training, my style was more developed than other students starting out,” said Micotti. “I kind of just found my own style from how I drew and developed from there. That’s what set me apart a little bit from traditional fine art.”
Attending Point Loma soon revealed a huge perk—a study-abroad program called Euroterm that toured England, France, Germany, and Italy. Micotti and her friends took figure drawing courses in Paris and art history lessons in Florence—studying Michelangelo’s sculptures and Giotto’s bell tower during lecture and then tracking down these masterpieces after class to admire them in person. From the trip, Micotti received a deeper appreciation of creative craft, a clearer vision of her own aesthetic, and memories she’ll treasure forever. She said, “Basically, all we did was hang out, look at art all day, then draw in sketchbooks at pubs and coffee shops. A hipster dream!”
Upon returning stateside, Micotti threw herself into her studio courses, streamlined her style with cleaner shapes and lines, and found a reputation within her program as an artist to watch. She put in endless late nights on two illustrated series—one on the birds of the Tijuana estuary and another on folk heroes such as Paul Bunyan and Calamity Jane. She prepared not just for graduation, but also for a portfolio review by the American Institute of Graphic Arts—a prestigious event somewhat like a science fair, in which judges browse work, provide feedback, and give awards. “[I was] so nervous, so sweaty,” said Micotti. “It was very competitive. But I’m still proud of the work I did.” And she should be—because her efforts nabbed the prize for best illustration and kick-started the rest of her career.
Going full-time
Since winning the portfolio review in 2012, Micotti’s creative path has become paved with offers—on each of which she focused single-mindedly to turn every opportunity into a triumph.
The hype from that best illustration award led to her first solo show at Subtext Gallery in San Diego’s Little Italy, where she exhibited a dozen paintings and pen drawings featuring her favorite jazz singers. She worked around the clock to produce these pieces, dedicating all her time and energy to pump out top quality work. It paid off, of course, with a smash hit opening—multiple pieces sold and even more buzz generated about her talent. Somehow, Micotti did not expect such positive reception. “It was crazy; it was pretty surreal,” she said. “I’m just not used to that attention. That attention kind of freaks me out a little bit.”
In 2013, Micotti moved back to the Bay Area and started participating in San Francisco’s Renegade Craft Fair—a curated marketplace where hundreds of artists vend their work to thousands (upon thousands) of guests. She stocked her booth with prints of her birds and folk heroes from college but found that her meticulous renderings of Paul Bunyan and Calamity Jane wouldn’t move off the shelves. She also happened to display some quick paintings of dogs—spur-of-the-moment pieces, just to fill out her table a little bit. And these sketches sold out almost immediately. This changed everything for Micotti. She said, “I could draw something for 10 seconds rather than spending hours and hours. I was able to paint spontaneously, whatever I wanted. I loved the freedom of it.” Micotti was hooked. She signed on to this new style at once and still uses it today.
Micotti’s success at art shows and craft markets only spawned more good luck for her career. She attracted clients such as FiveThirtyEight, Schoolhouse Electric, Triathlete Magazine, and the Optical Society, creating anything from lapel pins of scientists to thumbnail portraits of political bloggers. She landed wholesale deals with independent stores throughout California, such as Rare Device, Kira Kids Stores, Park Life, New Works, and Bay Made. And she held two more solo shows in May of 2019—more ink paintings of dogs in the Long Weekend, Oakland, and acrylic paintings of tigers and cheetahs in the Little Lodge, San Francisco. She even has a book coming out soon for which she did the illustrations: The Boob Book, published by Chronicle.
In the future, Micotti hopes to collaborate with bigger clients, make more home goods, and design large-scale murals for local tech companies. But really, she’s not that stressed about it. As she said herself, “I never really knew what I wanted to do with my art. I’m kind of just letting that baby grow on its own. Illustration fell in my lap because I just like doing it and that evolved into products. And then it’s still evolving, but different types of products. I’m going from a $10 pin to a $170 blanket. The products are changing and the prices are changing. I’m just letting it grow organically, just seeing where it takes me.”
Many of Susan Sayre Batton has held a number of art museum positions, including deputy director at Honolulu Academy of Arts, collections consultant at Norton Simon Museum, and her current position as Oshman Executive Director at San Jose Museum of Art. With the intent of creating a borderless museum through onsite and offsite projects and seamless integration with the communities they serve, Batton and her team have undergone a number of collaborations with other organizations.
In our conversation, Sayre shares about the adjustments and changes the museum has made during COVID-19 and some of the plans for the museum moving into 2021.
Joshua Curry’s studio is a tech haven saturated with LEDs and wires, screens flickering abstract visuals, gently humming monitors, a congregation of speakers, and two electric keyboards.
But Curry underwent quite the journey before arriving at the base of operations where his current wave of work unfolds. Like so many artists before, he started questioning societal norms at a young age. After being threatened with an “F” on a high school photography assignment if he submitted a picture of a punk couple smoking at the local 7-Eleven, Curry kept it in. “It was my big stand,” he reminisces. “I said, ‘If they’re trying to make such a big deal out of this then there’s something to messing with what people expect a photograph to be.’ ”
After capturing numerous images of his airborne skater friends, Curry decided to pursue photojournalism at San Francisco State, shooting everything from the Rodney King riots to the Oakland Hills fire. “I was covering serious news. It was very adult. And I was not very adult,” he recalls. “It was a quick growth period.” He then left the Bay to finish school at Atlanta College of Art. “I ended up with a lot of accidents and a lot of bad photographs that I liked a lot,” he says of the time. “I opened up to a lot of different ways of seeing.”
His next destination was New Orleans. But although he covered some big stories—hurricanes, presidential campaigns, even a serial killer—he was mainly assigned high school sporting events (a scene he and his skater friends had never cared about as teens).
Sucked into wedding photography next, Curry found it difficult to stomach the family dysfunction and “drunken politics” while being expected to capture rosy, idyllic moments. “I reached the point where I couldn’t smile anymore,” he remembers. “I didn’t want to hear the word ‘elegant’ ever again.” One night during dinner, Curry determined to cut ties with the wedding world for good. “I want you to watch me do this,” he told his assistant, unfastening his silk tie, borrowing scissors from the bartender, and snipping the offending accessory symbolically in half. He spent the next three months cross-country, living out of his truck, shooting American Way, a photo essay on America in the aftermath of 9/11.
After 20 years, he returned to San Jose, refocused on fine arts and began sorting through boxes left unopened for over a decade. The gesture allowed him to unpack places and phases of his past—not only physically but mentally. “My life had really fractured,” he says. “I was totally compartmentalized.” One box—obsolete music equipment from Atlanta in the ’90s—impelled him to explore experimental music.
This new focus on sound soon had Curry noticing the collision of noises scattered across downtown San Jose: the garbled bass of a car radio, the chk-chk-chk of a broken latch on a Caltrain door. Posing the question “What’s the real experience of being here?” he started field recording and utilizing synthesizers to fabricate otherworldly soundtracks.
“I said, ‘If they’re trying to make such a big deal out of this then there’s something to messing with what people expect a photograph to be.’ ”
“It’s dangerous to really open up,” Curry remarks, sympathizing with those who retreat under headphones to escape the sounds of commercial ads and political slogans. “If you’re malleable, and if you’re vulnerable mentally or emotionally, those things can get in.” However, instead of filtering it out, he engages it with the aim of withholding opinion and simply being present.
Curry also plays with people’s presuppositions about technology. Take a high-definition widescreen, for instance. “It’s the kind of thing that’s designed to be an entertainment vessel,” he observes. “But instead of putting Avatar on there and letting people sit and passively watch it, [I’m] laying it on its back and running a bunch of glitched hair curlers through it—just to see what happens.” He adds, “There’s a lot of room to explore once you release people from the expectation of a commercial/entertainment payoff.”
In this new phase, Curry has often partnered with SubZERO Festival. One piece, Embers, took breath-powered LEDs within origami to evoke the sense of fellowship one gets from sitting with friends by the glowing coals of a dying fire. Festival goers warmed to the concept, recruiting strangers to blow the “embers” to life. “I had never made anything that did that,” Curry says. “With photography, I never saw that happen…once in a while somebody would have a conversation or leave an internet comment, but nothing like this. And nothing nonverbal. It was a rush!”
Curry intends to keep on overturning expectations and instigating connections. If you let him, he’ll take familiarities and show them to you from strange new angles.
Of the people, by the people, for the people: such is how the Conscious San Jose Festival came about—how it operates in every moment and how it dreams for the future of our world. It’s a celebration of yoga, wellness, music, art, food, but most of all, community—a rosy bubble of possibility where anyone is accepted, and everyone belongs.
This ideal extends all the way back to the humble beginnings of the festival, when co-director Taraneh Sarrafzadeh applied for city support to offer free yoga and meditation in St. James Park through her enterprise Be The Change Collective. “It was in that grant process that we started the name ‘Conscious San Jose’ to cover all the work we were doing at the park—acknowledging the power of public spaces to welcome people who wouldn’t typically walk into a yoga studio,” she said. And it worked—the initiative attracted all types of interest. From park residents who fell in love with sound healing and later signed on to work for the program itself, to like-minded thinkers and organizers who yearned to bring a yoga festival to San Jose—such as the event’s other co-director, Kat Da Silva.
The first time they met, Kat immediately struck up a conversation with Taraneh about starting something new together. Born and raised in San Jose, Kat itched to make a lasting impact on her hometown. “I’ve spent many years now going to Berkeley and Oakland and Santa Cruz for my spiritual events,” she said. “Every time I’d be driving home, I’d think, ‘I can’t be the only person in this city who wants it to be more accessible!’ [EMS1] ”
She was certainly right about that. People started stepping out of the woodwork with similar intentions, soon forming a core group of 16 volunteers to pull off the inaugural Conscious San Jose Festival. This included co-founder Scott Adam, who brought his experience from working the Wanderlust yoga festival; Matt Lawley, who took on branding and marketing; and Mark Quijano, who signed on to direct operations and still serves in that capacity today. The team solidified in March 2017, with the first festival scheduled just six months later. They met once a week at Forager, often hopping over to Good Karma afterwards, and usually ending late at night around a blue velvet couch in Be The Change’s previous location downtown.
Everybody worked on a volunteer basis, thriving off a shared dream—a collective ideal. Taraneh said, “From the start, it was very important for us to really live out the founding tenets of yoga. It’s not just a practice we do on our mats—yoga is living unity. And how do we ‘live unity,’ and reach out to people who don’t do so on mats?” First and foremost, for the Conscious San Jose Festival, it meant bringing services to the park residents whom Be The Change communed and worked with every day—free showers, haircuts, food, water, clothing, and laundry. It also meant programming the event to include as many forms of consciousness as possible, from gardening demonstrations to parenting workshops to music performances—with Baba Zumbi of Zion I as headliner for the inaugural event.
Then came the day of the festival. The organizers ran on adrenaline alone, having gotten no sleep for the month prior and then showing up for the event long before dawn—if not the evening before. They worried. Would anybody come? Would all the logistics work out? Would their hard work pay off?
Yes, yes, and yes. People showed up in droves. They danced with abandon in broad daylight. They picked new outfits at the clothing swap. They downward dogged in the shade of oak trees. The ideal turned into reality. But the significance extended far beyond the joy of the event itself. It shifted the paradigm for what was possible for the festival, for the city of San Jose, and for the way that people can work together, led by shared values instead of driven by capitalism. Kat said, “I was operating in such an individualistic mindset before, and then getting frustrated with these bigger inspirations and passions I had inside of me—I felt like I would never, ever be able to make them realized because I was still trying to do it on my own. And when I found this community…it’s been so healing.”
It was never a question. Conscious San Jose Festival would come back each following year—with a stronger and bolder identity each time, no longer mimicking the precedents set by other yoga festivals. There would be a sound healing tent—for people to engage in meditative practices without moving a single muscle; greater ethnic diversity in the lineup of teachers—so any student could find a reflection of themselves on stage; more focus on showcasing hyperlocal musicians and dancers—to celebrate the vibrancy of San Jose itself; specialized programming for children and families—to increase accessibility for an audience of truly any age; surveys of the St. James Park residents—to incorporate their feedback and optimize their experience.
“We have to counter the narrative of mainstream yoga and wellness: that you have to be well-off, that most people who get to participate are affluent white women,” said Taraneh. “At first we thought it was enough that we’re not that image. But now we’re getting more and more strategic about how do we reach people, how do we adjust our marketing, how we adjust everything we do to convey that message (that this is more than just a yoga festival). We want there to be something for everybody.”
Last year’s event drew an audience of roughly 1,500 people, effecting an overwhelmingly positive response. But the co-directors refuse to settle—they keep pushing the envelope of what’s possible. Now approaching its fourth iteration, the Conscious San Jose Festival evolves yet again—for the first time with an official theme: “In This Together.” It’s a herald of the joy and togetherness that can arise in San Jose. It’s a response to the crisis of coronavirus and the unprecedented isolation of quarantine. And—no less important—it’s a call for solidarity between the organizers and the greater community. Ideals and adrenaline sufficed to fuel the first three years of the festival, but it’s no longer sustainable to keep giving so exhaustively without also receiving at least a little bit in return, especially when the fundraising last year fell so short of expenses that it required borrowing $4,000 from Be The Change’s coffers.
This year the co-directors plan to raise enough funds to reward the entire collective, with their exact budget posted on their event website to maintain pure transparency. The first half of the money would go to event production fees such as tent rentals, city permits, and insurance. Then the next chunk would return the $4,000 debt to Be The Change. Then, after witnessing so many local creatives and healers lose their income during the recent quarantine, the next few thousand would double the pay for festival yoga teachers, musicians, and live painters. Then, some compensation would go to the creative contributors and volunteer staff leads. And finally, if or when the fundraising goal gets met, a modest sum would go to the co-directors, the heads of operations and marketing, and the project manager. And Taraneh and Kat would then commit to bringing back Conscious San Jose Festival in 2021—to continue expanding the possibilities of collective leadership—and to keep providing this beautiful space, where we can all dance freely in the sun.
Michael “Knowmadic” Skulich balances on the precarious line between taking his work seriously and not taking himself too seriously. His modest attitude contrasts with the space he occupies as a prominent artist in the lo-fi hip-hop beat scene. A San Jose native, Knowmadic’s unique sound has skyrocketed into notoriety and made him one of the most important artists in the city. Knowmadic’s work has been showcased on countless mixes and recently earned a release on Inner Ocean Records, a celebrated label that features several top-tier beatmakers working today.
Knowmadic’s introduction to the world of production was in 2012 when his friend Lucid Optics (now known as Justjoey) was rapping and getting into hip-hop. “So I wanted to start making beats for him and that was when I finally really tried it out myself and loved it.” Already a fan of Wu-Tang and MF DOOM, Knowmadic began delving into production. “The name Knowmadic came from just constant brainstorming. I liked the name Nomad but it was a bit simple, and after some time, I landed on Knowmadic and have been going by that for almost nine years now.”
While initially influenced by canonical producers such as Madlib, Dj Premier, Dilla, and RZA, Knowmadic soon discovered game-changing contemporaries like Flying Lotus and Teebs. “Later on I found out the genre that came to be known as lo-fi hip-hop,” he adds about the origins of his sound. “And artists like bsd.u, slr, and Wun Two exposed me to a lane of hip-hop I was unaware of.”
This lane of hip-hop is lo-fi, which has grown into a prominent subculture within hip-hop music in recent years, unique in its sonic motifs and aesthetics. Typically created on the iconic Roland SP-404, the sampler machine heavily associated with the lo-fi sound, the composition of a lo-fi beat often includes jazz samples, crunchy drums, vintage production, and infectious instrumentation that entrances listeners.
“I’m just making music that I like and don’t worry myself with what other producers are making.”
Artists like Knowmadic have taken lo-fi to a sonic space that is starkly distinct from hip-hop production of two decades ago. This ascendance in popularity is due in large part to the beats-to-study-and-chill-to type playlists and mixes that rack up millions of streams on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, and other music streaming services. The internet has fostered a flourishing community of beatmakers across cultures and international borders. Knowmadic can easily be considered both an early adopter of the sound and an artist that continues to push the boundary with his music. His recent works, Echos and Departure, exemplify how he manages to still explore new lush sonic palettes that immerse the listener with his distinctive arrangements.
Knowmadic is a rare example of the San Jose artist who has found legitimate financial success through music. “The first real royalties check that I got that let me know I could quit my shitty[EMS1] day job and do what I love for a living.” He also pointed out that he found his unique sound four or five years into his career, and that is where he marks the beginning of both his artistic and monetary success.
Despite relying on his music as a primary source of income, he makes a point of continuing to push boundaries and take risks. “There’s some producers who have been doing this for a long time that are crazy talented and don’t get the shine they deserve,” Knowmadic laments. “So it sucks seeing people I looked up to in the genre or know personally get passed over by producers just trying to cash in on the explosion in popularity of the genre. They care more about playlist placements than actually making something original.”
Knowmadic is more concerned about informing the modern sounds similarly to how acts like Teebs and Wun Two informed him. Knowmadic is learning guitar to add more live instrumentation to his work and to follow his own creative instinct. It’s a principle that he encourages other producers and acts to pursue. “I’m just making music that I like and don’t worry myself with what other producers are making.”
Many of Susan Sayre Batton’s childhood adventures took place under the inquisitive eyes of Greek statues and painted portraits. One art museum excursion, particularly fond in Batton’s memories, was a trip to the Museum of Modern Art with her sisters. Attempting to make sense of a piece by abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock, the sisters observed it from a different angle by standing on their heads. During her career, Batton has held a number of art museum positions, including deputy director at Honolulu Academy of Arts, collections consultant at Norton Simon Museum, and her current position as Oshman Executive Director at San Jose Museum of Art. With the intent of creating a borderless museum through onsite and offsite projects and seamless integration with the communities they serve, Batton and her team have undergone a number of collaborations with other organizations. To this end, they recently collaborated with Empire Seven Studios and the Children’s Discovery Museum to establish a new mural titled Sophie Holding the World Together. The mural celebrates nine-year-old activist Sophie Cruz and contributes to the commentary on social justice currently permeating the art world.
“I think art museums are the new agora, the new gathering place. We have many examples here and in other cities where people want to connect with each other and get away from staring at their screens all day. They want to have an experience with an analog work of art or with other kinds of public programs—which could be a speaker, a series, a film, or a performing arts event. It’s really a place to gather.”
Her mouth is wide—stretched beyond the common yawn, laugh, or scream. She sits upright, strained—her feet pushed hard against the Earth, legs opened enough for her child to fall into the hands of his awaiting father. The photograph is dense with detail—wooden barn, lamb and donkey atop hay. This is Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus as depicted by UK-based photographer Natalie Lennard. A part of Lennard’s Birth Undisturbed series, Creation of Man is one of many pieces by Lennard entrusted to gallerist Emily McEwan-Upright. A San Jose native, in 2019, McEwan-Upright took over a 1,200-square-foot storefront in downtown Gilroy to act as the home base for her feminist-minded art gallery. McEwan-Upright’s Gallery 1202 opened its doors that October, and by the end of November 2019, it was hosting its first group exhibition, Show Me Your Neon: A Feminist Dialogue. The collection was a clear statement of intent on McEwan-Upright’s part, who explains, “It was all about discussing the challenges that women face either as an artist or as a woman, or as a sister, or mother, challenges as a black woman, as a Chinese woman, as anything. I really wanted works that spoke about different things. I don’t want everything to be the same. I wanted it all to be different.” That first exhibit sits as a highlight and hallmark of the gallery headspace.
McEwan-Upright has a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of California Santa Barbara as well a master’s degree in art history from the San Jose State University, an education that fostered her love of research, which facilitates her quest for a variety of female voices. Looking briefly at an exhibition roster at Gallery 1202 will show you artists from Slovakia and India, as well as McEwan-Upright’s neighbors in Gilroy. It is as vital to lift up local artists as it is to bring international artists to the community. “I definitely have a mission for the gallery. I want to elevate the artists in Gilroy, but also elevate these marginalized voices that haven’t been able to be represented because of either sex, race, or materials. That’s my big thing—do that while exposing people in Gilroy to more artists.”
I definitely have a mission for the gallery. I want to elevate the artists in Gilroy, but also elevate these marginalized voices that haven’t been able to be represented because of either sex, race, or materials. That’s my big thing—do that while exposing people in Gilroy to more artists.
Throughout college, McEwan-Upright parlayed her bookkeeping experience into an enrolled agent certification and managed to launch Gallery 1202 while maintaining her career as a tax preparer. Her husband, US Navy Lieutenant Commander Rory Patrick Upright, gets called away often, but McEwan-Upright has help from her nearby parents and a cousin who assists with both the gallery as well as with McEwan-Upright’s tax practice. Her family and those of her artists and guests are fundamental to the success of the gallery’s goal. Children are welcomed with a bag of toys tucked behind a couch. This is life in full overlap—both personal and work life blending into the modern lifestyle of the working artist. With the shared experience of the working mother, McEwan-Upright builds an immediate connection between herself and the artists she chooses to work with. “A lot of them are women who have very young children, like I do. A lot of them that I met, I met with my children. They’ve met my kids, I’ve met their kids, and that’s not something that you get in a gallery environment. I want to support women who have the studio in the nook of their house.” This sentiment was echoed by artist Natalie Ciccoricco, “Emily visited my home studio, and we really hit it off. We’re both passionate about art, and we’re both juggling our art careers with motherhood, so we really bonded over that. It’s really remarkable how much she has achieved with her gallery in such a short time. I applaud her for her dedication to representing marginalized artists from the moment she opened her gallery. She works really hard to get her artists’ work seen.”
Beyond the exhibits at her Gilroy location, the gallery’s reach broadened through events like the LA Art Show, which saw over 75,000 in attendance over one weekend, and Superfine in San Francisco. McEwan-Upright had a full calendar leading up to the shelter-in-place order that has kept the gallery’s doors closed. She had to make some adjustments to her workflow to ensure the work she represents is visible and available to her audience. She has deepened the gallery’s online presence, finding success selling pieces through sites like Artsy, Artnet, and 1stdibs. If having the physical space connects her to the tightly knit nature of the community that binds Gilroy together, being forced to focus on the online sales helped Gallery 1202 gain exposure to a global audience. Online, there is no difference between a gallery in New York City, Los Angeles, or Gilroy. It is the art that moves, and now McEwan-Upright is regularly selling work across the country and across the world.
McEwan-Upright lights up when discussing all of the artists she has plans for at the gallery. There’s artist Yulia Shtern and her upcycled sculptures of animals affected by humankind, Ritu Sinha’s mixed-media works depicting the political strife she’s experienced in her native India, and Natalie Ciccoricco’s A Thread of Color, a solo exhibition putting Ciccoricco’s blending of found imagery and embroidery on full display. Each artist offers a different lived experience—that variety of female representation that McEwan-Upright craves. With each piece, her cadre of artists display a variety of materials and techniques used—the watercolors of Sinha’s pieces against the threaded collage work of Ciccorico, the traditional fine art and the craft and folk art that certain materials immediately self-categorize. This was the intention from the start of the gallery. A look at the first exhibition, Show Us Your Neon: A Feminist Dialogue, was a visualized forming of a question; as McEwan-Upright states, “I had different kinds of mediums. I had a woman who works with all fiber. We’re crossing that boundary between crafts versus fine arts, and why is there even a division between craft and fine art? I want to hone in on women, black women who work in contemporary art. I want to hone in on people who do textile works and why is that a craft, things like that. It was a perfect show for me to start out with, because it encapsulates all of these marginalized voices. I just really loved it.”
McEwan-Upright had the gallery booked well into 2021 with exhibits, and trips were set to both display at art fairs and speak on panels across the country. Those exhibits involved artists living across the globe and with no clear date when the world will be safe once again for large crowds, a lot will have to change on the fly, which is something that McEwan-Upright is accustomed to. She has worked with ever-changing scenarios—husband in the military, two children under the age of four, a new business venture fitting alongside her established work as a tax preparer. Despite being pulled in all directions, she is continually focused on her mission to offer an avenue for those voices that rarely get heard, for the women that don’t want to give up the dream of creating art just because they became mothers. “Women who are doing art at two o’clock in the morning because that’s when their baby is sleeping, that’s hard for them. It’s hard for them to find representation. People think that they’re distracted by their children, whereas I think it can inspire them too. It’s all about this balance in life.”
#41 Joe Miller – Graphic Designer, Educator, and Arts Administrator
As owner and principal designer of the graphic design firm, Joe Miller’s Company, he specializes in “identity and brand development through graphic, typographic, and environmental design.” Miller has worked with companies like Atari, HP, The New York Times, and several local organizations. As Lecturer in Graphic Design at San Jose State University, he shares his love of graphic design and typography with students three times a week. Miller is also the president of the Board of Directors for Works/ San José, an art and performance center located in downtown San Jose. If all that wasn’t enough on his plate, Miller is also a spoken word performer and poet.
In our conversation, Joe shares about a design lesson “nugget” as well as talk about the roll of graphic design for cultural equity and inclusion. Jos also shares the vision and future of Works San Jose and the change they have had to make during COVID-19.
With the vision of empowering artists through greater exposure in the marketplace, April Gee’s Petite Galleria offers carefully curated, individual, handcrafted art. April seeks people whose art embodies that passionate maker spirit, so it is unsurprising that her work at Petite Galleria empowers April to pursue her own passion: making music as Containher.
“Music is about transcending and evolving and hoping to share a beautiful thing that all people can connect with,” April explains. Her new album will unfold in a series of music videos, the first of which is completed. In this first of the series, The Seams, April as Containher paints a soundscape of haunting vocals mixed with the dreamy stylings of indie-electro-pop that takes the listener to places found only in the imagination. While April writes, performs, and produces the music herself, this latest work has allowed her to take up the mantle of art director and work alongside expert filmmaker Jeremiah Hutchens. The video they have crafted weaves a stunning fantasy with the help of Alan Chen, a member of the string trio that plays on the album-cum-soundtrack, and dancers Ryan Walker and Naomi Sailors from The New Ballet School, as choreographed by Dalia Rawson Hughes. The evocative and magical sets are the work of Asiel Design. Hair, makeup, and costuming elements were provided by artist-stylist Ming Schipper, whose work is featured also at Petite Galleria. The result of talented friends from different disciplines coming together to create art, this project serves as a perfect example of April’s mission for San Jose.
April is a multifaceted, highly connected artist evangelist who encourages people to explore their own artistic voices and, in so doing, fosters creativity in her hometown. She believes that momentum is brewing within artistic “beacons” of the community and that bringing those beacons together makes for a stronger community. She asks artists to reach out, to get to know each other, to create lasting ties between disciplines. “There is a need to connect, to get to know what resources and amazing people are out there,” April urges. “To thrive, fellow artists need to realize they are all part of a greater family in San Jose—and in the world.”
Along with connecting artists from different disciplines, April wants see more venues in which artists can congregate. “We need to make room for everyone to create. Having a consistent physical space will allow everyone to rise together,” she explains. “These kinds of spaces work when everyone is welcome, and the more diversity the better.” As part of her mission to empower artists, April wants also to remind them to have fun. “We toil in our creative sectors and there’s a bit of competitiveness, which is fine as long as we all realize that we’re all part of one family and that we can have fun together,” she says. “We should be driven by our wildest dreams. That’s the kind of city I want to live in.”
The new album is pure April, celebrating creative diversity and artistic collaboration, creating a space for local artists who shine in their own disciplines—but who don’t typically work with each other—to come together to create something entirely new. These are high-concept stories, painstakingly scripted, filled with the creative synergy of artisans of music, dance, the visual arts. April is crowdsourcing the funding for the video series, hoping in this way as well to draw the community even more closely into the creative process.
That creative process, that creative impulse, imbues all that April does. With her work in music and video, with her passion for creative diversity and collaboration, with her curation of the art of many makers, April herself is one of those artistic beacons, helping to strengthen the community of makers here in San Jose. If you ever find yourself on Jackson Street, stop by Petite Galleria and say hello. Who knows? You might find your next treasure waiting for you there—or be inspired to create something of your own.
Petite Galleria 205 B Jackson Street, San Jose Ca. 95112
Karen Kienzle is director of the Palo Alto Art Center and oversees this vital community organization’s vision, budget, marketing efforts, and staffing. Karen brings more than 15 years of experience in arts administration to the Art Center and is also a lecturer for the San Francisco State University Museum Studies Program.
In the past, Karen has served as assistant director for exhibitions, education, and community outreach at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University, and assistant curator at the San Jose Museum of Art.
In our conversation, Karen tells the story of how she got into the arts, her own art experiences, and the adjustments the PAAC has made due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Find out more about the Palo Alto Art Center on the City of Palo Alto’s website.
Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: MildMonkMusic Spotify: Mild Monk Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0
It can take years to develop the skills and technique to create paintings that capture the eye, and even longer to become well known. Tyler Gordon, a San Jose native who, at 14, has a fan following of celebrities and art lovers, wasn’t ready to wait that long to make his own (acrylic) mark on the art world.
From the age of 10, Tyler has been creating portraits of people and characters. His first portrait was of his elementary school’s principal. His mom and fellow artist, Nicole Kindle, instantly recognized his talent and knew how important it was to encourage Tyler to pursue his talent. Little did she know how quickly Tyler’s work would garner national attention. His first sale was a portrait of Kevin Durant, whom Tyler met in person. “I think the most special celebrity that I met [was] Kevin Durant,” said Tyler, who loves to play and watch basketball. “He’s actually really funny and really tall as well.”
Tyler uses bold acrylic colors to achieve contrast, often only needing to use a few shades to create one striking piece. He brings people and characters to life by emphasizing shadows and negative space, a skill that many artists work years to develop, but which came naturally to him. Whenever people approach Tyler with new techniques they think he should learn, he doesn’t hesitate to politely decline. “I remember that a lot of people [have tried] to get me to do art classes and change the way that I do my art,” said Tyler. “But I always turn them down, because that’s the way that I paint, and I like my style.” With the steady flow of commissions coming in for portraits, it’s clear his fans agree with Tyler.
“That’s the way that I paint, and I like my style.” –Tyler Gordon
Even in the midst of COVID-19, Tyler has had a lot to keep him busy. Between painting commissions, meeting celebrities on talk shows, keeping up with his school work (something his mom, Nicole, is careful to make sure never slips), and taking time to play sports, Tyler has also been hosting free online painting classes every week on Instagram. His manager had the idea before COVID-19, and the pandemic was the perfect time to give it a try. “It’s actually really fun,” said Tyler. “I do talk to the [painting participants] and ask them questions, and in the chat they’ll answer back, and it’s a really fun experience.”
Recently Tyler has also been adding his voice, and his paint, to the fight for racial justice. As a young Black man himself, and with protests taking place in his hometown, San Jose, it’s a unique moment in history for him. Not only has Tyler attended two peaceful protests, he’s also painted portraits of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain. Tyler recalled his experience while painting them: “Doing these paintings…I [felt] sad because what happened to all three of them, and maybe more, they didn’t deserve what happened to them. So when I do these paintings, I do them so people can remember them, and so I remember what they were like.” In particular, hearing the circumstance of the murder of Breonna Taylor affected Tyler. “She did not deserve what happened to her,” said Tyler. “So I want people to always think that she was a magnificent person.”
Earlier this year, Tyler was a recipient of a Global Child Prodigy Award, an accolade only a handful of kids earn. “Only 100 kids in the world are chosen in each category, and he was chosen for the art category,” explained Nicole.
Tyler is also on a personal mission to help fight bullying, something he’s experienced firsthand because of his stutter. He and his mom recently formed Tongued Tye’d, an LLC with the goal of hosting art classes for kids with speech impediments. “He speaks through his art,” said Nicole. “He wants to teach other kids to speak through theirs, and we want to bring in people…to help these kids.” With so much talent, personal drive, and great family support, this is only the beginning of his amazing career.
Michael Ogilvie, formerly overseeing public art programs in Las Vegas and Clark County, as San Jose’s public art director, seeks to deepen San Jose inhabitants’ appreciation of their home and leads the city’s public art program by stewarding over 250 works of art, research, and plans and evaluates public art projects.
Michael has worked as a cartoon illustrator and continues to dabble in his illustrative narratives of historical characters as time permits.
In our conversation, Michael talks about his work with the city, the role public art plays in our community, and his drawings and process.
Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
Chris Elliman moved to the US from England in his teens when his father landed an industrial design position at Apple in 1985. Through his creativity, talent, and persuasive persona, he finds himself thoroughly linked to the creative culture and history of the South Bay and Downtown San Jose.
Disregarding high school, Chris landed in the middle of San Jose’s skateboard scene and began hanging out with Corey O’Brien, Steve Caballero, and Ray Stevens II (Faction and Los Olvidados). The latter was one of the first people Chris met when he came to San Jose.
In the early 1990s, Chris found himself working as a decor designer at the now-defunct nightclub One Step Beyond, occasionally DJing with records he had acquired while a display artist at Tower Records on Bascom Avenue in Campbell.
Moving on to Metro Newspapers as a graphic designer, he met Chris Esparza (owner of Naglee Park Garage and Giant Creative). The two of them developed underground parties called the “King of Club,” which they used to co-found the club Ajax (pronounced “Ai-yax”) in 1991. Named after the Dutch football team, the now legendary South First Street club, formerly located above Cafe Stritch, closed in 1995.
Searching for what to do next, Chris nearly headed to Portland, Oregon, but was offered a warehouse space in the American Can building on South 5th and Virginia. He has both subleased it as an artist collective and used it as a studio himself for the last 30 years.
In his studio, lightly littered with a design and visual history of San Jose and framed by shelves of albums, Chris speaks about his paintings. (We’ll save his cycling and graphic work for another time…)
“Life cycle”
I think I have the courage to make many mistakes, which allows me to grow from those mistakes. What I paint is life—my surroundings, what I see, people. I like to think that, in every one of my paintings, I am communicating about culture…I think paintings should say something.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with aesthetically pleasing paintings. Aesthetics is a great thing. It’s got its place. I’m OK with that. Sometimes, I do things that are strictly aesthetic, but I like to think that most of what I do has a social or political charge to it, a psychological charge.
I’m looking at society and what is almost an illness or a psychological situation. I feel like I’m trying to paint a little bit of that into each piece, so there is definitely something behind every piece.
I like to say that most of these paintings—maybe all of these paintings—are like portals.
There’s a flat surface that you see, but what is really taking place is what is behind that surface. There’s a story.
With abstract painting, abstract art, you bring your story to it and it completes the paintings. I feel like everyone has a story and these paintings get completed with their stories.
It’s like truth. Everyone’s got their own truth. Truth’s ever-changing…
“Systematic Deconstruction”
This particular painting is not actually completed. My concept of finishing this painting is when someone purchases it, we’ll go to a target range and we’ll shoot. I’ll allow them the choice. They can shoot holes through it, which would be ideal. That way, they have now become a part of this piece. Or we’ll allow the instructor or whoever it is to do the shooting [laughs] if they don’t feel like doing it.
“America: Stars and Strikes”
The Mickey Mouse and the figures, which were a couple of friends who modeled for me, represent for me…what was behind this is “American Apparel.”
You’ve got two young models, fairly innocent in their attire, which is just underwear, yet provocatively posed.
In America, everyone’s trying to be a celebrity or successful, so there’s a fine line in Hollywood between starting out as an innocent Disney character star and then moving over into pop music or movies. Those who “make it” are the stars. Those who don’t are the strikes.
The innocence is in the Mickey and Minnie Mouse. It represents what is behind this American Apparel. There’s a fine line…that goes down the path of, “I didn’t make it in Hollywood but I became a porn star,” or “I became a sleazy magazine advertising model.”
For me, it’s just a hard hit on Hollywood and the media and what drives people.
“A Visual Discourse in Non-objective Cageian Randomness”
Right now, I have moved on to what is a “Cagean” philosophy, from John Cage, the composer, who was a Buddhist practitioner and who studied “randomness.”
I’ve been exploring John Cage and his thoughts about randomness in a few pieces. He composed music randomly because he felt that was more natural, and I felt like that’s what I was doing. I read this book on John Cage so I could understand him better. I felt like there was a great connection. I was actually doing what he was talking about through some of these pieces. Then I thought I’d explore it a little bit further.
Then the X’s. Yeah, I created the X’s, so they’re all the same size. I cut them out and threw them down, and allowed them to land randomly. There are 27 X’s because I’m very fond of the number three. Those X’s were thrown down randomly, and wherever they land, that is the serendipitous part, the randomness. They just land, and I’m not going to dictate that.
Those colors aren’t my favorite colors. However, I did have those colors. I had at some point chosen those colors. Since I have these pots of paint, I decide to randomly select this bunch of paints and looked at them and said, “OK, I’m going to use those.”
As a designer, I’m fighting it a little bit, thinking to myself, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t had that color.” [laughs] But I’m going to go along with the experiment, exploring, and I’m going to allow that color to stay because that’s what Cage was doing.
“Serendipitous Deconstruction no.2: Pussy Riot”
I had loosely called it “Serendipitous Deconstruction” because I was deconstructing what I was building. Serendipitously finding interesting things in the piece, and allowing what I thought was interesting to remain.
Each time I did something, I allowed the interesting portions to remain, so it was serendipitously deconstructed.
“The World is Flat But It’s an Un-level Playing Field”
This is geographical. It is all the countries of the “round of 16” of the World Cup, placed geographically. Russia, Japan, Korea, Australia, Argentina, Chile, the United States, and Mexico—all connected to the nations they played against. Each game is strung up together.
I changed the colors in the spaces, but all of these shapes were created because of the outcome of the games. I mean, anyone could have won the World Cup, right? Random.
That’s the eye of the artist—you recognize what could potentially become art.
PPublic art not only brings bland concrete walls to life, it embodies the culture of a city and even aids in solidifying that city’s identity. Assisting with this mission is Michael Ogilvie, San Jose’s public art director. Seeking to deepen San Jose inhabitants’ appreciation of their home, Ogilvie leads the city’s public art program by stewarding over 250 works of art and research and also plans and evaluates public art projects. Formerly overseeing public art programs in Las Vegas and Clark County, Ogilvie assisted in the realization of murals at an elementary school as well as projects to beautify utility boxes and roadway medians across the city. He enjoys meeting with administrators, the council, boards, and commissions because it means connecting with like-minded individuals who share his drive to actively care for the community.
“If you travel enough, if you visit enough cities, you begin to realize that public art reflects the identity of that city. It’s something that’s completely unique to that city. You won’t see the same thing in every city. You might see large murals in every city, but often the content of the murals are inspired from the area that they’re completed in. What you have with the city of San Jose, I think there’s a fantastic selection here. I mean it’s really tailored to fit the people, the history, and also its also innovation. It’s a testament to the creativity that has lived and prospered in this area.”
Social media: cityofsanjose
2020 Content Podast with Michael on our Podcast page.
Lately, two topics seem to be on the mind of Santa Clara County’s latest poet laureate, Janice Lobo Sapigao: death and childhood. Though “beginning” and “end” might seem polar opposites, they’re closer than we often give them credit for.
“I just want people to know that there’s still meaning in all of it, so I hope my work captures that.” _ Janice Lobo Sapigao
In our conversation, Janice shares how her writing moved to from her diary to the stage, her inspiration, and the road to becoming a poet laureate.
One of the projects that she is working on during her term is to create a Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program with at Kick-off Facebook live stream Friday, December 4, 5p-7p, https://facebook.com/SCCLD/
Music for this episode is “Time Alone” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: MildMonkMusic (https://instagram.com/mildmonkmusic) Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
Steve Borkenhagen has been an entrepreneur and business owner in Silicon Valley since 1975. He opened Camera One Theater, the first repertory cinema in San Jose, and partners in 1975. Since then, Steve had founded and operated multiple bars and restaurants in the South Bay Area, including Eulipia Restaurant from 1977 to 2012 when they transitioned to be Cafe Stritch.
In our conversation, Steve talks about his years as a business owner, arts supporting, and his current role with Urban Confluence Silicon Valley, looking to bring an iconic landmark to San Jose. With three finalists selected from hundreds of international submissions, they are now in the next design and feasibility assessment phase.
Learn more about Urban confluence. Please join us at an informational webinar on Tuesday, December 1, from 10:00a to 11:00a. They will be reviewing the significant progress during the last three years and explaining their exciting plans for the next six months—including choosing the competition winner.
Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
When we picture acts of courage, perhaps the first scenarios that scroll through our minds involve men and women who brave skin-melting heat to pull children from flame-ravaged buildings or who throw themselves into the path of oncoming bullets to drag unconscious soldiers to safety. But courage takes many forms and faces.
Storytellers, for instance, commit feats of valor too. Take the Bay Area film festival, production company, and film collective BraveMaker. “At our heart,” says Founder and Executive Director Tony Gapastione, “we really exist to elevate brave stories for justice, diversity, and inclusion.” He leans forward, elbows on knees, revealing a lens shutter tattooed on one forearm. “[We] talk about things that we know in culture are necessary to talk about… Let’s get better at having hard conversations!”
This idea, further explored on the BraveMaker website, states, “Artists and storytellers are prophets, creative forces in our world that speak to our need for justice, beauty, diversity, equality, and spirituality. This is a painstakingly difficult calling… We not only want to entertain, but to incite dialogue, [promote] awareness, and bravely shape our culture.”
There’s another quieter act of bravery Gapastione understands well: the act of reconciling with one’s past. Many of us have encountered seasons when we’d prefer to curl up somewhere rather than address past pain we’ve experienced — those times when forging forward feels a little like battling a blizzard and every step in the healing process feels like an act of audacity. For Tony, that situation was his grandmother’s suicide and the calloused remarks he received while mourning her loss.
“Let’s get better at having hard conversations!”
Rather than burying these dark moments, he coaxed them to the surface through one of BraveMaker’s latest projects: a feature-length film called The Thorns We Live With. “[It discusses] what I wish I’d done different. What I wish I would have said. Or how I wish I would have responded when people confronted me,” he shares.
This film (currently seeking investors) tells the story of a family who, according to the logline, “put[s] the fun in dysfunction.” It’s a dramedy in which “sometimes the characters weep in fetal position… [and] then, like any other (ab)normal family, there are times when they can’t stop laughing hysterically.” Because what better way to swallow the medicine of a tough theme than a little sweetener?
“We need to have stories that explore the realities of what people are experiencing today,” Gapastione notes, praising Black Panther and The Farewell for their efforts to help underrepresented communities feel seen. He’s also a fan of Fruitvale Station, a movie based on a young man shot by a police officer on the BART system in Oakland. “When I saw it, that’s when I knew. I need to make movies like this,” he recalls.
Facing rather than avoiding discomfort also helps Gapastione lead boldly on set. Like weddings, video production contains so many moving parts that something inevitably goes wrong — whether that be a filming location falling through, a prop breaking, a camera malfunctioning, or a crew member melting down. “I love problem-solving in the moment,” Gapastione explains, “because things never go the way you want them to go, and that’s part of the excitement of filmmaking.”
This head-on approach has steered him through many sticky situations, especially when diffusing disagreements among clashing crew members. “So you pull someone into the trailer, you have a hard talk, and you get through it,” he says simply, adding that he never publicly shames his cast or crew. Not only does rolling with the punches get him through the rough patches, but it actually improves the end product. Once, after mediating between two crew members in a time-sucking disagreement, Gapastione was forced to cut four pages from filming the following day. “But it ended up being the best cut because it made the story better,” he smiles.
Which brings up yet another act of brave storytelling: courageous editing. It’s tied to Gapastione’s favorite advice for writers (one repeated often since he teaches a scriptwriting class to empower fellow filmmakers). “Write your first draft (people call it a vomit draft or the trash draft) — and then go back and challenge yourself to cut everything in half,” he counsels. “…Say it better, say it quicker, say it shorter!”
As Gapastione and the BraveMaker team continue to produce daring videos and embolden storytellers young and old, it reminds the rest of us that heroics happen in the everyday. Acts of courage are reserved not only for battlefields but for bookstores. They’re carried out not only in operating rooms but in auditoriums. So don’t look for them only in the streets but in the scripts and on the sets of our local moviemakers.
How do we care for our loved ones well? This question, simple in theory, isn’t always so straightforward. A group of San Jose State University students explore this concept in their story Felt Love, a 2D and stop motion animated short film. In Felt Love, a mom/seamstress finds her son peeking his head through her sewing room doorway, hopeful of story time, and must figure out how to balance work and family. It’s a straightforward film, but it’s sure to strike a chord — especially considering current events. Moms and dads attempting to work from home during the pandemic will feel a pang of sympathy for this mother and her internal battle as she’s torn between spending quality time with her family and providing for them.
“Just because people show their love in different ways doesn’t mean it’s not there,” one of the film’s directors Arlene Bongco observes. “Appreciate the people around you and the things they do for you.” Arlene and her co-director Angeline Vu will premiere their film at the International Short Film Festival (SJSFF), representing our city among a number of globally curated selections.
This year, SJSFF will present its first home edition — fitting, actually, considering that the pandemic itself is an international experience of sorts. From October 22nd to 25th, the festival will offer moviegoers a couchside escape with over 130 films from more than 24 countries, film panels, special zoom events, and even a virtual wine pairing.
Just like we have found ways to make headway on the bumpy road of 2020, Felt Love delves into moments of grace in the midst of imperfection. In fact, finding the highs within the lows seems to be a defining characteristic in Arelene and Angeline’s friendship. Over their semesters at SJSU, the two students cheered each other on whenever the school load grew heavy. “We had spent the last four years struggling through college together and couldn’t imagine not working together for our final year,” Arlene shares.
This theme carries over to the film’s visuals, an intriguing blend of 2D and 3D animation. “In our film, nothing is perfect,” Angeline explains, “from the sewing machine, the table, the chairs, to the relationship between the mother and son. Much like real life, everything has its flaws and imperfections, and we thought that 2D animation on top of a hand-built set would best communicate that idea.”
Another visual element carefully considered was the color scheme. “Colors are very heavily tied to emotions,” Arlene explains. “For Felt Love, we wanted the warm yellows and oranges of the film to fill viewers’ hearts with the same feelings of warmth and love.” Angeline agrees, adding, “there are subtle shifts in color to more blue, purple, or red tones to add onto the emotion.”
The final product brought to life by Arlene, Angeline, and the rest of their team, is a tender rendering of familial compassion. “Love shows itself in different ways,” Angeline reminds viewers. “Sometimes, it’s upfront and obvious, and other times it’s quiet and unspoken, but both kinds of love can be equally as strong.”
The icing on the cake is that the film doesn’t even need dialogue to get that message across. It seems appropriate considering that love itself is understood by viewers across the globe — from California to Costa Rica to Cambodia — and is precisely the emotion that will see us through even the trickiest moments of COVID living.
feltlovefilm.com
Instagram: feltlove_film
San Jose Short Film Festival — Over 80 World Class Short Films / International Musical Guests / Filmmaker Q&A’s and more. 4 Day Virtual Experience
Authors have the power to change people who have never even had the chance to meet them. It is a rare gift. One of those authors is Chuck Palahniuk, known primarily for his first novel, Fight Club.
Chuck Palahniuk was an honored guest of Cinequest Film Festival 23 as a Maverick Award recipient, earning the award for his unique outsider voice that continues to have an impact on mainstream culture. In addition to receiving a Maverick Award, Palahniuk attended the festival in support of a screening of the short film “Romance,” written and directed by Andy Mingo and based on Palahniuk’s short story of the same name.
There is an uncanny peace about him. During one of the Cinequest question and answer sessions, if he didn’t have an immediate answer for a question, instead of filling time until something funny came out or just plain moving on to the next question, Palahniuk bowed his head for a moment. Stilling himself—and the entire overfull theater—he would carefully consider his next response.
There is no pretension to the man. He seemed to just be palling around with the short film director Andy Mingo and Mingo’s wife Lydia, who is a member of Palahniuk’s longstanding writing group that began in 1990. Beyond that, he was immensely accessible, if not all that approachable.
People speak of his work as dancing, splitting, and obliterating the line between the sacred and the profane. His persona is almost entirely that of the sacred, a monk of the artistic order, making his way silently among the path of followers, hangers-on, and wannabes. His stillness and silence is unnerving to some, attracting to others.
Palahniuk is quite prolific, authoring nearly a novel a year, not including short stories and non-fiction. When asked about the motivation for his work, his initial response was about the benefit of his writer’s group. “The first step to make something real in the world is to tell everyone that you’re doing it, so that people ask you about it and hold you accountable throughout the entire process,” he said. “At our first workshop of each year, we go around the room and state very tangible, measurable accomplishments. ‘I’m going to have this ready; I’m going to have this to market.’ And they’re all written down and said out loud.”
On a deeper level, he spoke of his last novel, Damned, as helping him deal with some of his own emotions. “I started writing Damned when my mother was dying of cancer and my father was dead. And so, rather than write a sad book about a middle-aged man whose parents are dead, why not invert it and write a funny book about a dead child whose parents are still alive? It allows me to express all the grief, but in a kind of inverted way as humor. Because grief and humor are so, so close.”
Palahniuk delights in the proximity of grief and humor, sentimentality and shock. It seems that his favorite sort of laughter is the kind that comes from a place of discomfort and pain—a visceral spurt of uncontrollable cackling in response to the shocking, disgusting, and disconcerting.
Even still, his work is so much deeper than that. His writing resonates on a spiritual level that transcends the existential experience of reading his stories. “There is a part of me that thinks it can save the world by documenting things. When my friends, people I love, say something really bright, something insightful or funny, a perfect description, a dead-on something at a party, I can’t let it die. I have to—as a journalist—I have to create Noah’s Ark. I have to get all those animals on board Noah’s Ark. And I’ve got to do it really fast because those animals aren’t going to live forever.”
The theme of saving the world is hard to miss in Palahniuk’s work, with a steady stream of saviors, messiahs, and martyrs beginning with Tyler Durden. These characters are willing and not so willing, selfish and selfless, conscious and oblivious. There is an attraction to weakness and frailty, and a desire to set it free, in Palahniuk’s work and the characters he creates. The human sacrifice of Raymond K. Hessel in Fight Club comes to mind, as does Victor’s selfish gift to others, allowing them to save him, in Choke.
“I was raised Catholic. I tend to work from the same kind of symbols and tend to perceive the world through them. I was raised with them; I can’t escape them. In a way, the ultimate act is to redeem others through self-sacrifice, and in doing so, to redeem yourself. But [my stories] also tend to be situations that the narrators have created for themselves. They create the crisis, and then they create the solution. They have to destroy in order to evolve, to move up, in the way that Christ had to be destroyed.”
No one said saving the world is easy. And every artist, in his or her own way, is attempting to redeem themselves by redeeming others. To quote Tyler Durden, “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.”
So much of makers’ making takes place outside of the public eye, the effort is embedded deeply and meaningfully in their products, but is perhaps not readily apparent to the naked eye. There is a particular joy that comes from encountering a maker like Allysarhaye Graciano of BlackSheepMade, who can often be found during events crocheting or hand-knitting something on the spot for a customer, such as one of her incredibly popular pet beds, one-of-a-kind rugs, or elegant plant hangers.
Even if she’s not in the process of making when customers approach her booth, they can still tell that her products are teeming with complete and utter “handmade-ness”: unique shapes with contours that are wavy like water, gracefully guided by what could only be real human hands. This quality is embodied perhaps most significantly in her Ohhio Braid pet beds. Ohhio Braid is a squishy, playful, and chunky vegan yarn, and when Graciano weaves it into beds, it produces the visual effect of a pet being massaged by thick strands of super soft spaghetti that have just been twirled by a giant fork. “My dogs can’t tell me they like the bed I made them, but watching them cuddle up in it every night is just about the same, and I love it,” Graciano says.
While her pet beds may be her signature product for now, there is the sense that Graciano and BlackSheepMade seem capable of just about anything in the future. By December, she plans to release a line of handmade fingerless gloves inspired by her childhood fascination with cutting the tips off $1 gloves she’d buy in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She also plans to start selling one-a-kind sweaters and new pet products, and she wants to start exploring other fiber arts, like weaving, felting, and embroidery. To own a BlackSheepMade product begins to feel like owning something that is a very, very limited edition. A maker this skilled and this imaginative could very well be making entirely different things, say, five years from now, driving an urgency to buy any particular BlackSheepMade product that catches the eye while it is still available.
On top of her product-based ambitions, Graciano loves teaching knitting, crochet, and macrame workshops. “I was hooked on seeing students’ skills develop in just a couple hours,” Graciano says. “I’m working towards expanding my workshops in person, online, and in other languages. I’m fluent in Spanish and French and would absolutely love to teach abroad.” It’s in this respect that Graciano represents one of the best qualities in maker culture: a confidence in craft and creativity so unwavering that the maker completely embraces the act of teaching others how to do what she does, knowing her ability to evolve, innovate, and make brilliant products will keep people following her and will keep them rapt with wonder and excitement.
BLACKSHEEPMADE
instagram: blacksheepmade
facebook: blacksheepmade
Design a business plan for a mom and pop shop. Throw in all the extras, goodies, and toppings, like locally sourced content, community building, local economy boosting, and anything else that sounds good. Do not be shy, put it all in there. In fact, build your dream business. Have you got it in your head? OK, now take this business plan and put it in a blender. Throw in some COVID-19, a dash of uncertainty, maybe a teaspoon of stress. While you’re at it, add some lightning, unprecedented wildfires, smoke-filled air, evacuations, and record-breaking heat waves. If I really have you in a mood, throw in a pinch of political tension with AB 5 and upcoming elections. For good measure, add a few cups of economic stress.
“Artists and arts organization have a larger impact on social behavior and well-being than most citizens realize.”
Yeah…so, this has been a crazy year, and it is hardly halfway through. I am just glad the Mayan calendar ended in 2012 instead of 2020. I am not sure if I could deal with Armageddon right now. My wife, Dana, and I are the cofounders of a local business. It is a mom-and-pop-shop adventure, an art hub in San Jose called Visual Philosophy. Our business, which we started in 2013, is a school and an artist incubator on The Alameda. This is the third San Jose business—spanning four generations—in my family. My great grandfather had a car dealership on San Carlos Avenue, and my grandfather sold motorcycles in the ’60s, a few blocks from our current location. Like so many businesses, we have been drastically impacted by COVID. In effect, our business as we knew it ceased. I sometimes feel like I need Captain Jack Sparrow’s magic compass to help navigate the ever-changing tides, as our authorities implement and recant rules and guidelines for doing business within the fog of COVID. That is not meant to pass judgment. I recognize the challenges our city faces while they juggle the safety of our communities and the ever-slowing trickle of our economic stream. For most businesses, including ours, the shelter-in-place order was like a shot from a starter pistol, and we scrambled into a new world of Zoom, online fatigue, and social anxiety.
Tragedies and stressful environments bring out the best and the worst in us. Amidst the chaos and anxiety, I have been lucky to witness the good in people. You should know about the efforts that might otherwise go unseen, even if their campaigns are successful. They work behind the curtains and do not ask for the spotlight. Which, honestly, is why they deserve it.
Dana and I were asked to join a task force called the Greater Downtown San Jose Economic Recovery Task Force. The group was put together by District 3 Councilmember Raul Peralez and his office. The goal of the task force was to brainstorm ideas on how to keep the economy running in the downtown and adjacent area of San Jose, and our contribution was to focus on arts and entertainment groups—the lifeblood of our city. Arts and entertainment support cultural identity and community involvement. Art-related businesses contributed over 800 billion dollars to the economy in 2019. It is the unseen current that directs economic flow in every major metropolis. The unsung heroes working behind the scenes have more effect on your life than you may realize. We have fostered the term “second responders” for the arts, because I believe art has the potential to educate and stimulate, both of which are greatly needed right now. If our task force can figure out how to run arts and entertainment businesses in the city, everything else will follow. And so we developed a campaign called Safely Social San Jose. Through local artists, art groups, and creative leaders, the campaign will aim to help our businesses develop new and appropriate methods of operating within the pandemic. Essentially, we need to recognize our social habits and strategically learn a new social dance, with the final outcome being to establish the confidence that businesses with the Safely Social logo are indeed safe places to visit. This will stimulate the economy while providing you, our citizens, a step towards sustainable recovery. Look for the Safely Social San Jose campaign as you begin to venture back out into a nonvirtual world.
The task force has provided an opportunity for Dana and me to use our business and help our city. We have connected with some amazing community arts groups and leaders. The amount of work that has been done behind the scenes to benefit our city is immense. I would like to publicly give a heartfelt thank you to Susan Sayre Batton of San Jose Museum of Art, Daniel Garcia of Content Magazine, Dana Seeger of Visual Philosophy, Brendan Rawson of San Jose Jazz, Amanda Tello Rawson of Art Builds Community, Wisa Uemura of San Jose Taiko, Nick Nichols of Symphony Silicon Valley, Trami Cron of Chopsticks Alley, Chris Esparza of Giant Creative, and Fil Maresca of Filco Events. These groups are banding together on your behalf. If you are unfamiliar with any of these names or organizations, I suggest you look them up. I am proud of the community and business that Dana and I have created. Our network of studio artists, students, teachers, and art lovers have banded together and are weathering this COVID storm as a community. A friend of ours once likened the business to a child, and she commented that it had now become an adolescent. It is time to let it go out in the world, even if it makes a few mistakes along the way. I am a proud father of my little business. I am hopeful that these turbulent times will bring us closer together and make us stronger.
The second group that needs a shout out at this time is a new nonprofit called San Jose Arts Advocates. Are you concerned about AB 5 or the upcoming elections? What about the Transit Occupancy Tax and how it will be affected by the city deficit in this time of pandemic? How are we moving forward with art in schools and on Zoom? The San Jose Arts Advocates are a bridge connecting the arts, our citizens, and local politics. They are a project-driven group with the vision to build public will for the arts by amplifying the creative voice that is the lifeblood of San Jose culture. I encourage you to get involved with this group; their goal is advocacy and education for our creative community.
Artists and arts organization have a larger impact on social behavior and well-being than most citizens realize. These organizations are the infrastructure that helps our artists tell their stories. Art remains a vehicle of communication, binding our diverse city together. Art is the best method for evaluating and re-establishing cultural behavior and awareness so we can deal with these new and epic times. Bluntly speaking, we need to question our learned behaviors and the way we interact with one another socially. I don’t know about you, but I long for the day when my main mode of communication strays from the world of Zoom and doom. Look to our artist organizations for help in learning a new social dance that will bring us all together and make us stronger.
Article originally appeared in Issue 13.1 Discover (Print SOLD OUT)
Seeking ’80s and ’90s swag? Jaypee Inguito’s your man. Through his store, Second Hand Hustle, and its offering of curated vintage men’s clothing, he hooks customers up with all your starter throwback threads, from Coogi cardigans to Reebok windbreakers to parkas to snapback caps. Jaypee’s collector’s heart was cultivated by Savers and Goodwill trips with his parents as a kid and frequent thrifting with his pals as a teen. Like a moth drawn to wool, Jaypee’s appetite for vintage clothes has grown insatiable. He can often recall the location he discovered specific items and admits he would keep collecting even without a store—the profit is an added bonus. Ready to stock up? Jaypee extends an open invitation to come by and bargain.
“We go far and wide. Actually, a couple months ago, we did a little road trip. We got a rental truck, a Dodge Durango, and we went from city to city to city. We started from San Jose. We went to LA, then to Arizona, then to New Mexico. We went to any shop we found on Yelp. We said, ‘Let’s do this like savages and just hop in the car and sleep in the back—we’ve got a pretty big truck.’ The first day, there was a lot of room in there. We could sleep two people easily. By the second day, we were sleeping on a little pile of clothes like a mattress. The third day, it was halfway so we had to kinda squeeze onto the clothes. And then on the fifth day we were literally a couple inches from the ceiling.”
In this shelter-in-place season, arts organizations and creatives have faced new hurtles in engaging audiences, donors, and artists. But what better way of overcoming the odds than with a little creative problem solving? Navigating Communications & Engagement for the Arts, a three-week series created by SVCreates, San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs, and genArts Silicon Valley, supports the arts community by sharing strategies employed by a variety of sectors. This is the first of three classes held on October 20th.
“Your brand existed before COVID and it’s going to exist after COVID” — Niall Adler
In the first panel of this interdisciplinary conversation, Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Evergreen Valley College Josh Russell moderated a discussion on communication tactics in higher education, co-facilitator Frederick Liang representing genArts. They were joined by panelists Niall Adler, Marketing and Public Relations Director at Mission College, and Guisselle Nunez, Head of Marketing and Government Relations for Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, Alameda County.
Here are five of their marketing strategies that arts organizations can use too:
Strategy #1: Know your audience
Do you know who your audience is? Do you know what age or stage in life they come from? How about their interests and needs? When you know your audience well, Russell says, it’s easier to find what platforms will reach them. For instance, when he wanted to reach a younger audience of high school seniors, he used Spotify as a platform and also recruited high schoolers as brand ambassadors to share about the school on their social media platforms.
If you already know your audience, seek to better understand them. One way of achieving this? Recruit the opinions of individuals in your organization that fit that profile, Adler advices. It’s a free resource and you’ll gain invaluable feedback by asking them a few questions!
Strategy #2: Maintain your audience
Before expanding your network, maintain your current audience. “Consistently remind them what you’re doing, why it’s important, and why you want them to come back,” Nunez encourages.
She follows this remark by explaining why nurturing these relationships is so crucial. “We have a new target audience now, which we’re calling ‘the COVID dropouts,’ ” Nunez explains, people who, for a number of reasons have decided to step away. Find ways to speak to them specifically, capture their attention, and reconnect. Nunez herself has utilized surveys to better understand students’ needs, then addressed these needs by promoting the college’s support services.
Strategy #3: Celebrate Your Local Roots
Though it might seem odd to celebrate your location in the age of Zoom events and online workshops, the panelists recommend still promoting the area in which you are based.
Nunez says that despite remote learning, her school’s students live near campus even now. “We still are emotionally connected to the places that we know and that we live in and that we’re closest to. I would say, take advantage of that!”
Plus engaging a locationally-close audience is an investment in your future. “Your brand existed before COVID and it’s going to exist after COVID,” reminds Adler.
Strategy #4: Make it human by sharing stories
Stories make for great social media content and humanize your brand. One example of this in action, shared by Russell, is Evergreen Valley College showing their support for students by posting highlights from their biweekly food distribution drive in partnership with Second Harvest.
“Find creative ways to bring back people that used to be involved in the organization,” Russell also suggests. With this in mind, EVC has reached out to alumni to collect inspirational quotes for their social media, sharing them in text and video form. This has the added benefit of building new relationships with old friends and re-engaging by honoring them.
Strategy #5: Find inspiration from similar organizations
Lastly, “follow likeminded organizations,” Adler says. Or, worded differently, “Follow your brand.” When you have similar groups in your social media feed, it’s the perfect source for inspiration. So borrow ideas, then put your own twist on them.
You can even take it a step further and reach out directly to these brands. Ask them what strategies are working for them to draw new people — chances are, they will be open to swapping ideas with you.
Watch worshop on our Vimeo page.
Cain Ramirez – Paper Moon Coffee Company
Cain co-founded Cowgirl Bike Courier, a San Jose-based bike messenger service, with Amanda Muehlbauer in 2014. After running the business for a few years in the South Bay, better business opportunities led him to San Francisco; but after an injury and changes in the messenger industry, Cain retired from that business. Soon after, the contacts he had made as a messenger led him to his next gig with Paper Moon Coffee Company.
In our conversation, Cain share is a journey as an entrepreneur, lessons from running a business, and his goals as vice president of Paper Moon.
Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
In his song, “I Said I Was Going and I Went,” Santa Cruz’s Joe Kaplow sings a reminder, perhaps to himself. “You are what you do,” he says, and by that definition, Kaplow is a folk singer through and through. As an acoustic songwriter who recently opened for the legendary Woody Guthrie protégé Ramblin’ Jack Elliott at Santa Cruz’s Kuumbwa Jazz Center, there’s no mistaking the scruffy Kaplow’s musical lineage once he starts singing and plucking his guitar.
Like Ramblin’ Jack, Kaplow has done his share of time on the road. Before settling in Santa Cruz, he spent nine months traveling the US, leaving his home in New Jersey and roaming from town to town—Baltimore, then West Virginia, then out to Colorado, crashing with his friends and booking shows along the way when he could. It was a learning and growth experience for him, and he spent a lot of time at campsites in the Rockies writing songs.
Currently living in Soquel, in a house affectionately known as “the Rat’s Carlton,” Kaplow has made a name for himself over the last four years, playing shows at regional festivals, Sofar Sounds events, and other venues in the area.
As a songwriter, Kaplow says the song comes first. “I see myself as being influenced by Paul Simon or Neil Young,” he explains. “They started with folk music, then got into rock and jazz and jam bands and eventually blended them together. I like to explore and challenge myself, but the song needs to stand on its own.”
As a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Joe has a strong background in music theory and performance, and on stage, he comes off as polished and confident. Still, he admits that a songwriter can never truly know what is going to resonate with an audience until it’s been played. “There’s a fourth wall when you’re a musician between you and the audience,” he says. “There’s a plane where there’s no real rhyme or reason as to what makes it through to the other side. The goal is to connect with people, and you’re never going to be sure what’s going to do that.”
“I like to explore and challenge myself, but the song needs to stand on its own.”
To help with that, he tries to trust his voice and his instincts and bring a strong ethic to push himself to write songs that he feels are high quality. He says he doesn’t necessarily have an ethos in songwriting but finds his lyrics veering toward the existential. “I don’t like to write about small subjects. I like to write songs more like ‘Across the Universe,’ ” citing the epic Beatles Maharishi anthem. When you see Joe perform, you’ll understand what he means. His lyrics are rich with imagery but also open enough for the audience to bring their own meaning and interpretations.
Kaplow will release his album, Time Spent In Between, at Michael’s on Main in Soquel on April 13, 2019.
Omar Rodriguez founded Kooltura Marketing to provide creative communications agency that works through the paradigm of multicultural marketing, a form of marketing that bases its strategy and methods on the people, culture, language, and history of the community it hopes to target. Kooltura has targeted San Jose’s Mayfair community and downtown San Jose.
In December 2019, Omar cofounded Eastside Magazine to further provide his clients and the community a vehicle to reach locals. In our conversation, we talk about Omar’s work with Kooltura and the vision for launching ,em>Eastside.
Find out more about Omar’s work at kooltura.com https://www.kooltura.com/
And get Eastside magazine’s current, fourth issue, Nahui at https://www.kooltura.com/issue-2020nahui https://www.instagram.com/koolturamarketing/ Read our full interview with Omar in issue 6.4 http://bit.ly/Kooltura64 Written by Anna Bagirov https://www.artillerymag.com/byline/anna-bagirov/ Photography by Daniel Garcia @thecultivator Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: MildMonkMusic (https://instagram.com/mildmonkmusic) Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
Ren Geisick isn’t a typical jazz or country singer. As a matter of fact, she categorizes herself as an Americana singer-songwriter. Growing up with country and jazz icons playing through the stereo in her San Jose home, she is equally influenced by Bob Dylan and Nina Simone; she flows seamlessly, from the soulful delivery of a jazz ballad to the carefree lilt of an American folk song. Ren is a solo artist and co-leads new funk and soul band The Anachronistics with William Bohrer.
In our conversation, we explore Ren’s musical influences, her growth as a sing-songwriter, and what led her to write her first political-themed piece, “Enemy of the People.” Which she and produced with William Bohrer and The Anachronistics, which will be release Oct 23rd, as she says, “Just in time for the elections. Make it your voting anthem.”
#32 – Demone Carter – Rapper, Creative Catalyst, and Nonprofit Professional
Demone Carter’s original plan was to be a “famous” rapper but found himself in the arts nonprofit world after starting after school youth hip-hop dance program. He continues to Rap and make music, but that transition led his path to become an influential voice in the South Bay creative scene. From overseeing MALI and the School of Arts and Culture programs to co-hosting a Rap culture podcast with Needle to the Groove team members, Dave Ma and Nate Leblanc, which has recently been pick-up by Stony Island Podcast Network.
In 2021, Demone will serve as a Creative License Ambassador for the City of San Jose.
In our conversation, Demone, p.k.a., DEM ONE, we talk about his involvement in the arts, his podcasts “Dad Bod Rap Pod,” and some of his experiences as a color person in San Jose.
Everything about Harumo Sato attains a critical mass of joy, color, and wonder. You can see it in her paintings and murals, where every character she draws could be your otherworldly spirit friend. You can see it in her wardrobe: glitter eyeshadow, sparkly leggings, and lime-green rosebud earrings, all at once. And you can see it in her animated body language, hands flinging wildly overhead and shoulders bouncing up and down. But most of all you can see this sense of magic in her life story—a fantastic journey of spiritual crisis, impossible healing, and happy discovery.
Girl with a Snake Arm
Harumo graduated college with a degree in international relations and jumped right into a job as a planner at an advertising agency. Creative fulfillment was a luxury she could not afford. Every move she made was a struggle for survival, for independence. So she stuffed down every artistic dream and told herself to embark on such ambitions maybe a decade later as a hobby.
But she still made drawings for fun once in a while, and one day, she doodled a girl with a snake arm—an omen for the inexplicable events ahead. Later that evening, she went to Chinatown for dim sum, and a friend suggested that they visit a fortune teller down the street. The psychic advised Harumo to change her job, or else her body would break. Then, on the way home, her right arm started tingling and stiffening, but she thought nothing of it. When she woke up the next day, the whole limb was dead and a deep shade of purple, swollen twice its usual size, with no mobility, sensation, temperature, or blood pressure.
She rushed to see doctors—at least 10 of them—but no one could explain her sudden paralysis. They said it was an unknown condition—perhaps the first of its kind—and nothing could be done. They advised Harumo to keep her job because no one else would hire her again. Then, they sent her home with a thick stack of bills because disability insurance programs refused to cover her mysterious disease.
Pencil Taped to Hand
After the initial waves of panic, Harumo remembered a childhood art teacher named Shusei, a stroke survivor who recovered fully from one-sided paralysis despite all medical opinions that he would never again move half his body. She reached out, and he agreed to coach her through rehabilitation with his unorthodox self-taught methods.
For their first class together, Shusei duct-taped a pencil to Harumo’s dead hand and told her to write with it. She stared back at him blankly. He said, “If your brain thinks that your body can’t work, you’ll never use it again. Convince yourself that your arm can move.”
So she did. She grabbed her swollen, purple limb with her working hand and dragged it around the page. Every inch was agony. But Shusei said, “Pain is not a big deal. It’s a necessary stage to endure, an illusion from your brain. Just don’t believe it!”
After a few torturous months of this training, Harumo started seeing results—woefully gradual results. Her paralyzed arm started gripping onto newsprint and holding down rulers so she could tear paper pieces and draw straight lines again. She built these skills slowly, eventually reaching a point where she could draw for hours every day.
It took a total of three excruciating years as Shusei’s disciple, but she managed to recuperate almost all of her mobility and strength. When she did, she immediately quit the advertising agency and attended art school instead.
New Arm, New Dream
Harumo decided to study art in the United States because of the time efficiency and creative freedom of American programs. In the States, she would only need three years to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, rather than the six years required merely to complete the portfolio application for Japanese schools. And she yearned for a place to explore her personal vision and purpose as an artist instead of a conveyor-belt education that would force her to conform to someone else’s aesthetic.
Soon, Harumo matriculated as a studio art major at the University of Buffalo, starting over as an undergraduate because her degree in international relations offered no transferable art credits. All by herself in a foreign country, living off meager funds borrowed from family, she took on her studies with a sense of haisui no jin—the grim determination of soldiers who must either win their battle or die in a ditch—or, in her case, graduate and support herself as an artist or forever face her parents with shame.
Even though she realized halfway through her first semester that she wouldn’t be able to afford much more tuition or living expenses, what she lacked in monetary resources, she made up in talent and drive. She won a school-wide grant competition with her work and invited the art department chair to attend the reception and view her piece. There, she managed to persuade her way into skipping several classes ahead—earning a bachelor’s degree in only one-and-a-half years.
New Land, New World
In 2016, Harumo moved to Mountain View in hopes of finding a vibrant Bay Area art community. She moved to California with only as much furniture as could fit into a Toyota Scion and only as much knowledge of the local art scene as she could find from Google searches. In her first few days on the West Coast, she made a list of 10 art galleries in San Francisco and took the Caltrain up to tour them. Out of the 10, six had closed from rising rent costs, and the other four only featured world-famous painters such as Chagall and Picasso. She sank into depression, wondering if her ambitions would only wilt from then on.
Luckily, a new friend soon brought her to a South First Fridays Art Walk in downtown San Jose, introducing her to a throng of local artists and creatives. Harumo was overwhelmed with relief and glee at finding like-minded thinkers and makers. There she met Cherri Lakey of Anno Domini, who invited Harumo to sell illustrations at future art events; Kevin Bigger of San Jose Made, who asked Harumo to design the poster for their annual holiday craft fair; Genevieve Santos of Le Petit Elefant, who showed Harumo how to print her own products and file her small-business taxes; Juan Carlos Araujo, who now acts as Harumo’s art agent and mural production director.
The past three years of California living have been a nonstop success story for Harumo. She gained local and national recognition by selling art at print fairs and street festivals. In 2018, she landed a series of group and solo shows through Art Attack San Francisco, and then painted the side of Dac Phuc restaurant as part of POW! WOW! San Jose. In 2019, she produced murals for both Facebook and Target. And coming up in 2020, she’ll show illustrations in a group show at Classic Cars West, and she’ll exhibit paintings in a solo show at Luggage Store Gallery—and a few other exciting projects that she can’t talk about just yet.
As for her ultimate goals and dreams, they have nothing to do with corporate clients or name-brand galleries. Harumo hopes to specialize in creating murals and installations for hospitals, rehabilitation clinics, and hospice centers—to cultivate joy for those who need it the most. “Art really changed my life. It saved me—really cured me. So I want to enhance the positivity and make people happy. I want to draw a peaceful world.”
Trami Nguyen Cron, the founder of Chopsticks Alley Art, and author of her 2016 debut novel, VietnamEazy: A Novel About Mothers, Daughters, and Food. Having lived in cultural crossroads for most of her life Trami founder Chopsticks Ally Arts in 2018 to bring their people’s artwork outside of their community into the mainstream so that “our narrative, our voices, our version of things is being seen.”
In our conversation, Trami talks about the journey to publish her book and founding Chopsticks Alley.
Karen Gutfreund is a curator focusing on feminist and social justice themed art and is also a practicing artist. She has been a contributor to Content Magazine with her piece on “Art as Slow Change” (http://bit.ly/artslowchange104). Karen’s current work is a catalog featuring 147 artists with over 350 works titled, “Not Normal: Art in the Age of Trump” as is a visual protest of the Trump administration.
In our conversation, Karen discusses her journey as an arts to curator and activist. As well as the process and reasons for collecting the works displayed in “Not Normal.”
Follow Karen: https://instagram.com/karengutfreundart http://karengutfreund.com Order “Not Normal: Art in the Age of Trump” at https://bit.ly/NotNormalArt Preview catalog video overview at https://youtu.be/NNGLYbKr6_4
Music for this episode is “Alone Time” by Mild Monk Follow him at: IG: MildMonkMusic (https://instagram.com/mildmonkmusic) Spotify: Mild Monk http://bit.ly/MildMonkMusicSpotify Read interview with Mild Monk in issue 12.0 (http://bit.ly/MildMonk120)
Natasha Sandworms carries a punk swagger when she performs, a confidence she has built from being a newcomer in the local SJ indie scene. “It can be intimidating walking into the room and having the attention be on you,” Natasha admits, being a frontwoman of color in a fairly homogenous scene. Despite this, she feels confident in her artistry. Brandishing her iconic heart-shaped guitar, this indie-rock artist tethers the lines between new wave, post-punk, and something entirely unique to her.
Natasha is as DIY as it gets. Her work has a lo-fi feel to it, mostly because she was recording and mixing her music in an old Santa Cruz motel and in her car. Single Celled is Natasha’s debut coming-of-age album, which she recorded using her iPhone and voicemail. Single Celled quickly became a personal favorite of the Come Up collective and was recognized as one of the best local music projects from 2018.
The album felt like it was released out of necessity. Natasha has been writing and making music since she was eight, but losing friends and being alone at college led to a depression that extinguished her passion to create—she even stopped listening to music. “I had cultivated an entire life that I hated,” Natasha says. “I wasn’t active, I wasn’t doing what I was supposed to be doing to make me happy.” Natasha took it upon herself to address her unhappiness. She ended a relationship, quit her job, and moved out of her apartment.
What came from this drastic change was a new-found love for music. “[Music] felt like something, and I was like, ‘Wow, I should do this. I’m feeling it now.’ ” This moment in her life became the lyrical backbone of Single Celled. “You get this backed-up creativity, and it all just came out. The album just wrote itself in a couple of weeks.”
The record feels like an homage to the 1980s—a combination of the Cure and Elvis Costello, with a touch of New Order. The lo-fi quality is a nod to new wave, pop, and punk sprinkled throughout the album. Some tracks are more contemplative and reminiscent of contemporary artists such as Phoebe Bridgers, Current Joys, or Pinegrove. While her music can be upbeat, the lyrics paint a picture of an artist in a place of pain. “[My music] can vary in genre, but it’s always very emotional,” Natasha assesses. “I only perform four songs off the album, because they are the only ones I’m comfortable performing. There are some songs on there that are painful that I just can’t play in front of people.”
The album takes a mature approach to a breadth of difficult subject matters—depression, love, heartbreak, loneliness, and the shaping of one’s identity. The title track, “Single Celled,” digs into the complicated nature of being true to oneself while feeling alone, which may serve as the theme of the entire project. After releasing the album, Natasha was contacted by her good friend John Carlo, drummer of local act Eastern Westerner and one of the founders of Yeah! Records. Still in the initial phases of creating his label, John Carlo released the album on cassette.
Fresh from a six-month stint living in Thailand, Natasha is adjusting to living in San Jose and writing from a place of contentment and stability. She now has a four-piece band—guitarist Cole Calvo and bassist Will Merveau along with John Carlo as her drummer, seasoned musicians of the local scene who have performed with other Bay Area acts such as Bread Club, Drop In, and Pardoner. She has become more collaborative with her writing process, sharing her rough drafts and recordings with her band. She admits that her previous reticence and reluctance to collaborate came from stubbornness and insecurity, but now she deeply values collaborating. “The experience of playing shows and receiving generally positive feedback makes me more confident,” she says. Natasha is learning that creating in a more positive mindset has its own challenges, but she is willing to take them on.
When asked whether she is more connected to the tech or design worlds, Urška Sršen, CCO and Founder of Bellabeat, redefines the territory. “That’s an interesting question because I think they are very intertwined… There is a connection between tech and art because tech is, at least in the consumer space, useless without design. Tech is a very creative process.” For her team, being artists and developing new technology are one and the same. Both disciplines are about developing something from scratch, and fighting for the creator’s own ideas, values, and creations.
Nothing evokes Bellabeat’s modus operandi better than its newest gadget, Leaf.
Leaf is a smart piece of jewelry that helps women track their activity, sleep, stress levels, and menstrual cycle. It looks like a pendant you can wear as a bracelet, a necklace, or simply pin onto your shirt. Other than being specifically designed for gals, Leaf stands out from other quantified-self devices in that it integrates the health information that other apps track individually into one easy-to-use interface. The device provides the most comprehensive picture a woman can get of her well-being from wearable tech.
“Creating a device that responded to women’s desire to be healthy and conceive would inspire them to track their health from earlier on.” _Urška Sršen, CCO and Founder of Bellabeat
Bellabeat’s goal for Leaf was to create a device women would be able to wear all day, every day, to provide the most accurate data possible. Their objective made the gadget’s design a practicality issue, and just as important as getting the software portion right. The team eliminated all interface from Leaf, designing it instead to transfer data to the user’s smartphone. To make it comfortable, Bellabeat used only natural materials gentle to the skin. Urška recognizes that “it is very important to break the cold and clunky surface of tech and give it a warm appeal to make the device easier to accept in your body proximity.”
With so much thought put into this tiny device, it only makes sense to ask where the initial idea came from. The truth is, Bellabeat’s story is not about one person with a brilliant idea and great investors. Bellabeat is about a family identifying a need and following up with a solution. Their story is the epitome of entrepreneurism.
Urška’s mother, an OB/GYN in their native Slovenia, struggled with the lack of prenatal care technology available to her patients. With an engineering friend, Urška created the company’s first device, Bellabeat, which tracked the kicks and heartbeat of babies still in the womb.
The team understood, however, that prenatal care was equally as much about taking care of the mother. Women are particularly mindful of their health when trying to conceive, are pregnant, or just gave birth, but many issues that affect these processes develop long before a woman starts thinking about becoming a mother. Bellabeat was born in response to a woman’s desire to track her health from early on.
Bellabeat’s devices tackle a billion-dollar market, and yet Urška believes that her company’s success is the result of sudden coincidences. “When we started, we weren’t building a company. We didn’t know we were a startup.” This point seemed irrelevant to the judges of the prestigious Pioneers Startup Challenge, who crowned them their 2013 champion in Vienna, Austria. At Pioneers, they caught the attention of Michael Seibel, partner at Y Combinator, who encouraged them to apply to the well-known program. Bellabeat is now part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2014 batch, and they have offices in Mountain View, Croatia, and China. The first Leaf edition sold over 40,000 units.
These “coincidences” Urška talks about are more likely a result of hard work and the constant pursuit of excellence. For her team, inspiration is the constant hunger for learning. As Urška says, “being an artist requires being a bit of a nerd, because if not you do not survive your art.” Bellabeat wanted to create customizable products that would shape women’s lives. They managed to achieve their goal, exceed everyone’s expectations, and remain a family business.
#29 – Usha Srinivasan, Founder, and President of Sangam Arts Usha started reconnecting with native forms of art from her home country, which led her into the local arts and culture scene. Soon she noticed that there were many diverse subgroups of people engaging in the arts from their country of origin but not being exposed to other traditions that are happening here in Silicon Valley. Thus, she launched Sangam Arts (Sangam actually means ‘coming together’ in Sanskrit) in 2013 to help connect our region’s diverse art experiences. In our conversation, Usha explains her transition from engineer to the arts, and her passion for having Sangam Arts promote multicultural understanding through performing arts.
Follow and participate in Sangam Arts (https://sangamarts.org)
Instagram: @SangamArts and @mosaicsilliconvalley (https://instagram.com/mosaicsiliconvalley)
Music for this track is a piece is called “Strings and Bow” Composed by Arjun Verma (Commissioned by Sangam Arts as part of our Mosaic Silicon Valley initiative), Performed by Arjun Verma (Sitar)| Shenshen Zhang (Pipa) | Robert Howard (Cello) | Sudhakar Vaidyanathan (Tabla)
Read original article with Usha in issue 10.4 “Profiles” (http://bit.ly/Usha204)
Written by Tad Malone (https://www.instagram.com/tee_emart/)
Photography by Daniel Garcia (https://www.instagram.com/thecultivator)
PHOTOGRAPHER: Daniel Garcia
ART DIRECTOR/STYLIST: Eric Belladonna
HAIR: Ivo Skilj, Vero Montenegro, Crystal Martin-Bulkley, and Cassandra Valadao for Limón Salon
MAKE-UP: Zenia Marie & Diana Cortez
PRODUCER: Kristen Pfund
MODELS: Scout Model and Talent Agency
LOOK 1
Dress – Pippa & Julie, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $48 Shoes – Cole Haan, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $168 Cardigan – RVCA, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $44.40 Earrings – Classic Loot, $25
Girl on finece:
Rain Coat – Top Shop, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $85 Tank Top – Chelsea28, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $68 Skirt – Chelsea28, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $78 Shoes – Moon Zooom, $16 Earrings – Classic Loot, $25 Necklace – Classic Loot, $35 Gloves – Moon Zooom, $8
Jonathan Williams took the helm as Executive Artistic Direct in July, amid the COVID pandemic. As a theatre, their performances (and revenue) came to an abrupt halted with the shelter-in-place orders. Immediately, the Tabard team began to think to go way to pivot and produce a live-stream format and presented one-man show performances of “Looking Over the President’s Shoulder,” featuring James Creer.
However, when the County Health Department got wind of it, Jonathan found himself in ongoing ZOOM dialogue to assess what Tabard would and would not be allowed to produce.
We start our conversation with Jonathan immediately after getting the news that Tabard would not be able to live-stream or perform “Arsenic and Old Lace, which was scheduled to open Friday, September 18. Though he was stunned from the news, he gracious agree to continue with the interview.
Follow, donate, and volunteer at abardtheatre.org (https://www.tabardtheatre.org)
Photo by Dave Lepori (http://www.leporiphoto.com/)
LOOK 1: Sheer gold dress, Christina Morgan Cree; black sweater, CRIV; black felt hat, Black Cat Hats
LOOK2: Black military jacket, Rachel Riot Designs; black and gold harness, Rachel Riot Designs; black skirt, Christina Morgan Cree; black and gold earrings, K. Michael Jewelry
LOOK 3: Black dress with chain detail, Christina Morgan Cree; pink and gold statement necklace, CRIV; gold choker, K. Michael Jewelry
LOOK 4: Sheer white dress, Christina Morgan Cree; black and white bow hat, Black Cat Hats; white and gold earrings, K. Michael Jewelry; gold choker, K. Michael Jewelry
Photographer: Daniel Garcia / Assistant Photographer: Arabela Espinoza / Stylist: Mariana Kishimoto / Producer: Elle Mitchell / Hair Stylists: KC Benson and Helen Yoo for Bedlam Beauty and Barber / Makeup Artist: Zenia Marie / Talent: Ivy for Scout Model Agency / Horse Trainer: Crysta Causin of Morgan Hill Riding Academy / Wardrobe: Christina Morgan Cree, Rachel Riot Designs, CRIV, K. Michael Jewelry, Black Cat Hats / Location: Coyote Lake Harvey Bear Ranch, Spade & Plow
Jessica Paz-Cedillos – Executive Director School of Arts and Culture
Jessica accepted the School of Arts and Culture’s role in March 2019 with years of experience in community service and activation. She brings those skills, knowledge, and passion to her new position, which has been vital. They have had to pivot t they working out the mission to catalyze creativity and empowers the community.
In our conversation, Jessica, who sees her work as being in service to the community to help build a thriving society, shares her decision to take the ED position. And, discusses the program changes the School of Arts and Culture has made in response to the pandemic and the community’s care: food distribution and COVID-19 testing site.
Explore downtown Campbell and you’ll find The Cruiser Shop tucked inside a Valley-of-the-Heart’s-Delight-era courtyard on Campbell Avenue. Walk inside and you’ll meet Dominick Guida. He builds custom bicycles, and he sells the things aficionados need to build or customize their own bikes. Whether they’re called Kustom, bike rods, rat rods, or cruisers, Guida’s bikes are cool, and people all over the country want them.
“A lot of people see our bikes and say, ‘That’s a lowrider.’ But to me, a lowrider has a bent fork, spoked wheels, and they’re real small,” says Guida. “Those are different than what we do. You could call them lowriders because they’re low, but I like the term ‘hot rod bicycle’ because they’re custom and they look like hot rods.”
In the late 1990s, Guida began collecting 1960s-era Schwinn bicycles and customizing them. “Back then, it was hard to find these bikes,” says Guida. “It was word of mouth; you had to know somebody that knew somebody to find them. It was frustrating. A friend and I were both into this, and I said, ‘If we’re into this, there has to be other people who are doing this, too.’ ”
Guida organized a bike show at the Happy Days Diner on Union Avenue to see what would happen. “We were kind of blown away by how many people showed up because we didn’t think there were that many others out there who were into the custom bicycle thing. We did more shows, and they just kept getting bigger and bigger.”
Guida and friend Boogie Breiz formed Behind Bars, Inc., named their bicycle show “Shiny Side Up,” and in 2011 moved it to History Park in San Jose’s Kelley Park. Held annually in July, the show draws about 4,000 locals and fans from as far away as Japan. Growing along with it has been the formation of clubs like the Kruzr3Mob, The Others, and LuxuriouS, anchoring a vibrant South Bay Area custom bike community.
Because Shiny Side Up led people looking for bikes, parts, and accessories to Guida, he opened The Cruiser Shop in December of 2012. Business was so good he was able to quit his day job six months later.
Although Guida sells plenty of ready-made cruisers, designing and building custom bikes is a large part of his business. Despite the fact that they cost $2,000 to $4,000 a pop, Guida says there has been a waiting list for them since the shop opened, largely because customers from around the country find him on the internet and place orders for them. Debbie Tozzo, a Florida art collector, has a dozen of Guida’s custom cruisers housed in her 6,500-square-foot garage, along with sculpture, pottery, ’60s-era Schwinn bicycles, and vintage VW Buses and Bugs.
“[Dominick] took the time to design what I wanted,” says Tozzo. “I can take them out to ride, but when they’re in the garage on pallet racks, sometimes I just walk in and look at them because each and every one of them is a work of art.”
“My custom bikes aren’t something that you can take off of a shelf,” says Guida. “Every single thing has been handpainted, hand-built, and is ‘one of’ completely. You don’t see any two that are the same; that’s the thing. You get to design your own.”
“When I opened, a lot of people said, ‘What are you going to do when the trend’s over?’ This isn’t a trend…I’ve seen no signs of anything slowing down because these bikes grab everybody—men, women, kids. Custom bikes have been around for a while, but these are modern-day cool cruisers. I’m putting a new spin on it.”
Melanie Panergo caught the DJ bug at 16. At a rave in Oakland, among 10-foot-tall lava lamps, she saw a set by DJ Qbert and Kid Koala, two turntablist legends who that night challenged her notion of just what was possible on the decks. Setting the scene, she says the two “weren’t specifically playing to dance. They were creating a musical collage. Kid Koala [was playing] old instructional records, and Qbert was laying breaks on top of it. I thought it was amazing.”
Soon after, she asked her father for turntables, and he agreed to buy her a setup if she earned straight A’s, a promise she dutifully held up. Once secured, though, she’d skip school with her friends to grab more practice time while her parents were at work. Thanks to an ID she obtained from a brother’s friend who was a bouncer, she also got an early taste of the nightlife scene in her hometown, San Jose.
Through contacts at parties like the now-defunct Stank at the former Agenda Lounge, she landed her first event: a monthly gig at the SoFA gallery MACLA. She overheard patrons say “there’s that girl” enough that it spawned her DJ name. Panergo soon became a regular presence at Universal Grammar events like Dime, the Changing Same, and Live at the Pagoda, parties where she opened for Yuna, Aloe Blacc, and KRS One.
I think, naturally, with all my professional and artistic experience, it’s led me to be in a position to funnel more opportunities to women.
“I’ve always been open format, because I never really stuck to one thing. Hip-hop was definitely a foundation, but I was always digging for other sounds,” she says of her selection, eclectic yet often polyrhythmic and distinctly danceable, a hallmark from a background in DJ’ing breakdancing events, where she’d have to dispense heavy grooves at a rapid-fire pace.
ThatGirl has since expanded her reach throughout the Bay and is likely best known as a member of the Peaches crew, an all-female DJ contingent whose weekly party in San Francisco ran for a decade. “At the time, it was rare to see a female DJ,” she says of the party’s early days, adding that Peaches continued the work of OGs like DJ Zita and the late Pam the Funkstress, whose Everlasting B.A.S.S. party aimed to provide more visibility and exposure for female DJs and creatives. “We saw the importance of banding together and creating that representation for ourselves.”
Since the crew stepped away from their weekly, Panergo has largely shifted her focus to wedding and corporate gigs; at the end of last year, she found a way to merge her budding success in this space with her vision to provide more opportunities to female DJs. DIME Talent Group was born. “I think, naturally, with all my professional and artistic experience, it’s led me to be in a position to funnel more opportunities to women,” notes Panergo. DIME’s talent pool, rich in experience, includes longtime friend Jenicyde and her Peaches crew counterparts, including DJ Umami, Lady Fingaz, and Lady Ryan.
Though DIME is just getting started—the collective was founded at the tail end of last year—she’s hoping her efforts will help spread the notion that the DJ booth, not just the dance floor, is a space where all are welcome. It’s a deeply embedded value for Panergo, as she’s encountered pushback as both a woman and someone who identifies as queer. She’s been denied the decks at events by men, been asked by promoters if her brand is going to scare away the male clientele, and even been asked if her following might compromise a safe space.
Yet, in turn, a friend provided the perfect nickname, given the wide variance of audiences she’s been able to perform for. “Someone coined me ‘the bridge,’ because, eventually, I would bring a crowd of people who were just open, regardless if it was a gay or straight party,” she says. “I thought that’s pretty empowering that I have this niche where I can bring together those worlds.”
Now Panergo isn’t only bridging together different worlds through her mixing. She’s creating opportunity with a purpose in mind—and shifting perceptions one dance floor at a time.
Even when he isn’t consciously looking for it, artist and graphic designer Jemal Diamond seems to find duality in his art.
Born and raised in Stockton, California, Diamond moved to the Midwest after high school—St. Louis, specifically, where he studied theater in college. Starting out as an actor but ending up as a director, Diamond eventually made his way up to Chicago where a vibrant and extensive small-theater scene welcomed him. Soon, he was running a small theater company with his friends, but meeting after meeting led Diamond to experience something of a crisis of faith. “[I] had a major life crisis and pretty much quit theater forever,” Diamond says. “It was then I decided I wanted to make visual art, particularly visual and graphic design.”
Being a poor theater kid, however, didn’t lend itself financially to getting a proper art education. But Diamond found an ingenious backdoor; after landing a job in the computer lab at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he learned that one of the benefits of being on staff was the tuition remission benefit, meaning Diamond could effectively go to school for free as long as he was employed by the school.
So, he spent the next decade at the Art Institute, slowly moving upward in both employment and as an artist, eventually earning an MFA in visual communication after many a night school class. “I took classes in every discipline, including design, art and technology, painting, fiber arts, and video,” recalls Diamond. “Everyone around me took it very seriously, and I was exposed to some really practical ways for making a living.”
Indeed, soon after graduating, Diamond found success as a graphic designer and art director, shaping the art and design for various technology firms and companies for 15 years. This led him and his family to the Bay Area—first to Oakland, then further south to Sunnyvale.
Throughout his career, though, Diamond has been coming home from work and creating his own art, free from clients’ demands. Armed with something of a Shaolin master’s education in art, Diamond creates arresting yet inviting expressionistic portraits, mostly in pen and ink or digital mediums.
Capturing the childlike innocence of the early German and French abstract expressionist painters like Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Marc Chagall (artists who he counts as influences), Diamond creates fascinating humanoids—not limited to flesh and bone—but instead manifested in vibrant, rhythmic tones and patterns that are both abstract and familiar. His figures express a certain dualism in intention versus reaction, form versus shape, and much more. “I purposely embed multiple and contrasting symbols, figures, and visual structures in hopes that [the viewers] find their own narrative,” Diamond says of his compositions.
“I purposely embed multiple and contrasting symbols, figures, and visual structures in hopes that [the viewers] find their own narrative.”
And while he injects a fair amount of deliberateness in his art’s thematic or contextual intentions, his process is far more chaotic. “My creative process is intuitive and wholly improvisational. I usually do not have any intended outcome in mind but hope for joyful surprises,” Diamond says, adding: “Over the years, three visual motifs developed that I like calling ‘the Goddess,’ ‘the City,’ and ‘the Map to Heaven.’ Often, you’ll see these frameworks at play and sometimes a mix of two or all three. For me, the challenge is often not how to begin, but when to stop.”
Another fascinating aspect of Diamond’s creative process is his “outsourcing” of a portion of his art. A practice he’s been exploring since the days of LiveJournal, Diamond asks his viewers to come up with the titles for his pieces, opting to let the audience shape and focus a given piece as much as the artist. “I’ve been asking viewers to title my abstract work since I was in art school, and I’m absolutely in love with that dialogue,” Diamond says of this technique. “By asking people to give my work their own title, I’m inviting them to collaborate with me on a meaning.”
As with many creatives in the South Bay, when Diamond first arrived, he felt the landscape to be a bit culturally malnourished. But Diamond found a home in the burgeoning art scene in San Jose. Showing his work often at KALEID Gallery and the School of Visual Philosophy, where he also keeps a studio, Diamond only hopes to keep his art and audience growing.
Born and raised in Gilroy, Ahmadkhani decided to go to college at Cal Poly at San Luis Obispo because of its location. Soon after arriving, she found a group of like-minded creatives in the tightly knit English Department, a refuge in a sense from the polytechnic focus of the university. She went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in English literature.
She fell in love with poetry through her freshman poetry courses, eventually spending the next six years pursuing poetry and building up her portfolio. Above anything, she credits one of her professors with helping her cultivate her craft, see the power of poetry, and be true to her process. “When you are first starting to write,” she muses, “it’s easy to write to an audience, to what you think the audience might want. I try to say exactly what it is I’m trying to say.”
That tutelage showed. While at Cal Poly, she won Cal Poly’s Academy of American Poets prize twice—one of the few students to ever do so—first in 2015 and then again two years later in 2017. Currently, she is still studying at Cal Poly, this time pursuing a master’s degree in English literature.
Since her early poetic forays, Ahmadkhani’s voice has developed more conciseness as she attempts to say the most with the least amount of words. By her own estimate, Ahmadkhani’s poems top out at no more than 14 lines and often feature deliberate use of white space and other compositional techniques—echoes of the lyrical influences on her writing of Romantic poets such as Shelley or Keats or the lyrical minimalism of the early 20th-century Bohemian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.
“I try to start my poems with one moment that can lead the reader to greater questions about human relationships.”
Her writing process varies, with the words sometimes coming out of her head fully formed. Usually, though, Ahmadkhani starts with the last line, then goes back and builds up the poem around that finale. “It’s a strange little structural anchor,” she says.
Thematically, Ahmadkhani’s poems focus on the natural world, femininity, mental illness, and the nuances of people’s interactions. “I try to start my poems with one moment that can lead the reader to greater questions about human relationships,” she says. “That’s kind of my most consistent theme in my work.” But her most celebrated poems, like her award-winning rumination on her heritage, “Only Half,” deal with her own identity struggles—particularly with being half Iranian. As for the reader’s perception, Ahmadkhani believes the more the merrier. “I don’t know what I want people to take away from my poems,” she says. “The great thing about poetry is that people bring their own lives and knowledge to the writing, so a poem can be about a specific topic, but everyone will perceive it differently, with people picking up on things you never noticed.”
Ahmadkhani felt a bit out of place when she applied for the first Academy of American Poets contest. Originally not even planning on submitting, she wrestled with a voice she was still coming into. “So I just wrote what I wanted to write, and it won,” she recalls about the poem which explores love, the absence of love, and the exploration of former versions of oneself.
Now, only a few years later, Ahmadkhani’s well on her way to becoming one of the South Bay’s premiere young poetic voices. Besides her two prize-winning poems, her work has been published in the literary journal Byzantium and in the new anthology California’s Best Emerging Poets.
While finishing her master’s, Marissa Ahmadkhani is trying out teaching and is hoping to get into the editorial, marketing, and publishing side of the literary business. While she adds to her already-celebrated portfolio and submits to other literary journals, Ahmadkhani ultimately hopes to publish a book of her poetry.
“I am in this weird in-between stage,” she remarks. “Once December passes, I will see where it all takes me.”
A good story is like an addiction. It separates you from yourself, steeps you in a world different from the one buoyed by your immediate surroundings. But, according to McGee, only one brings you back whole.
Your work does more than experiment with form. It is in conversation with real issues in the real world. Is there something external to the writing that you’re working toward? A change you would like to help realize? Addiction runs amuck in my books. I’ve spent many years in rooms with women and men telling and hearing stories about addiction. Stories of how addiction will erode the self, break the family and can kill you. When I left those rooms I knew there were books in me to be written and shared. Addiction, in whatever form, and when it threatens to erase you, brings you to face the self. So writing Ghost Man, Shine, and Naked (memoir in verse) was brewing in me for years, and their narratives remind me of the stark realities of being out of control and not confronting your demons. I hope my work continues to open up the discussion about family and personal addictions that are often only spoken about in secret.
A good novel can make you feel like you are temporarily living another person’s life. Why do you think this is such a compelling experience? We are all looking for an escape. The chance to leave our bodies temporarily is exhilarating. Once the novel is done, we return to ourselves more whole if the novel is worthy. Readers want this experience, and as writers, it is important to write narratives that move people. I want to write with an urgency and with a beat that is authentic and lets the reader engage with the characters. I want to share narratives that move people because we all want to spend some time in another realm. And we all want glimpses into what we do not know. A good novel can do this and more.
Ursula K. LeGuin said, “The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words.” I know this is a curveball, but does this make sense to you? What are your thoughts? Beautiful words and question. The novelist gives voice to what many of us are afraid to utter. The novelist saves us and moves forward boldly to put on the page our deepest fears and ambitions. And in the end, the writing keeps us alive and moving onward.
Why is reading new fiction important? Fiction guides what it means to be human. Stories are created every moment and new fiction takes these narratives and shapes them for us to experience. And in doing so, we live on and continue to figure out what it means to be alive.
What is the best book you have ever read?I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
For as long as there have been social movements to right the wrongs of oppressive powers, there have been performing artists to help give voice to the marginalized. Musicians, theater artists, poets, and others have brought forth works that help us all wrestle with society’s greatest challenges and hold the powerful accountable.
Many of these artists have roots right here in our own backyard. Think of San Jose’s own recent inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Doobie Brothers, and their 1976 anthem to people power, “Takin’ it to the Streets,” the corridos of Los Tigres del Norte, the skate punk revolt of Los Olvidados, and the visceral words of our recent poet laureate Mighty Mike McGee. Today, the “Great American Experiment” needs the unique contributions of the performing arts more than ever.
Assembly Bill 5 was championed as California’s protection from big tech worker abuses in the new gig economy. Indeed, there were some worthy intentions behind the bill’s efforts to improve the lot of workers trying to piece together a living in this expensive state. The law is also estimated to bring in $7 billion annually to state coffers in the form of new unemployment insurance taxes, workers compensation insurance taxes, and other fees.
“California’s new gig worker law leaves a wide wake of collateral damage for the performing arts.”
Unfortunately, instead of taking a thoughtful approach to address the seismic shifts occurring in our economy, the state chose to cook up a hodgepodge of exemptions and fixes that do not address the societal and economic changes we are all experiencing. Rather, the collateral damage from the law has resulted in numerous lost gigs and performances for creatives throughout the state. Cultural presenters and artists are left trying to unravel the tangle of red tape and added administrative expenses of conforming to the law. And now, sadly, Sacramento is attempting to buy off small nonprofit arts groups with one-time AB 5 compliance assistance grants and to silence particular creative sectors, such as freelance writers and musicians, with additional piecemeal exemptions.
For many local cultural programmers, addressing the new law is not just a matter of fighting for an exemption for a particular creative discipline such as musician, dancer, or freelance writer. The law is fundamentally undercutting how a wide swath of small, community-based art making comes to life in our community. AB 5 is acting as a straitjacket upon the creative sector. Trying to regulate the working dynamics of the arts through the same lens of industry and occupational classifications used to regulate Uber, DoorDash, and TaskRabbit does not take into account the myriad of ways artists find time and the wherewithal to produce their work.
Let’s back up for a moment to try to better understand the problem. The reason for the mess is two fold. First, our rapidly evolving economy exhibits incalculable variations of worker/contractor/employer/collaborator arrangements far too complex to be reasonably regulated by the 69 words of the law’s ABC Test. As currently structured, it is California’s statutory default to define all workers as employees unless the hirer can prove that a worker is independent according to the ABC Test. The test establishes that a worker can only be an independent contractor if each of these three factors are met:
A. The worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact.
B. The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.
C. The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.
For instance, the B portion of the test requires that the service to be performed by a contractor must be “outside the usual course of the hiring entities business.”
This poses numerous conflicts in the cultural programming field. To illustrate, in 2019, San Jose Jazz presented more than 1,000 musicians across 326 different performances. The vast majority were independent musicians and singers from California and around the nation.
For some big-name acts, we contract with their corporate agent and pay the agency for the band’s performance. However, for the vast majority of musicians, we work directly with the bandleader to agree on a price and terms, providing them payment as independent contractors. They, in turn, pay their band members in accordance with IRS Schedule C filing rules.
Under AB 5, we are now required to inform musicians, dancers, spoken-word artists, DJs, and other paid performers that they must now become employees of San Jose Jazz for the length of their performance for our audience, often less than 90 minutes. We are now obligated to devote tremendous time and resources to managing this cumbersome process.
For another example, take the situation of an independent wedding event planner who secures a large wedding gig and wants to contract assistance for the big weekend with additional helpers. Under the ABC Test they will have to hire the assistants as W2 employees. The hirer must set up payroll, pay the state required unemployment insurance taxes, make sure to provide proper workplace accommodations and rest breaks.
Second, our legislators’ myopic worldview tries to force every manner of economic exchange for services through the lens of an employer/employee construct. Our pluralistic society and culture are far more kaleidoscopic than this approach allows for. Numerous areas of our civic and cultural life are being caught up in this mire—freelance journalism, youth sports leagues and camps, community theaters, cultural festivals, music clubs, dance studios, and garage bands, to name just a few. The complete list would be as easy to define as it is to define a labor category for who is and is not a currently exempt “fine artist” under the law.
The sheer might and speed of the California economy is truly staggering. Therefore, ensuring fair competition along with worker and environmental protections is appropriately the concern of Sacramento. However, not all economic and labor relationships are properly understood through a constrictive industry/employee lens. Faith communities, social benefit associations, sporting clubs, avocational affinity groups, worker cooperatives, student internships, craft guilds, and arts organizations all demonstrate labor exchanges and collaborative relationships that don’t fit nicely into AB 5’s world view. For example, in the traditional employer/employee construct, the intellectual properties rights of a new work are owned by the employer, not the artist. As expected, industry sectors with powerful lobbying machines—doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, AAA tow truck drivers—made sure to carve out their exemptions in the original bill. In contrast, those areas of society that did not get a fair shake in the process were the small, the independent, and the marginalized.
Small, independent, and marginalized is also an apt description of Silicon Valley’s cultural sector. According to the recent Silicon Valley Index, the number of nonprofit arts organizations in Santa Clara County has doubled since 2012 to more than 900 groups. This is a very exciting development for our local cultural ecosystem. However, more than half of these culture organizations operate on budgets of less than $100,000. Forcing these organizations, probably more accurately described as community-based culture projects, to take on the same regulatory burden of Lyft and Postmates will only result in the demise of some of our most fledgling and exciting local culture makers.
California’s diverse cultural contributions are recognized around the world. Our residents have brought forth tremendous works that explore the depths of the human condition and help speak truth to power. The arts ecosystem is distinctly different from other sectors in the California economy. California legislators need to step up to protect the arts and artists’ unique role in society. Shamefully, Sacramento is currently dismantling the ecosystem for the performing arts to tackle the important issues of our day. The reality of small theaters canceling seasons and independent music and dance studios closing their doors flies counter to the Sacramento preferred narrative of “heroic lawmakers take on big tech to protect the little guy.” They really should hire a good freelance writer to help them with their flimsy script.
Over the last half-century, Silicon Valley has become the global center of innovation—the world’s brightest minds flock here in droves. It’s the birthplace of some of the most groundbreaking companies in tech, and people have been trying to figure out what makes this place so unique for years. Governments have even spent billions of dollars trying to replicate it, failing miserably in the process. The magic, it seems, just can’t be reproduced. But Scott Gardner and his team at Liquid Agency figured out how to harness this magic and create one of the valley’s most valuable resources: Silicon Valley Thinking. Distilling decades of the area’s innovative spirit into this flexible methodology, Scott and company are building innovative brand experiences for clients that include Nike, Adidas, Walmart, HP, and GE.
“You have to find a tribe of people that will love your brand and tell others, and you do it through a strong culture. If you have a strong culture, you’re going to have a strong company.”
Scott’s entrepreneurial nature became apparent in childhood. He was always trying to figure out ways to bring in money, from paper routes to mowing lawns. In college, he printed T-shirts and even started a small merchandising business. He got his first “real job” at a telecommunications company, but that only lasted 90 days. After swapping T-shirts for tickets to a sports game with a friend who led marketing for Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Scott learned they spent millions of dollars on promotional items every year—and a light bulb went on.
“I went home and told a guy I sold phones with what I learned, and he said, ‘Why are we selling phones? Let’s do this!’ So we quit our jobs and started a company that weekend.”
In the early ’90s, computer companies were popping up all over the valley, and software and hardware sold for high prices at big-box tech chains like Computer City and CompUSA. Unlike consumer brands that gave away brand new Corvettes and tickets to the Super Bowl, promotions were nearly unheard of in the tech world, and Scott saw an opportunity to reinvent how marketing was done in Silicon Valley. He ran cross-promotional campaigns that connected tech companies with established brands, pairing Microsoft with Delta Air Lines and Symantec with The Sharper Image.
It wasn’t long before Scott’s disruptive approach caught the eyes of investors. In 1999, he was approached by an investment company that promised him fame and fortune, but the whole thing went south—he lost everything, including his marriage. “It was an incredible life lesson. I learned a lot of what not to do. But we still had a chance to turn the Etch A Sketch upside down. We set out to create a globally respected brand consultancy, one that blended logic and magic, and we did it in Silicon Valley.”
And with that, Liquid Agency was born. More than a marketing company, Liquid is a
brand experience agency that specializes in transforming cultures and helping companies find their “tribe.” Liquid doesn’t just make people aware of brands, it makes people fall in love with those brands. Scott understands that in today’s world, the customer is in control of your brand much more than you are. “People can now decide how they want to engage with brands,” says Scott. “You have to find a tribe of people that will love your brand and tell others, and you do it through a strong culture. If you have a strong culture, you’re going to have a strong company.”
After working with Silicon Valley companies like Google and Intel, Scott and his team realized that fast production cycles were the key to these companies’ success. To help brands quickly transform their culture, they developed Silicon Valley Thinking, an approach that breaks down the valley’s unique execution mindset into a step-by-step process. “Typical businesses move slowly, but in tech there’s simply no time. You need to get the right brain trust together early, iterate constantly, and prototype as quickly as possible to get to market first—speed is essential,” says Scott.
Liquid embeds themselves with their clients, working with them as partners. They swarm around ideas with kinetic energy, rapidly building out prototypes, which helps them get to the right answers faster than the competition. This method results in world-class brand experiences that capture the imagination and turn customers into lifelong fans.
“We’re so fortunate to live in this valley. There’s so much opportunity, so many great people. We’re a people business. I wake up every day thankful and excited I get to do this. Not everybody has this,” shares Scott.
No, not everyone is lucky enough to have what is here in Silicon Valley. As for the companies that come to him from around the globe, Scott is able to give them a little piece of our culture, thinking, and magic.
LIQUID AGENCY Downtown San Jose 448 S Market Street San Jose, CA 95113 408.850.8800 instagram:LIQUIDAGENCY
How many books and bloggers have warned us of the isolation of our digital screens? Of the threat of social media corroding friendships or of virtual reality overriding real life? But here’s the thing about tools: They can harm or they can help. It’s up to the user to make that choice, and immersive experience designer Leily Khatibi knows this better than most.
The inspiration for Khatibi’s thesis project at San Jose State (SJSU) arose from her introduction to the concept of the Wood Wide Web—a term scientists use to refer to the underground fungal network that connects the roots of trees and plants, allowing them to communicate and share resources with each other. Fascinated by its striking resemblance to the internet, she realized, “They have their own social media underground. It’s so sci-fi, but it’s a real thing!”
This inspired a question: “If the Wood Wide Web and the World Wide Web were to intersect, what types of hybrid/techno-botanic life would take form?” What sort of symbiotic relationship might be cultivated between tech and plants? Putting this thought-experiment to the test, the SJSU grad student conducted a series of experiences. Interconnecting with the Wood Wide Web (WWW.) resulted in workshops, a greenhouse installation, and an interactive exhibition at one of SJSU’s galleries.
“You’re taking storytelling and turning it into storyliving.”
The workshop part of Khatibi’s project unfolded at Backyard San Jose, a pop-up community garden and event space that temporarily sprang up over the summer in an unassuming downtown lot. If you had signed up as one of her participants, Khatibi would have ushered you over to a long table and supplied you with containers of Play-Doh. She would have instructed you to sculpt a techno-botanic plant that might aid a sustainable future, then write a narrative about your creation’s origin and abilities. These could range from a flower that purifies areas affected by power plant radiation to a genetically modified shrub offering an alternative power source.
The resulting dough creations—carnivorous or floral, viny or thorny—were placed atop black-and-white, pixelated QR code squares, then 3D scanned. From there, they were uploaded to augmented reality (AR), which, unlike virtual reality, adds to the physical world rather than wipes it out. For viewing, participants stepped over to a small “greenhouse” made of transparent, iridescent plastic the color of a soap bubble and picked up the AR HoloLens headset resting on the platform within. With the apparatus strapped on, participants witnessed the virtual organisms they had “grown” now thriving in the midst of Backyard’s real foliage. “You’re taking storytelling and turning it into storyliving,” Khatibi declares. She also got the greenlight to set up her AR greenhouse among the fronds and ferns of SJSU’s climate-controlled rooftop greenhouse. “It was really meta!” she says.
One of her favorite factors of the whole experience? The collaboration—a process that has increasingly progressed to the forefront of her practice. “It wasn’t so much about what my vision was. It was more about how we could collectively create something together…it was a platform for them to bring their own ideas to,” Khatibi says. She also notes that collaboration is implicitly tied to the nature of the internet—an exhaustive number of databases, documents, and other resources pooled into one massive amalgamation. All those different angles of observation reveal a more multifaceted, in-depth understanding of the world around us. “Together we’re stronger and the ideas are more powerful. It’s a more universal message,” she says.
Partnership is also essential to big-vision projects. When we don’t have time to become an expert in multiple fields, tasks can be delegated to different specialists. “You don’t need to know all of it! You just need to know people who know what you want them to know,” Khatibi laughs.
Another main theme of the WWW. project was reconsidering our perception of technology as artificial. Sometimes it partners with nature, Khatibi observes, explaining how undersea cables connect continents to achieve the World Wide Web and how cell towers masquerade as trees.
From this perspective, the advancement of society doesn’t necessarily have to carry us further away from the natural world. It’s possible to blend the two spheres rather than widen the divide (its own kind of collaboration, if you think about it). This can be as simple as making the switch from synthetic materials to eco-friendly ones. In a past experiment titled Sacred Geometry, Khatibi explored 3D printing by replacing man-made plastics with clay.
And it can be as intricate as biophilic design—the concept of blending contemporary architecture with nature, resulting in structures that unfold like organisms, flowing and flexible. In this quest to pull our heads out of the virtual cloud and mentally ground ourselves with organic elements, we’ve ended up with projects like the Amazon Spheres in Seattle, a greenhouse-style workspace with a small rainforest of 40,000 plants and treehouse meeting rooms. And let’s not forget Singapore’s iconic Supertree Grove—man-made, tree-like towers covered with ferns and orchids and embedded with solar panels that supply energy for a stunning light show every evening.
Coincidently, Khatibi gained her bachelor’s in architecture. Such cross-disciplinary studies allow her to apply an understanding of the relationship between humans and physical spaces to her VR/AR installations. “It’s all about environment building and world building,” she says of both fields.
Khatibi’s hopeful view pushes back against progress pessimists who predict a harsh future. “With technology replacing humans, it is kind of scary how robots might take over the world. We see it in all these dystopian narratives in movies. I just saw the most recent Terminator,” she says with a wry smile. “But I also see a lot of potential in it. Even though there’s these phobias or narratives that don’t have such happy endings, I think it could be quite useful to have technology improve.”
And artificial intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean humanity will one day grow outdated. “I was a part of that whole transition—from analogue use to a hyper-digital maturity,” Khatibi notes. As a ’90s baby, she saw Walkmans and CD-ROMs yield to smart phones and Spotify. She watched VHS cassettes give way to Netflix. “As technology changes, I’m changing with it, and it’s just a natural part of who I am,” she says.
A variety of voices will continue to shape our expectations for technology and the future—whether that be dystopian society or cultivated civilization. As she continues to create, Khatibi’s immersive installations are sure to lend a hopeful voice to that discussion.
IIf you’ve seen slam poetry live in the Bay Area, chances are you’ve seen Tshaka Campbell performing. Campbell has dedicated his artistic life to sharing his world of words and the performance of his own perspective. Wherever Campbell has called home, he’s brought his poetry with him, lending his intimate stories and words of longing to other lovers of craft or to anybody willing to lend an ear.
Campbell can trace his affinity for words back to his father, who read aloud the speeches of Marcus Garvey and the poems of Claude McKay. Campbell picked up the politics and artistry of what was shared with him, but it was much more than simply context. Even as a young boy, Campbell felt the texture of the words themselves, informed not just by their content but by their intonation, rhythm, delivery—their poetry. He started writing his own poems at a young age, privately, but it took him awhile to find his own style. It wouldn’t be until he performed his poetry in front of an audience that his voice would come into its own. For Campbell, it was about elevating the subject. “When you own it, your body starts to perform it. And when you write about something you’re passionate about, that passion will come through it.”
“When you own it, your body starts to perform it. And when you write about something you’re passionate about, that passion will come through it.”
He and his friends started attending open mic nights at the local poetry club. On the first night of his first performance, the owner pulled him aside and told him that he had something special, and that he needed to perform at the dedicated slam poetry night. Immediately, Campbell saw that people were interested in what he had to say, in the perspective he could share. “At these sessions, you quickly realize how empathetic people are,” Campbell says. “That was impactful. As long as I had integrity in my poetry, people would share in my experience.” Getting a taste of the audience’s reaction to his performances initiated a reciprocal relationship—he realized he could affect them, and in turn they could affect him.
Since then, Campbell has lived the life of a traveling poet. When he isn’t working his day job as a marketing director, he’s either writing poetry or performing at a slam. In his older age, now that he has “calmed down,” the focus of Campbell’s poetry is more domestic. He primarily writes about politics and the struggles of African-Americans, but he’s noticed that regardless of the topic, the poem will center around a message he wants to send his daughter. He’s currently working on a collection of lessons he wishes to impart to her, aptly titled “Letters to My Daughter.”
“It’s almost an unconscious thing,” Campbell says. “Whether it is politics or the BLM movement, as time went on, she was the undertone. It’s like a different lens through that same prism.”
Campbell eventually wants to bring some writing-centered youth programs to San Jose to help cultivate the raw talent he knows the city has. He believes that there is a stigmatic barrier against poetry—that the important distinctions between “page” poetry and performed is often disregarded, and so, too, is the art. At the same time, others believe that the written form is “intellectual” and performed is “low-brow,” when the two come from the same wellspring of necessary human expression. “Like everything in this world, we dilute and compartmentalize poetry, but people use it every day,” says Campbell. “There should be more of an appreciation for it. But there is a stigma attached to this thing called poetry.”
Performing slam across the world has taught Campbell one thing—that no matter where you go, there will be some niche where people will hole up and share their poetry. Campbell has noticed that, locally, poetry clubs are currently in a trough, with turnout low, especially during the economic downturn in the late 2000s. Still, Campbell is not worried. He knows that the desire to perform and share one’s voice is alive and well, and it won’t be long until others join him and grab the mic.
“It’s all cyclical,” Campbell says. “People will come and go, but there will always be somebody to slot into that space and share their voice.
Activist art is on the rise, particularly in the last two years. While it used to be rare to have art institutions hosting activist exhibitions, they are now being shown across the country and in locations that even just a few years ago would have seemed improbable. Imagine a gallery or museum in a conservative southern town having an exhibition on the theme of racism or Black Lives Matter. The whirlwind of rhetoric and hyperbole from the current administration spewing xenophobia, misogyny, and racism has galvanized artists into action, bringing to light injustice and inequalities.
Many artists have been deeply committed to a practice that addresses pressing issues such as immigration, human rights, women’s rights, health care, the environment, and gun control. This is the bedrock of art-as-activism exhibitions—using the power of the arts to visually document social issues and drive social change. The role of curators and artists is not just to produce exhibitions but, through shows and the programming of socially engaged art, to help shift the way people think about the issues. It has been said that art cannot change the world, but if artists said nothing, the silence would be deafening. Now more than ever, artists, curators, universities, and museum professionals are compelled to produce activist exhibitions because silence on the issues would suggest complicity and collusion.
Using art for social commentary is not a new phenomenon. Art helps humanize and actualize emotions, injustices, hopes, and fears. It can elicit a visceral reaction, provoke and then inspire us to action. Art is not just about depicting beauty, but rather encapsulating and expressing the viewpoint of the artist, drawn from their experiences and perspectives, into a visual form. Common themes are contextualized through specific imagery and art that reflects the happenings of the time. The art and culture feed into each other and can cause transformation as a result.
Think of Picasso’s painting Guernica, portraying the bombing of a village in Spain by Nazi Germany, Goya’s 80 aquatint etchings, The Disasters of War, detailing in exquisite detail the horrors of the Napoleonic Peninsular War, or The Napalm Girl, by photojournalist Nick Ut, capturing a little girl burned by a bomb, running naked down a dirt road in Vietnam. With the onset of AIDS in the ’80s, Silence = Death personified the advocacy and protest of the Act Up organization. That image still has the power to move and disturb. This “logo” included the instruction to turn anger, fear, and grief into action, and it changed the way people looked at the AIDS epidemic, opening a national conversation. These are all examples of lasting, impactful artwork that altered worldviews on war, violence, and injustice.
And consider Guns: Loaded Conversations, a recent exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (SJMQT) that was on display from April 22 to July 15. Guns was their inaugural activist show, starting off, and pardon the pun, with a “BANG.” It challenged the status quo and certainly was not your grandma’s quilt show. As might be expected, the exhibit ruffled some feathers. A few visitors, members, and volunteers expressed disappointment that the work was political instead of what one would expect to see in a quilt and textile museum. The exhibition, however, initiated a fully loaded conversation on guns, violence, and American gun culture—examining both the pros and cons of gun ownership and the resulting polarizing issues. The works were powerful, nuanced, and impactful, with a level of sophistication that allowed the viewer to draw their own conclusions. This is an example of an exhibition that has opened the door to art as slow change, eliciting a visceral reaction while provoking and inspiring us to action. These shows may not take a stance on specific viewpoints but encourage civil discourse, education, and understanding with the intention to create common ground for people with disparate views. This is the start to reaching across the divide, creating synchronicities and collaborations to resolve complex issues. Many works in Guns: Loaded Conversations could have the same lasting impact if given a larger stage. This show will travel next to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, and hopefully to other venues as well.
Guns was two years in the making. Too many recent mass shootings made the show’s timing bleakly spot on. Amy DiPlacido, curator of exhibitions at SJMQT, said, “I wanted the museum to tackle these social and political issues. I also knew that I needed to take a risk. I figured if we had more relevant themes, perhaps a new audience would come in.” Later this fall, SJMQT will be partnering with various city organizations to sponsor a gun buy-back program entitled Quilts + Cash for Guns. According to Nancy Bavor, director of SJMQT, the goal of the program is to reduce the number of firearms owned by civilians and provide them with an opportunity to turn in guns without risk of prosecution. Participants turn in a gun and, in exchange, receive cash and a quilt.
Discussing the exhibition theme and all the subtleties and nuances that go into understanding complex concepts such as gun control, DiPlacido said, “In a moment where the public is openly questioning and skeptical of the news, words have an even greater weight—now more than ever. As a result, political and social rhetoric seem to be more extreme; because words are finite, it’s easy to see a situation as black and white. In contrast, art is a physical expression, often using little to no words and can shine a light on the gray area which is sometimes omitted from the conversation.”
Art is a slow form of activism because it sends a less direct message than vocal or written activism. But it is in this gray area, through visual storytelling and the subsequent stirring of emotion, that activist art lives and has its power. Slowly and authentically, art can affect people on many levels. It requires the participant to slow down and spend time absorbing the work and its meaning, stimulating the subconscious. That may cause a shift in held beliefs, perceptions, or viewpoints. Once you’ve seen something, you can’t unsee it. Haunting, powerful artwork returns to the viewer again and again, retelling the narrative and creating new and lasting meaning over time. Rather than telling one what to think, art prompts more questions than answers, and that is the point.
Oscar Wilde once said that life imitates art more than art imitates life. Pop culture and artistic expression are assimilated into the common vernacular, and personal identity is formed through consumption of contemporary culture, whether it is film, music, or visual art. Cultural transformation is necessary for lasting change, but that requires a shift in beliefs and values. Rallies or protests will not have a lasting impact unless the issues resonate as true with the general public. A society’s culture creates their politics—what they support and live by or what they will deem intolerable and reject. Often, what is important, desirable, and sought after is created and visualized by the artists in our midst. They initiate and shift the conversations. Once society embraces those ideals, it becomes embedded in the culture. Think of civil rights, women’s rights, AIDS activism, LGBTQ rights, and marriage equality; the shift in attitudes and ideals creates the new normal—what is perceived as right and correct, shifting the culture in ways big and small. Artists do tend to be the progressive thinkers.
Within the art-as-activism movement, there is also a groundbreaking crusade around who can tell the stories and who is represented. Historically, the art world has been a white man’s club. That is changing, and it’s about time. The #MeToo movement, breaking away from patriarchal hegemony, is giving voice to underrepresented women, people of color, and LGBTQ artists. These voices need to be heard. And with the popularity of Instagram and YouTube, just to name a few platforms, the visual narrative is taking over culture and giving an equal platform to artists to share their voice and vision, eschewing the normal channels of the past for what would or could be viewed. We’ve come to a tipping point, the doors are wide open, and new, invigorating conversations are happening worldwide.
Look for more activist exhibitions at the SJMQT. “As the textile medium is constantly re-identifying itself with interdisciplinary processes, the work that I show is going to be more nebulous and expansive,” DiPlacido said. “We will continue to highlight current social and political issues. I feel that artists are the courageous visionaries who authentically distill our realities in the visual form, and it is my responsibility to illuminate their voice.”
Art gives us a vision and a means by which to communicate to others in the here and now and to dream the impossible dreams of what could be. The creatives are the soul of a community and reflect society’s best and highest ambitions. They create the manifesto and others follow their lead. These messages get absorbed into the culture at large and produce, albeit slowly, positive change.
“When I talk about my music, I sweat,” musician Thiccricc reveals, “which is ironic for a person who performs in front of an audience. But I still feel relaxed when I get on stage.” Ricardo Arastiazaran, also known as Thiccricc, has a complicated relationship with his own work. The 22-year-old lays his emotions, insecurities, and love life bare on his various projects and singles. And, somehow, he gets more socially anxious in conversations about his music versus singing intimate thoughts in a room of strangers. “They’re focusing on the song, not me,” is how Ricc explains it. And there is focus on him—on and off stage; bedroom artist Ricc is one of the most exciting sounds to come out of the San Jose local scene.
“I remember I wrote my first song when I was 12,” Ricc reminisces. “And it was a corny ass love song.” He remembers having a terrible singing voice. Thanks to puberty, his voice improved, and he began to perform with friends in high school. Ricc purchased a ukulele in college, began learning music theory, and received an audio interface and Logic Pro. From there he took on the name Thiccricc and began to explore the bedroom pop sound.
Unabashed honesty and mostly self-production are the key features that define DIY bedroom music, a genre that is shaping this generation. The advent of accessible music software and the cross-pollination among genres has led artists to self-record music. The result is a swath of young adults releasing full projects with little or no collaborators or producers. This aptly labeled “bedroom” music has come to the forefront of the San Jose Bay Area music sound.
Ricc, who writes and produces his own work, neatly fits within this mold. “I do kind of identify with the whole bedroom pop movement, because I like to [mess around] in my room and make songs that are catchy,” Ricc claims. His work has a warm atmosphere—even when the subject can be melancholy, such as his single “Colored Pencils,” a slow song that mourns the simplicity of childhood.
Rex Orange County, Daniel Caesar, Ritt Momney, Omar Apollo, and Oakland-based artist Still Woozy are among his influences. A bit of all of these artists shows up in Ricc’s music—his production heavily implements keys, synths, and vocal modulation, and typically sits in a space that is rooted in deviously melancholy pop with the dark edge found in modern R&B. Having a flair for the melodramatic and openness, his persona—or lack thereof—displays a creativity that is hard to not get behind. “I put it all on the page without thinking about it,” Ricc says when deciphering why his music is so catchy and beloved.
Ricc’s music ranges from nostalgia, unrequited love, and the pressures of life to songs about his current girlfriend. “My music is pretty diverse. I kind of have trouble finding a consistent style.” Ricc says that he has room to grow and develop his sound and has a supportive art scene behind him.
In his debut project, Leo Citrus, Ricc explores his reservations and anxieties over becoming a full-time artist and how it ties in with his life pressures. “I make music for myself,” he says, admitting he vibes with his own music. “I make music I want to listen to.”
Ricc is currently pursuing a mathematics degree at San Jose State, working, performing, and steadily releasing projects. He is comfortably enjoying making music part-time and has not bought into the idea of becoming a tortured artist, being drained from his work. A distinguishing feature of Ricc’s is that every song feels fun because the artist is centered on enjoying the process of making good music, not so much the prospect of blowing up as a creative figure. “Never in my life have I pursued the idea of being an artist. If it happens, it happens.”
It’s an overwhelming understatement to say this has already been a rough year for California’s creative ecosystem. No sooner had we begun to grapple with the unintended yet utterly predictable consequences of Assembly Bill 5 and explore potential solutions with lawmakers, COVID-19 came around and threw the whole world upside down.
Suddenly, theater companies, music festivals, and the artists and technicians they support weren’t just figuring out how to cut corners in order to ensure compliance with new state employment laws. They were having serious conversations about the future of their organizations, and their very careers. And those conversations will continue well into next year, as the full scale of the damages comes into focus.
Americans for the Arts, a national advocacy organization, recently conducted a survey in an attempt to assess the human and economic impacts of COVID-19. As of this writing, the survey had received responses from more than 11,500 artists, arts organizations, and arts agencies of all types, genres, sizes, and tax statuses — with an overwhelming majority (75%) being nonprofit arts organizations.
According to survey results, the nationwide arts sector is estimated to have lost a combined $4.5 billion due to the human impacts of COVID-19 — so far. The median loss of revenue per organization was $38,000 in just over three weeks of pandemic mitigation measures. More than two-thirds of respondents estimated that the crisis would have a “severe” or “extremely severe” impact on their business. As if that weren’t enough, it’s estimated that we will see upwards of $6.2 billion in losses from event-related spending.
Taken together, this $10.7 billion hit will amount to $1.8 billion in lost tax revenue to federal, state, and local governments — much of which could potentially have been reinvested in the community to aid in recovery efforts.
Speaking of the human impact, all of this translates into 304,000 jobs disappearing. Just. Like. That.
But the repercussions of AB-5 and the Novel Coronavirus are just the latest body blows to an industry that’s constantly on the ropes, dancing the fine line between sustainability and extinction. This is particularly true in San José, where government funding that is so vital in filling the deltas for local nonprofits and creatives, is linked almost entirely to factors that are effectively beyond our collective control.
The city hall rumor mill is already churning with chatter about how this unprecedented and unpredictable public health crisis will affect upcoming budget discussions for the fiscal year beginning July 1, and anyone who works in the local arts sector doesn’t need a crystal ball or psychic powers to predict the future. As the saying goes, we know how this movie ends. We’ve seen it all before, back when the Century Domes were still a thing.
You see, most of the City’s budget for arts and cultural programming comes from what is commonly known as the “Hotel Tax”, better known by policy wonks as the “Transient Occupancy Tax” or “TOT”. This is that surcharge you see on your hotel bill wherever you travel around the country. Each municipality sets its own TOT rate — with the will of the voters. In San José, the current allowable TOT is 10%. So every visitor spending $200 a night on a hotel room here is essentially kicking $20 to the cause.
Generally, TOT dollars fund tourism, marketing, and cultural activities in the municipality where the tax is collected, a nifty reciprocal relationship that benefits locals who get to enjoy the benefits without “paying the piper.” And this is precisely what happens in San José. But there’s a catch…
40% of the money collected from the TOT in any given year (or 4% of the 10% surcharge) is taken off the top and deposited into the City’s General Fund, where it can be spent on anything that a majority of the City Council sees fit to support on any given Tuesday.
The remaining 60% (or 6% of the TOT surcharge) is split three ways. Half (or 3%) goes to Team San José — a public-nonprofit-labor partnership — to subsidize their management of the Convention Center and our downtown theaters (the Center for Performing Arts, Montgomery & California Theatres, and Civic Auditorium). Another 15% of the TOT also goes to Team San José to ostensibly serve as our Convention and Visitors Bureau.
And the final 15% funds the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs (OCA), including staff salaries and the entire cultural grants portfolio. While it’s not unusual for grants to be funded by a specific revenue stream like the TOT, nearly every other city employee is paid out of General Fund dollars, which are not (quite) as vulnerable to economic fluctuations.
It’s important to note that San José’s (amazing) cultural facilities including the Museum of Art, Mexican Heritage Plaza, Children’s Discovery Museum, Hammer Theatre Center, History Park, and Tech Museum receive about $3.5M in maintenance support from the General Fund. But one could argue that the 40% of TOT that goes to the GF more than covers this wise investment![1]
The ratio by which TOT is split up is set by a city ordinance as part of the Municipal Code, which in theory could be changed by a majority vote of the City Council. So an argument could be made that it is within the Council’s power to defund almost all arts and cultural programming in San José.
Think that could never happen? Too big of a black eye on the city’s image? In a world where the TOT takes a nosedive — as it just did — it’s not hard to imagine who would win out in a bare-knuckle match for funding scraps between big labor, big business, and the creative community.
[1] It is also prudent to point out that the Mayor and City Council recently directed additional TOT dollars to these facilities through a tax increment increase policy.
Better question: Will any of us be left to advocate for it?
When she was young, Brittni’s nana took her to Balboa Park in San Diego. There, Brittni would draw all the animals and plants she saw, keeping her art supplies and papers packed in a little wood box her nana had given her. Her nana would beckon passersby over, exclaiming, “Look how amazing she is!”
In high school, Brittni continued to draw seriously. She was also studious, earning a 4.1 GPA, and decided to pursue a career that would tell a new story for her family. “Because this was a family where no one went to college, really, except my aunties, who pursued college later in life,” she reasoned. So she put down the pens and squared her wardrobe for the corporate world.
After graduating with a BA in marketing and communications, Brittni worked at a pharmaceutical company. It left plenty of energy for a more intriguing hustle—cake decorating. As friends got married and threw birthday parties, she was asked to build cakes that didn’t look like cakes—they looked like Strawberry Shortcake, or Darth Maul’s head, or a sushi board. Eventually, Brittni started her own business, Brittni Sweet Cakes, which proved successful at gig after gig, until she began working at D Bar, run by celebrity chef Keegan Gerhard.
Then she realized she didn’t love it anymore.
“I’m like, okay I made it. This is what I’m supposed to love, right? I’m working for a celebrity chef, and I just…hated it. I was never good enough, and it wasn’t fulfilling for me. I wasn’t able to express myself; I was just taking orders that people wanted and doing them.” During her final months in San Diego, Brittni decorated cakes at Whole Foods while she figured out her new path. Then, her husband landed a job with Tesla, and she moved up to San Jose with him.
“I always think of being earth friendly as a sliding scale. It’s about your intention and reducing your negative impact—not about being perfect.”
At Whole Foods in San Jose, Brittni worked customer service until she became a manager, and eventually accepted a property management opportunity. From there, she was referred to an audiovisual production company as a project manager, a role she filled easily but lacked passion for. After the contract ended, she was given the choice to either continue or take a severance and leave.
This time, Brittni examined her heart. “When you live your life with cognitive dissonance between your soul and who you are in front of everybody, you become really unhappy,” she reflected. “As a little kid, I always said I wanted to be an artist. It’s funny, because I don’t think my parents ever pressured me to pursue something that made more money. But I pressured myself.” Once she made her decision to leave, everything crystallized.
With a proven track record of diving 100 percent into everything she does, Brittni applied the same work ethic to her new career as an artist. “I would wake up at five or six o’clock to post at seven in the morning, when everybody is on Instagram,” she recalls. After three months, her rigorously trained habit of drawing daily and strategic search engine optimization paid off—vending right beside the revered corner booth spot at San Jose Made 2018, she nearly sold out her full booth of prints, tote bags, and illustrated work.
Yet her proudest achievements lie in her message outreach. As an eco-conscious artist, she sources from local vendors that align with her practice of sustainability. Brittni’s business cards, printed by East Bay Giclee, double as prints on cotton; her packaging is biodegradable, made from plants; and the print she uses is soy-based (GotPrint). Her series Living Ghosts draws awareness to endangered species, such as the Parson’s chameleon from Madagascar—illegal to export, yet a popular pet in America. She adapts each illustration to the unique knots, burls, and “weird squirrelly designs” that occur naturally in the reclaimed wood she sources from Global Wood Source.
Looking back on her winding journey to self and happiness, Brittni aims to create art that inspires people to act from an enlightened conscience, rather than a guilty one. “I always think of being earth friendly as a sliding scale,” she says. “It’s about your intention and reducing your negative impact—not about being perfect.” Treating oneself with kindness is sure to last a lifetime.
T here are few things more powerful than an individual who finds their inner strength. It is this strength that enables one to navigate the
outside world and the vicissitudes of life.
At 20 years old and homeless, it was the gift of a paint set and easel that presented Patrick Hofmeister with a path to find his inner strength. Through art, the San Jose native discovered a compulsion to create, thus giving himself a sense of purpose and determination. Patrick immersed himself in the many different styles that came his way, first absorbing the likes of painter Mars-1 and pop surrealist Greg Simkins, among many others. Like Simkins, Patrick dabbled in graffiti at an early age. While he didn’t commit to developing his skills in this style, elements of graffiti gradients still influence his work.
The overwhelming variety of artistic expression in the world filled Patrick with awe. Though it would be many years before he developed his own stylistic niche, he knew he had discovered the vehicle for self-expression and his purpose in life: “I didn’t have shit going on for me, and I was so engrossed with advancing my skill set, I made the decision that there was no plan B. I was going to be a successful artist or die broke trying.” Now 37, he continues to create within this mindset. In 2010, Patrick developed the personal mantra: “Dream Daringly, Execute Fearlessly.” In turn, this gave birth to DDEF, a seven-artist-strong collective he founded in 2013, with a working studio space in the Heritage Millworks warehouse in downtown San Jose.
Nothing else matters. I’m full. That level of accomplishment for me lets me know this is where I need to stay. It’s pure.
Patrick’s body of work mirrors the mad intake of influences in his early years. While his style definitely falls within surrealist parameters, he can adapt his skills to a variety of mediums, calling upon many techniques, styles, and influences. His geometric pattern and motif design work has been used on everything from custom shoes, furniture, cars, and murals, to large paintings on wood and canvas. The deeper surrealism work, which often marries his pattern work and free-flowing lines, is usually done in acrylic, oil, or spray paint.
Patrick pours himself into his work. Even with commissioned items, he becomes absorbed in self-reflection and can only work on one piece at a time. “These pieces tend to be more emotionally driven than concept driven. They consume me,” he says. One commissioned piece, Time, shows off Patrick’s surrealist style with a bell reverberating over water, sending ripples to the shore where different creatures gather and forests come in from all corners. An antelope dressed as a monk sits cross-legged at the edge as orbs of light float above his outstretched palms, and large snails whose heads have been replaced with human hands in the apana mudra posture occupy the foreground. Patrick’s brush strokes and lines are alive with movement and energetic intention, producing a feeling of movement toward the center, all while a
galaxy swirls in the background.
It is one thing to find and hone your inner voice, it is another to do so along a path that is neither straight nor easy. Patrick has found it imperative to keep true to himself and accept rejection, to grow and blaze his own path in San Jose’s burgeoning art scene. With over 300 pieces, including 30 murals and a spectacular renovation of Tandoori Fusion Grill on Santa Clara Street, it is evident his dedication has paid off. In December of last year, Patrick won a commission in conjunction with the nonprofit Local Color to adorn the Third Street parking garage with a 3,500-square-foot mural. This win was a moment that validated all the hard work he has put into his art career and confirmed that the path he blazed for himself was the right path. At the end of the day, however, it is the pure relationship he has with his work that speaks to him deeply. “The times that I feel most like I’m on the right path are when I’m alone and just about finished with a project I’m proud of,” he shares. “Nothing else matters. I’m full. That level of accomplishment for me lets me know this is where I need to stay. It’s pure.”
Glimpse Crystal Mendoza on the glossy pages of a magazine and right away you’ll notice an air of certainty in how she presents herself. Poised in a sleek satin halter top and matching pants, both in a shade of smokey lavender, the Latina model observes the viewer coolly over a martini glass filled to the brim with pearls—as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
That assuredness wasn’t always the case. It’s the result of two modeling schools and over seven years of photo shoots. Before the launch of her career, Mendoza was a timid teenager. But at some point, she determined to stop tiptoeing through life like a ballerina on pointe. “I told my parents that, since I was really shy, I wanted to go to modeling school,” she recalls.
Fueled from her experiences at Moda 15 Academy and Barbizon Modeling, Mendoza went on to win two pageants; pose for Hermosaz, Quinceañera Magazine, LYNA Couture, and the Goddess Boutique; and even land the occasional acting gig.
“If you’re doing something you really like and it’s your passion, you make the time for it… Is this what you like? Then you’ll accommodate your schedule and make things work!”
When she isn’t striding the catwalk during San Francisco Fashion Week or cruising past palm-lined streets filming a Hector Andres music video, Mendoza is hitting the books or working in health care. Receiving her medical assisting license while she was still in high school, Mendoza performs injections and drug testing, while studying hard to become a certified nurse.
As one can imagine, attempting to juggle modeling, studying, and medical assisting simultaneously is about as easy as a tomboy trying to stay upright in heels. But Mendoza is determined to pull off this remarkable balancing act. “If you’re doing something you really like and it’s your passion, you make the time for it. You don’t make excuses,” she notes. “Is this what you like? Then you’ll accommodate your schedule and make things work!”
Mendoza matured at a young age. She’s the eldest of four, meaning she naturally fell into the role of translator for her immigrant parents. “And my sister…growing up she had epilepsy, and now she has schizophrenia, so that’s something that’s always motivated me to be better. I’ve always basically been like a mom.” She recognizes this situation with grace. “It’s been tough. But God doesn’t give us things we can’t handle. We’ve made it work.”
Mendoza’s maternal side also reveals itself through a previous side hustle. She used to coach modeling for girls between the ages of 12 and 18, improving their confidence as her teachers did for her. “That’s something that’s made me feel very proud—more so than the shoots or the music videos or everything else that I’ve done!” Mendoza made sure to convince her girls that models come in all shapes and sizes. “Honestly, if you know how to dress yourself and know what type of modeling you want to go into, there are so many opportunities. You don’t have to be the tall, slender type…I’m 5 feet 5 inches, so I’m not the runway type, but that still hasn’t stopped me!” She adds, “It made me really happy seeing how excited they were to be on their journey. Helping people in general makes me really happy.”
The mindset that beauty comes in many forms is the reason why Mendoza attended two modeling schools. While Moda 15 Academy was taught in Spanish and emphasized Hispanic values, Barbizon Modeling was taught in English and concentrated on an Americanized approach. Both taught her about posture, photo movement, and makeup, but from different perspectives. “The Latino community, their type of modeling is very different as far as beauty standards and everything,” she says. For instance, she identifies a noticeable shift in technique. “I feel like the Hispanic side is more pose-y and exaggerated. The English side is more natural, not as much makeup.”
Though different values and ideals will define beauty differently culture to culture, photographer to photographer, confidence will continue to be universally stylish. So whether Mendoza finds herself in the halls of a hospital or on the platform of a runway, she’ll stride its length with purpose.
Frank Nguyen has been on a journey for several years, moving toward opening his own crafted coffee house. From building out the space on South Second and Williams to running a pop-up from Five Points on West Santa Clara Street, Nguyen is looking to share his special coffee and select pastries with the community—and to help others to brew that perfect cup. [Editor’s Note: Location on South Second Street opened August 2017.]
How did you come up with the name? When I began my coffee journey, there was so much to learn. I decided to enroll in the Specialty Coffee Association and get certified. I took some courses and did some testing with them. I just went through the first level of certification, and I was like, “OK. Wow. This is just the tip of the iceberg.” I began talking to a lot of different roasters to figure out which coffees I wanted to work with. From roaster to roaster, everyone was doing something completely different, which is a beautiful thing. You see so much diversity. I realized coffee’s going to be a lifelong learning process. Academic means that I’ll always be learning, always growing. Also, I once spent two weeks on a Russian ship called The Academic.
[Laughs] You liked the ring of the name? Yeah, I liked the ring of the name. And, since Academic Coffee is always learning, it worked. That’s what we do with our staff, too. Even right now, just a pop-up, whenever there’s downtime, I encourage our baristas, “Hey, let’s read up on a coffee that we’re serving, so we know where it’s from, what’s being done to it, and why it tastes that way.” Also, we’re putting up a mini-library of coffee resources.
Is that for the customers to look at, or just in the back for the employees? It’ll just be a shelf for the employees. For our customers, we want to have coffee tasting events and coffee brewing events. One thing I always do is, whenever I go to a coffee shop and find a coffee I really like, I buy it. Then, when I get home, I’m like, “It doesn’t taste the same as it did in the shop.”
Our thing is, “OK. Here’s the coffee. This is how we make it here. If you like it, you can go home and make it the same way.” We want to give people the “brew-print.”
You grew up in San Francisco, and is your wife from San Jose? Kathy’s from San Jose. We met in college at Berkeley, and then we reconnected years later. She was in San Jose working. I was in San Francisco. We were commuting to see each other, and I was like, “OK. This is kind of crazy. One of us should move.” I decided to do it, and it’s been good.
Was that because you saw the opportunity to grow the coffee? That wasn’t even in my mind at the time. I was still working in marketing. When I came here, I’d find coffee shops I was excited about, but I’d have to drive like 20 or 30 minutes to get there. It was the same with getting great pastries. I’m the kind of guy who will wake up really early and drive 25 minutes just to get a fresh croissant or bread. So I said, “This is crazy, there needs to be more.” I talked to my wife about it, and she agreed with me. She said, “I support you, let’s do this.”
You say coffee and community go hand in hand. Can you describe your focus on that? A community coffee shop, for me, means a few things. Any business, whether it’s coffee or groceries or anything, is part of that community. The people who work there live around there, so your customers are your neighbors. I see that even in the pop-up.
So from the community aspect, we want to only hire people who live in the area, in San Jose. We’ve had applicants from Santa Clara, but it’s like, “Hey, you’re in Santa Clara? There are great coffee shops there. You guys should work there. You shouldn’t be taking 30 minutes to get to work.”
Also, we’re trying to be really competitive with wages. Minimum wage goes up in July. I know the Bay Area, San Jose, and Santa Clara County are trying to get up to $15 by 2018 or 2019. We’re starting off now at $15 an hour. We have one of the most competitive wages. I’m paying myself less than minimum wage so that every employee can make minimum wage.
The other thing we’re trying to do is to participate within the community. We haven’t actually opened our doors yet, but we’ve already done a few community service events. There’s an organization called QueenHype in San Jose that has an extracurricular program for young women of color—to give them leadership opportunities and skills, to give them confidence that they can go out and be leaders in the community. They asked us to cater their coffee, so I said I’d do it. We’ve done a few other events, and we want to do that monthly. That’s the other part of community.
Are you planning to hold trainings for people to come in and learn how to brew in their homes? Yes. When you come to a coffee shop, I feel like you’re maybe there to try something new. If you like something, we want you to buy the bag, and then we’ll show you how to make it. We start with these little info cards. You’re either buying a blend or original source. We’ll ask you what you use at home, what method—like French press—and if you grind your beans. We’ll be able to say what grind setting you want, how much coffee you’ll want for each cup of water, and then you’ll be buying the bag with more knowledge, too.
Do you roast your own beans? We’re working with other roasters now. One roaster we’ve been working with for a while is creating a custom blend just for us. We feel like we’ll know what our customers are asking for, and so we’ll be able to create something specific, just for them.
What do you mean by “meticulously crafted coffee”? One of the difficulties with coffee is consistency. If something tastes good, then the way you make it taste good every time is to do it the same way every time. We measure everything. We measure our coffee, our water, and note the grind settings. And coffee, like any other food product, ages. If something’s been roasted two days ago versus roasted two weeks ago, the coffee doesn’t necessarily go bad, but you’ll want to adjust it to get the same flavor.
After coffee’s roasted, it’s still degassing, that is, gases are still coming out of the beans. You want to compensate for that to still get the same flavor profile. Most likely, we’ll just change the amount of coffee we’re using, and the grind setting, to change the extraction. You get a fresh pack of beans, time your extraction, and then, if you wait two weeks and do it the exact same way, it’s going to be a vastly different grade of extraction.
What are some lessons you’ve learned? As a business owner, you’ll want to keep it as simple as possible. There are so many things I want to do in terms of coffee service. With each coffee, you have the option to bring out different flavors by treating it differently. But at this point, we’re scaling everything back.
When we open, we’ll have a very simple menu. Everything will be really good—just simple. I think the key is to start as simple as possible and then grow it from there. At this point, I’m just trying to not stress myself out or my team. I’m saying, “OK, for our batch brew, we’re only going to serve two coffees, and that’s it. But we’re going to spend the entire week figuring out how to make those two coffees perfect.” That goes back to the barista side—what is perfect and what is good enough. The answer is that it will never be good enough, and we’re always trying to make it better. With coffee, it’s extremely subjective.
It depends on people’s palates, right? Exactly. Even amongst my team, we’re trying to decide, “Do we like this? Do we like that?” It’s OK to have differences, but at the end of the day, I’ll decide what will go out. We like it, we’re proud of it, we hope our customers like it, too, but it’s very subjective. For the most part, I’d say it will be my palate.
I want San Jose to have nice things. I live here. I like nice things. I want Academic Coffee to be something this neighborhood can feel proud about, like, “Oh, we have Academic Coffee in our neighborhood. It’s a nice spot to be in.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.4 “Perform”
Following the journey from seed to cup, Tyler Pinckard wants to give more money to farmers and better coffee to the world through his Bay Area–based company.
It’s easy to take for granted how effortless it is to get a cup of coffee. Anywhere you travel, you won’t have to search far before smelling the rich aroma coming from somewhere nearby. But finding a brew that not only tastes good, but that has been ethically sourced from the seed to the cup, is harder to do. For Tyler Pinckard, self-proclaimed coffee lover and CEO of Coffee Shift, Inc., his company’s focus is to disrupt the traditional coffee market to give more back to the farmers and provide better-tasting coffee for the consumer.
After growing up on a horse farm in Arizona, spending time in the military, and then working as an engineer, Tyler finally ended up in a Silicon Valley tech job. Like many in the Bay Area, Tyler splits his time between his day job and Coffee Shift, though his heart lies with his business. First bitten by the coffee bug by Starbucks as a teenager, Tyler found he craved higher quality. “[Starbucks] is pretty bland, and they over toast their coffee, and it makes for a really smoky effect. They’ve actually gone a long way in training Americans to prefer dark coffee,” said Tyler. “I’m coming from the other side of it, where if you roast it too much you burn away a lot of the flavors and the caffeine.” He eventually found like-minded coffee aficionados in his first Silicon Valley office: “We had a very active coffee connoisseur club. We went as far as buying our own green beans and roasting them in the office,” recalled Tyler. “But once you’ve maxed your coffee brewing ability, how do you get better coffee from there? And it’s really going to the source. If you start with bad beans, it’s going to be really hard to make good coffee.”
“If you start with bad beans, it’s going to be really hard to make good coffee.”
In 2017, Tyler traveled to Chinchiná, Colombia, with his wife Carolina Castilla, who is Colombian, where they decided to visit a coffee farm. When a local farmer told Tyler how much they were paid, he was stunned. “I was just taken aback with how things worked,” he said. “I saw that they were loading huge bags of coffee into a truck, doing 90 percent of the work to bring us quality coffee, and they receive so little for the amount they do.”
Knowing they wanted to get involved, Tyler and Carolina began to forge relationships with farmers in Colombia to source the beans. Going so far as to travel into the mountains to the source of water that nurtures the coffee plants, they immersed themselves in every step of the process.” [B]eing a Californian for the last 10 years, we have the quite the wine culture here,” said Tyler. “If you go to the vineyard, they won’t tell you, ‘These grapes are basically the same as those grapes.’ No, they’ll tell you, ‘These were grown on a south-facing hill, with soil at the perfect pH.’ So I thought, ‘How can we imbue that same sort of connoisseur culture that we have for wine into coffee? And how can we make a system that works in a way that incentivizes the farmers to work with us and lift them out of poverty?’ ”
Officially founded in 2018, the core tenant of Coffee Shift is to give more back to the farmer. As Tyler explained, “The big thing about the business is we pay more for the coffee, and we give ownership stake in [the] company so [farmers] earn shares in the company. The idea is if we invest in the farmers, they are able to use better agricultural processes. I’m trying to build a positive feedback system, because it’s been hard for coffee growers captured by the commodity market, since commodity prices have been extremely low. Most famers I’m working with, they were not making as much as the inputs required to produce that coffee. So it’s obviously an unsustainable system. [Coffee Shift] is a corporation for social justice.”
Coffee Shift sells beans online to businesses and directly to consumers. Tyler will continue to work with Colombian farmers to source small-batch coffee and hopes to find more customers who share his dedication to the perfect cup of coffee, while giving back to the farmers who make each sip possible.
Fiesta Pamplona is a documentary project from local photojournalist and San Jose State alumnus Neal Waters.
The beautify shot film records the process and events surrounding the Fiesta de San Fermín in Pamplona, Spain, which include the daily running of the bulls.
In our conversation with Neal Waters (executive producer), we discuss how this project came about and the festival’s history. We also hear about Gabriel Pout’s journey, who began as an intern but eventually became the project’s director.
Website: fiestapamplona. com [http://fiestapamplona. com/] (http://fiestapamplona. com [http://fiestapamplona. com/])
This episode’s music is sung by Mari Cruz Corral with guitar by Jokin Zabalza (Courtesty of ¡Fiesta!)
Episode #25 Needle to the Groove (NTTG) – Michael Boado & David Ma
Michael is one of the co-founders of the Needle to the Groove (NTTG) record store in San José and also know as DJ Basura. David Ma is part of the NTTG label, and is an accomplished writer, contributor, and curator to Content Magazine’s Album Pick series. Check out latest selection at https://bit.ly/AlbumPicks123
The Needle to the Groove record store has significantly impacted the South Bay music scene since opening in July 2014. As a hub for vinyl and music enthusiasts, the talented and knowledgeable team, including Dan Bernal, Allen Johnson, and Michael Boado, didn’t take long before deciding to launch their own label, which they did with the help of David Ma and Jeff Brummett.
In our conversation, Michael and David discuss how they met, the South Bay’s music scene, and the unique style that the NTTG label brings to the community.
Episode #24 Socorra – Musician and Community Organizer
If you have been listening to the Content Podcast, you have heard her song “Muddy Water” behind the intro and the closing credits. Socorra, featured in issue 9.2, has not only been performing and connecting with the local music scene; she has also helped organize events with Filco and raise the next generation of artists as a teacher with the School of Rock.
In our conversation, Socorra discusses the south bay music scene, her musical influences, and hear the story behind some of her music.
Look for Socorra’s coming up release “Live from the Art Boutiki”
Episode #23 A Conversation about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with Valéria (“Val”) Miranda and Hannah Garcia. Valéria (“Val”) Miranda is the Executive Director of Santa Cruz Art League and a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. Hannah Garcia is the Grants Program Manager and the Equity Catalyst for the Arts Council of Santa Cruz.
Val and Hannah has consulting with SVCreates and Content Magazine since the summer of 2019, helping us further our mission of generating a just creative ecosystem in Santa Clara County.
In our conversation, we learn about their involvement in DEI, a few tips on how to start your personal and corporate awareness, and insights into their personal inspiration. For more information email Val and Hannah at culturalequitytraining@ gmail. com Recorded June 24, 2020.
Episode #22 Jay Kim – Silicon Valley Pastor and Author
Jay Kim, as Silicon Valley pastor, found himself wondering if the Church’s quick implication of new technologies happened without giving thought to want might be lost in its application. That gave way to him penning his first book, Analog Church (InterVarsity Press).
In our conversation, Jay talks about the irony of having a book (that calls for physical connection) released at the start of SIP. We also discuss the process of writing and getting a book published. Social Media: @jaykimthinks
Book available at InterVarsity Press https://www.ivpress.com/analog-church Recorded May 14, 2020.
Episode #21 Rah Riley – Eastridge Center and Contributor to Content Magazine
Rah Riley moved to San Jose in 2017 to be the marketing manager for the Eastridge Center in East San Jose, owned by Pacific Retail Capital Partners. Rah has made an impact in our community by helping the center connect with many local artists and art organizations in the short time she has been in the Bay Area. Yet Rah has desire to travel and will be leaving her position and the area precisely three years to the day on June 19.
In our conversation, Rah discusses how her plans to resign from Eastridge Center on March 13 to work abroad four months in South East Asia with Remote Year changed and delayed because of COVID-19. As a planner, how that has been a learning experience for her. We also discuss her thoughts on social media and what we have grown to discover and love about the uniqueness of the South Bay.
Cathy Kimball – Executive Director and Chief Curator San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Cathy Kimball as been with the ICA since 2000 and has planned her retirement as the ICA turns 40, though she will continue to participate in various ways, specifically to assist with the Marcus Lyon project, “De.Coded: A Human Atlas of Silicon Valley” by the Packard Foundation, scheduled for 2022.
Join us in our conversation with Cathy about her decision to retire, the museum/gallery industry’s adjustment to COVID-19, and the process of being a curator. And a little insight into her singing, which she does not intend to pursue as a second career. (Spoiler Alert) Look for the ICA’s various virtual programs and plan to join the 40th celebration, “WTF” on June 20.
https://www.sjica.org/ https://www.instagram.com/sanjoseica Read interview with Cathy from 2013 in issue 5.3 “Act” https://bit.ly/CathyK53 Since this recording, ICA has announced Alison Gass as the incoming director and chief curator at the San José Institute of Contemporary Art to begin on July 1. Recorded May 7, 2020.
In addition to her prior roles as Co-Founder of Local Color and Founding Board Member of Catalyze SV, Ellina Yin is a firm believer that local government is ground zero of systemic change. As a community engagement enthusiast born and raised in Eastside San Jose, she is always on the lookout to raise awareness and encourage civic participation in more meaningful and productive ways.
Join us in our conversation with Ellina about her new creative journey project, “Only in San José.” A podcast aimed at democratizing and demystifying the process of civic participation in local government and the importance of civic participation. Especially during times like COVID-19, and to build a just society for all. Look for the launch of “Only in San José” on June 9.
Read interview with Ellina in issue 11.4 on out issuu page: https://bit.ly/EllinaYin114
Recorded May 12, 2020. IG: @onlyinsanjose (https://instagram.com/onlyinsanjose) Website: onlyinsanjose.org (https://onlyinsanjose.org) Photo by Gege Xu#19 Ellina Yin – Only in San José
You stand in a room. You are not alone, but you are. A piano is there, a pianist ready to play. There are people there waiting to hear you sing, critique and take notes you will never read. These are general directors and music directors, other staff from the opera company. This is your 15-minute shot at getting a gig, but you don’t know exactly what that might be. This is audition season, where, for a few weeks each year, opera companies from across the country occupy studio spaces in New York City to hear as many artists as possible to cast their upcoming seasons. Once it’s over, a singer can have spent thousands of dollars in travel, housing, and audition fees in hopes that job offers will come and their dream can continue.
The offer may come from Seattle, Nashville, Florida, St. Louis or any place in between, but a singer does not get a chance to stay in one place for too long. For a single production a singer can spend up to five weeks in rehearsal and three weeks in performances, then pack up and move on to the next gig, yet soprano Kerriann Otaño has found herself living in San Jose for three years now, the longest she’s lived in one place over her decade-long singing career. In 2018, she was hired to perform the role of Senta in Opera San José’s production of Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman while her husband, the tenor Dane Suarez, was a resident artist with the company. Each season Opera San José hires a resident company of singers, from six to eight artists, giving them roles in each of the four productions that season. Each singer is given a salary and an apartment. Suarez was offered residency in the 2018-2019 season, so Otaño used San José as her home base as she travelled for various productions around the country.
“Now my mantra is, ‘I’m good enough. I know enough. I am enough.’ It’s a reminder that I’ve done my preparation. Who I am as an artist and the story that I’m telling is enough. I don’t have to be anything other than what I am.”
The New York native was first drawn to the world of musicals, performing in the likes of Godspell, West Side Story, and Into the Woods, but while in the 10th grade Otaño was taken to the Metropolitan Opera by her voice teacher to see Bizet’s classic opera Carmen. “I’ve always been kind of a thick chick, a bit juicy in the thigh region, and not a great dancer. I went to these Broadway shows, and I was like, ‘One day,’ but no one looked like me, and they were all super skinny and great dancers and high crazy belters, way better singers than I was. I don’t even remember who the [Carmen] singer was, but she had big, curly hair, and she was all curves. She was this beautiful hourglass, sauntering around the stage with this swag and confidence, and I was like, ‘That’s me. That’s where I fit.’ I really started focusing more on classical music.”
With an incredibly electric presence and booming voice, Otaño’s resume grew into an impressive list containing some of America’s greatest opera companies—Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and, where she first fell in love with the art form, the Metropolitan Opera. Otaño traveled for each role, her husband traveling as well for his own gigs when not booked with Opera San José, a situation that is quite common in the world of opera. “The way that I’ve always looked at it is if Dane and I are in the same place together, it is a thing to celebrate and it’s wonderful. And if we’re not together, that’s because one or both of us is making music and doing the thing that we love.”
Following a cover role in Wagner’s Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera, Otaño was offered a residency with Opera San José, a job that would give the young couple a chance to stay rooted a bit longer in San José. “After the Met (Metropolitan Opera), which you would think would be the highlight of my life, I couldn’t leave the house. I was just crying all the time. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t know what to do about it.” After years of constantly putting forward a perfect version of herself, the stress and anxiety broke her. Otaño’s peers did not appear to be suffering the way she was, and there was nowhere to turn to for help. “Singers are low on the totem pole of priorities, because we are very replaceable in a market that is over saturated with the amount of talent in America. We have so many very, very talented singers, so it feels like you have to constantly be performing, even when you’re not on stage—you have to always be happy and enthusiastic and pleasant, beyond just being professional. It’s almost like you can’t reveal any damaged sides of yourself.”
She needed time to focus on herself. She needed time to not work—a difficult decision to make knowing her residency with Opera San José was at stake as well as her reputation. Nevertheless, she approached the Opera San José senior management team, General Director Larry Hancock, Music Director Joseph Marcheso, and incoming General Director Khori Dastoor, regarding her situation. She assumed her contract would be terminated and she would be left to deal with her health issues on her own. Yet, Opera San José replaced her for the first production of the season and got her health insurance taken care of, ensuring that Otaño wouldn’t be left jobless and unprotected, a decision that Dastoor explains. “Watching her push through that, I knew she was gritty. I knew she wanted this and was hungry. I watched her triumph over it. She is just a good presence, a good colleague. She has given so much back for everything we gave her. So, of course when she needed our support, there was no question we would be there.”
Dastoor is a former singer herself. Her story is not the same as Otaño’s, but there is a similarity with her struggle. “I’ve lived this life. I didn’t quit because I couldn’t do it or I didn’t love it. I quit because it takes a toll on general wellbeing, happiness, marriage, security. We are social mammals. That DNA doesn’t change because you choose to sing, but the career takes you away from every way people have of coping with the stresses of everyday life.” Otaño first found immediate help from the therapy app Better Help, where for a small fee you are connected with a therapist that fits your issues. Soon, she found a local therapist she could meet with in person. With her story playing out in honest social media posts, other artists reached out to her, unaware that anyone else was dealing with mental health issues. Unlike physical injury, these are invisible illnesses. “It’s not a physical thing that you see. We, as singers, to keep our jobs, push those feelings down and don’t have proper healthcare to pursue therapy and things like that. We ignore it, and it builds up and builds up and builds up and that’s sort of what happened with me. It was about a year that I was experiencing depression symptoms before they really came to a head.” With the help of Opera San José and her doctors, Otaño is back on stage and most importantly, healthy. With the unexpected outpouring of support and confessions, the experience revealed a new world to her. There is safety in expressing those fears and anxieties that remain hidden, deep inside. “I’m in a place now where I want to talk very openly about the importance of therapy and not just be smiling and grinning and baring it, but really getting to the heart of these issues that we all experience as performers, because we’re so generous with our emotions on stage that baring and hiding your emotions in real life only stifles you as an artist.” Her next role will take her behind the scenes in opera, as an artist advocate in administration where she can support and nurture other artists and make them feel less alone when in yet another new city.
The change in Otaño’s approach to life and art is one of joyful growth and evolution. “I have these mantras. It used to be before I would go on stage, I would stand in front of the mirror in Superman pose and I would say, ‘I’m a bad bitch, and no one can fuck with me.’ That was definitely coming from fear. “Now my mantra is, ‘I’m good enough. I know enough. I am enough.’ It’s a reminder that I’ve done my preparation. Who I am as an artist and the story that I’m telling is enough. I don’t have to be anything other than what I am.”
Article originally appeared in Issue 12.2 “Sight and Sound”
Episode #18
Sam Shah – Co-founder Voyager Craft Coffee
Sam and his partner Lauren Burns have gone from a pop-up coffee trailing to three cafés. The most recent location (on The Alameda near Santa Clara University) opened right at the beginning of the Shelter-in-Place order for Santa Clara County because fo COVID-19.
In our conversation, Sam tells us about the Voyager journey from the first shop to the recent location, the adjustments that had to take place because of the launch timing, and the mission and future plans for Voyager.
Follow Voyager on Instagram at @voyagercraftcoffee (https://www.instagram.com/voyagercraftcoffee/)
Read our interview from issue 10.5 “Dine” on our issuu page. (https://bit.ly/VoyagerCC105)
Locations:
Voyager O.G. Location (7am – 7pm) 3985 Stevens Creek Blvd Santa Clara, CA 95051 669.241.8835 Voyager @ SCU (8am – 2pm) 2221 The Alameda Santa Clara, CA 95050 408.217.8599 Voyager San Pedro Square (8am – 3 pm) 87 N. San Pedro St San Jose, CA 95110 408.239.3484
Written by Esther Young (https://bit.ly/EstherPodcast)
Photography by Arabela Espinoza (https://instagram.com/arabelaespinoza)
Music “Muddy Water” by Socorra (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Michelle Runde – Content Contributing Writer
In addition to contributing to Content Magazine, Michelle works as a Policy Counselor for one of the large Silicon Valley Social Media companies.
In our conversation, Michelle reveals her love for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and cast her vote for Star Trek over Star War.
Follow Michelle on Instagram at @michrun13.
Read Michelle’s interviews in Content Magazine on our issuu page.
Juan Carlos Araujo – Director, Art Consultant, Painter.
Co-Founder of Empire Seven Studios (E7S) and POW! WOW! San Jose, along with his partner Jennifer Ahn, Curator and Gallery Manager. ES7 was established in 2008 as an urban contemporary art gallery located in Japantown San Jose at Empire St. and 7th St.
As often seen in Silicon Valley, their industrial gallery space that had became a hub for the South Bay Local Art Scene was razed for a new housing development. Fortunately, they were already expanding and transitioning to curate public art/mural projects and networking with POW! WOW! to launch POW! WOW! San Jose in 2017.
In our conversation, Juan Carlos discusses his journey as an artist, gallery owner, artist-curator, and what the future holds for him, Jennifer, and E7S.
Follow them on Instagram at @empire7studios and @powwowsanjose. Check out the video from our original interview with Juan Carlos in 2012.
https://vimeo.com/40139802
Grace Talice is a writer and contributor writer and editor with Content Magazine.
Grace has worn many different hats in her life, but recently, she has begun to focus her talents on her desire to grow as a writer. We talk about her path to this point. The themes behind her first two self published books. And the project that she is working on now during the SIP 2020.
Joe Hyrkin has been the CEO of Issuu, a digital publishing platform, for the last seven and a half years, the longest he has been with any company in his career. Having worked in business development and sales for companies like Yahoo! and Flickr, Joe has spent most of his career working in the intersection of content and technology.
In our conversation, Joe discusses the impact that mobile devices have had on the publishing industry as well as Issuu’s role in content distribution during our current SIP culture, and into the future.
To find out more about Joe’s life and career, read our 2017 interview in is Issue 9.2 “Sight & Sound.”
Ralph Buenconsejo recently launched out on his own as a freelance designer after working several years with the Baunfire Agency.
He also has done several graphic projects for Content. Most recently, the Flow meetup with Adobe promotional materials and the illustration for the AB5 article in issue 12.2 “Sight & Sound.”
In our conversation, Ralph discusses why he took the leap to branch out on his own. He also shares some of the daily routines he applies to stay on top of his game.
Follow Ralph on Instagram: @Buenmakes (https://www.instagram.com/buenmakes/) Visit his website: buenmakes.com (https://www.buenmakes.com)
Have you ever noticed how anything of worth—careers, relationships, books, antique vases—gains value not from the finish line, but from the journey? That attentive (sometimes painstaking) development provides rich meaning. It’s the reason why, when Chelsea Stewart paints, she’s much more fascinated with the process than the product.
“The paint isn’t secondary to whatever I’m trying to represent on the canvas. The paint itself is the actual focus point of the canvas and the piece as a whole,” Stewart explains. “It’s the little moments, the micro-moments, that interest me the most.” She wants viewers to see that voyage across the canvas in its entirety, “the wash all the way to the final touches and highlights that get put on last minute before a show.” By exposing these layers, she reveals “the process of the artist’s hand in the mark making.”
Stewart developed her style two years into her art studies at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Weary of creating paintings that didn’t feel true to her art process, she opted for a bold aesthetic her junior year. “I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to paint a hole and see what happens’…it ended up being one of my favorite pieces.” From then on, Stewart became absorbed with the texture, lines, and composition of geological forms. “I started going crazy with research and experimentation and taking reference photos anywhere I could.” She also signed up for a few geology courses and hiked a few of the volcanic peaks known as San Luis Obispo County’s Nine Sisters.
“With rocks and geological forms there are so many layers to nature and erosion of the pieces,” she describes. “It’s a complete juxtaposition of a painting which is built layer upon layer upon layer.” Fitting to her subject matter, Stewart also began experimenting with environmentally-friendly materials, making her own paper and canvases as well as dyes, inks, and paints.
“With rocks and geological forms there are so many layers to nature and erosion of the pieces. It’s a complete juxtaposition of a painting which is built layer upon layer upon layer.”
In her senior year, Stewart thrived in her campus’s shared studio. That close proximity with other artists, a space where ideas rub off as easily as fresh paint, made the ideal environment. “The way people approach the canvas is so interesting to me,” she notes.
But then, COVID-19 hit during her final semester. Graduation, often a rocky transition in itself, became all the more challenging. Stewart, forced to return to her Bay Area home earlier than expected, converted one of her rooms into a makeshift studio. “It messes with the mindset,” she admits of the transition to a much more isolated environment. She also needed to downsize from her preferred 6-foot-long canvases.
However, after rediscovering her stride, she is once again eager to seize any future opportunities that come her way. “I’m excited to see where my work goes,” Stewart asserts.
In addition to being a contributing writer and editor with Content Magazine since 2018, Esther Young’s main creative outline is songwriting. Though, she might not tell you that she can be found at local open mic shows and slowing releasing her songs on Spotify.
We hope you enjoy the interviews she does for us, this conversation with her about her creative journey, and become a fan of her music.
Though Brad’s day job as a public relations profession for WRIKE involves a lot of writing, he has found that “creativity isn’t a finite resource.” As he seeks to be inspired in what he does for work, he discovers inspiration in his creative writing and songwriting, and vice-versa.
Brad has released a two-song EP The Crack of Dawn of Time, which makes for this episode background music.
Follow Brad at @Bradsanzfolk (https://instagram.com/bradsanzfolks) on Instagram. Check out this music on Spotify, Bandcamp, or iTunes by searching his name.
He’s easy to find. Spotify: https://bit.ly/BradSanzMusic
Read Content Magazine interviews written by Brad on our issuu page. (https://issuu.com/content-magazine)
Kristen Pfund has been part of the Content team since 2014, first as a volunteer, and then brought on staff to help oversee the production of our events and assist with our partner relationships.
During the first part of the Shelter-in-Place order Kristen was on actual real quarantine as her roommate contracted COVID-19 and was required to have no outside contact.
In our conversation, Kristen talks about that time, what she learned, and how she approaches the various roles she plays with Content, SVCreates, and GenArts.
Episode Music is “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Jimmy Fonseca is an artist, muralist, and cofounder of Downtown Screen Printers. Join our conversation with Jimmy, who shares how being a resident artist at Local Color organically leads to form Downtown Screen Printers with Aliks Hernandez. Jimmy, also openly shares the concerns he felt at the beginning of the shelter-in-place order. And how now, though still concerned, is trying to focus on creating a new body of personal work.
Follow Jimmy at:@jimmypaints (https://www.instagram.com/jimmypaints/) And at: @Downtownscreenprinters (https://www.instagram.com/downtownscreenprinters/)
Episode Music is “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon
Genevieve Hastings is an installation artist and the director of the Art Ark Gallery in San Jose. In this episode, Genevieve shares how her curiosity has led her from studying linguistic and anthropology, to travel, and to directing a local gallery.
Follow Genevieve and the Art Ark at @genevieve.hastings.artark Visit Art Arks website to discover exhibitions, resources, and experiences: ArtArkGallery.com Find out more about Genevieve’s installation project “Incantations: An Annual Sound Art Gathering in the High Desert” on here website: Genevievehastings.com (http://www.genevievehastings.com/)
Photography by Arabela Espinoza Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon
Avni Levy is a contributing Content photographer and, like most of our contributors, has a growing creative content business of her own. In our conversation, Avni shared here daily routine, a few helpful practices for creatives, and three great books, including “The Miracle Morning” by Hal Elrod.
Make sure to follow Avni on her IG: @AvniCreates (https://instagram.com/AvniCreates) And join here Quaranstream Training: How to Lead LIVE online workouts April 4th, 10am. Details: https://bit.ly/QuaranstreamAvni
Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Massimo Chisessi is the marketing director for San Jose Jazz (SJZ). In our conversation, Massimo tells about his experience in the arts, and with arts organizations. He explains the transitions the SJZ has taken to help musicians during the shelter in place order. As well as his sharing about his personal experience of the passing of his father during this COVID19 atmosphere.
Follow Massimo at @iamthemassimo (https://www.instagram.com/iamthemassimo/) And, San Jose Jazz at @sanjosejazz (https://www.instagram.com/sanjosejazz/) Recorded on April 6, 2020, before San Jose Jazz’s difficult announcement to cancel of two other signature programs, the 31st annual San Jose Jazz Summer Fest 2020 and its Summer Jazz Camp, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Isaiah Wilson is one of the Cofounders of the Come Up, a collective that showcases local musicians and artists. In our conversation, Isaiah talks about his transition in the way he approaches producing shows and gathering.
Follow Isaiah at @civicflora (https://www.instagram.com/civicflora/)And, the Come Up at @sjcomeup (https://www.instagram.com/sjcomeup/) Isaiah and the Come Up team also curated a music series in each issue of Content Magazine. Current article is available in Issue 12.2 “Sight and Sound” https://bit.ly/SnS122
Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Kerry Adams Hapner has been the director of the Office of Cultural Affairs for the City of San Jose (OCA) for the last 12 years. She oversees the department and staff that helps shape the City’s artistic and cultural vibrancy, resources, and vision.
The arts and culture are essential elements in the character and quality of life in any vibrant community. Kerry helps create that the city public Art, Grants, and cultural facilities as well as the City places a vital role in the sustainability of local artists and Arts Organizations.
Find out more about the OCA on the City of San Jose’s Website.
Also, follow them IG: @sjculture (https://instagram.com/sjculture) Read our interview with Kerry in issue 8.4 “Profiles.” (http://bit.ly/KerryAH) Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Sean Boyles is an artist, teacher, and co-owner of the Arsenal ArtStore in Japantown, with his wife, Roan Victor. We talk about this life as an artist, shelter-in-place, and the expansion plans for The Arsenal Art Store.
Follow Sean at : @mrseanbyoles (https://instagram.com/mrseanboyles) and @TheArenalSJ(https://instagram.com/TheArsenalSJ)
Visit The Arsenal online to sign-up for art classes. Digitally until shelter-in-place is lifted. (https://TheArsenalSJ.com) Read more about Sean in issue 11.0, “Discover.” (http://bit.ly/SeanB110)
Photo by Arabela Espinoza Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Dalia Rawson, Director of the New Ballet, leads San Jose’s school of classical ballet but credits her online gaming experience for their ability to transition to online classes during the shelter-in-place order. If the combination of ballet and gaming appears to be an odd pairing, what about Ballet and Aliens?
Find out more about New Ballet at: https://newballet.com/
And on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/newballet.sanjose/
With opportunities for dances from 2.5 yrs. and up, and from beginners to professionals.
Read more about Dalia in issue 8.4 “Profiles.” https://bit.ly/DaliaNewBallet84
Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon (https://bit.ly/MuddyWaterSocorra)
Frank Nguyen is the owner of Academic Coffee, which has become a community favorite over the last few years. Recently, Frank demonstrated innovation, foresight, and care for his employees, as he adjusted his menu during the beginning days of the Shelter-in-Place order due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read original article with Frank and Academic Coffee in our 2017 interview in Issue 9.4 “Perform.”
Academic Coffee 499 S 2nd Street San Jose, California 95113
Episode Music: “Muddy Water” by Socorra on her 2020 EP Coming Home Soon
Hip-hop roots have always been in poetry. The earliest emcees knew that the human voice is the most powerful tool at our disposal, one that not only stirs a crowd but changes hearts and minds at the same time. McTate Stroman II lives and breathes by that tradition. Calling himself “the original breakbeat poet,” Stroman uses his gift of poetry to inspire others to find that tool within themselves and change the world around them. “I’m a poet who documents hip-hop,” Stroman says. “That’s how I understand myself.”
Stroman places himself as part of the hip-hop generation, with the trajectory of his life shaped in the golden years when the genre was emerging from its role as an underground pastime into a mainstream cultural phenomenon. He was raised in Los Angeles, but he always had an affinity for the storytelling style of East Coast hip-hop. So when Stroman and his family visited his aunt in the Bronx when he was a teenager, it was as if he was setting off on a religious pilgrimage. At that moment, something clicked in Stroman. “To my mother, it was just a family trip,” Stroman says. “But for me, it was a spiritual journey. I was starting to become a student—to become an emcee.”
From then on, Stroman held on to those traditions and committed himself to writing raps. As a young adult, he had committed his time to his b-boy group, but over time, he started gravitating to the more esoteric world of spoken word and slam. When he made that transition, Stroman noticed that there was an entire community of like-minded individuals making the same turn. That’s when he realized he was part of what he called the breakbeat poets: those who grew up inspired by the passion and flair of the original emcees that dominated the golden age of hip-hop.
“One of the most important things for us humans is adaptability. You have to allow yourself to expand and not hold back.”
When Stroman attended college, he took as many classes in the performative arts as he could in order to incorporate this new knowledge into the presentation of his poetry. Stroman sought whatever he could to give him an edge in moving a crowd while on the stage. Eventually this led him to Toastmasters in the early 2000s, where he furthered his public-speaking expertise and ability to hold an audience. As he grew into a fully realized performer, Stroman began to see his artistry and performances as his ability to convey the shared spirit of humanity and dedicated himself to inspiring others to seize that passion from within themselves. “One of the most important things for us humans is adaptability,” Stroman says. “You have to allow yourself to expand and not hold back.”
Now, as Stroman grows older, he’s decided to act as a mentor for budding local talent. Since 2010, he’s been the host for the monthly Open Mic Nights with the Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College, where he’s been able to build relationships with the performers, whether they are poets, rappers, or otherwise. Aside from his poetry, Stroman is also a motivational speaker. He has spoken to his old high school and students at De Anza about the importance of finding your own passion and educating oneself. He has also been a keynote speaker at the annual hip-hop youth conference Rock the School Bells. Stroman sees his poetry and his motivational speaking as related but separate applications of his talents. “Those are two different components, but they merge at times,” Stroman says. “But there is always going to be an element of the other to each.”
To Stroman, the local San Jose poetry scene is a critical part of the community. What he loves about the ability to perform in physical space are the lightning-in-the-bottle emotions you can only get with a live audience. But in recent years, he’s seen these spaces shrinking. Not all hope is lost, however—Stroman knows that the entirety of the San Jose art scene has the potential to grow together.
“People are trying to understand and get their identity as they are growing,” Stroman says. “If we, as artists in San Jose get more involved with the local community events, I think that’s the ticket. That’s what San Jose art is all about.”
Today, the concept of “breath” has new significance, forcing us to reevaluate our priorities and beliefs. We are aware of it as we put on a mask to venture into the community and navigate the realities of COVID-19. We are aware of it when we hear George Floyd’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” echo across the nation, becoming emblematic of the fight against racial injustice. Breathing has also come to symbolize our need to feed our spirit and find space in our life for respite and reflection. For artist Rayos Magos, 35, time to create is his moment to step away from the anxiety and uncertainty of the world and…breathe.
Rayos works full-time for a non-profit community health clinic, but having to work from home during the shelter-in-place (SIP) has blurred the lines between business and a sacred space for pleasure and relaxation. A wrench has been thrown into his normal routine since, like many of us, once he rolls out of bed, he is already in his office. His art has become his saving grace, giving him structure and routine as he enters his studio.
“The limited social interactions with friends and the community have made me dig deeper into themes, symbols, internal dialogue, and contemplation of the world.”
As a third generation Mexican American born in San Jose, Rayos has discovered and connected with his cultural heritage through art. He utilizes his skills in printmaking, drawing, painting, and mixed media to branch out and connect with others. “The limited social interactions with friends and the community have made me dig deeper into themes, symbols, internal dialogue, and contemplation of the world,” he adds.
One of his works created during this time is a monochromatic linocut print presenting a lively pair of lungs etched with bold lines and the words “Just Breathe.” The piece is a reminder to take moments to breathe deeply while also bringing awareness to the fact that not everyone is given the freedom to do so. Breaking away from working in isolation, Rayos also worked on a couple of murals. One, a few blocks away from San Jose City Hall, is called Heart Space, a mural consisting of his trademark hands cupped into a heart shape, which provides shelter around a yellow heart emanating from the center. At the top the words, “Black Lives Matter,” are written in bold, vibrant letters. “By participating in the activation of these spaces, I felt I was doing my part in the larger community by beautifying and offering messages of hope, solidarity, and compassion to all impacted by COVID-19 and systemic inequalities.”
Askull, a pelvis, some vertebrae—warmly familiar ivory tones and archetypal shapes resonating deep in our memories. Looking closer, the shapes lack the sharp edges of bone. They are fibrous and irresistibly tangible. Stephanie Metz’s studio is filled with such contradictions. Can bone be soft and warm? Can folds of flesh be firm? Everything requires a second look. Each piece provokes.
Bay Area native Metz grew up in Sunnyvale. After studying sculpture at the University of Oregon, she settled back in San Jose with her high tech husband. “When I came back, I didn’t have any connection with anybody art-related around here,” says Metz. With a vague inclination toward animatronics, she put together her portfolio and ended up getting a job with a company in Hayward that did themed environments like the pyramid outside of Fry’s Electronics. She enjoyed the hands-on making part of the job the most, she says. “Just getting back there and doing huge things out of Styrofoam with a chainsaw.” Being told how to produce something was less enjoyable, and the job only lasted a year.
“It’s like alchemy—you take it from one form, and then you do something to it, and it’s another form.”
Metz next tried her hand at working in a frame store. “It was good and it was maddening,” she says. The job brought her into contact with WORKS San Jose, where she did everything from writing grants to becoming president of their all-volunteer board. “It was a good learning experience from the other side in knowing what it’s like to hang a show. I feel as artists we have to work twice as hard to show that we are responsible, thinking business people.”
At the frame shop, she first came across her medium of choice: wool. Someone gave her a Sunset Magazine article about making a little drink cozy out of felt. By simply wrapping a cup in wool and dunking it in hot soapy water, a solid thing could be created. “I was thinking it’s like alchemy—you take it from one form, and then you do something to it, and it’s another form. I went to a local yarn store and was immediately directed to a book on needle felting.”
The process proved fascinating and infinitely variable. By compacting the fibers together with a needle, the resulting felt can be shaped into any form Metz imagines. It can be built up or stripped down, compacted as densely as she desires. “For me, a lot of it is the dichotomy between hard and soft, and sharp and round,” says Metz.
To create the felt, Metz forces the fibers together with really sharp needles notched in one direction. The scales on the fibers interlock and hold tightly together. Although the concept is simple, it affords Metz almost infinite control. Even large forms don’t need much structure because the tightly-bound network of fibers creates its own armature.
Challenging the way humans have shaped their environment is part of what drives Metz. “It came together in a really nice way to use this organic, really alive-looking stuff to talk about how we shape the world around us.” Her “Teddy Bear Natural History” series explores the anatomy of a found teddy bear with distended snout, oversized eyes and sharp teeth normally hidden behind the fur. Metz explains that the teddy bears evolved out of her experiments with sheep skulls because she was “interested in looking at the hardest part of the animal and making it out of this soft material, but also giving them teeth and thinking about the fact that they’re based on this real creature that could eat any one of us.” The toys mirror the way our culture morphs unpalatable predators into more socially acceptable shapes.
But not everyone feels comfortable with the bears. “Just like with all my work, I find out who’s kind of a kindred spirit and who’s not. Some people see these [skulls] as signs of death, or the death of a childhood icon, and I don’t see them that way at all. For me, they’re specimens of life. Looking at bones talks about what happened in life. It’s not death and gore. It’s the evidence left behind.”
After two years at WORKS, Metz had her first child. Some of her peers made comments about choosing children over art as if the two choices were mutually exclusive. “That probably made me work harder,” says Metz. “I still have things that are galvanizing to me and I feel the need to make something tangible.”
One of Metz’s pieces was featured in the “Milestones: Textiles of Transition” exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (July 21, 2013). From the “Pelts” series, the work featured a baptismal gown fringed with hair. “When I had kids, suddenly I was so in touch with the fact that I am a mammal,” says Metz. “One way we differentiate ourselves from other mammals is we change our hair for aesthetics. Try to grow it in certain places and not in others. I was having the hair come through different clothing pieces as if it were trying to reassert itself—like ivy or moss.”
Having a home studio, Metz’s kids find it “totally normal for mom to be poking wool in the back room.” Her older son loves to draw and already identifies himself as an artist. Her children respect her space and, much as they want to try, she never lets them near the needles. “After ten years of doing it, I still poke myself and it is wickedly painful.”
Her work is becomingly increasingly abstract and large. She is exploring new ways for people to interact with her pieces. “From further away it looks kind of cool and minimalist, clean lines,” says Metz. “But when you get up closer, you see this texture and want to touch it—although you know you’re not supposed to. It makes you think about how physically present it is.”
There is no mystery about her process. Metz has painstakingly documented her work in time-lapse video. “Art is so alienating to people so that’s why I talk about how I do this. I want it to be an entry point, so people can interact with it and feel like art is a part of their lives.”
Metz’s work is certainly physical. It has weight and texture and tugs at something deep in the psyche. Much of it makes me smile. “That’s what I hope to affect in people—that they take a moment in their life and see something differently.”
The article originally appeared in Issue 5.2 “Invent” Print issue SOLD OUT
Henry Stein, a.k.a. Mild Monk, can cover a lot of ground. Lately, he enthuses about Japanese city pop, works of Haruki Murakami, Ella Fitzgerald, Tennis (the band), Studio Ghibli movies, and the composition of skate videos. “I want to be like a YouTube suggestion box,” Stein jokes. He wears his eclectic tastes on his sleeve, and all his projects seem methodically arranged and curated—from his album art to the videos he edits for his songs.
Even his moniker, Mild Monk, is a synthesis of contemporary lo-fi indie rock (Mild High Club) and the unorthodox musicians who defined modern American music (Thelonious Monk). The name also aptly describes his recent period of self-imposed exclusion from the local art scene, opting to stay home to experiment with visuals and sounds in his apartment-turned-studio space.
“I struggle with finding a balance, to be honest,” Stein confesses, discussing an all too familiar act of balancing work, music, and fun. Social anxiety—along with a need to focus more on his music—encouraged his seclusion and gave him time to recharge his social battery. “I really value time for reflection, and I think that requires solitude.”
This is not to imply that Henry Stein is a misanthrope. He has a warm, laid-back presence, a byproduct of someone comfortable in himself and his joys. Stein’s organized and placid lifestyle is juxtaposed with his wild imagination, inundated by his influences.
After releasing his infectious surf-rock album Love in December 2017, followed by the synth-laden project Orbit in Spring 2018 and a slew of singles, Stein decided not to release a major project in 2019. “I find the more time I allow to pass between music, the more time there is for me to take inspiration,” Stein says. He took up meditation during his ascetic absence, and it shows in his music. While his earlier production on songs was busy and saturated, his new work feels more focused, and the instrumentation feels more fleshed out.
“I like not being able to describe what I do. That’s really exciting to me.” –Henry Stein
His newest single, “Theme for Ame,” takes lush, mellow synths that act as the soundscape over chords from an acoustic guitar. Mild Monk’s recent work is reminiscent of ’70s Italian and French film score composers and early synth-pop music, a far deviation from his work only a year ago. His music feels like love letters to works that feel both unfamiliar and nostalgic.
Stein’s recent single “Ode to Plantasia” is an homage to the cult classic Mother Earth’s Plantasia album by Mort Garson, a synth album meant to help your plants grow. “How many influences can I fit into a release?” Henry asks rhetorically. “What kind of music can I make?”
Recently, Mild Monk has delved into lo-fi hip-hop and synth-inspired instrumentals. He uploads tracks and Instagram videos of himself playing on instruments such as the SPX404 sampling machine used for beats and a Teenage Engineering Op-1 for synths and sampling. These tracks, immersive in their thoughtful, campy production, offer a look into Mild Monk’s head.
Stein mentions that the universal messages in his favorite works are what affects him. “I want to give the same effect to someone who may find my work one day.” He strives to sustain a purity in his work, an essence in his music that transcends time and genre. These topics include love, loss, gratefulness, and cell-phone addiction. “There’s going to be one underlying feeling behind it. At the end of the day I am still a fan.”
Stein seems to be among like-minded company. Aside from his solo pursuit, he is now the keyboardist in the rising San Jose–based band Swells and The Lünatics. Collaboration is still something Stein is continuing to work on, but he feels humbled by his peers and artists within the scene.
Stein hopes to dabble in more genres, but no matter the sound, it will still be authentically Mild Monk. “I like not being able to describe what I do. That’s really exciting to me.”
Article originally appeared in issue 12.0 “Discovered.”
SOLD OUT
Building community through bicycling
A cyclist yells the rally cry from within a colorful peloton of bikes. Other riders cheer on and ring their bicycle bells as pedestrians move closer to the street to see what all the commotion is about. A few cyclists tow small trailers with custom-made sound systems, turning the ride into a rolling street party. The mood is happy and energetic; cyclists pedal at a casual pace, perfect for striking up a conversation with other cyclists.
For those unfamiliar with the sights and sounds of San Jose Bike Party, it’s an eye-catching parade of bikes and riders of all shapes and sizes. But for the riders taking part in the organized chaos, it’s a way to connect with other folks from all over the Bay Area who share a passion for bike riding.
What started as a small bike ride with less than a hundred riders has evolved into a monthly San Jose institution, attracting up to 4,000 people. Their mission statement is simple, yet meaningful: “Building community through bicycling.” For almost five years now, they’ve managed to do just that.
“Everyone [at Bike Party] comes from different backgrounds,” says Gilda Messmer, a cyclist who has been attending Bike Party for four years. “You’ve got professionals; you’ve got kids with no jobs. There might even be homeless people riding at Bike Party. But the one thing we have in common is that we like to ride.”
Bike Party takes place every third Friday of the month. The location is announced approximately 24 hours before the ride on their website. Every ride has a theme, and the routes take riders through a different neighborhood each time. Riders congregate up to an hour before the 8pm start time to meet up with old friends and make new ones. “It’s a unique experience,” says Katie Heaney, a Bike Party volunteer. “Kind of like a rock concert. There’s definitely a celebratory aspect.”
Heaney started off as just another cyclist about four years ago, introduced to Bike Party through a friend. She has since become a Bike Party volunteer, or BIRD (Bicycle Information Resource Director). BIRDs meet regularly to plan routes, go on test rides, keep the website up to date, and decide on upcoming ride themes. “Bike Party has never had one person in charge,” says Heaney. “All these tasks are shared [by BIRDs] each month.” Riders who attend Bike Party and enjoy it are encouraged to give back to the community by volunteering.
At Bike Party rides, BIRDS help cyclists stay on route and to the right side of the street. A smaller group of BIRDS, called RAVENS, collect trash left behind by cyclists along the route. “I’m always amazed at how good things bring on more good things,” says BIRD Carlos Babcock. Babcock is also a member of the Caltrain Bike Advisory Committee and San Jose Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. “We’ve left parking lots cleaner than when we got to them.”
Because Bike Party rides start at night, riders are safer in large groups and are more visible to drivers. “An indication that your streets are safe is that high school girls are out on downtown streets at night,” says Babcock.
Riders are encouraged to abide by the “How We Ride” rules posted on the Bike Party website. These include stopping at stoplights, staying in the right lane or bike lane, and using lights. Riding while intoxicated is not condoned by Bike Party or its volunteers. Bike Party doesn’t ask the San Jose Police Department to come help conduct traffic at busy intersections or give tickets for infractions, but they sometimes show up at rides. According to Heaney, the presence of SJPD does help deter reckless behavior. Bike Party does not need a permit to organize as cyclists are allowed to ride in the right lane.
Despite all the efforts of BIRDS to keep riders in line, they can’t control everyone. “We attract everybody,” says Heaney. “Most come out to have a good time, but sometimes we get a few bad apples that give a bad impression.” These riders are generally the exception to the rule. The party-like atmosphere and sense of community keep riders coming back for more. “I hate missing it,” says Messmer.
As more and more people take to the streets on bikes, San Jose Bike Party attendance continues to steadily increase. “I see people in other communities organizing their own bike parties, which has already been happening over the past year,” says Heaney. Some cyclists branch off to form smaller rides because the party-like crowds of Bike Party are getting too large or too slow.
“Other groups are grasping our momentum, but they’re not affiliated with us,” says Babcock. Bike Party often promotes these other rides because it is an opportunity to support and encourage the cycling community. But no matter how many other rides take place, one thing is for sure: every third Friday of the month, the rally cries and bike bells of San Jose Bike Party will continue to ride on.
Article originally appeared in Issue 4.4 Education (Print SOLD OUT)
The SVArts program annually awards prestigious honors to Santa Clara County-based artists in a variety of categories and disciplines. In the nearly 30 years since its establishment, the program has awarded more than 175 artists who push the boundaries of creativity with both recognition and a cash prize to assist in pursuing their craft. This year, awards were given in the categories of Backstage (for those working behind-the-scenes in a theatrical setting), On Stage (for a performing artist), On the Wall (for visual artists working in traditional or mixed media), On the Page (a new award recognizing an artist in the literary arts), Emerging Artist (for a young artist in any medium who shows promise for continued growth and excellence), the SV Nexus Award (honoring an artist who uses technology to fuel their creative work).
The artists are chosen based not only on their body of work, but also on their community involvement and engagement. As educators, artists, and performers, each of them has devoted time not only to their own craft, but also to mentoring others and forging new cultural connections in the diverse Silicon Valley community.
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Pantea Karimi On the Wall
Iranian American visual artist Pantea Karimi began formally studying art at age 14 and never looked back. With the encouragement of her parents, she earned an MFA in Graphic Design from the Art University in Tehran before opening up her own studio there. In 2001, she moved to England to study printmaking while showcasing many of her own works in galleries and collections around the world. She continued her studies at San Jose State starting in 2005 with a second master’s degree in painting and printmaking. Drawn from an early age to her mother’s fashion magazines—not only for the clothing styles, but for the layout and design elements—some of Karimi’s recent work has brought this thread back into focus as she has studied various forms of print media from a design lens. Today, she is a sought-after speaker at museums and universities; she also teaches at the College of San Mateo and maintains a studio in Palo Alto.
“As an artist, I am naturally driven by my deep feelings and childhood experiences that have shaped my perceptions of the world. My work has been an exploration into the pages of medieval Persian, Arab, and early modern European scientific manuscripts. The scientific books from these periods offer nuanced understandings of the relationship between form and text, and above all, between scientific concepts and their myriad manifestations in visual forms. I also draw inspirations from artists from around the world, my peers, and art genres. I am always thankful to the art communities that embraced me and contributed to my growth as an artist.”
Mel Day was born and raised in Canada, the eldest of nine children. Her parents were botanists, and at a young age she found creative inspiration in the strange fungal forms she saw as she peered into their microscopes. On her educational path, she took many turns through various colleges, exploring different artistic practices and embarking on scientific adventures; she eventually wound up with an MFA from UC Berkeley. Today, her wide range of multidisciplinary experiences and interests have manifested in a new participatory singing platform and video installation inspired by her previous work, Wall of Song, which compiled hundreds of online voices into a community musical experience.
“I remember working on a piece that was one of the most technically and emotionally challenging projects I have ever made. The piece just went through one too many moves, as it were. But this piece catalyzed my practice. I received valuable feedback, learned restraint, and kept following the thread of the work. I now draw upon these learnings as an educator and ultimately am grateful for the ways in which I’ve been privileged to continue in my practice. I feel inspired and mentored by many of the people that I’ve met in this area who are working at the edges of their fields. I realize now that living here has deeply influenced, nurtured, and supported my practice in way that might not have been otherwise possible. I’ve been drawn to the resonance of collective singing ever since I can remember when my father first played records at top volume in our living room of thousands of Welshmen singing. These voices have now come full circle in my work.”
Andrea Bechert traces her interest in scenic design for live theater back to her middle school years watching her father design a tunnel through a mountain, helping him build things, and feeling his support of her creativity. “Both my parents taught me to work hard, do my absolute best, take great pride in all that I do, treat everyone with respect and kindness, and to see the beauty in the world all around us,” she says. Bechert attended Ohio University and studied Scenography, then did an internship at the Salzburg Festspielhaus in Austria. In the ’90s, she moved to the Bay Area with no contacts and no work, finding what opportunities she could as a designer, a stagehand, a scenic artist, and a props master. A two-year sabbatical in Chicago turned into 11 years, but she eventually returned to the Bay Area, which she considers “one of the most beautiful places in the country.” She has now designed over 350 productions nationwide, and in addition to continuing to work in theater, teaches at both San Jose State and the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts.
“As a Scenic Designer, I have a unique and magical task. I create a new world for each production, unique to the particular characters and stories. When I do my job well, the audience connects with these visuals, becoming engrossed in the experience of the play, transported momentarily into the world of the characters. In the best of instances, my design, the arrangement and composition of the visual elements, inspires mental and emotional connections in the audience members’ minds. Live theater is like a guided dream for the audience, and each audience member’s experience is unique and magical. Designers do not just design spaces and environments, we design dreams.”
A San Jose native, Ray Furuta has devoted his career to the flute. As a prodigious high school student, he was invited to take private lessons with renowned flutist Carol Wincenc and continued to study under her private instruction through college. In 2011, Furuta returned on a break from his studies at Stony Brook University in New York and had a revelation that there simply wasn’t enough opportunity available in his own home town for classical musicians to thrive. So, he founded Chamber Music Silicon Valley (CMSV) to fill the void, an organization for which he still serves as Artistic Director. Initially conceived as an outlet for traditional classical performances, today CMSV attempts to push the boundaries of what chamber music can be in the hopes of making it more relevant to the diverse Silicon Valley community. Furuta, meanwhile, continues to tour worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, teacher, and cultural ambassador.
“Being able to give musicians the tools they need to go out and be successful is a very important mission for me. I also have a passion for using my talents to ignite social change—to enable my students to go out and be advocates for music and social justice. Working hard to better the lives of my family and make them proud of me is a constant inspiration (not pressure, at all). They sacrificed so much for me to achieve the career that I currently have—so giving back to them is an important inspiration for me. Otherwise, breaking social and cultural barriers and creating a better world through music is overall what I strive to accomplish; even if the impact is only a little, that little matters very much to me and keeps me working hard.”
Renee Billingslea grew up in Eugene, Oregon. The product of two artists herself (her mother was a ballet dancer, her father a graphic designer and painter), she was always surrounded by the arts, so a career in photography seems only natural. She earned a BFA from Southern Oregon University before transplanting to San Jose State for her MFA, where her biggest challenge was nurturing both a career and a newborn daughter. Her hard work paid off; she completed her master’s and is now a senior lecturer at Santa Clara University. Her current project is Ten American Concentration Camps, a study of the 10 locations of World War II Japanese American internment and the impacts of these camps on citizens and communities. It is set to debut next year at the Triton Museum of Art.
“In the 7th grade I took my first photography class with Ms. Geoller and was completely seduced by the instant gratification that black and white analog photography gave me. There was a true connection, and years later, I would learn this was one of my life’s callings. Now that our baby is mostly grown, I find myself running to my studio and keeping a journal of the many ideas and work I must do. Every day I am grateful for all my abilities that allow me to grow and evolve as an artist.”
Jarvis Subia was born and raised in San Jose, graduated from Oak Grove High School, and attended college at San Francisco State, where he found his passion at a campus spoken word poetry group called S.P.E.A.K. (Spoken Poetry Expressed by All Kinds). He soon began traveling the country, competing in poetry slams as a representative for local poetry groups. In 2018, he earned the Grand Slam Champion award at the San Jose Poetry Slam. His writing draws on influences from music to visual arts to photography, and touches on topics of personal experiences, social issues, and community. While he will always consider the world of slam poetry home, he aspires to hone his craft to create literary work as well, bringing “a new fierce voice to an older practice.”
“I’ve been blessed with [the chance] to travel and perform my work across the country. It’s a gorgeously wholesome feeling to be recognized by the city you grew up in. The arts always seem to be combatants in juxtaposition with gentrification. It continues to seem [that way] in the Bay as more new and affluent people move in and more artists move out, pushed out by the rising cost of living and lack of adequate work, especially work that provides enough to comfortably create art. There are so many writers, performers, organizers, painters, photographers, etc. coming together to ensure art happens; arts tend to get cultivated by the people who need it most. [There are] new, urgent voices and art movements emerging.”
Search online for a San Jose gym that offers boxing, and you’ll find dozens that advertise this. Few are boxing exclusive. None have the Dreamland Boxing Training Center’s credentials. Dreamland is one of only four Bay Area gyms that can turn an amateur boxer into a licensed professional. The others are in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Mateo. Dreamland is the only gym in Santa Clara County that’s certified by USA Boxing, the national governing body for Olympic-style amateur boxing. Dreamland’s lead trainer, Jesse Huerta, is the only trainer in the county that’s licensed as a professional trainer by the California Athletics State Commission.
It’s hard to get Huerta to talk about how important Dreamland is to Bay Area boxing. He’d rather tell you how diverse Dreamland’s membership is and how its programs help its members and their families. Three licensed professional boxers train at Dreamland. Its co-ed boxing team competes against San Jose Police Activities League and other youth teams around the Bay, and its members range from eight years old to 75.
Walk into an evening youth class, and you’ll see engaged girls and boys from eight to 17 years old doing a hard workout. Their parents and younger siblings are seated comfortably nearby. Huerta’s wife, Gina, is “Momma G.” She’s at the door and knows everyone. She makes the vibe friendly and inclusive.
“This is what Dreamland is all about,” says Huerta. Dreamland is a safe, supportive environment where the skills needed for life are taught and practiced. By training to box, says Huerta, youths learn discipline and goal setting. They gain confidence and patience. “Life is tough like in the boxing ring,” Huerta says. “It’s how you overcome it, and that’s what we’re teaching here.”
Chris “the Warrior” Washington exemplifies what Dreamland teaches. He’s an undefeated professional boxer who competes as a junior middleweight. He grew up in South San Jose and came to Dreamland as a youth. He says he was extremely shy and at risk for getting into big trouble. Washington wanted to box because of the happy times he had watching prizefighting on television with his dad and brothers. “We loved it,” says Washington. “We used to watch it, and then we’d fight inside and outside with our friends.”
Washington befriended Dreamland’s founders, David “Sarge” Neeleman and his wife, Maria. They became Washington’s mentors. Sarge had over 50 years of boxing experience, first as a fighter and then as trainer. After Sarge retired from a career in construction, the Neelemans wanted to start a 501(c)(3) charity. Their vision was of a community center that would use the sport of boxing to help youths and their families. In 2004, the Neelemans used their life savings to open Dreamland. Maria’s father, a former boxer, named Dreamland after San Francisco’s Dreamland Auditorium.
The Dreamland Auditorium was a well-known venue that featured boxing and concerts from the early 1900s through the 1950s. “It’s hard to imagine,” says Bay Area boxing historian Eddie Muller, “how popular boxing was in the Bay Area before there were major league sports west of the Rockies.” Through the 1950s, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose had boxers whose fights sold out at civic auditoriums and the Dreamland Auditorium. Before World War II the Dreamland Auditorium also functioned as a community center. It offered ice skating, roller skating, boxing, and other activities for youths. Maria’s father and his friends enjoyed the community center activities and the professional and amateur boxing shows that were offered.
Through the mid-1960s, most Bay Area high schools as well as Stanford University, Santa Clara University, and San Jose State had boxing clubs. By the late 1960s, most school programs ended, largely due to the public’s shrinking interest in boxing as the San Francisco Giants, 49ers, and Golden State Warriors took center stage. The Dreamland Auditorium reflected this change. It was sold to Bill Graham in 1971. He renamed it “Winterland” and turned it into a legendary venue for music shows. Muller mourns the loss of school boxing programs. “The discipline that boxing takes,” says Muller, “positively affects people throughout their entire lives.”
Today, the Dreamland Boxing Training Center positively affects youths with its open-door membership policy and code of conduct. Membership fees are waived for those without funds. The code of conduct requires members to be respectful, to dress properly, and to use polite language. “If you give them something constructive to do, structure, and opportunities to socialize,” says Neeleman, “it helps them to grow as secure individuals who help others.”
Neeleman says Washington the youth developed into an honorable, respectable, and righteous man as he trained with Sarge. He learned to believe in himself. Both Neeleman and Washington say that Sarge was demanding and tough, yet tender. “Sarge often said,” recalls Neeleman, “whatever you put into it, you get out of it.”
Washington says he’s gotten a lot more out of Dreamland than his love of the sport and his undefeated record. “Whenever I come to the gym,” says Washington, “I’m always happy, and I learned to talk to people.” He recalls a troubled time when Jesse Huerta was there for him, offering support and good advice. “It’s like a family,” says Washington. “It was like that with Sarge; it’s like that with Jesse still.”
“I believe I can be champion. That’s why I’m here.” –Chris Washington
In 2013, due to an illness, Sarge asked Jesse to run Dreamland’s day-to-day operations and to train its amateur and professional boxers. Huerta had been a competitive boxer in the 1980s. He trained at boxing promoter Joe Gagliardi’s Garden City Boxing Club. It was located in San Jose on Santa Clara Street on the second floor of Hank Coca’s furniture store. In those days, Joe Gagliardi’s fights filled civic auditoriums throughout Northern California, as well as the Circle Star Theater and the Oakland Coliseum Complex, with fans. Boxing events at the San Jose Civic Auditorium were standing room only when Garden City Boxing Club members Albert Romero, Joaquin “Pinky” Rivera, and Stevie “Double Barrel” Romero fought. When Huerta found that he liked training fighters more than competing, he became a professional trainer while he raised his family and worked as a probation counselor at Santa Clara County’s Juvenile Hall. In 2015, after Sarge passed away, the Huertas took over Dreamland as its executive directors and financial managers.
Financial support comes from membership fees, generous members, and TITLE Boxing. A generous TITLE Boxing discount enables Dreamland to provide gloves to those who can’t afford them. TITLE Boxing sponsors the Dreamland Masters World Championship. The master amateur division is for boxers 35 years old or older. This annual tournament is sanctioned by USA Boxing and the Northern California Local Boxing Commission. It attracts competitive boxers from around the world, and it’s part of Dreamland’s vision of all-ages inclusion.
The Huertas have kept the Neeleman’s vision and have dedicated their lives to preserving it. Jesse Huerta says boxing isn’t a brutal combat sport or a ticket to championship riches. It’s a proven way to guide youths to a positive future. Washington says he initially wanted the glamour and wealth that goes with a boxing championship, but his goals have changed. Now he wants to do things for his family and the youths he trains at Dreamland. “I believe I can be champion,” says Washington. “That’s why I’m here; it’s good here.”
Grab a seat behind the goal about halfway up the stands at Avaya Stadium. Take in the game and the air traffic of Mineta Airport in the distance, framed by the boxy downtown San Jose skyline and the peaks that form the Santa Clara Valley. The sun sets about halfway through most games, depending on the season. Look to your left, and you’ll see a Vietnamese family sharing snacks, sporting Earthquakes jerseys and bantering back and forth as the game rolls on. To your right, a Hispanic couple, clearly on a first date, is seated next to a group of college students. Beside them, an elderly couple proudly wear vintage soccer swag dating back to the early days of Earthquake territory. The experience of the game, in the still-new Coleman Avenue stadium, is a quintessential San Jose experience, and that’s just the way the Earthquakes like it.
The element of the “fan” in sports is inextricable from the sport itself. The ultimate brand loyalist, a sports fan (short for “fanatic,” of course) identifies him- or herself with the chosen brand on a personal level. Part of the fan’s identity is wrapped up in devotion to the team, the obsession with wins and losses, and the dedication to the success of the sport. The fan self-identifies as a “die-hard fan” and describes how his or her relationship with the sport and the team affects not just game day, but every day. This deep identification with a brand is the kind of relationship that drives an entire industry and raises a poignant question: How are business identities (brands) created, and how do the best brands resonate so loudly with people? Indeed, many people see their teams as inextricable parts of their personalities.
“They see us more as a club than an organization,” offers Jed Mettee, Executive Vice President for the San Jose Earthquakes soccer team. In this “club,” fans are on equal footing with the players in terms of value and influence. Regarding branding in sports, and soccer in particular, the fans are as important as anybody else in making the whole system work. But it doesn’t happen by accident. The perception, reputation, and in-the-flesh reality of the Quakes brand is a direct reflection of their intention to provide San Jose with something that truly represents its people, interacts with them, and provides a rallying point for the city.
The Mirror
“Soccer is the world’s game,” Mettee says. “We want to be authentic to the sport. Having that diversity on our roster is ‘on brand’ for us.” It’s also “on brand” for San Jose. Take a look around the stadium on any given game night, and you’ll see a fairly accurate sample of the people of San Jose. You’ll see the ethnicities and idiosyncrasies of the city on the faces in the crowd, decked out in their various self-expressions of team affiliation. Now focus on the players on the field. You’ll see eleven men on the pitch that mirror the crowd. “San Jose is a place where everyone in the world comes together to be innovative and creative, with energy and passion,” Mettee asserts. The San Jose Earthquakes represent that same diversity and passion.
None of this happens by accident. The Earthquakes’ intention to be a direct reflection of their fan base and the city at large comes to fruition in a myriad of ways. The youth leagues that groom children to be professional soccer players, not just in the league but in their hometown, is a priority for all soccer clubs internationally. Inherent to the sport is a rabid sense of geographic loyalty. A player from a certain region plays for that city’s team, and the fans enjoy another level of devotion because they share the same zip code. It could be said that most of the brand loyalty associated with soccer happens because fans look at their teams and see themselves. The commonality between player, team, and fan, pivoting on their central objective (winning), is foundational to the lifelong relationship they share.
The Handshake
To win fans and build a brand you have to reach out. For the Earthquakes, that means literally. Marketing campaigns feature players standing side by side with San Jose locals who are visibly pumped to be grouped with their hometown heroes. These experiences between fan and team establish unity, loyalty, and evangelism. What’s unique about sports is the authenticity of this transaction. The emotional exchange in athletics is undeniable. Players understand that often it’s the crowd that carries them through tough moments in the game. In turn, fans experience community and a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. This relationship is reflected in the team’s branding.
In a game setting, the fans stay focused for 90 minutes. Opposing team advances are met with boos, and the crowd creatively uses their collective voices to distract and encourage, sometimes in the same breath. All this reinforces the relationship between the brand, the team, the players, and the fan base. “They all band around a common goal,” Mettee states, perhaps unintentionally leveraging the pun. However, it’s not only the game day interaction that’s important. A real relationship exists between club and fans that builds and strengthens the fan base.
The Cheer
“Vamos, San Jose!”
“Let’s go, San Jose!” Billboards emblazoned with these words dot the landscape. “We are proud of our city,” reinforces Mettee. This marketing slogan offers multiple vantage points from which to view the club/fan relationship. One thing is absolutely certain—San Jose is a city on the move, and the Earthquakes embrace this central identity of the valley. Fans rally around this slogan, both in the community and in the stands. The first professional team to establish itself in San Jose, the Quakes are now embedded in the sports entertainment topography of the Bay Area. The club brings together people from neighborhoods across the city and the greater Silicon Valley, to support the “world’s sport” in a very worldly, transitory place.
The unity of a common goal, a cheer, a logo, the way you feel at a game—all of those things come together to create and reinforce brand identity. Loyalty, regardless of record or roster, are invaluable to the brand. The togetherness organically generated and strategically reinforced creates a “oneness” stronger than the sum of its parts. Sports capture us because of their communal nature—the act of playing, spectating, speculating, worrying, and celebrating. Fans go through these experiences together with unique levels of connection. A win or a loss is felt the same across the hearts of thousands, on and off the field.
The Mirror, the Handshake, and the Cheer. These concepts are not unique to sports, but showcase well in this industry. Perhaps to a greater degree than within any other industry, sports fans are able to self-identify with both the organization and the fanbase at large. The most successful teams can capitalize on this relationship by interacting personally with their fans to tap into the power of shared goals. Perhaps demonstrated nowhere better than inside a competitive arena, the role of a unifying cheer or mantra is to rise up, creating a statement that speaks not only to the team but to the community. At a San Jose Quakes game, “you experience passion all the way through for 45 minutes without stops each half,” says Mettee. In answer to whether or not the Earthquakes are creating new soccer fans in this swirling tech hub, the answer is simple; Just go to a game.
Lines and texture, font schemes and color palettes, imagery and composition—all important decisions when it comes to creating the look and feel of a brand. In fact, the concept of branding is often synonymous with these decision points. The creative team focuses on three goals for designing the brand experience: the brand must be descriptive of its mission and products, attractive to the target customers—its tribe—and finally, adaptive for the future and the potential placements for their logo and visual identity. A brand must be designed in such a way as to communicate value to the right people and stay relevant to its tribe forever.
In 2019, the amount of information available to a brand about its tribe is unprecedented and invaluable. As such, branders have an increasing responsibility to listen more to consumers before creating anything at all. Online and on social media, in public forums and across our communities, people are communicating openly about what they want, expect, and demand from brands and their products. “Our job is distillation more than creation. We start by listening,” says Justin Watkins, founder of Native Digital, the branding creatives behind the recent San Jose city identity rollout. Brand teams must first focus on the tribe to which their brand identity most appeals, and from there, determine the voice, visual nuance, and style for the brand. From active listening, to data capturing, to identity frameworking, to brand designing—the branding journey continues.
Descriptive (of your brand + products)
There is tremendous value in the ability to distil something down to its true essence. Free from distraction and detraction, the pure essence of something is allowed to stand alone, shining in its own uniqueness. It is only in this singular state that we can begin to understand the true properties and value of a thing, product, or brand. The ultimate goal for brand identity is to wholly understand and seamlessly communicate a state of uniqueness within an industry. In short, distillation must happen so description can begin. “We believe objectivity is more important than familiarity,” supports Watkins, the Kansas City native brought in for the San Jose city project. This is truth in the world of branding. When the goal is to determine what differentiates something from everything else, the ability to step outside of that something and look back on it with objectivity is essential.
Of the San Jose project specifically and better branding practices in general, Watkins shares, “We [didn’t] project a new identity onto them. We distilled what we observed into something that no one else could claim.” The essence is inherent—a brand is something. As in San Jose, “We just give it a mark. Which is necessary. Every idea or movement needs a name or a mark. It can spring up from many different sources; the point is people can say ‘Yep, that’s us,’ ” Watkins offers. This mark must be descriptive of the essence that already exists and must be drawn out. Looking at the San Jose project specifically, the visual aspects of the logo speak to the inherent identity of this valley. The font was chosen to simultaneously speak to the street culture and the tech scene of San Jose. The accent mark capping the “e” pays homage to the amalgam of culture brought together by birth, immigration, industry, and innovation. A brand’s design is born from an understanding of who that brand is with the desire to share its value with its target market. The efficacy of the message is dependent, in large part, on whether or not a brand’s tribe is attracted to their brand design. This attraction is born out of familiarity and self-identification with the sentiments behind the design itself.
Attractive (to your target market)
What makes a brand attractive to its tribe ultimately depends on the individual people within it. Understanding the lone customer is the first step in designing a look and architecting an experience for those people. Brand teams explore the dreams, challenges, aspirations, gaps, insecurities, and histories of their customers. These same principles must be explored whether the brand’s product is a microchip or a pita chip. Speaking directly to the tech hub of Silicon Valley, Watkins insightfully offers: “There’s no such thing as ‘low interest’ categories. Just ‘low interest’ brands. Everything has a story. Some of the biggest brands in the world sell meaningless objects, but they have poured substantial meaning into them.” The concept of meaning requires a mutual understanding between brand and customer. This understanding is only achieved through the customer being attracted to and experiencing the brand. That happens by design.
Watkins endorses “adding a level of unexpectedness by doing it, let’s say, 10 percent wrong. A few savvy brands do this well. That kind of experimentation and irreverence is exciting. When I see it, I love it,” he says with enthusiasm, delving into what brands can do to differentiate stylistically. Explore the unexpected and try it on for size and then, possibly, invert the entire thing. This is an idea the people of San Jose can get behind, as that 10 percent “wrongness” can often lead to much larger percentages of innovation. In the discipline and art of branding, differentiation is pivotal. By incorporating qualities divergent from tradition, even just by single digit percentage points, a brand is able to demand attention by igniting interest. Brand teams must strike this elusive balance between attracting their customer base and jolting expectations with the brand equivalent of a plot twist. Deft skill leveraging creative nuance married with solid tribal understanding is vital moving forward into the future, where we’re all hurtling at breakneck speed.
“While the gift of prophecy is not required, deductive reasoning skills and design chops in spades are recommended for aspiring brand builders.”
Adaptive (to the changing times + placement)
Flexibility is key for creating a long-lasting brand. “For the San Jose identity, we pursued a mark that would feel at home in a skate shop as much as a tech conference,” Watkins explains. This speaks not only to the adaptivity required across demographics and interest groups, but also placement—the eventual homes for the brand’s presence: will the brand feel organic concurrently on a billboard, pop socket, and the CEO’s LinkedIn profile? When a brand is developed, it is created within the context of the present and the past precedent, with only a hypothesis for the future. The most timeless brands hypothesize correctly, designing a brand to withstand the changing societal demands and tribal cries for innovation and ingenuity.
On the subject of tribal demands, Watkins shares Native’s requirement for a brand’s coolness factor: “If it didn’t pass our T-shirt test, we were going back to the drawing board.” While perhaps not universally applicable, the T-shirt test indicates whether or not a brand is packing the coolness factor required by its tribe. For San Jose, the city residents needed to adopt the brand identity in a personal way—incorporating it into their personal identities through fashion. The Native Digital team internalized this truth, refusing to project an identity of San Jose natives from the outside. Rather, by revealing the brand in the form of T-shirts, stickers, and other swag, people were able to experience and adopt the brand for themselves, before it ever became the forward-facing identity for their city. San Jose residents were afforded the opportunity to adopt the identity—to try it on for size, as it were—for themselves, personally. Was it the right fit? Is this how they experienced San Jose and how they idealized the future? For other brands, ways of connecting with their tribe will differ and even change over time. Designing revolutionary brands, cognizant of the eventuality of these shifts, demands creativity, because it flirts with the line between anticipating and engineering the future. While the gift of prophecy is not required, deductive reasoning skills and design chops in spades are recommended for aspiring brand builders.
In Summation
The voice and the visual identity of a brand are both descriptive of the brand and the essence of the brand itself. A brand extends beyond the color and font choices, graphic schemes, and wording of the company manifesto. Its tendrils of influence incorporate into the larger cultural landscape of the industry, and at times, beyond. Remarkable power is contained in a solitary brand when harnessed and channeled in line with its mission and in the direction of its goals. The challenge is in marrying knowledge, experience, intuition, creativity, and innovation together to create something new and different, but also attractive and ripe for adoption. A brand must deliver what the people want and need, in a way that challenges what they thought previously. This is both the challenge and the draw of the discipline. In this context, a brand’s currency is meaning. Using words, colors, typography, and images, meaning in branding is designed. When meaning is conveyed without error in transmission, to then affect the way a member of the target market behaves, feels, or thinks about themselves, the ultimate brand goal is realized. To affect change we brand.
Kevin Youkilis, a former Major League Baseball all-star who won two World Series with the Boston Red Sox, has made a career out of being something of an underdog. A key figure in the bestselling book Moneyball by Michael Lewis, Youkilis was lightly regarded as coming out of college in 2001. His stock was low, mainly due to his physical appearance, but the league was transitioning to a new era of data-driven player values, and his were off the charts. Teams that were tuned in to the new approach gave him a chance to find success in the big leagues.
A decade in the majors, in turn, helped him find out about great beer.
“[Baseball] allowed me to travel around the country. I got to sample a lot of different styles of craft beer, go to breweries, just become more educated,” Youkilis recalls. “I always made it a point to try new craft beer wherever I went. Some guys on my teams would look at me like I’m weird because they were so into their domestic beers.”
As his baseball career wound down, Youkilis and his wife decided to settle in the Bay Area, where she had grown up. He and his brother Scott, already a successful restaurateur, began kicking around the idea of starting a brewpub together. Kevin reached out to his longtime friend and former college teammate Dan Reineke, who had been working in the food and beverage industry in New York, for advice on finding a restaurant manager.
“About 24 hours later, he emailed me saying he wanted to come out here and do it,” says Youkilis.
“It wasn’t hard to twist my arm to get out to California,” Reineke adds. “It’s beautiful.”
The brothers acquired the defunct Los Gatos Brewery, which had closed rather suddenly after having been open for about 20 years as a staple in the city’s small downtown. Youkilis wanted to freshen up the place by renovating the interior, overhauling the menu, and focusing a lot more on the beer. When the new Loma Brewing opened in August of 2016, some longtime customers resisted the changes.
“We want this place to be where everyone comes in and comes together.” —Kevin Youkilis
“Some people hated what we did with the place, some people really loved what we did,” he says. “Getting over that hurdle took a good six months to a year. Now people finally have come around and really enjoy it. Our focus is truly on trying to make really good craft beer—to be one of the best in the South Bay and try to compete around the Bay Area with really good recipes.”
In just two years, four of their beers have placed in the California State Fair’s Commercial Craft Beer competition, and while they have focused on a lot of traditional styles, more unique flavors are on the horizon as brewmaster Brogan Hunter is being let loose to experiment.
“She’s been amazing for us,” Youkilis says of Hunter. “Part of her DNA is to get better and better, so we’re excited to see her grow. The bottom line in this industry right now is if you don’t have new and creative stuff, you’re going to lose the demographic that you need to grow your business.”
Hunter is joined by Executive Chef Aubree Arndt for an all-female culinary leadership team. Arndt’s menu attempts to sew together traditional pub fare with a diversity of flavors that represent the Bay Area clientele: bratwurst, wings, and flatbreads are joined by Korean style pork belly and kimchi nachos and pan-seared octopus, to name just a couple. The result seems high-end for a brewpub, but perfectly suited for the upscale Los Gatos crowd.
“Aubree makes really great food,” Reineke says. “People coming here are surprised by how progressive the menu is, [not just] a bunch of stuff that’s dumped in the fryer. She keeps it creative. Our food is very Pinterest and Instagram friendly.”
In addition to great beer and food, the team recently added a coffee shop to a side room that had been previously reserved for private events but otherwise went unused for much of the day. A coffee snob in addition to being a craft beer connoisseur, Youkilis found a roaster in Portland and is confident that Loma Coffee can be a leader among local coffee roasters in terms of quality and taste.
Ultimately, the goal is to make Loma a family destination and a community hangout spot. “We want this place to be where everyone comes in and comes together. Start off on a good note by getting the caffeine in them…and then at night, when they’ve had a crazy day and need something to bail them out, have a nice craft beer. It’s pretty perfect.”
Tucked away on a Los Gatos side street, Youkilis and Loma Brewing Company may be regarded as an underdog yet again. But with beer, food, coffee, and a vibe that stands out, people are noticing. Much like in Moneyball, the best will rise to the top.
Breathing life into a picture takes vulnerability. It’s an act in which the photographer lends the viewer his eyes and says, “Really look at this. Here is something to be seen.” Through his use of camera angles, focus, color settings, and light exposure, we catch a glimpse of what the photographer values, what he or she believes. A good picture reaches us on a soul level—then triggers a response.
“Humans are visual beings, and when something as real as a photograph is presented to us, it can touch us in unexpected ways,” says Dan Fenstermacher, who works as a documentary and street photographer as well as a photography instructor at West Valley College. “Reading about the atrocities of war or the effects of a natural disaster don’t evoke as much empathy as a powerful photograph, in my opinion.”
With a knack for capturing strong emotion through the gestures and expressions in his candid shots, Dan “aims to shed light on the perseverance of the human spirit in overcoming life’s challenges.” To see this in action, look no further than his Perceptions of Identity series. Through these visceral images, Dan introduces viewers to individuals combating mental illness. The project, which was featured in Huffington Post, seeks to “humanize misconceived perceptions by fostering dialogue and giving voices to a misunderstood and misrepresented community.”
His depictions of obsessive-compulsive disorder are among the most striking—perhaps because he himself strives to keep the condition in check. In one image, a man pours Windex into a coffee mug while a small army of Lysol spray, Clorox wipes, and Dawn dishwasher soap bottles crowd his coffee table. In another, a woman wearily washes up, seven bottles of hand sanitizer lining her Saran-wrapped sink counter—their nozzles swiveled (almost accusingly) in the direction of her hands.
Surprisingly, Dan discovered his inner shutterbug later on. Although he received a tiny polaroid that captured thumbnail-sized photos as a kid, he didn’t obtain his first serious camera until his undergrad years. And even then, he was planning a career in marketing. “I’m gonna get into advertising and make these really funny Doritos commercials for the Super Bowl. It’s gonna be creative and fun,” Dan says, recalling his naive younger mindset during an interview with photography podcast StreetPX. On realizing marketing was a lot of paperwork and “Excel spreadsheets as far as the eye could see,” he determined to apply his El Camino College photography classes as a fine arts instructor at Xiangfan University in China. Dan has worked with cameras ever since, securing snapshots of life across four continents.
“We are all connected. Life is about helping others and, in return, receiving help as well.”
For one of his international projects, Dan flew to New Delhi, India, to recognize rickshaw drivers. “Yellow and green three-wheeled 150cc engine rickshaws of Delhi swarm the city like locusts and engulf its alleyways and streets,” he writes alongside the portraits. “Decorated to the individual driver’s taste, the rickshaws take on a home-like environment for the drivers and represent the lifeblood of India’s public transportation.” Delightfully dissimilar to New York taxis, these dented, scraped rigs are often outfitted with orange flowers and chili peppers to ward off evil spirits, with pictures of Hindu deities on the dashboard for added protection.
Another project drew him to a nursing home in Costa Rica to take senior portraits. There, he contemplated the cycle of life and our return to dependency, highlighted the importance of elders to society, and strove to catch the essence of each senior. “We are all connected,” Dan explains. “Life is about helping others and, in return, receiving help as well.” He fondly recalls the residents traveling by van to witness their portraits at a local art museum.
Closer to home, Dan documents parades, festivals, and other events around the Bay Area. His picture of a local wrestler backflipping off the ropes to defeat a prone opponent won the American Experience category of the 15th Smithsonian Photo Contest.
Even when he’s giving his camera a chance to breathe, Dan is talking photography with his students at West Valley. “I like seeing the progress of students at the end of the semester compared to where they started in week one,” he observes. “When a student feels excitement or pride about their work, I also feel and share that energy.” It seems teaching, like photography, is an exercise in empathy.
“We’re at a critical juncture in our evolution, and the startup buzz of possibilities is palpable. I experienced it when I came here in 2008 to build CreaTV San Jose,” recalls Suzanne St. John-Crane, former CEO of CreaTV and current CEO of American Leadership Forum – Silicon Valley. “This is the only city I’ve lived in where I felt like it was easy to plug in immediately and help to shape its future.” Despite the city’s accessibility, American Leadership Forum and other leaders in the community saw the need for networks to be purposefully created and nurtured in order to fully realize San Jose’s potential. St. John-Crane was invited to be a part of the first Urban Innovation Network class while running CreaTV San Jose and saw the value of connecting sectors in deep relationship in order to accelerate impact. During her class, she became the CEO of American Leadership Forum.
American Leadership Forum’s Silicon Valley chapter was founded in 1988 by Ann DeBusk, who saw a need to bring together diverse leaders from different sectors and communities to explore their personal leadership capacity; build trusting, supportive networks; and learn how they can coalesce around issues and discover new possibilities. American Leadership Forum’s impressive alumni network of over seven hundred senior fellows include former United States Congressman Mike Honda, NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott, and Netflix cofounder and CEO, Reed Hastings.
“There was a feeling among city officials, members of the community, and American Leadership Forum senior fellows that San Jose was not realizing its full potential as a city. We needed a network of leaders that did not exist before to drive critical changes and innovations in the areas of art, community engagement, and cultural preservation,” Jenny Niklaus explains. In 2015, with funding from the Knight Foundation and support from SPUR, SV Creates, and the City of San Jose, American Leadership Forum launched the Urban Innovation Network, bringing together demonstrated leaders to address the revitalization of downtown San Jose and its surrounding neighborhoods. Four unique classes were created, with the objective of establishing an inspired network of urban leaders from diverse backgrounds to improve downtown San Jose. Today the network is 77 senior fellows strong.
Utilizing the practices and teachings from American Leadership Forum’s classic classes—network theory and innovative thinking—the Urban Innovation Network came together to find answers to some of our city’s most challenging questions: How can the network lead the charge in embracing an urban mindset? What will urbanism look like in San Jose? How can we connect, activate, and promote the neighborhoods and assets surrounding downtown? How do we dive into and lead the tough dialogues about gentrification, cultural preservation of neighborhoods, and embracing change?
One of the most prevalent problems that cities face in regards to civic and community engagement is that relationships are siloed, oftentimes based on historical factors. It can be difficult for someone new to participate and have an impact. The Urban Innovation Network aims to break these silos and create a more equitable way for people to access these relationships and connect across sectors.
Supporting innovation, art, and culture in neighborhoods require that community leaders, nonprofits, and city leaders work differently than they have in the past. Achieving the right mix of people within these classes was of the utmost importance, and it was a task that American Leadership Forum approached with great care. “We made sure that all four of our Urban Innovation Network classes had at least three City of San Jose leaders in order to create those critical connections,” says Niklaus. “The City of San Jose was a critical partner in that they supported the staff time to be a part of this network.” Through the development of the network, things began to shift, both in actual tangible benefits but also in the way in which people felt about the work and each other.
It has been over three years since American leadership Forum – Silicon Valley launched the Urban Innovation Network. We can see some of the progress and policy changes that have resulted from the collaborations, conversations, and projects born from that network. Deliberately pushing these leaders into deep dialogues gave them the opportunity to think outside of the box and collaborate on solutions to some of San Jose’s most complex problems.
One collaboration born out of this network was Viva San Jose, a group working to create cultural activations of public space through events and happenings. Members include Fil Maresca, Barbara Goldstein, Ryan Sebastian, Omar Rodriguez, and Ed Solis. Primarily, the group worked to partner with the city to think about how to expand the event beyond one day. The goal was to activate the culture and art throughout different neighborhoods. This idea was prototyped at last year’s Viva Calle, which included an evening-time party in the SoFA District.
Another group within the network came together with the goal of making event production more accessible. Demone Carter and Jim Reber, along with Ryan Sebastian and Blage Zelalich, worked to create a fast track permitting process for events in the city. They wanted to create certain changes in public policy to make it easier for smaller organizations to hold events and activate public spaces within the city. The result was a streamlined process for small events in the plazas and paseos with the goal of expanding this process to parks.
“Deliberately pushing these leaders into deep dialogues gave them the opportunity to think outside of the box and collaborate on solutions to some of San Jose’s most complex problems.”
A third collaboration, PAC for the Common Good, formed to provide San Jose with a new option for political action, empowering leaders and supporting issues that will benefit the common good. This group includes Camille Llanes-Fontanilla, Barbara Goldstein, Marci Gerston, Ricardo Benavidez, Charisse Ma Lebron, Kathy Sutherland, and Teresa Alvarado. The group hosted the Santa Clara County Sheriff Candidates Forum in partnership with the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley, and Temple Emanu-El.
“American Leadership Forum created the Urban Innovation Network, but the work and the progress belongs to the leaders in that network and the community members that helped make the network possible,” Niklaus says. “We believe that complex systems cannot be solved through top-down leadership models and has to come from dispersed, networked leadership models that empower leaders across the system.”
“By bringing together individuals that are passionate about the city’s future and providing a container for them to develop foundational, deep relationships with each other, the possibilities for their work together are endless. True changemaking networks are not about putting their brand, organization, or CEO in the center of the universe. True social impact networks are sometimes hard to find, but their impact can be seen everywhere. There’s not an issue in San Jose that the Urban Innovation Network isn’t touching and impacting,” replies St. John-Crane. When asked about where she sees the Urban Innovation Network in the future, she answers, “The network will continue to deliver creative public space activation, better collaboration and coordination among cross sector changemakers, and smarter public policies that accelerate impact for the good of all. It’s already happening, and we only anticipate the work growing.”
Picture yourself attending LA Fashion Week. Let’s say you’ve somehow managed to secure a front row seat—so close you could stretch out your toes and touch the side of the catwalk. Around you, designers and photographers hum in expectation. The noise and the lights dim down. But as the first model emerges, disconcerted murmurs sweep the room. And then you notice, too. The woman striding down the catwalk is as eyeless as a storefront mannequin. And so are all the others. “How?” you wonder. Seemingly unfazed, each model strides forward, somehow confident in her ability to not pitch over the side of the walk and into the audience. After you and the rest of the crowd recover from the initial shock and notice the flesh-colored gauze eye patches worn to simulate the look, you recognize that the lack of facial features allows you to focus more fully on the sleek, stunning garments in shades of sable and scarlet.
Ironically, the San Francisco designer behind this memorable show, Joseph Domingo, felt compelled to conceal his creative face growing up. The youngest of seven brothers (and only one sister), Domingo faced pressure to conform to the testosterone-heavy norm of his household. “I hid under the kitchen table when I made my own paper dolls and dresses,” he recalls.
Because of this upbringing, the start of his vocation occurred in an indirect sort of way. Domingo made the transition into fashion gradually, inching toward it as if he might scare it off. After attending architecture school, he rerouted to try his hand at interior design. From there, he finally eased into the industry he has now contributed thirty years toward.
But the years leading up to his fashion escapades have not been wasted. Those previous experiences continue to flavor the aesthetics and symmetry of his work. “It gave me the sense of balance, structure, and attention to details that is a basic, fundamental way of creating something out of your imagination,” he explains.
Culture also weaves its way into his designs. Pulling from San Francisco’s art, food, and incredible diversity, as well as other countries’ museums and events, Domingo constantly integrates his surroundings into his work. “It may be a fabric, a print, a color, or a silhouette that inspires me to translate it into my own creative interpretation,” he elaborates.
Though Domingo has dabbled in ready-to-wear fashion, he’s more well-known for producing custom-made pieces out of his studio a few city blocks from Union Square. Miss American, Miss Universe, a number of Hollywood actresses, and even Shakira have adorned themselves in his handiwork. “The beauty of custom-made clothing is working with the client from start to finish,” he says, adding later, “I’m hands-on every step of the way.” There’s also the satisfaction of matching a shiny sports jacket or an asymmetric chiffon dress to the wearer’s body type. Though it may take twice the time as ready-to-wear products, Domingo notes there is something magical in the moment someone slips into an outfit crafted expressly for them.
“I would say, more and more people will be self-accepting individuals and will not follow trends—which I think is better than becoming a walking billboard.”
Besides tending to his private clients and preparing for upcoming shows, Domingo is a freelance consultant for a menswear brand in Southern California. He also partners with the fashion design program at his alma matter, West Valley College, as a producer and creative director for the graduating student fashion show and is also this year’s guest designer.
When asked what styles the fashion forward should be investing in this upcoming season, Domingo is rather cryptic. “The industry is fast and trends come and go,” he says. “I would say, more and more people will be self-accepting individuals and will not follow trends—which I think is better than becoming a walking billboard.” He certainly has come a long way from the complaisant, self-conscious little boy, driven under the family dinner table to covertly sketch dresses. Nowadays, he’d much rather stand as a walking reminder that originality, rather than conformity, will always remain in style.
A t 15, Matthew Molcillo was just a kid attending Archbishop Mitty High School in San Jose. Always drawn to the macabre, he spent class time drawing the demons that formed in his head—scaring him as much as they evoked his awe. All the while, he prayed for his body to respond to the medications prescribed for the epilepsy that had caused his driver’s license to be revoked.
The best and the worst were yet to come. Eight years later, his doctor advised him to quit the medication. Cloistering in his house for three months to avoid an epileptic attack in public, he found himself painting indigenous children and warriors who had endured intense struggle—basing his unframed portraits on a book of photographs.
“I was drawn to the strength in their eyes,” Matthew realizes today. “At the time, I didn’t know why.” Meeting him today and encountering his daring, detailed art, one senses a risk-taking optimism and the courage to lean into fear in order to work through it. Matthew’s creations are to be touched and worn; they are authentically empowering. His customized projects include a stunning latex pantsuit, an elegant airbrushed hair accessory, a leather cuff radiating with old-world mysticism, and a geometric arm brace expressing refined power. Taking care to wholly manifest the vision of each client, he etches his leather designs with tattoo-like quality and dramatizes softer crafts with sparkling quartz beads. The subtle force of self-determination emanates from stainless steel shoulder pieces that, on any body type, connect the wearer with their inner superhero.
Matthew emboldens his clients with the same belief he lives by. “Health and fashion—you need both,” he presses. “You could wear beautiful clothes and not feel good about yourself. Then what difference does it make?” His philosophy of radiating strength from the inside out marks a distinguishable difference in the relationships he cultivates. “I’m so fortunate to work with so many amazing women who trust me, as a male designer, to be in a very close space they feel safe in.” He doesn’t allow bad talk. “I try and give another perspective, get them to embrace who they are, what they have. It helps me too, with my own struggles.”
His artistic portfolio expands selectively, each project commissioned by a client seeking art forged with integrity. High turnover in the fashion industry tempts cheap labor and material sourcing. But one of Matthew’s mantras is to “be aligned with the right people in the right place at the right time for the right opportunities.” Matthew interviews each client before they create something together, consciously gauging his visceral instincts—expansion of excitement or contraction of doubt—to decide who to align with.
“At the core of it all, I believe the universe has my back. You have to believe what you cannot see.”
“My price point comes from value—not just from aesthetic perspective, but from what I do to ensure things are produced ethically,” he explains. He plans to keep his process in-house, creating a safe space for artists hired for their specialized skill sets and their passion for their craft. The same hope drives his dream of creating custom prostheses, of being responsible for the fairings that make them beautiful. “Certain wearable art pieces I’ve made are inspiration,” he says, such as the brace he made for a fellow artist friend, as well as the one he himself frequently sports on his right wrist.
All the while, designing exclusive custom pieces presents constant challenges. When the cost of one project blows all the profit from the last, he sits tight and waits for the next. If life imitates art, his personal journeys through epilepsy and hospitalization for mental illness have shown him the refinement of strength.
“I’m doing the best that I can in every moment, and that’s the best that I can do,” he says of the daily battles. “At the core of it all, I believe the universe has my back. You have to believe what you cannot see.” After all, the teenager blasting death metal in Catholic school could not see himself becoming the foreman for sheet metal union workers at age 23; at 23, learning to snap out of trances forewarning seizures, he could not predict someday running his own design brand.
“Be the change you want to see in the world and lead by example,” Matthew sums up. It’s the driver of perseverance.
TThe dog days of summer have surrendered to a season of renewal along California’s central coast, and Pedro Tortoledo is cultivating a field the way he worked his 20-acre farm a quarter century ago. Today, he hauls a disc plow behind a vintage tractor instead of a seasoned draft horse, but he still listens for the simple mechanical whirl of two dozen steel blades turning compost into dark, fragrant soil.
Tortoledo, a thoughtful man with an affable grin, comprehends the global reach of American agriculture. Ask him to explain world trade, and he offers a homegrown proverb that resonates like a migrant farmworker’s article of faith: no hay mal que bien no venga–there is no bad that comes without a good.
Like thousands of campesinos from central Mexico, Pedro abandoned his farm because he could not compete with corporate US farmers who sold subsidized corn to his neighbors for 30 percent below their cost of production.
Tortoledo joined a groundswell of migrant farmers desperately searching for work. Some drifted to northern Mexico to pick tomatoes for seven dollars a day. Others, like Tortoledo, endured a treacherous cross-country journey that brought them to the wind-swept coastal terraces of Central California.
Despite the hardship of his 1,600-mile trek, the prospect of higher wages and better working conditions convinced him to forsake his family farm for the American dream. With California farmers required to pay fieldworkers the state minimum wage, Pedro earns more in a week than he made in a month after leaving his rancho for several disquieting weeks on the road.
For Tortoledo, the bad news turned good when he arrived at Jim Cochran’s 84-acre vegetable, kiwi, and berry farm near Davenport, California. Swanton Berry Farm, Cochran’s life work, lives up to the notion that a modern farm should be economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially equitable. A generation in the making, his story reminds us that agriculture’s most compelling advances originate from ideas slowly gathered—knowledge sorely gained.
First to Knock, First to Enter
Three decades ago, Cochran traded abundant yields that required synthetic fertilizers to enrich the soil and harsh chemicals to eliminate pests for sustainable harvests that embody the climate, elevation, and soil of his Northern California farm. Cofounder of the first USDA-certified organic strawberry farm in California, he relies on his skills as a farmer—not an arsenal of chemicals—to control pests and replenish the soil.
But he does not tend his fields the old-fashioned way. His drive to eliminate pesticides and synthetic fertilizer from the fruit and vegetables he grows has helped scientists redefine what it means to cultivate rich, balanced soil. Before he developed a protocol for growing strawberries organically, farmers applied an insecticide, herbicide, and a fungicide at the beginning of the growing season, then replenished what they’d stripped from the earth with synthetic fertilizers. The fumigant sapped life from conventionally farmed fields.
Today, Cochran works with geneticists to identify microorganisms living in his soil that accelerate the turnover of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Rich soil is no longer just a matter of plant nutrients. It’s also a measure of the health and diversity of microbes that help deliver the nutrients to each crop. Agronomists from Trace Genomics use DNA sequencers to identify microorganisms and recommend practices and products that boost the productivity of the soil.
“Without research to guide him,” says Samuel Fromartz, author of Organic, Inc.: Natural Foods and How They Grew, “Jim Cochran came up with precise methods for raising organic strawberries and proved that he could grow them commercially.” Conventional and organic strawberry farmers have adopted many of Cochran’s techniques for combining compost, cover crops, organic fertilizer, crop rotation, and integrated pest management to produce a berry that balances the fertility of the plant with the well-being of the planet. Together, these techniques increase productivity, resist drought and pests, and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to researchers from the University of California at Davis.
Beyond Organic
But Cochran set his sights well beyond discovering new ways to cultivate strawberries to restore the planet. Because muscular-skeletal injuries, not pesticide poisoning, is the most common occupational injury reported by farm laborers, he cultivates planting beds that crest 18 inches above the coastal terrace. The earthen mounds reach halfway toward his goal to eliminate stoop labor from strawberry fields.
Cochran’s willingness to innovate and commitment to basic research has changed the way farmers grow specialty crops in a state where one-third of all fruit and vegetables is harvested by hand. “We have taken research to Swanton Berry Farm,” Stephen Gliessman, professor of agroecology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says, “and turned it into sustainable practices that all farmers can adapt to their own growing conditions.”
“I was searching for a way to ensure that fair labor practices became part of the company.”
Sharing the Bounty
If the USDA certifies the company’s farming methods, the United Farm Workers of America sanctions its labor practices. In 1998, after the UFW embarked on a bitterly fought campaign to organize strawberry workers at large conventional farms, Cochran’s collaborative approach to management produced the nation’s first agreement between an organic farmer and the labor union.
“I was searching for a way to ensure that fair labor practices became part of the company,” Cochran says. “The labor agreement preserves our commitment to job security, open communication, participatory management, mutual respect, and shared economic gains.” According to Philip Martin, professor of agricultural and resource economics at U.C. Davis, full-time field workers earn an average of $17,500 per year. The most recent labor survey reports that small and midsized organic farmers in the state offer workers modest fringe benefits.
Fieldworkers at Swanton Berry Farm earn as much as $35,000 a year with medical and dental insurance, vacation pay, holiday pay, family leave, and a union pension. Cochran offers these wages and benefits on the strength of the demand for his fruit and vegetables from customers who purchase produce at the farm and local markets. “They’ve bought as many strawberries as we can produce at a price that supports organic farming and a living wage for our employees,” he says.
For Good Reason
Workers from Swanton Berry Farm plant a variety of strawberry that is high in natural sugar and volatile oils. Its flavor peaks within days of harvest. “Strawberries do not ripen once they’ve been picked,” Cochran explains. “So we harvest them as close to dead ripe as possible. It’s much easier for growers to pick strawberries early to extend the shelf life of the berry,” he explains. “But there is an inverse relationship between shelf life and flavor.”
While some commercial growers place strawberries with a 17-day shelf life in cold storage before shipping them cross country, fieldworkers at Swanton Berry Farm load pallets of fruit directly onto trucks that whisk them to market within hours of harvest. Cochran’s fresh outlook on raising fruit and vegetables is not lost on the men and women who work his fields.
A quarter century after arriving in Davenport, Pedro Tortoledo has reason to celebrate. While a Mexican corporation planted and farmed sugar cane at his ranchero because his family could no longer afford to grow corn, prospects look good for him and the rest of the Swanton Berry Farm field crew. “My long-range plan,’ Cochran says,” is to give each employee a stake in the farm.”
Facebook: swantonberryfarm Instagram: swantonberryfarm Seasonal berries and vegetables are available from the farmstead: Swanton Berry Farm 25 Swanton Road Davenport, CA 95017 Or you can purchase them at the following farmers’ markets: Berkeley (Tuesday and Saturday) Marin (Thursday and Sunday) Menlo Park (Sunday) Noe Valley (Saturday) San Francisco – Ferry Building (Saturday)
It is a lazy Monday afternoon, the first holiday weekend of the year. The fog in Santa Cruz has cleared and the sun is warm. Locals are busy exchanging pleasantries with family and friends. at Humble Sea Brewery, a perfect paradise for beer lovers who also love art and creativity. There is a line out the door with people waiting to quench their thirst. Every seat on the rustic outdoor patio is occupied, and the brew house is filled with a hoppy aroma as the golden beer flows through the tap.
The team at Humble Sea Brewery, including the co-founders—Nick Pavlina, Taylor West, and Frank Scott Krueger—have brought to life a brewery that is filled with energy, creativity, and, of course, delicious beer.
What makes Humble Sea a multipersonality brewery?
Frank Scott Krueger: We are trying to make the best style amongst multiple different styles. We think it is more interesting for the customer to be able to say, “Hey, I want to try some big dark imperial stouts,” or “I want to try something really light and delicate, like a pilsner.” It is also more challenging from a brewing perspective. Businesswise, you don’t necessarily need to make all of these styles to do well. You can just hone in on one style. But we’re super interested in making the best of each category that we can possibly make it. It is just more fun and more challenging.
What are the most common mistakes in running a brew house, even at the pro level?
FSK: One mistake I see often is the lack of balance between brewer’s ownership and customer experience. There is like this classic old saying in craft beer, “We make what we might want to drink.” You definitely want to make things that you do want to drink and are passionate about, but if you only make those things, then you should just be a home brewer. A lot of brewers overlook this aspect. You are making a lot of this liquid. There needs to be a lot of people that enjoy this liquid. Listening to what drinkers are saying and what people are interested in and having a conversation with the consumer is really important. That to me is like the biggest mistake that I see all the time.
How did you get involved in the craft of making German beers?
Nick Pavlina: In my early adulthood, finding different craft lagers was really hard, and finding a good one was even harder. That is why I wanted to start making them and experimenting. The first few I made, I was blown away on how good they were. I just obsessed over it, and that is how I got started.
What would be an ideal day for you?
NP: A perfect day would be like exercising in the morning and maybe go surfing, coming in brewing a batch of pilsner, sampling barrels and going home. That sounds like a pretty nice day.
FSK: I do like design and branding. Being able to sit down and crank out, from start to finish, a logo or illustration for a label would be ideal. I also like the feedback loop and experience of tasting beers and learning more about it. Having a tasting session is educational for the whole team, including myself.
Can you tell us more about the tasting sessions?
FSK: Whichever beers are new that week, we bring them up on a long table. We each taste in silence. We have different categories we focus on such as appearance, aroma, flavor, and the experience of tasting a beer. We give our feedback of what we like about it, what we think could change, and what is working. Usually, there is an interaction with the brewers as well. It is an educational moment for all of us. If we agree on something, the brewers will take note and then make changes for the next batch. It is really a fun process. Everyone learns and gets better.
Do you have any favorite instructional books or resources on beer?
FSK: I like the book Tasting Beer by Randy Mosher. He is not only a beer expert but also a graphic designer. The way he organizes information is easily consumable. It is less like a textbook. He is my hero!
NP: The classic book How To Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Great Beer Every Time by John Palmer has everything a homebrewer needs to know.
How often do you change your beer menu? Do you have any favorites?
NP: Our beer board changes weekly. We hardly make the same beer twice. It is hard to perfect a beer if you only make it once. Procedures are one thing, but an exact recipe is something else. You can really hone in a recipe if you make it more than once. Socks and Sandals is our staple IPA.
FSK: Penelope Pilsner is a classic German pilsner named after Nick’s daughter.
What is your creative process to come up with these beers?
NP: Tasting other breweries, seeing what the market is trending for, and seeing what hops are available inspires me. Then there is the culinary inspiration and suggestions from our brewers, taproom staff, and friends.
FSK: We are constantly doing events and collaborations with other breweries and invitational style beer festivals. We were recently in New York for a festival and then trying different beers around the city, meeting with other brewers, getting to see their space, their process, and which ingredients they have access to compared to us. Things are obvious when they stand out to us as new, good, or interesting.
What about your job do you love the most and why?
NP: I like to have the creative freedom, flexibility of making my own schedule, and being my own boss.
FSK: Liberty. I like when an entire beer comes together, the beer name works well with the actual beer execution, style, flavor, and can design. When everything is a continuous experience, you can tell customers are getting that experience. It absolutely hits and people are blown away by it.
Is this information age making us dumber? Jan Berkeley often asks herself that question while she stays up late hunting for facts, and she probably has a better idea of the answer than most.
Going down rabbit holes on the web searching for question fodder takes time, but she can’t afford not to follow the news. Her interests have to stay broad—it’s just as important for her to know how many rivets are in one tower of the Golden Gate Bridge as what Drake’s real name is (600,00 and Aubrey Graham, in case you were wondering). That is because Berkeley is a quiz mistress, running her own company, Triviolity, that creates tailor-made quizzes for fundraisers and bar trivia nights. After hosting more than 370 games, her general knowledge skills are Jeopardy-worthy. Acknowledging that most people consider it an unusual way to make a living, she still keeps her day job teaching art at St Martin of Tours School.
Why this thirst for knowledge? Berkeley said, “My parents insisted that I get a really good education, because they never had the chance.” So she attended a girl’s convent school growing up in the UK. Her father worked on tugboats in Liverpool, but her parents sold their house and emigrated to California in 1978 in search of a better life. She continued her education at community college and, while working part-time at Palo Alto library, achieved a masters in political science.
Her first experience with trivia was when she joined a team of three women called Macbeth at Britannia Arms in Cupertino over 20 years ago. She kept coming weekly, playing with several different groups. Occasionally, she would volunteer to produce her own questions for Fun Week. When the owner eventually asked her to take over in 2011, she jumped right in and has been doing it ever since.
“I even did quizzes for the bar on Skype when I moved back to England for a year,” said Berkeley, who was determined to keep her long-distance business alive. Many bars simply buy trivia games from large companies like Brainstormer, but Berkeley offers her players a personal touch. “My quizzes are a bit more challenging.”
And her trivia nights are very popular, filling the Brit to capacity most Tuesdays. Apps like Trivia Crack and HQ Trivia have really raised trivia’s profile and whetted people’s appetites. The format works well and is inclusive while being competitive—a kind of perfect storm of team building for nerds. “It isn’t just for nerds. Everybody knows something,” Berkeley said, arguing that every kind of knowledge is useful when you join a team. Many people feel intimidated, but that one question you know the answer to may just score the winning point.
“It isn’t just for nerds. Everybody knows something.”
Her games consist of four rounds, 75 questions total, and smartphones are not allowed. All players bring to the party is their own general knowledge. The questions can cover word play, video games, puzzles, anagrams, and plenty of pop culture. One round features music, playing stuff for all ages. With 22 teams competing in three divisions for glory and gift certificates, she has to keep things interesting. Admittedly, finding the sweet spot between fiendishly difficult and super easy is one of her challenges. An average score is about 87, so if the numbers dip far lower, she knows it was too tough.
Berkeley loves providing a unique social experience for Silicon Valley’s admittedly introverted population. The weekly trivia night has been really helpful to those new in town looking to make friends. One guy told her, “This is a highlight for me. I didn’t know a soul. You’re responsible for everyone I know in the Bay Area.” That makes Berkeley smile. Her regular meetups have proved encouraging to team members undergoing chemotherapy or recovering from divorce. Knowing that people have found friendship and support each week makes staying up late writing questions worthwhile.
So, in an age of endless information, Berkeley hopes curious people will come and try their luck with her questions. “Meet people, and exercise your brain. It is a safe, welcoming place.”
Triviolity game: Tuesday nights, 7:45pm Britannia Arms: 1087 S De Anza Blvd San Jose, CA 95129 Facebook: Triviolity
Nestled between East William and South Second Street in San Jose, you’ll find Gallery Suha Suha. Located in the downtown SoFA District, Gallery Suha Suha provides a unique and fresh space for local artists to display their work. Founded by Haelee Choi and Sung Jae Bang, gallery doors opened in December 2017, but the journey really began in 2007. When walking through the gallery, you find art neatly displayed across the white studio walls. If you continue through to the back, you’ll enter the Suha Suha gift shop. In it, you’ll find bags, pins, artwork, and above all else, colorful tiles and clay knickknacks.
After completing their respective art programs, Haelee at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and Sung at the Art Institute of Chicago, the two met in the Bay Area while working as art teachers. The concept of Suha Suha was born when the two artists began experimenting with making decorative tiles, ultimately bringing them to different farmers’ markets all over the Bay Area. “When we first started making the tiles, we tried a lot of strange things, but really it was a lot of narrowing down, narrowing down, narrowing down,” Sung reflects. It was trial and error as Haelee and Sung searched for their signature, eventually ending up with something that was accessible though different from their own personal work. In Haelee’s own words, it was the necessary realization that “making an art piece and making a product are very different things.”
For 10 years, Haelee and Sung continued to regularly display their work at Bay Area farmers’ markets. With different artistic backgrounds, Sung’s being painting and Haelee’s being character illustration and animation, two different tile styles were born. While Haelee’s tile designs focus more on characters and animals, Sung’s tiles feature objects, one of which is a coaster that looks like an egg. Not an easy task, making the tiles is time consuming and involves drying the clay flat, which takes around two weeks. “The first market we went to was Willow Glen. We sold one tile that day,” Haelee says, laughing. “Now, over the last 10 years, we have probably sold over 5,000 tiles. It’s scary to think about that sometimes.”
Moving from farmers’ market to farmers’ market, Haelee and Sung’s work began to be noticed, and soon, their tiles were being discovered, recognized, and collected. “We met a lot of wonderful people and have a lot of funny stories from that time,” Haelee reminisces. “There was one time, when we had recently moved into a new home. Our new neighbor invited us in, and so we went inside, and there were our tiles! She was showing them to us, and of course, they looked familiar. She just didn’t know we were making them next door.”
While they previously struggled between creation and practical living, the gallery space provides Haelee and Sung with the motivation to create.
With the money made through sales, as well as flourishing jobs as art teachers at their private school, Studio Suha Suha, located in both Sunnyvale and Cupertino, the two were able to open Gallery Suha Suha in 2017. Their very first show was an apt celebration of their signature tiles, and since then, the space has housed other artists’ work, as well as some of Haelee and Sung’s own personal work. While they previously struggled between creation and practical living, the gallery space provides Haelee and Sung with the motivation to create and show their own work despite their busy teaching schedules.
Each Suha Suha show stays up for approximately two months, with their next show, featuring Sung’s work, opening in April. A part of the San Jose Art Walk, Gallery Suha Suha participates in First Fridays, displaying work and offering their signature Suha Suha work, which now includes bags, magnets, tiles, and other small objects. “We see a lot of local San Jose people in the gallery,” Sung says. Haelee adds, “they really love and appreciate art, and we want to offer them this space.”
With distinctively sharp edges and material sourced from comic books and fashion magazines, San Jose native Jordan McKenzie creates and shares his eye-catching collage under the Instagram moniker, alldaydirt. At 27 and cutting collage for about six months now, McKenzie, though relatively new to the craft, seems to have found his artistic niche. Having previously worked in music and photography, McKenzie has had a lifelong interest in creative work. However, with collaging, he really feels that he has discovered his true medium.
For him, it’s all about the process of collaging. Cutting the many pieces and constructing the images is what really makes him happy. The process of collaging is an act of meditation—while he cuts and then constructs his works, his mind quiets and he fully focuses on his work. He touches on the importance of this: “When you find something that gives you such mental peace and clarity, it’s worth doing. It’s just cool that other people dig it, too, that, fortunately, the thing that gives me clarity can be shared with others. There’s an end product to show.”
McKenzie finds his material in magazines, things he’s been given, and everyday papers found while out and about—he is always looking for content for his next collage. He is particularly drawn to sharp edges, high fashion, images of smoke and guns, and matching postures. However, though partial to these things, McKenzie doesn’t really go into a collage with a set plan. “I tend to work with high fashion magazines, because I really like the outfits,” he shares. “Oftentimes, I’ll cut the model’s heads off and use, like, a comic book character instead,” he laughs. He also likes using the female form. “The idea of a woman, to me, is a strong thing. So I try to make and convey strong female figures. I don’t really go into these thinking what the subject is going to be. I kind of just start cutting, and things just come together.”
Though it really is about the artistic process for him, McKenzie is still very conscious of how people interpret the art that he makes. “Aside from just enjoying cutting collage, I’m also really interested in how people receive the things that I make. Because I can make something on a fluke or make something that I specifically like, and someone can interpret it in some wild way and give it a whole other meaning that I didn’t necessarily intend. It’s cool,” he muses. For McKenzie, the idea of leaving behind something tangible is very important. With collaging, he feels that he will.
“It’s just cool that other people dig it, too, that, fortunately, the thing that gives me clarity can be shared with others. There’s an end product.”
This newfound passion has also opened doors, particularly in terms of meeting other creatives and allowing him to network and learn while maintaining his own unique creative process. “Meeting like-minded people is always a fun thing. I’m still relatively new to this, and I want to learn as much as I can. I’m just trying to stay really open,” he says. Moving forward, McKenzie is considering collaborative work as well as having his very own show sometime in the near future. “I’d love to do a show at some point. I’m not a classically trained artist, I don’t know the color wheel or anything like that, but I like what I like, and this is something that makes me happy,” he adds.
When it comes down to it, happiness and putting himself out there is what really drives McKenzie and his work. “Right now in my life I’ve been very big on happiness. Whatever makes you happy and gives you that moment of clarity, hold on to that. Because it’s not gonna get any easier. So you just have to do what makes you happy.”
Artist Yoseph Gebre wants to decolonize your space with his vibrant, kinetic art.
Although born in Eritrea, Gebre grew up in suburban Milpitas. Art was always present in his life, but in adolescence, he was exposed to the interests of his friends—things like music, skateboarding, and graffiti—that still inspire the work he does today. Two things sparked Gebre’s artistic inclinations—a painting class he took on a whim his senior year of high school, and the work of artist Dashawn Martin, who, according to Gebre, “inspired and compelled me to create work that represented my experiences—to unapologetically embrace and celebrate my blackness.” That, coupled with the potential his painting teacher saw in the doodles he did in class, set Gebre on the proverbial path of an artist.
Gebre is still in his twenties, but his art shows a maturity of composition and theme that betrays his youth. He works with a kaleidoscopic color palette that coalesces in energetic and expressionistic human forms. But are they human? Gebre’s art is arguably figurative, but there are abstract tendencies to his marks and strokes, rendering figures not so much as they are, but what they could be. Unsurprisingly, Gebre credits a number of influences on his work. “My influences tend to be fluid and shift around,” Gebre emphasizes. “Similar to most of my peers, I had romanticized ’90s street culture/hip-hop and found the music during this period to be stimulating and conducive for the work I was producing.” Gebre is also particularly attracted to the interdisciplinary work and life of Virgil Abloh. In Abloh, Gebre recognized a kindred spirit. “We both share education backgrounds in engineering. Hearing his story validated my idea that I didn’t need art school to learn how to express myself.” Beyond that, there is the encompassing influence of Gebre’s Habesha background. “I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for my family and the tight-knit Eritrean community I grew up in.”
While Gebre shows a certain carefree quality in his work—loose lines and wild colors. The order varies, but usually, Gebre commences with wheat-pasting print media to a surface before adding acrylic paint or “distressing” the paper with a blade while the paint is still wet. As the subject comes into focus, Gebre further accentuates the given work with chalk or pastel. “In terms of illustrations, I usually start with a few characters and problem solve until they interact with each other and fill the space I’m drawing in.”
“I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for my family and the tight-knit Eritrean community I grew up in.”
Lately, Gebre has been drawn to all types of mixed-media art. Everything from oil stick pastels to found objects make appearances in his work. Perhaps instinctively, Gebre realized that his illustrative style would lend itself to all types of art, particularly the wearable kind. As such, Gebre also makes a number of clothing designs featuring cut-and-sewn graphics or his characters.
While Gebre’s compositions may suggest a relaxed attitude toward form, which is sometimes the case, Gebre enjoys being as carefree as he does prescriptive—the tone of his work is often serious and reflective. “I want people to understand my work is a reflection of my personal experiences,” Gebre says, adding: “I also hope to facilitate meaningful discourse on racial and socioeconomic disparities. Ultimately, I’d want my work to push people to think.”
Gebre is still relatively young, but he sees a lot of potential avenues that his art could lead him down just over the horizon, especially fashion. Most recently, he’s been making clothing featuring his art, “particularly a collection solely comprised of wearable art and statement pieces.” However, in the end, the style doesn’t matter so much as the fact that he gets to continue making art. “All things considered, I just want to be able to create at the same pace I am now if not more,” Gebre says, adding: “that in itself is a huge achievement.”
Two robotic arms swivel in long arcs over a gallery wall. A sizeable crowd of art goers watch the appendages dance in long, sweeping rotations that give way to finer, more delicate gestures. At the end of each arm is a small pointer, kind of like a pinball flipper. As with any other art piece, people observe for a few beats then move on. But there’s one moment no one walks away from—a part of the dance that has everyone hooked. At one point, the arms move painfully slow, and the two little flippers move to touch. The closer they get, the slower they go. And here’s the thing…No one can breathe. Everyone is stone silent, dying for these two flippers to make contact.
Why?
These are two slabs of aluminum and steel powered by motors pulling on rubber cabling. How then is it so irrefutably human? Why is it able to tell a story about connection and disconnection that is so familiar? Artist Alan Rath has provoked these questions for the past four decades, and they’re as relevant now as they have ever been.
Of the connection between people and machines, Rath observes, “There’s something about building machines that makes you think about nature and ourselves. Most machinery is modeled on nature, modeled on the body, and now starting to be modeled on the mind. That’s why I don’t think it’s so alien. It’s really just us being projected.”
The piece with the robot arms and little flippers, entitled Again, beautifully illustrates this point about projection. It’s thoroughly mechanical. The metal isn’t disguised to seem more human, and still it reminds us of ourselves. As such, this robotic movement has the power to recall ancient human dramas about desire and loss. Yes, we’re staring at technology, but we can’t help but lay our own stories over it. Is this the reason the arms look vaguely skeletal in the first place?
So much of Rath’s work evokes this kind of self-reflection, sometimes with displays of animated eyes, hands, and mouths or with pieces like Vanity, where a human face on a screen looks into a mirror. But the same effect—of a machine evoking lifelike qualities—shows up in different ways. In another part of the gallery, an aluminum pole extends from floor to ceiling. At its top end, pheasant feathers radiate outward like flower petals. Motors cause the plumage to flutter, as if the piece is preparing to take flight.
Whether it’s an image on screen or feathers overhead, a crucial tool makes the pieces work together as a cohesive whole. Algorithms. Algorithms govern all the motion. “They’re not recordings,” Rath explains. “I want to make machines that are playful and funny—that people respond to as living things. The algorithms just keep on unfolding. They don’t have a predictable loop.”
Rath’s work constantly challenges convenient divisions between the natural and the synthetic, and not always in ways that are immediately apparent at a gallery show. Some pieces alter their behavior years or even decades after they’re created. Examples of this can be found in his Running Man pieces. According to Rath, “Sometimes he’ll be running to the left, sometimes to the right. Some days he’s kind of confused, running back and forth, changing color and speed on a daily basis, but then there are these much longer things that happened over years.” As for what changes these are, it’s up to whoever takes them home to find out.
This spontaneous quality suggests that what draws people to art is the same thing that draws them to each other—a sense of discovery and surprise. “If you look at a painting,” says Rath, “you somehow want it to be rich enough that you could look at it for a long time and discover more. That’s really what we want with people. All relationships with people are about this constant change. This is something we feel is different about machines. But what if machines have long term change?”
Rath’s body of work is the journey that results from exploring this and other questions about our relationship to the things we build. For the artist, the journey began as a childhood curiosity with the mystery surrounding machinery. From a young age, he was curious about how mechanical things came into being. He explains, “I was always fascinated as a little kid by how the washing machine or the lawn mower existed. It wasn’t obvious where they came from. You knew that the food grew, and even furniture you could kind of look at and figure out how it was built, but something like a lawn mower seemed really mysterious.”
His education around machines began when he was a young man poring over magazines and library books, and it reached fruition when he attended MIT. But he didn’t apply his expertise to artwork until after taking a job for an art-shipping company. There he noticed that almost none of the art used the electronic components ubiquitous in the world. And even when it did, everything mechanical was meant to be ignored. He points out that in the ’70s and early ’80s, video art paid attention to what was on screen, with little thought about the screen itself. Of this artwork, he points out, “You had a Sony Trinitron and a tape deck that were so overwhelming as objects that what was on the screen seemed really tiny. It couldn’t match the presence of those objects. There was always this division between an effect that the artist was showing over here and a thing they hired other people to do behind a wall. And they would say that’s not part of it. Only look at this part.
“There’s something about building machines that makes you think about nature and ourselves. Most machinery is modeled on nature, modeled on the body, and now starting to be modeled on the mind. That’s why I don’t think it’s so alien. It’s really just us being projected.”
Rath’s work removes this division. Everything visible is part of the piece. From the point at which it plugs into the wall all the way to the screen staring back at you or the feather flying in your face—all of it contributes to the experience. And this is his artwork’s real power. In both art and technology, the inner workings of a given piece or device are usually concealed. We are encouraged to focus on the front end, while the back end is hidden so thoroughly that it might as well not exist. There’s so much attention, in other words, on what machines do for us and so little on how they, in a sense, are us. We have an oblique awareness that machines magnify our desires and amplify our perceptions, but Rath’s work brings this awareness forward and lays the clockwork bare.
As for the future, Rath plans to keep making objects that question the division between human beings and the technology we create. He explains that each piece he makes begets a new one, and that he’s always working on multiple pieces at once, with no signs of slowing down. “If I never have a new idea, I still have a backlog of more pieces than I could ever make in my lifetime.”
Rath’s work regularly appears at the Hosfelt Gallery.
Slim Fold has been the force behind the world’s thinnest, lightest, and strongest slim wallets and bags, designed and made in Northern California. The creator, Dave Zuverink and his team have launched three successful Kickstarter campaigns, which have collectively raised over $500,000. In this interview, Dave shares how to stay creative and design products that people want and love.
How did you develop your artistic mind?
I was always interested in making things and made products from a very young age. I started off as an undergraduate as a physics major, intending to study mechanical engineering. During this time, I did an informational interview with the architect, who introduced me to the discipline of industrial design. I was always more interested in how things worked—and worked with people. This led me to study human factors, a subdiscipline of industrial design. It is more focused on the way people use things and less about the way they look aesthetically. I ended up finishing up at San Jose State with a master’s in human factors.
How has your childhood influenced the work you do?
My parents always gave me the freedom to explore things that I wanted to. We lived in Manhattan, and I remember going to a lot of museums on a regular basis. They were very supportive of the things that I wanted to do.
I was into skateboarding and wanted to build a ramp in the backyard. They said I could build the ramp. I don’t think they knew what they were getting into, because I drew up the plans for the ramp, ordered all the materials from my savings, and a big delivery truck showed up with pallets of sheet plywood. We ended up building a 28-foot-long, 4-feet-high, 16-feet-wide half pipe in the side yard. Luckily, I built it with screws.
What led you to create Slim Fold?
I had the problem of not being able to find a wallet that was thin enough for me. Going back into my model-making, industrial-design roots, I started sketching and experimenting with Tyvek as a material. When I investigated the process that it would take to actually make one at high enough quality that I would want it, I had to make thousands of them. I decided to do it, and that led to me having thousands of wallets.
Back then there wasn’t an e-commerce ecosystem like there is today. If you came up with an idea for a product, there wasn’t necessarily as direct of a path to make it or to sell it. We were just starting to enter an era where it was possible for a person by themselves to completely produce a product. I happened to already have training in product design and development, but even before that, you couldn’t just send a digital file to someone and have something physical comeback that was holdable.
How are you currently getting feedback from your customers?
I do get customer feedback at every phase of the product-development cycle, all the way to asking what I should make. There are two general phases—making the right thing and then making the thing right. Both are critically important. If you make the wrong thing, nobody cares.
Sometimes we will do a survey. If I have a few potential ideas, I will simply email my customers and say, “What should I make next?” and give them those ideas while making room for them to list their ideas. I answer some of the customer service emails daily, especially ones that have product suggestions. Then, as a product is developed, we will pose a question to either customers who have given us feedback in the past or to people asking for a product for whom we have something in development. It draws back to my user research background at Adobe where I was conducting interviews with people about what their needs were and what problems they had.
“There are two general phases—making the right thing and then making the thing right. Both are critically important.”
How do you balance two conflicting ideas of making what customers want and the Steve Jobs way of thinking that customers don’t really know what they want?
There two elements at play. One is the balance of solving problems as opposed to building for this specific thing that someone wants. The other is the balance between art and design. The key is to really listen to what the pain point is behind what they are asking for. This is often the root of the misunderstanding. You do not want to take that to the extreme and say, “People don’t know what they want, so I’m just going to give them what’s best for them.” It does not give the customer as much credit as they deserve. It is better is to acknowledge the reality of their pain and try to understand every aspect of it. Then, when you come back with a potential solution, you can see what their reaction is to it. If you did a good job, they are going to put together that your solution solves their pain.
Is there anything else you would like to share?
There is a lot of interest in people doing their own thing with e-commerce. I am really excited about that opportunity. The way that I did it was to maintain my career long after the business was growing and sustainable. It is a path a lot of people don’t necessarily consider. They feel like they have to do one or the other. You don’t have to quit your day job, jump off a cliff, and try to build an airplane on the way down. If you can keep your job, invest your time and a bit of money into your side project, you essentially become your own patron, and it takes the pressure off you.
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As with many of the artists profiled in these pages, Santa Cruz–based artist and illustrator Allison Marie Garcia has been loving and creating art as far back as her memory will take her. A native of Hollister, Garcia found her life’s obsession early, and as she puts it, “it has never really stopped.” As an adolescent, Garcia found that her love of art and its visual manifestations helped her define herself as well as draw people in. “It was a way for me to make friends and fit in somewhere once I got into high school, which is where I think it really started to feel like more of an identity that I was stuck with, in a way,” Garcia recalls.
So, naturally, when it came time for applying to college, Garcia gravitated towards schools that could help her fully develop as an artist. First she took a “few years’ break at a local junior college.” Fortunately for her (and us), from there Garcia chose to attend San Jose State University, which has a distinguished and broadly applicable arts program.
And as with her early obsession with art, it followed that her talent would be noticed earlier, too. Although Garcia is still a student pursuing her BFA at SJSU, her work has the restraint, technique, and confidence of a veteran artist.
Working in a variety of mediums (digital, pen and ink, acrylic, and oil) and composing in a range of styles, Garcia imbues her work with dueling senses of harmony and dissonance, a combined rawness and poise that gives the viewer an intimate perception of what Garcia puts into each piece of art emotionally, and, admittedly, it’s often powerful and dark. Thematically, Garcia’s work uses a lot of faces, outer spaces, and imagery with a nihilistic, or at least, alienated touch. Much of her work shows an incredible sense of composition, tonal subtlety, and restraint, as well as confident linework that is playfully austere in its ability to careen in and out of sharpness without ever losing Garcia’s unique aesthetic touch.
While her work manifests itself wonderfully in seemingly whatever medium and with an organization and (there it is again) restraint that suggest singular focus in her creative process, Garcia prefers to work in bunches and mostly in acrylics. “My process for painting is usually working on four to five pieces at once, and I prefer acrylic, usually, because I work fast and frantically most of the time,” she says, adding, “Once I am done designing/thinking, I get to work and sometimes hours go by before I realize it’s time to step back.”
Garcia credits her influences in art to a broad range of expressionist painters, illustrators, and musicians, noting everyone from the mother of abstract art, Hilma af Klint, to another early shapeshifter, Paul Klee, as well as more contemporary purveyors of expressionist concepts like Margaret Kilgallen. She also credits music with being a heavy influence, if not catalyst, for her work. “I derive a lot of inspiration from music and use it to spark the beginnings of work—often,” Garcia says.
“I think regardless of who I want to speak to, certain people will always connect or understand. I think my work deals with some darkness and heavier ideas, but I am optimistic.”
A recurring theme is Garcia’s natural love of art, almost as if imbibed at birth. Her life, if not career, as an artist is something she never questioned and still doesn’t. This speaks to another huge influence on her work: her family. “I was lucky enough to have a family that has always supported my dreams of making a career out of art,” Garcia says.
“I think, regardless of who I want to speak to, certain people will always connect or understand,” Garcia says about what she wants viewers to take away from her work. “I think my work deals with some darkness and heavier ideas, but I am optimistic.”
People are certainly getting something out of it. Though still technically a “student” of art, Garcia boasts over 25,000 Instagram followers, a level of exposure that she is nothing but thankful for. “The illustrative side of my work seems to do okay, business-wise, especially my tarot card deck, so I’m just grateful for it and hope to do more commissioned illustrative freelance work down the road,” Garcia says, adding for hopeful clients: “I love designing shirts, beer labels, packaging art, and things like that.”
As for the future, Garcia just hopes to keep making art.
How do we communicate ideas with things? How do branded products speak to us, as consumers, through their design? How does the decision between rounded or sharp corners of the iPhone impact how we think about Apple as a brand? Does any of it even matter? Newsflash: it does. It all matters and that’s why people like Dan Harden from Whipsaw, a 20-year-old Bay Area industrial design and engineering consulting firm packing serious product design experience, have dedicated their professional lives to pursuing perfection in the art and discipline of product design. Product design and branding are and should be inextricably linked. In Harden’s words, “Product design is the product itself plus everything within its orbit, such as an app, an operational interface, its package, and its service model. Product design as a discipline extends all the way to market.” Product design intersects with the concept of branding at three foundational times: at conception, production, and introduction. We’ll explore each of these time periods in the life cycle of a product and the influence and effect of a brand’s identity on their products and their perception.
The Conception of a [Branded] Product
“Brand identity, in addition to user experience and function, is what I call a ‘primary informant,’ ” Harden shares, “In other words, brand should highly influence and sometimes even completely drive a product’s design.” At the conception of a product, the brand identity is critical to what that product should become. Even beforeconsidering concepts like “look,” “feel,” or “user experience,” what the product does or why it exists in the first place are influenced by the brand of the company making the product itself. The “why” for the product is indivisible from the brand itself. “Brand perception and product design should be so integrated that you can’t really separate them. To some users, owning a cool brand is sometimes even more important than owning a good product,” Harden offers. Take the brand out of the product and you’re taking the soul of what makes that product matter to anyone.
When balancing an impending new product with the existing brand identity, decision makers must determine how to innovate but only in a direction that makes sense for the brand’s trajectory. What do people expect from the company based on their historic brand promise and product portfolio? When asked the extent to which brand identity impacts product design, Harden responds, “You need to consider how the product design will contribute positively to that overall company impression and how it will complement the other brand components”—a tall order. We can all point to brands that have created too far from their niche, confusing consumers and even compromising user experience by doing what they don’t do well. The expectation of consumers is that brands will deliver what they do well to solve the problems of their brand following. Likewise, we can all point to the brands with capable captains at their companies’ helms, navigating consumer demand, product landscape, and brand legacy with aptitude and foresight. Those are the brands that live to innovate another day.
The Production of a [Branded] Design
Understanding a brand’s audience and the expectations for that brand is pivotal in designing a product and for the company that produces it. “As a product designer, you need to bake in brand attributes so customers can make the connection, while at the same time delivering on performance, function, and value.” A brand, in large part, dictates how people will feel about products—separate and apart from the truth and actuality of those products. How can you tell an Apple product is an Apple product from across the room without seeing the logo? You just can. But that doesn’t happen accidentally—Apple understands how to extract brand essence and transubstantiate it into product design. All great brands that continue to produce great products do. The fact is, a product that is produced by Apple impacts how the individual feels about that product and continues to experience that product well after they make the purchasing decision. The actuality of that experience and the perception of what sort of experience that person thinks they should have can be almost entirely attributed to brand perception and expectation. Pinpoint the microscopic target of perfect alignment between perception and reality and you’ve got a product that’s ready to work for your brand’s legacy.
What the consumer expects is the driving force behind what the company will (and should) deliver. It is up to the team of product designers to understand first what it is their people want and then how to innovate something that makes sense for the people, the brand, and the future. Great product designers “patiently usher the solution from concept all the way through engineering, prototyping, tooling and early production. You need to keep refining, tweaking, and improving it along the way because the solution is only as good as what ultimately gets tooled and mass produced,” asserts Harden. Every aspect of product design has opportunity to affect brand perception.
“Brand should highly influence and sometimes even completely drive a product’s design.”
The Introduction of the [Branded] Innovation
Products communicate. When we experience a product, what we are exploring is a curated brand experience (at least, hopefully). Beyond marketing, products themselves are the primary ambassadors for a brand. A great product takes the brand’s core reason for existence and marries it with its vision for the future and the individual purpose for that product. Great products communicate these ideas through look, feel, user experience, packaging, marketing, and placement. When products are synergistic with brands, people keep coming back for more. It just works. “A product’s form, features, color and materials all work together to communicate a product’s declaration of purpose, quality, brand, and value.” Miscommunication is a missed opportunity.
Planning the introduction of a new product only zooms in the focus on the consumer. Except now there is pressure to communicate something new aligned with the historic essence of the brand in order to affect purchasing decisions positively. Introduction must have both affirming and converting effects concurrently. Brand loyalists must be reminded of their enthusiasm for the brand and what it makes. Consumers unfamiliar or “not sold on” a brand must be enticed, educated, and convinced that the product (and brand) belongs in their life because it solves a problem or fills a void that they have. This “user experience” begins with the advertisement of the product itself. “Creating experiences that touch or help people in more meaningful and lasting ways; creating products that are relevant to what we need as individuals and societies; creating products that make life easier, safer or more fun; creating design that is inseparably functional and beautiful at the same time,” is the goal of people like Dan Harden and a noble one at that. Products speak and the stories they tell are telling of their brands and the individual creatives behind them.
The goal is to create timeless products that matter to people, because they solve a problem or improve their life in another way. Obsolescence is always the thief of legacy. “One mitigates this by creating as timeless a design as possible but also by doing what nature does—create brand DNA that propagate in all future product offspring,” offers Harden. Think ahead and plan for the future. With technological advances bounding forward, industry landscapes are constantly evolving. We see this in technicolor here in Silicon Valley. The pressure to innovate for better without causing excess is great in 2019. The burden is on the product design and brand teams to make more—not necessarily better—because what they’re creating matters from now into the forever future. “The scope and reach of design will grow in the future. I’ve seen design go from styling a product, to styling an experience, to styling a business, to styling infrastructures,” Harden adds. The burden of responsible creativity and ingenuity falls more and more to product designers and branders as the scope of that design increases. It extends far beyond the product itself. Within the product itself is all the power, however, and every screw matters.
The son of immigrant parents who met in an English-as-second-language class in New York City, Nils Peterson was just four years old when he went to his grandparents’ farm in Sweden for a few weeks. He came home speaking Swedish, English forgotten—his gift for language clearly coming early. In 1963, by then a young professor of English literature, Nils arrived here to teach at San Jose State. He and new wife Judith had driven straight from New Jersey, all they owned packed in their car, a baby on the way.
Today, as award-winning poet, beloved teacher, San Jose State University professor emeritus, and cofounder and guiding force behind the Poetry Center San Jose since 1980, Nils is an artist of profound presence. Through song, paint, pen, and, of course, language, he demonstrates a creative capacity as diverse as his collaborations. He has worked on projects with artists, musicians, and writers, including artists Harry Powers and Steve French, conductor Charlene Archibeque, and poet Robert Bly. Paintings by Patrick Surgalski accompany Nils’ stunning new poetry collection, All the Marvelous Stuff.
Nils’ ability to engage others in their own creative enterprise is equally profound. He has inspired hundreds of local poets through innumerable workshops and public performances, including his famous Valentine’s Day Reading, when he leads the audience in singing “Some Enchanted Evening.” As Santa Clara County’s first poet laureate, he established the annual Poetry Invitational at San Jose Museum of Art that continues to engage poets with artworks today.
Nils’ poems pay fierce yet tender attention to the seen world. He reflects deeply on close observations and our human situation. He often looks back at his early years, the scope of change he’s witnessed, and the enduring influence of his father. Though he remembers himself as “not an especially triumphant boy,” as honored poet, teacher, and generous member of the arts community, Nils continues to bring readers “all the marvelous stuff.”
LOOK 5: Black Jacket, $239; Stacked Leather Necklace, $219
Name: Michelle Richardson Age: 20 Height: 5’9″ Hometown: Redding, CA Agency: Stars Management Favorite Book: Bone by Jeff Smith Favorite Music: ’90s hip hop and R&B Favorite Film: Blue is the Warmest Color What do you enjoy about modeling? I enjoy meeting cool people and traveling. I just got back from Japan! What do you think is the most pressing current social issue? Equality and climate change Guilty pleasure? Ice cream! Favorite article of clothing/accessory? My cat hat Place you would want to visit? Hawaii What are you currently obsessed with? Cats. Forever. What is your “guiding philosophy” for life? Try not to take everything so serious.
Photographer: Daniel Garcia Photo Assistant: Arabela Espinoza Model: Michelle for Stars Management Stylist: Elle Mitchell Hair Stylist: PJ for Bedlam Beauty and Barber Assistant Stylists: Chelsea Voight and Helen Yoo Makeup Artist: Zenia Marie Producer: Kristen Pfund Wardrobe: Ruti, Palo Alto Location: Black Sand Beach, Sausalito
This fashion editorial originally appeared in Issue 8.3 Show
The Fashion Design and Apparel Technology (FDAT) program at West Valley College is a two-year accredited career technical education program, established in 1985 by a group of industry professionals to fill the need for public education in the field of fashion. Recognized as a leader in fashion education, both locally and nationally, the program now offers two associate of science degrees and three certificates in design and production. We are honored to introduce to you the FDAT class of 2020.
Rosa Chapman | Fashion is Rosa’s passion. Growing up around the many talented and creative seamstresses in her family who made their own clothes inspired her to study fashion design. She is committed to creating unique, customized lines of clothing for real women of different body types who appreciate a perfect fit. Currently Rosa is inspired by the vivid contrast between blue, which represents calm peaceful harmony, and playful orange. Instagram:chapmancouture
Nancy Guillen | Nancy is a fitness enthusiast with a passion for making clothing that aligns with her beliefs. She values living an environmentally friendly lifestyle, making sustainable casual wear to help deter global warming and reduce her carbon footprint. On social media, she loves to talk about the benefits of having a plant-based diet and how it’s helped with her fitness journey. She enjoys connecting with people around the world and learning from other people’s experiences and sharing ideas. She strongly believes people can make a difference in themselves and our planet by learning, adapting, and continuing to make healthy choices. Instagram:americantempleclothing
Maria Iordache | Maria grew up in Romania, with two talented grandmothers and an aunt who taught her sewing, knitting, embroidery, and drawing at an early age. She always loved math, particularly 3D geometry, and graphics and ended up studying bridge design, getting a doctorate in structural engineering from CU Boulder and a business degree from MIT. During a break between jobs, she realized that the commercial fashion industry does not satisfy the needs of career women like her and started working on a business idea. She is on a mission to use technology to create beautiful, high quality, custom-sized clothes for professional women. With her natural understanding of geometry, human forms, apparel construction, and the business world, she is on a journey to realize her dream. Instagram:mariamiordache
Lorrie McPheeters | Lorrie McPheeters has been into designing and making clothes since she was 10 years old, when she started making clothes for others. When Lorrie saw dresses she had designed on stage for the first time, she could only think to herself, “This is what I want to always do for the rest of my life!” From that point on, she jumped at every opportunity to design and make clothes for theater, weddings, and friends. Currently Lorrie is busy juggling her work as a costume designer, apparel designer, and seamstress, but she still thinks it’s amazing. Instagram:lamcpheeters
Olivia Ramirez | Olivia is working on an ethical, sustainable, and vegan friendly clothing line that prioritizes modesty and comfort. Her designs are not based on fast fashion and does not harm the earth or the people on it in any way. Olivia sees the need for quality-made clothing that lasts a long time and is suitable for a simple closet.
Olivia is inspired by the minimalistic lifestyle incorporated into her designs with versatile, adjustable garments. Olivia is well known for her professionalism and great social skills. She strongly believes that having more is not equivalent to happiness. Instagram:designn.or
Jonathan San Juan | Jonathan has always been interested in fashion, producing test shoots with his sister and making dresses out of bed sheets and curtains. After realizing the joy of expressing his creativity through fashion, he immersed himself in the art of dressmaking by reading books, watching fashion-related films and TV series, and actually draping on an ironing board as his first mannequin. Jonathan has received praise for the intricate patternmaking skills that he demonstrates in his clothes. Jonathan’s aspiration to work in the New York City fashion scene and his adoration for the city itself inspired his fashion line. His collection highlights the juxtaposition of glamour and streetwear. Instagram:jonathan.designs
Smaranika Sarangi | Smaranika (Nikki), with a PhD in microbiology, discovered her passion for fashion design by drawing inspiration from her love of handcrafts. To her, fashion is one of the most powerful and communicable forms of personal expression. It is one of the rare art forms that can transform something beautiful into other, more beautiful creations. Nikki is also motivated by the look and feel and aesthetics of being able to manipulate fabric through draping. Through her designs, she not only wants to reflect on her own culture but also reshape it to fit the style of modern professional women. Her designs are aimed at sharing the Indian culture and heritage in everyday Western clothing. Instagram:drape.dead.elegance
Hiroko Widlow | As a teen, Hiroko hated math but loved art. With perseverance she earned her way to the prestigious Musashino Art University in Tokyo, Japan where she studied design and fabrication. Her first job as a ghost designer for large jewelry and watch brands influenced her love for fine details. She still designs jewelry for clients but is widening her scope of experience by studying fashion and experimenting with patternmaking. She hopes to make her designs available to the world soon. Instagram:itsso_you
Article originally appeared in Issue 12.2 “Sight and Sound”
s technology advances, so does the art of storytelling. People become immersed in worlds outside our realm of possibilities through the virtual and augmented reality experiences. Cinequest Film and Creativity Festival offers a chance to have one of these experiences as part of their VR/AR programming.
May Yam, founder and CEO of May Yam Studios, LLC (or MYStudios) and the film and VR/AR department manager for Cinequest, is bridging the wonders of storytelling and the experience of living them first-hand. In the months leading up to Cinequest, Yam and her team went through the festival submissions and created a program ready for participants to interact with.
“One of the amazing things about virtual reality is how immersive it really is, you get so engrossed in the storytelling.”
_May Yam
For the last three years, MYStudios has partnered with Cinequest to streamline that process and take virtual reality and augmented reality to the next level.
“VR enables you to escape to worlds previously unimaginable, to connect with an immersive piece to learn new experiences andhave fun,” Yam says.
This year, guests can expect an assortment of experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality, and hyper-reality. The Cinequest VR experience heightens these concepts by enabling guests to interact in a whole new world and with characters through active participation. This is made possible through headsets which display 3D 360 views of the environment and motion controllers which bring arms and hands into the experience allowing for interactivity, including picking up objects.
Discovering new worlds and journeying through exciting missions is what you’ll find in the hyper-reality hub events in the coming days. One to look out for, Yam says, is Dino Mundi XR. In this virtual reality game, players are transported to an ancient planet ruled by dinosaurs. This 30 foot by 20 foot installation gives users the freedom to roam around the 3D play area as they explore three different dinosaur worlds inside their headsets.
For those who might not want to be chased around by a Tyrannosaurus rex, they can indulge in a little childhood fun. We Bare Bears: Food Truck Rush, a multi-player game, and one of Yam’s favorite hyper-reality experiences offered at this year’s Cinequest, puts players in the middle of a hectic lunch rush. Players must work alongside the characters from the Cartoon Network TV show We Bare Bears to cook and serve food to customers before time runs out.
“It’s crazy multitasking fun racing against the clock to make the drinks, burgers and fries, which have a tendency to spontaneously catch fire, all while the customer line grows longer. It’s pretty chaotic but it’s one of my favorites,” Yam says
Virtual reality plays a bigger role than just entertainment, Yam assures. Outside the bounds of fun or exciting games are portrayals of real experiences that run deep for many people. The VR Cinema Program immerses the audience in engaging 360 videos. One of Yam’s favorites in this genre is the short film Daughters of Chibok. The 11-minute Nigerian documentary tells the real-life story of the 276 teenage girls who were kidnapped in their dormitories in 2014. The virtual reality documentary follows the aftermath of the kidnapping and shares the stories of survivors and mothers whose daughters were kidnapped.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Yam says. “One of the amazing things about virtual reality is how immersive it really is, you get so engrossed in the storytelling because you are in the story.”
Virtual and augmented reality serves a portal through which people can bear witness to different stories–they become part of the journey themselves. Yam believes everyone should have the opportunity to experience the wonders of virtual and augmented reality, she says Cinequest presents a fun, safe and easy opportunity to do so.
“Not only has the technology advanced, but the storytelling has also advanced,” Yam says.
The virtual and augmented reality programs will run from March 5-8 from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. and will be held at the California Theatre and KALEID Gallery.
The Quintessential Sexy Librarian* Or so says Molly Ringwald
Nestled near her fourth floor office at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Jill Bourne is surrounded by stories—more than 1.7 million books at this library location alone. But you won’t find the San Jose Library Director’s favorite stories on the shelves. Bourne’s favorites are real life ones experienced by patrons every day at the library, as they discover a new aspect of their world and make their life better.
Bourne is the new director of libraries for the City of San Jose. She came here in July from San Francisco, where she was deputy city librarian for seven years. Now she takes the helm at San Jose’s 23-branch system, overseeing a budget of $38 million.
“What really makes me inspired about being in a library every day is that every day there are dozens of stories going on. There’s a person whose life has actually been changed by being able to have access to knowledge that made them improve their own life. And that’s an incredible gift. You see it happening every day, whether it’s a person with their child who has just figured out they have a reading disability they never knew about. Something has changed their life because they have access to information for free…A person filling out a job application online, who has never used a computer. We have hundreds of stories.”
The library system has more than 270 employees and serves more than six million visitors annually. It has more than two million items in its collections and circulates nearly twelve million items a year. Bourne shared her own life and library stories recently withCONTENT.
What is your favorite story? Bourne shares one from Varsha, a library patron who grew up in India. “Libraries were few and far between. I had to travel by bus for 45 minutes to get to a nice library, and it was not free. When I came to this country sixteen years back, I was amazed and impressed that the libraries were free! And that I could check out 100 books if I wanted to. I really valued this privilege here and value it even more now as I have a 10-year-old who is a voracious reader.”
What drew you to San Jose? I was really drawn to the spirit of innovation. That, plus this really is an urban community, and that’s what I’ve always been committed to: libraries in urban communities. There is this perception of what Silicon Valley is, and it is true, there are all these great big companies and all this money and wealth, but it is also a very large city of a million people and we have all the urban issues that cities face. We have communities that need access to information and knowledge that aren’t getting that connection to this amazing culture of Silicon Valley.
This is a great library system and San Jose Public is an internationally known library system. It has achieved amazing things. It was one of the first libraries to get both the library of the year and the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services award, called the National Medal, for organizations, the highest honor. This library was the first to get both.
How long have you been on West Coast? I moved to the West Coast in 1995, nineteen years. I was on the East Coast in grad school trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and decided to go to library school.
How she chose her graduate school: It was 106 degrees in the summer in Boston when I had to make my decision, and I lived in a fourth-floor walkup. I was there in this incredible, horrible heat, and thinking about where the library school programs were…One in Austin, one in Boston, and one in Seattle. My roommate and I were saying, ‘It’s going to be this hot every day in Austin. Let’s go to Seattle.’
Bourne has a bachelor’s degree in English from New York University and a master’s in Library and Information Science from the University of Washington.
Plans for the library system here: That’s a big question…There’s this whole realm of how libraries are in intraspace learning, getting access to even more technological tools, like learning how to use industry-level software, learning the tools how to get a job. We already do a lot of that. We teach people how to do resumés and how to use computers. What is that next step in the world of applied skills, like maker-type stuff. Learning how to make a digital film. Or do coding. We have some great programs like partnering with this national organization called Girls Who Code. Through them, we’re partnering with Google to do classes at our Evergreen branch for teen girls. That is the type of programming I’d like to see.
What other innovations is the library system trying? We started [a tablet program] at the Educational Park Branch, which opened in May just before I started and we started the program subsequently. It’s called Tech Connect. We’re testing about four different tablets or reader devices. We’re testing it for us—how does the checkout work, what kind of cover do you need to keep it safe, what are the security issues, what are the use issues, what are the types of things people need to know when they start to use a tablet like this…Working with different demographic groups—what are the most commonly asked questions? Because that’s what we like to do, answer people’s questions, so then we can think about how to scale it. We’re also thinking of having the same program in at least one other branch soon. We want to take this out to as many locations as possible.
What other programming is on the horizon? We want to create an instructional program this year. We really do see a need for classes, even self-directed online classes or classes in person.
What led you to become a librarian? I love the public, and I definitely loved learning. So I got a job at a children’s library outside of Boston, and it literally was one of those moments, a huge eye-opening experience. This is exactly what I need to be doing.
I always liked working with kids. I love the energy and positivity and that really appealed to me at that part of my life. It still does. If you ever have a bad day, you should definitely go to a story time because everything is so exciting…You get so much positive feedback and excitement about life. I think that’s the thing that really drew me to that.
Personal life: Bourne’s husband works for a global, environmental nonprofit doing IT projects. They have an 11-year-old son who is in middle school in San Jose and plays soccer. The family lives downtown, and Bourne walks to work.
Reading now: The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown. The book is available in the San Jose Public Library.
What are your usual go-to books? I spent time as a young adult as a children’s book selector; it was a great job. But when I was a teen, I was obsessed with Elizabethan tragedies and Greek tragedies, and Faulkner and James Joyce. I only read adult books when I was a kid. So then when I was an adult and I started reading these books for my job, I was really into young adult fiction. I actually read a lot of young adult fiction and fantasy. It’s really embarrassing because I have all of this young adult fiction in my house. You can read one in one day. It’s like watching a television show. They’re so action-oriented and character based. I find it very satisfying.
Recent read: The entire Divergent series by Veronica Roth. The first movie is coming out in the spring. I wanted to read them before the movie comes out.
First book remember reading or being read to: Probably Winnie-the-Pooh. My mom used to read to us all the time. I’m the youngest in my family, so I got read to before I remember.
My favorite book from that time is totally Pippi Longstocking. I loved Pippi Longstocking. I have a first edition of it my husband gave to me. She’s the original Riot grrrl. She’s the strongest girl in the world. Independently wealthy—I love that. Totally, totally inappropriate at all times…I remember I would laugh with my mom. I read sections of them sometimes just for fun.
What’s easy for you? I always did like making order out of things. I think my brain naturally does that. I was an English major and a Math minor. I love the structure. On the other side, I love the creativity.
What keeps you up at night? The fact that our branch libraries are open only four days a week. No, it really does. I really hate it. It’s something that we’re working really hard on. It all starts with being available to the community. When I know we’re not open on a day when kids are out of school and they don’t have anywhere to go, or on a weekend when families are together…that keeps me up a lot, and the uncertain funding for libraries that makes that happen.
One of the reasons I decided to come here [was] I saw a strong desire on the part of city officials to support the library. There are these beautiful libraries that had been built that weren’t open. When they talked to me, I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to go there. That’s where they don’t open libraries.’
They told me right away that a plan was actually in place. The mayor himself and the city manager’s office and everyone I’ve talked to were very clear that they had already dedicated in that year to open libraries. It was the only department to get additional funding that year.
Describe the library system in one word. It’s a gateway. It really is a starting place for any direction that you need to go in your life. It could be a gateway of information, of learning a new skill, connecting with other people in the community—so it’s a gateway.
The Molly Ringwald story: In case you haven’t followed Ringwald’s career since she made The Breakfast Club, she has evolved into a thoughtful author, hence her appearance in San Francisco a couple of years ago at a literary event to discuss her book, When It Happens to You. Bourne was there, too, and afterward found herself face to face with Ringwald by the bar and mentioned she was a librarian. Ringwald responded by calling Bourne “the quintessential sexy librarian” and our very own book nerd has the tweet to prove it.
When Universal Grammar released the first installation of its Changing Same mix series this past October, Tommy Aguilar and company chose to kick things off with “An Abstract,” a 45-minute window into the sound of San Jose–based electronic beatsmith B. Lewis. The dynamic journey features surprise sonic turns and swaths of bass, yet at its core, there’s always a distant dose of soul.
In the mix, which first aired on The Changing Same Radio on KZSU-FM, Lewis (real name Brad Lewis) provides a blueprint for the “future bass” sound, an eclectic and far-reaching tag birthed in the SoundCloud era to categorize tracks with vibrant synths, chilly hi-hats, and—most importantly—plenty of low end, whether it’s to nudge along a four-on-the-floor house groove or anchor the woozy swing of trap.
Raised in San Jose’s Evergreen neighborhood, Lewis attended Expression College in Emeryville, where he studied audio engineering. His remixes have flipped songs by artists as disparate as jazz pianist Robert Glasper and Bay Area rapper K. Flay, and he’s collaborated with a number of producers who have been key players in electronic music’s new vanguard, including Sweater Beats, KRNE, and Sango, a heavyweight in the buzzing crew Soulection.
Universal Grammar describes his sound as “messy soul,” an apt term to encapsulate an output that often boils over with ideas that push the sonic envelope yet still feel tethered to an undeniable sense of joy.
By phone, Lewis reveals that a new album is on the horizon. He notes the project is “still B. Lewis,” albeit “an elevated version of my past projects.” He’s also developing a side project he’s calling Saints. In what should be a welcome surprise for fans, the oft soft-spoken producer notes that this release will actually feature him singing. Additionally, 2016 has seen him gain some serious footing within the music industry after securing a co-writing credit on “The 80s,” a track featured on the international version of Chris Brown’s recent release, Royalty.
It’s been more than a year and a half since he’s dropped an official project, and he’s eager to let listeners hear his progress soon. He also admitted he’s not the only one. “I have a lot of producer friends wondering where the project is,” he says. “That’s a good thing if they’re curious.”
In an unassuming office building in Mountain View, a band of astronomers, astrobiologists, and planetary scientists—the new Magellans—are exploring the universe and trying to understand the origin and nature of life in it. Three of these explorers—Drs. Jill Tarter, Nathalie Cabrol, and Lori Fenton—have pushed through the barriers of this generally male-dominated science to become among the most respected in their fields.
The Pioneer and Leader
Astronomer Jill Tarter grew up a tomboy—hunting, fishing, and building things with her father. When she was eight years old, he pulled her aside for a talk, suggesting that perhaps she was of an age to start spending more time doing “girl” things. She responded with an angry, “Why can’t I do both?” and then told him she was going to be an engineer.
“I don’t think I really knew what engineers were,” she says, “but I knew that men were engineers, and so that was my thing.” A few years later, Tarter’s father died, leaving her with a stubborn drive to fulfill her promise. She has done that and so much more.
I always like to joke that life didn’t grant me great sight, but at least I have great vision. This is how you create your own future. – Dr. Nathalie Cabrol
Tarter is one of the pioneers in the science of SETI, short for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. She was the lead for Project Phoenix, a decade-long SETI scrutiny of 750 nearby star systems, using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia, and Puerto Rico. It was the most comprehensive targeted search for artificially generated cosmic signals ever undertaken.
As evidence of her iconic status, the walls of her office are covered with a lifetime of awards, including the TED Prize awarded to her in 2009. It honors someone with a vision for how to change the world. She was also the inspiration for the lead character Ellie Arroway, a radio astronomer, played by Jodie Foster in the 1997 movie Contact.
Today, Tarter serves in a leadership role at the SETI Institute, helping to secure private funding to continue the exploratory science. Our search, she says, has only just begun.
To put it in perspective, Tarter explains, “If I were to take the total nine-dimensional volume where a signal could be existing, and I set that volume equal to the volume of the Earth’s oceans, how much have we searched? Roughly over the past 50 years, we’ve searched about one eight-ounce glass.”
She says now, more than ever, the work of the Institute has global importance. “Thinking about the questions of life beyond Earth—how big the cosmos is, how old it is, how intimately connected we are to the cosmos (we are made from stardust)—has the effect of holding up a mirror to whole planet and saying, ‘from this perspective, we’re all the same.’ This cosmic point of view trivializes our differences. If we can get a global population working on this hopeful experiment called SETI, it will help us to figure out how to collaborate and work together on the other global challenges we face.”
The Visionary
Nathalie Cabrol has never done what people expected. A straight “A” student in everything except math, she was discouraged from going into science.
“I had to go around all these hurdles of what people thought I should be good at, but I was always watching the sky,” she says, “because I knew there was a connection. For me, that was life, and I knew it was my direction.”
Her career path may not have been straight, but Cabrol says the twists and turns were what led her to where she is today—leading projects focused on planetary science and astrobiology with a focus on extreme environments. She designs robotic field experiments and develops science exploration strategies for Mars and beyond.
Cabrol’s work takes her to the highest volcanoes in the Andes (20,000 feet), where she dives high-altitude lakes, and to the world’s most arid deserts because the environmental conditions in these places are analogous to early Mars. Among her many accomplishments, Cabrol has been a member of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) science team since 2002. She was also invited to give a TED talk in 2015 on the search for microbes on Mars and how it can help us understand why some microbial pathways evolve to civilization and others do not.
“There is the physical side to exploration,” she explains, “when you go to places that have never been seen by other people. I have been privileged to do this on Earth and on Mars. I have discovered new species in the Andes. I was in mission control at JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] in the middle of the night when the data was coming down [from Mars], and I could see a landscape for the very first time. Out of seven billion human beings, I was the first one to see that landscape.”
But much of a scientist’s discovery, says Cabrol, is done in the mind through creative thinking and envisioning.
“You think about how you would explore another planet. What are the science questions? How are you going to address them? What tools do you need to build? What problems do you need to solve? I always like to joke that life didn’t grant me great sight, but at least I have great vision. This is how you create your own future. You project your mind and spend some time wondering about all the aspects of the exploration that don’t exist, and then you come back and try to make it a reality.”
The Challenger
Lori Fenton is not afraid to challenge what we think we know in order to see something new. According to her, it’s the best thing about her job as a planetary research scientist at the Institute, where she was awarded NASA’s Fellowship for Early Career Researchers in 2006.
Fenton investigates aeolian geomorphology (how wind shapes planetary surfaces), recent and ongoing climate changes, and the mobility of wind-blown sand and dust—with a particular focus on Mars and what it can tell us about our own planet.
“We don’t understand a lot about climate change on Earth because it’s a very complex system and the models don’t fully capture all the nuances,” she explains. “One way to figure that out is to go beyond what’s familiar, to see if Mars will break the models.”
In her research, she uses fieldwork on Earth, visual and thermal imagery from spacecraft, and wind predictions from atmospheric models such as the NASA AMES Mars Global Climate Model.
Her focus may be cosmic, but Fenton definitely does not fit the stereotypical profile of a cosmic scientist. She can often be found analyzing data from Mars at a local Starbucks, after having just dropped her child off at preschool. And aside from constantly looking for funding, she says her biggest challenge is very similar to what most of us face: trying to make it all work.
“It’s never-ending,” she says. “Life gets complicated and things get in the way. Somehow, you have to push aside time and space to clear your head—to think new thoughts, come up with new ideas. Scientists, we like to make assertions about how things are, and then we send a new mission to Mars that has a new camera and instruments. We measure things and realize: that’s not how things are at all. All of a sudden, nothing makes sense anymore, but you can’t get upset. Instead of being frustrated because you thought you understood it, you have to say, ‘awesome, there’s more work to do.’”
Charting New Territories
Tarter and Fenton were looking to the sky by the age of eight; Cabrol when she was five. Even as young girls, these women understood there was something in the universe bigger than humans still to be discovered. Just what that something is has driven all three to chart new territories and imagine possibilities that most would never ponder—that we can make contact with intelligent extraterrestrials or that humans will indeed, one day, live on Mars.
It’s not science fiction. NASA is currently working toward landing a human on the red planet by the mid-2030s. This means a young girl of ten today could be among the first explorers to actually stand on Mars.
“If we are doing our job right,” says Cabrol, “this young woman might someday be working in a lab, looking out the window and seeing the beautiful landscape of Mars. She will be out there, starting to spread humankind in the solar system. She might not be of the generation that will have babies on Mars, but she’ll be part of the generation that will put all the structure in place to do that.”
If so, the Institute’s explorers are much closer than we think in their search for alien civilizations in the universe—because the aliens will be us.
Eric Ressler of Cosmic, a digital design and branding agency with a focus on social responsibility declares, “branding and marketing, they’re multipliers of impact. They have the ability to take an organization that’s only known in a small community and [make it] known around the world.” This is one of the concepts that Ressler and his team have introduced to both the nonprofit organizations they work with as well as the for-profit clientele that have a social cause cooked into their mission (think Warby Parker, which donates a pair of glasses for each pair purchased, or the Renewal Workshop, an apparel repurposing company that Cosmic works with).
Their small firm, run out of a bright and spacious open office space in downtown Santa Cruz, has carved out a niche in the world of branding. “The main thing that sets us apart is that we specialize in what we call social-purpose branding,” Ressler says. A transplant from La Honda and San Diego, he moved to Santa Cruz to play bass in a band with some friends and experience a change of scenery. Although he never intended to stay long, he fell in love with the community. A self-proclaimed “design school dropout,” he began his career by doing freelance website work, eventually building enough of a network of clients to form a full-fledged design and branding agency, which he has now been running for about seven years.
Ressler didn’t start out with the specific goal of working with socially conscious brands, but at a certain point, his feelings of responsibility to the community around him and the world at large made him ask some important questions of his own work. “What is our purpose as an agency? What are we trying to accomplish with the work that we’re creating? And then, what’s it doing for society?” he asks.
It’s an idea that has also permeated Cosmic’s non-hierarchical office culture. “We’re very collaborative, very flat in terms of our structure. There’s not senior and junior designers here. The analogy that I like to make is that we’re kind of like a basketball team, and I’m the coach, versus, I’m the boss, and everyone else is my underling.” In addition to being non-hierarchical, the company maintains a four-day workweek, with Fridays off. “In the advertising world, there is a very high-pressure, always-on, always-working-late-nights, crazy-deadlines kind of culture, and we have decided to opt out of that,” Ressler exclaims. Cosmic gives staff three-day weekends every week so they can step away, recharge, have a life outside of work, and spend more time with family. “Creativity is not something that is sustainable in an environment where you’re overdoing it. You have to step away. You have to have room in your life for an idea to pop into your head—when you’re out surfing or when you’re in the shower—and if you don’t have time for that, your creativity starts to diminish,” Ressler adds.
Working with nonprofits and social-purpose brands is not always easy. Budgets tend to be a challenge, and marketing isn’t always prioritized. “We find a lot of nonprofits have a zero marketing budget. People are spread very thin. Everyone wears a lot of hats, and there’s not a lot of overhead, so marketing can be kind of piecemeal,” Ressler says. Even worse, he maintains, society has a negative attitude toward nonprofits spending money on branding and marketing.
Fortunately, Cosmic has experience with traditional corporate brands, along with a determination to find ways to make the marketing happen, no matter how small the budget. “Sometimes we get creative around where the funding comes from,” Ressler admits. “But learning from the corporate world—best practices around branding and marketing—and applying that to these social-purpose brands will allow them to actually achieve their mission much more quickly, more effectively, and to a deeper level.”
COSMIC
Downtown Santa Cruz
115 Cooper Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Instagram
“I grew up surrounded by artists and musicians. Their passion for creating definitely rubbed off on me, and it informs my work today.”
Ten years ago, San Jose native Carlos Letelier escaped the boxy confines of the tech world to pursue his dream of opening a hair salon. He created Limón Salon in 2008, a high-end salon with a relaxed vibe that is pushing San Jose into the league of New York, Los Angeles, and Miami salons. As Limón has evolved over the years, Carlos has learned a lot about entrepreneurship and management, and he values the talent of his staff above all else. He attributes his success to the devotion he has for his team, as well as his skill to enable each member to reach his or her potential. With his success at Limón Salon, Carlos not only gives clients look that range from conservative to punk and everything in between, he also empowers creative genius and makes a serious impact in the fantastical world of high-end hair salons.
“I grew up surrounded by artists and musicians. Their passion for creating definitely rubbed off on me, and it informs my work today. I believe stylists and other beauty professionals deserve and require an environment full of encouragement and freedom in order to reach their full potential, so that’s my focus: I facilitate success.”
In a sea of conventional milk tea shops, Tea Lyfe revels in its differences. Curious about the story behind its fusion drinks, local artwork collection, and open mic nights? Meet Latina owner Candy Gomez Bui and her Vietnamese husband, Caleb Bui. As you settle in to listen to their story, set the tone by ordering a vietchata (Mexican horchata blended with Vietnamese iced coffee) and a coffee churro waffle (Hispanic churros and Vietnamese coffee mixed with waffle batter).
Taste that commingling of cultures? Candy and Caleb embraced multiculturalism before they crafted the menu—and before they’d even met each other. “It’s not something you can avoid in San Jose,” Candy laughs. As your typical poor college student, Caleb haunted the affordable taqueria close to campus. Meanwhile, Candy’s coworkers at her old job bribed her with popcorn chicken and milk tea when they were late for their shifts.
Fittingly, the two met at a multiethnic church that offered English and Vietnamese services. Later, after they were married, Candy noticed an empty unit at the plaza they visited weekly. Situated in Little Saigon’s Vietnam Town and bordering a Latino neighborhood just across the 101 overpass, the location harmonized perfectly with the Vietnamese/Latino drinks she had in mind. “We’re neighbors,” Candy explains. “There should be more unity with the people you live around. They don’t have to necessarily share the same language or look the same for me to feel at home.”
Caleb remembers his initial response when his wife first came to him with the idea of a milk tea shop. “I was a little bit skeptical, but I thought, ‘If this is what she’d like to do, we’ll give it a try,’ ” he says. “I just really wanted to support her.” He continued working full-time as a software QA engineer at Apple, while Candy managed the shop.
To decorate Tea Lyfe, the resourceful couple recycled weathered wood, succulents, and bare lightbulbs from their wedding (which took place at a Chinese restaurant with chips and salsa and a mariachi band). To further enhance a natural, campground like atmosphere, they brought in moveable stumps and painted their bear logo on the far wall. The camp theme resulted in not only a whimsically woodsy interior design but also established the store as a space for families to come together away from distractions.
“Lyfe,” an acronym for “love your family every day,” celebrates a value that transcends race. “In both of our cultures, family is so important,” Candy says. “My grandma had eleven kids. Whether you get along or not, you always end up together.” It’s why Candy uses a family recipe for her horchata and why she integrated Vietnamese coffee into the menu after finding out her mother-in-law and aunt sold the beverage from a little stand during the ’70s.
Art is another unifying force at the shop. Tea Lyfe opens its doors to local artists, offering up its walls to painters’ canvases and providing space for musicians’ open mic nights. As a musician himself, Caleb was particularly excited about supporting the musical community. “I wanted this place to be a platform for musicians,” Caleb says. “I know it’s really hard to find places where you can display your talent.” Over the years, they have welcomed everything from blues to rock to R&B.
Besides the live entertainment and unconventional menu, Tea Lyfe’s customers come for the quality. This refusal to take the easy way out when it comes to ingredients was first instilled in Candy when she was pregnant and seeking organic, pesticide free foods at the farmers’ market. “We go against the grain of typical boba syrups,” Candy says. Instead of the typical honey flavored syrup offered by most milk tea shops, Tea Lyfe embraces local raw honey. Instead of powdered milk, they bring in organic half and half straight from the Straus Family Creamery in Petaluma. They use real fruit and whisk the ceremonial-grade matcha green tea by hand. “I wouldn’t want to create something that I wouldn’t want my family to drink,” Candy states. With customers receiving treatment usually reserved for relatives, is it any wonder that so many regulars consider it home?
“Big beer, meatballs, mashed potatoes. It’s exactly what I’d love to eat at home.” —Ben Bate
German-English duo brings a taste of Europe to San Jose dining.
At Ludwig’s, beer garden is spelled biergarten—the German way. It’s a small but important detail in the restaurant’s mission to bring a real sense of Europe to San Jose. From the communal seating, the Jägerschnitzel, and the boot-shaped beer glasses to the German members’ club that owns the building—this is as European as it gets in Silicon Valley. Co-owners Ben Bate and Nicole Jacobi set out to create something different and adventurous for guests in a “sterile” culinary ecosystem, as Bate describes it. “The mission, really, was to create a true piece of Europe here in America,” Bate says. “A lot of people attempt it, but I don’t know that they make it that.”
History has provided a great foundation for Ludwig’s. The building’s landowner is Germania Verein, the German-American club of San Jose, founded in 1856. Ludwig’s co-owner Nicole Jacobi brings a culinary background from Hamburg, Jacobi’s German grandfather is the restaurant’s namesake, and the building has well over 100 years of character. Despite, or perhaps because of that history, Ludwig’s feels fresh and exciting. The food is eye-catching, the beers are all wonderfully German, each with its own unique pint glass—a favorite target of petty thieves who visit Ludwig’s, although they arrive initially as patrons—and the biergarten comes alive shortly after opening at 4pm.
The food business is a hard industry, and Ludwig’s has gone through growing pains. “The first few months? Seems like a long time ago now,” Bate says, pausing to track time by the number of Oktoberfests (two) and Christmases (approaching two) the restaurant has seen. Differences in local restaurant norms such as communal seating and a deliberate lack of a hostess created friction between the restaurant and the hungry denizens of the South Bay. “When we first started out, it didn’t really work,” Bate says. “People were questioning it. They would ask for a table for two and we’d say ‘we don’t have it.’” After some time passed, along with the Euro 2016 soccer tournament and Oktoberfest 2016, Ludwig’s found its footing and had a clear identity.
“This is comfort food,” Bate says. “It’s that feel of home. Big beer, meatballs, mashed potatoes. It’s exactly what I’d love to eat at home.” Creating that feeling of home was critical for Bate and Jacobi. Cooking for their families is important in each of their lives and became an objective for the business they shared, helping them find common ground. Finding common ground was critical, as the duo had not previously met before becoming business partners. The first day they met was the day they signed the lease for the building, Bate recalls. They shared a vision that stemmed from their love of cooking and taking care of others and jumped into business together feet first. “It’s all rolled in—my passion and her knowledge,” Bate says, “and it works really well.”
A large part of why Ludwig’s “works really well” is the importance placed on customer service. Read their Yelp reviews and you’ll see the common thread—no matter their take on the food, the reviewer always praised the service. “I tell my staff: ‘People choose to come here,’” Bate says. “People have a lot of choices when they go out and eat nowadays, so if someone decides to come here, I want all my staff to buy into the fact that you have to appreciate them when they sit down to eat here.” That approach to service is why San Jose has embraced Ludwig’s, and why regulars—literally—embrace Bate. “A lot of customers will give me a cuddle when they come in,” Bate laughs.
Ludwig’s is well on its way to becoming a local favorite. It’s a weekend hotspot thanks to its fine selection of German beers, flavorful bites, warm atmosphere, and its dedication to customer service. Located in downtown San Jose on the northern edge of St. James Park, Ludwig’s opened its doors in 2016, prior to the summer season, and has since found great success—even earning the distinction of “Best South Bay Beer Garden” in the 2017 Best of San Francisco magazine. Despite the acclaim and the thriving business, Bate remains humble and only asks the foodies of the South Bay to “give us a go.”
Written by Francisco Alvarado
Photography by Daniel Garcia
This article originally appeared in Issue 10.0 “Seek”
Spanish for “the heights,” Los Altos does indeed boast a higher elevation than its two neighbors to the north, Palo Alto and Mountain View, yet it’s often hidden in their shadows. It’s a small community and one of the few in Santa Clara County that isn’t home to a tech company campus. There aren’t any Google, Apple, or Facebook buildings to be found here. In fact, the largest private employer is Whole Foods. Yet it’s a town that occupies a place as one of Silicon Valley’s holiest sites. In 1976, in the garage of his childhood home, Steve Jobs, along with cofounder Steve Wozniak and others, built what would become Apple computers and changed history. While the major hardware and software companies didn’t choose to make the city their home, many of their wealthy founders and executives did. Some of the largest and most expensive homes in the country are located in Los Altos and neighboring Los Altos Hills. Many people may feel inclined to write Los Altos off as merely the suburb of choice for the digerati. But upon further inspection, it is a dynamic, welcoming community filled with rich history, culture, and character.
To begin a day in Los Altos, visitors should head straight to Voyageur du Temps for an authentic European-style coffee and pastry. Housed in one of Los Altos’ early train stations, this chic cafe lives up to its name (French for “Time Traveler”) by transporting people back to an era where strangers were friends that simply hadn’t been met yet and baked goods were made from scratch with the finest ingredients. But while visitors will be tempted to stuff themselves on Voyageur’s rustic baguettes and matcha tea croissants, they should save some room for the next stop, Manresa Bread. This popular bakery is a spinoff of David Kinch’s celebrated Manresa restaurant in Los Gatos. Order a kouign-amann (Breton for “butter cake”), a crown-shaped pastry made with butter, sugar, and salt that will dazzle the taste buds.
After wiping the crumbs off their lips, visitors can head next door to Linden Tree Books, a colorful and quirky bookstore that prides itself on being a destination for both the “head and the heart.” Much of their collection is geared towards younger readers, but they really do have something that will appeal to everyone. It is easy to get lost in one of their several reading nooks, and their warm and dedicated staff are always ready to provide recommendations. After getting in the mood to learn, it’s time to head over to the Los Altos History Museum. Located in a former apricot orchard, this community museum has a diverse array of impressive, hands-on displays that include interactive video and audio elements. Visitors should be sure to check out all of the subtle details of the miniature model of early Los Altos—complete with working train—to examine the ancient pottery of the area’s first inhabitants, the Ohlone, and to spin the prize wheel that movie theater patrons spun during intermissions for the chance to win free plots of land.
By this time most people’s stomach will be starting to rumble, so it is the perfect time to take a short drive over to San Antonio Road to enjoy some of the best Chinese food in the country at Chef Chu’s. Diners have to call and give advance notice if they want to try the signature Beijing Duck, but it’s worth the effort. It’s crispy, juicy, and full of flavor. If duck doesn’t sound appealing, the whole steamed Chilean Sea Bass is sure to please with its flaky white meat and spicy-sweet black bean sauce. On the way out, guests should make time to check out the gallery wall to see pictures of Chef Chu’s celebrity patrons, including Bill Clinton, Justin Bieber, and Jaden Smith.
Hopefully visitors have saved some room for dessert, because once they’re back downtown, they’ll want to head over to Tin Pot Creamery to sample some of the creamiest and richest ice cream in the area. This small-batch ice cream parlor uses local, organic ingredients to concoct all kinds of delicious flavors. With a full belly, it’s time to swing by the Los Altos Stage Company, an intimate 99-seat theater that hosts a variety of productions by enthusiastic and passionate local performers. Whether it’s a classic people think they’ve seen done to death or something modern they’re unfamiliar with, audiences are in for a surprising live performance that will captivate and enthrall. If it’s a Friday night, another great option is to stargaze at the Foothill College Observatory during their public viewing hours.
To end the evening, visitors can head over to Honcho for a night cap. This cozy, mellow watering hole displays a sign that both patrons and staff take very seriously: “Good Vibes Only.” Los Altos may have given birth to one of the biggest companies in tech, but it’s a community that prefers being the quiet corner of the Valley. So visitors are invited to sip their drinks slowly, strike up conversations with the people next to them, and for heaven’s sake, put their iPhone away.
Built on land purchased from Sarah Winchester, widow of the inventor of the Winchester rifle, the town of Los Altos was initially created by employees of the Southern Pacific Railroad to serve as a midway stop between Palo Alto and Los Gatos. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple computers in a Los Altos garage, cementing its place in Silicon Valley history. Today, Los Altos is home to some of the most valuable real estate in the entire country.
This article originally appeared in Issue 10.0 “Seek”
John Beaver has three passions: animals, music, and life itself. As a zookeeper at Happy Hollow Park & Zoo, Beaver educates the community about endangered species, leads schoolchildren on tours of the monkey and capybara exhibits, and cares for the animals as if they were his own family. He also moonlights as an electronic dance music DJ at parties and clubs in the Bay Area and, more recently, at national and international venues. A cancer survivor as well, Beaver hopes his positive outlook and perseverance through life’s challenges can serve as an inspiration for others.
“Probably from age 10, I knew I wanted to be a zookeeper. I wanted to study animals all over the world. I started volunteering, taking classes, and got my foot in the door. One weekend, someone took me to a rave, and it was thousands of people dancing—and not just dancing: they were celebrating life. They were happy. It really touched me. I said to myself, ‘This is something I want to do.’ I want to see the crowd having the time of their lives. I want them to think, ‘This is the night that I’ve been looking for.’ I’m going on 16 years as a DJ and a zookeeper. When I had to go through chemotherapy, it was the worst time of my entire life. But I never felt like I was alone. The moral of the story is to be strong through the darkest hour. My goal in life is to teach this to other people. Even beyond playing music, that is how I can touch people’s lives.”
There’s nothing superficial about Lorenz Mazon Dumuk. He’s a poet. His love of poetry led him to California State University, East Bay’s Creative Writing Program and to the epicenter of San Jose’s vibrant spoken word scene. A member of Poetry Center San Jose and the San Jose Poetry Slam, Dumuk stays up late writing the poetry that he recites at performances and slams at competitions. Poems come to him unbidden: they pour out of his pen onto the page. He writes about the complicated love that he feels for his family and for his Filipino culture. He writes about the pain that he feels recovering from his traumatic past and reclaiming himself from a one-size-should-fit-all society. He writes fearlessly about the transformative power that he finds facing his inner demons.
“I write about trauma and the curiosity and childlike wonder that’s survived. Frida Kahlo, Picasso, Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Rumi—there are all these wonderful artists and poets who felt loneliness and solitude. Their art says suffering has a name; pain has a picture. This is a conversation that we can continue because art in its purest sense is a wonderful conversation, and when we become participants, we continue their conversations. It’s an extended conversation. It’s community. I rely heavily on my community because I had to learn how to reach out for support to find my voice. What does writing look like when you don’t have to suffer through that isolation as much? It requires me to offer not only my success but also my struggles. But I’m only as good as my community: when you have community, you can love yourself.”
AAsha’s identity is well-traveled. Born in Los Angeles, Asha can trace her family history through England, Europe, Uganda, and India. Her last name comes from India’s caste system, where Sudra signifies the class of unskilled workers near the bottom of society, one step up from the class known as “untouchable.” Asha took this cruel label and found strength in it, and pride in the journey her name took before reaching California. Identity was not something she could seek in the classroom, however, where she was disheartened by the lack of presence her culture, her people, had in textbooks and the education system. “School never validated me,” Asha says. “My family’s story is crazy, but you never would have read it in a textbook.” She began to find her identity, instead, in writing and in hip-hop.
“Hip-hop gave me consciousness before I could understand it,” she says reflectively. She took her vocabulary, she says, from hip-hop, not books. Where she grew up in Los Angeles there were few like her, few who shared her culture, her ancestry. Hip-hop became her culture. Through the music she found inspiration and identity. A 10-year-old Asha screenprinted the cover for Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill on a t-shirt. Her own education had begun.
“Hip-hop gave me consciousness before I could understand it.”
That her inspiration comes from lyricists, not traditional poets, is clear in her delivery of spoken word, from the patterns of her rhyme to her mannerisms on stage. In the flow and cadence of Asha’s work are hints of the underground hip-hop scene of her childhood in Los Angeles and later years in the Bay Area. And those later years helped define the artist she would become.
Though Los Angeles provided a rich environment to explore when she was young, Los Angeles couldn’t offer Asha what she was looking for as she grew older. It didn’t nurture her finely tuned sensitivity, her fierce compassion. It was in the Bay Area, where she moved to in 2006, that she found a community she could identify with, a community that inspired her. “The artist community that I’ve found specifically here in San Jose and Oakland and San Francisco,” she says with spirit, “is the community I’ve been looking for my whole life, the friends I’ve been looking for my whole life.” Asha’s work sometimes features a subtle homage to this community and to the friends who inspired her to add to her other artistic pursuits the art of spoken word. “My friends are crazy-talented,” Asha laughs.
And just as her friends inspire her, Asha also inspires others in her role as educator. In her day job, Asha works as an eighth grade teacher in Campbell, and she uses her poetry to relate to students and to help them find their own identities. “I’m an educator,” she says, “because my story wasn’t validated.” Her objective with her students is to explore their identities and then to affirm those identities. Asha utilizes a “windows and mirrors” approach. “Whatever we’re doing, you see yourself as in a mirror, or it’s a window into someone else’s perspective to which you haven’t been exposed yet,” she explains. Her dream is to open a K–12 school that is safe and inclusive, that embraces diversity, that nurtures the identities of its students. “I believe in the kids,” Asha says simply.
In her life, in her work, identity has been key. Discovering that identity, constructing that identity, has been a lifelong journey—and her passion. This passion is embedded in her art; it’s the driving force behind her life goals. This passion has taken her on tours abroad, to the forefront of the historic Women’s March in San Jose, to the classrooms of the South Bay. This passion is the reason Asha plans to create an interactive, multimedia exhibit that details her family’s story. Asha Sudra’s search for identity hasn’t ended. Her work as artist, educator, revolutionary continues.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.4 “Perform”
Formed on a whim back in 2009, The Mark Arroyo Trio has come a long way, shifting from an ensemble that crafted interpretations of jazz standards and pop tunes, to a group whose approach is essentially limitless.
Arroyo, the group’s guitarist, recalls the genesis of the Trio: Hotel De Anza’s Hedley Club needed a band for a gig, and he answered the call and, because he couldn’t think of anything more creative at the time of their first show, the group still bears his name.
“The Mark Arroyo Trio is not me at the front with these two as anchors. It’s always the three of us,” he points out over a Filipino breakfast at Coffee Adventure, flanked by bassist Fred Paclibon and drummer Kristian Buenconsejo.
In 2012 the group began to explore their sound, performing extended re-interpretations of hip, melodically rich tunes like James Blake’s “The Wilhelm Scream” or Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games.” Now their shows involve the three diving into the great creative unknown: completely improvising every number they play. The approach isn’t without precedent—jazz pianist Keith Jarrett has made a career of touring concert halls to improvise an entire evening of music—but it is unique to the San Jose scene.
“That’s one of the things I’ve wanted to get more into, just playing,” Arroyo says. “I don’t know if I consciously made a decision to turn the band into that, but it is a very personal experience for each of us.”
“It’s a very vulnerable experience,” adds Buenconsejo. “Every time we play, I feel like I open up in a way. It’s therapeutic.”
Buenconsejo, the group’s newest and youngest member, sits behind a kit previously occupied by Sutton Marley and Chris Leidhecker. At just 21, he met Arroyo while a student at the South Bay School of Music Arts.
“Every time we have a gig or we practice, it’s always a treat because I get to play with, in my perspective, the elders,” he explains. “The fact that I’m here is a big deal, and the fact that I’m playing with them is an even bigger deal to me.”
For a quick taste of the Trio, try “Juliana,” written by Arroyo as a tribute to his family after the passing of a close relative. Starting with washes from Arroyo’s overdriven guitar, it’s clear the group is establishing a moodier foundation than your typical jazz trio. After playing through a tender, lyrical chorus, Arroyo’s guitar steps back to welcome Paclibon’s bass solo, a searching series of note clusters. A quick cymbal flourish marks the passing of the torch, and Arroyo’s Jazzmaster—a signature of the group’s sound—steps into the limelight. Delicate picking builds to feverish strumming and leads to a bittersweet finale.
Collaborating musicians aren’t able to build such evocative moments without incredible trust and a working understanding of one another’s musical vocabulary. Over the years, Arroyo and Paclibon have become fluent in the other’s style and are now able to react, and almost anticipate, each other’s musical choices.
All three musicians agree that the thing they struggle with most is finding a proper way to categorize their sound. The idea of improvised shows would most closely align with the jazz tradition, but the effects and tones the band utilize often fall more in line with what one would expect from indie or alternative rock. Their live explorations can even touch upon elements of dub and reggae.
“It’s almost soundscaping, in a way,” Arroyo offers.
But that lack of traditional genre has become the point of the group: in a musical world obsessed with labels, these three come together with no discernable guideposts, choosing instead to pull from their collective experience to channel a compelling and spontaneous conflict and resolution. The result is not always flawless, but Arroyo relishes that imperfect side of the live experience.
“A lot of that is because we’re not using sheet music most of the time,” he adds. “We’re not coming from a shared road map. In a way, we’re stacking our own maps on top of each other, trying to find a road to the same place, or trying to create a new road. But that makes it fun.”
Fans can expect The Mark Arroyo Trio’s new full-length project, Two Sides to a Promise, in May, and in 2018 the group is planning a limited vinyl release that captures their live chemistry, something akin to last year’s EP, Shoegazing on Sunday.
Demone Carter is an emcee with an encyclopedic understanding of hip-hop’s history and cultural influence. His lyrics are punchy, candid bits of verse that often abandon figurative language in favor of something more instructive and direct. Learning this craft began for him as a middle schooler. He took apart a pair of headphones and fed the wire through his sleeve so he could palm the tiny speaker, press it to his ear, and listen to Public Enemy and KRS-One in the classroom—and not be discovered. The lesson he took from that music is very much alive in his work today. He examines the American dream and includes the baggage that comes with it. His upcoming album, Woke Enough to Dream, explores the injustice that pervades American history. For Carter, this subject matter necessitates a style of rap that goes beyond its roots as party music.
“There’s definitely rap for rap’s sake, where it’s really just about putting colorful words together. I love to listen to that type of rap, but I’ve never been good at it. I’m most effective when I’m figuring out how to convey a concept and make it rhyme. Conscious rap approaches rap as lecture—and the end result is like a mousetrap. You know the mechanics of the trap, how all the pieces work together, and if everything works out, it snaps at the right time. It’s this clarity of thought through the rhyming.”
Ren Geisick isn’t a typical jazz singer. Equally influenced by Bob Dylan and Nina Simone, her music flows seamlessly, from the soulful delivery of a jazz ballad to the carefree lilt of an American folk song. Growing up with country and jazz icons playing through the stereo in her San Jose home, Geisick was surrounded by emotionally rich vocal music from an early age. She sang in her church and took voice lessons, internalizing the whimsical inflections that characterized the country music she grew up on.
It wasn’t until her time at Cal State Long Beach that Geisick began studying jazz singing in earnest. While her technique and knowledge of the music improved, she felt the natural inflections of her voice being “sucked out” in her efforts to blend with a jazz choir. Fortunately, the director of vocal jazz, Christine Guter, recognized Geisick’s potential as a soloist and gave her the lead parts in the music. In her early days of assimilating into the jazz program, Geisick always felt she had “something to prove,” but gradually over the course of her time at CSULB, her confidence built through performances and recitals. After graduating, Geisick lingered in Long Beach for another ten months, singing in a local a cappella group and a Motown band in addition to straight-ahead jazz gigs. Geisick eventually landed a six-month cruise ship gig, where she performed every night, gaining the necessary confidence to carry herself as a professional artist and embrace an even more diverse range of musical styles.
Returning to her San Jose roots, Ren started attending weekly jam sessions and performing at local venues like Cafe Stritch and Blackbird Tavern. Geisick remembers being forced out of her comfort zone and asking people “who were way better” to perform with her. In the company of South Bay masters like drummer Jason Lewis and bassist John Shifflett (who passed away in May), Geisick further deepened her understanding of the jazz idiom and session etiquette. Forging a lasting partnership with Shifflett, Geisick treasured the bassist’s humble sense of humor and judicious musical simplicity as she learned the skills to lead a band. The two played several gigs together throughout San Jose in a variety of formats, from voice and bass duo to a full jazz quartet with Lewis and pianist Brian Ho. With this quartet, Geisick performed a Nina Simone tribute concert at Blackbird Tavern in 2014, shortly before the club closed its doors later that year. Geisick’s other projects in San Jose include the versatile Americana trio Dolce Musica and the funk and soul band The Renegades. The diversity of styles keeps the music fresh for Geisick. “It’s actually allowed me to explore all these genres and find the songs I really love,” she reflects.
In recent years, Geisick has started to collaborate with local pianist John Dryden to record and perform the music that originally captured her heart as a child. After playing with Dryden at the Hedley Club, Geisick realized he shared her passion for country and folk music. In 2015, Geisick booked a few hours in a studio with Dryden, and they recorded four of their favorite country songs together, arranged with jazz sensibilities. The sparse instrumentation and intimate connection to the lyrics prompted a breakthrough for Geisick. “I was able to just sing in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to before,” she remembers, “and that’s what I feel is most true to who I am, singing these songs in a really intimate way.” Their creative partnership continued as Dryden introduced Geisick to producer Jesse Harris, who is producing Geisick’s upcoming album. Recorded in LA, the album will take a decisive direction towards Americana and country music, although, like all of her projects, there will inevitably be a distinct jazz influence. “I don’t feel like I need to be one thing,” says Geisick of her multifaceted nature, “and I’m hoping other people will come to accept that.”
Between performing with multiple bands and recording her album, Geisick finds time to pass on the tradition to the next generation. As of fall 2016, Geisick teaches jazz voice at San Jose State University, where she reminds her students to recognize the human element of performance. “You have to make it feel like it’s a conversation with another person,” she tells them. Geisick’s conversational approach to music has helped her to deliver a sincere, connected performance, regardless of genre. “I want people to expect a heartfelt delivery, not only jazz,” she explains. As she continues to grow and evolve, Geisick will continue to produce music in intimate conversation with whoever is listening.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.4 “Perform”
For anyone itching to get away from all the hustle and bustle of city life and wanting to spend a day in a quiet community filled with great food and family-friendly activities, Pleasanton is the place to go. Formerly a cowboy town, Pleasanton has one of the most picturesque little downtown areas in the Bay Area.
Start the day at Inklings Coffee & Tea, right in the middle of Main Street, a unique place with tons of character, a welcoming atmosphere, and plenty of cozy nooks to curl up in with a good book—or to sit in and chat. Modeled after the pub where C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and their buddies used to meet to critique each other’s writing, Inklings is a quirky, comfy space to sit in and sip awhile. For something more hearty than specialty coffee and a homemade pastry, people can walk a few blocks down to Cafe Main, a homey spot that serves gourmet comfort food, smoothies, and adult beverages all day long.
After breakfast, visitors are often in the mood to stretch their legs. For anyone who happens to be visiting on a Saturday morning, heading across the street to browse the charming Farmers’ Market held there year-round is an option. If a trade show or festival is being hosted at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, hopping on over there might be another great option. For families who have little ones with them, perhaps exploring one of the many parks sprinkled throughout the city is the way to go. Nearby Bernal Community Park has fun play structures, a zip line, several sports fields, picnic benches, and walking trails for folks of all ages to enjoy. For a more intense athletic endeavor, people can bring some hiking shoes or a trail bike along and hit the trails over at the Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park. With staging grounds just a 10-minute drive from downtown, the ridge has over 5,200 acres of pastoral, oak-covered hills waiting to be explored.
Whatever the activity, visitors will definitely need something cool and yummy afterwards. By just heading back toward downtown, people can grab a couple of soft-serve ice cream cones at the convenient drive-through Meadowlark Dairy. It’s a place with history—family-owned since the 1960s, and one of the few drive-throughs left of its kind.
After a tasty treat, visitors might be interested in checking out a couple of the shops on Main Street. Looking for shoes or clothing? Try Therapy for a fun selection. Prefer to browse fine art, handcrafted jewelry, or glass and sculpture? In that case, Studio Seven Arts is just the thing. Also along Main Street is a locally owned bookstore, a boutique pet store, a western apparel shop, and an eclectic toy store.
Anyone in the mood for some high-quality live entertainment, won’t need to look any further than Pleasanton’s Firehouse Arts Center, a gorgeously designed cultural arts center that features a 221-seat theater, fine arts in the Harrington Art Gallery, and a classroom space. Located just a block away from Main Street in what used to be the city’s original fire station, the arts center showcases performances of all sorts throughout the year.
With all that hiking and shopping, or forays into the arts, it’s undoubtedly time for a meal. One great option is to stroll down to Gay Nineties Pizza, a nostalgic pizza joint with red-leather-lined booths, antique lamps, and historical memorabilia lining the walls. They’ve also got great patio seating for eating their delicious sourdough specialty pizza al fresco.
Prefer some local craft beer? Head down to Handles Gastropub at the opposite end of Main Street. Located inside the historic Pleasanton Hotel, Handles has 30 beers and 16 wines rotating on tap and prides itself on serving high-quality, farm-fresh American cuisine. The “OMG Meatloaf” is one local favorite. The meal can be enjoyed on the delightful tree-covered patio, or diners can relax inside the classy, pub-like dining room. As an added bonus, Handles hosts live music regularly, all year long.
After a day spent exploring just a bit of what Pleasanton has to offer, it will be easy to see why so many young families choose to put down roots here. A restful, slow-paced town just a stone’s throw from the thrills that the rest of the Bay Area offers, Pleasanton is an absolute gem.
Just 25 miles north of San Jose, Pleasanton is a quiet little city nestled between some hike-friendly foothills to the west and winery-rich countryside to the east. Originally an outpost where desperados took refuge after plundering those heading home from gold rush hills, Pleasanton is now a lovely, affluent community where folks from all over come to settle down.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.4 “Perform”
“We have our own cool vibe happening here.”
Heather Lerner believes in finding the careful equilibrium between leading and following, and also in having fun. Since 2009, she has been executive director of Happy Hollow Foundation, the fundraising branch of Happy Hollow Park and Zoo, which has been delighting San Jose residents with its wild mix of animals and attractions since 1961. But Happy Hollow is only one part of her life. A lifelong resident of San Jose, Lerner has been active in the community for over 20 years and is dedicated to making her city shine. Besides her work at Happy Hollow, Lerner serves on the boards of the Rotary Club of San Jose and City Lights Theater Company, as well as on the SVCreates’ Local Arts Grant panel.
“I love seeing how the younger generation is coming out for things. There is this group of kids, those raised in San Jose, that are fiercely territorial about their hometown. They want to define it, and they are defining it. They aren’t going to let it be the biggest town with the lowest self-esteem anymore. And it’s not that we are the heart of Silicon Valley like everyone says—I don’t agree with that. We have our own cool vibe happening here. The kids of this town are now the adults owning San Jose’s identity, and I couldn’t be more proud of that.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 8.4 “Profiles”
For anyone who hasn’t yet been introduced to Capitola, it’s time to get acquainted. Legend has it the name of this coastal town came from the tomboyish heroine of an 1800s adventure series by popular novelist of her day E.D.E.N. Southworth. Each place has its own personality, and the only adequate way of describing Capitola is “whimsical”—as in straight from the colorful and idealistic illustrations of a picture book.
Begin a trip to Capitola with a visit to Gayle’s Bakery & Rosticceria, destination of 1,500 customers daily. Upon walking in, visitors should take time to appreciate the mismatched china plates lining the walls before moving on to the main attraction: glass cases brimming with baked goods. Whether looking for an American classic like apple pie or French sweets like chocolate soufflé or crème brûlée, Gayle’s has everyone covered.
Afterwards, visitors can stretch their legs along the footpath simply known as the Duck Walk. It begins at the intersection of Riverview and Blue Gum Avenues, weaves between summer houses and Soquel Creek, and passes beneath an old wooden train trestle, its surface changing from sand to brick to cobblestone with quilt-like versatility.
Emerge from the other side into the heart of Capitola Village. Nearby, discover Mr. Toots, a cafe that excels in coffee and community. Lucky visitors might find an older gentleman tickling the keys of the Yamaha piano or a father teaching his daughter chess at the counter, taking advantage of the set stocked there along with other games. Lofted on the second floor, the cafe also provides a view of Soquel Cove and the wharf.
After catching sight of the shoreline, visitors will want to experience it firsthand. Its distinctive feature is a row of beachfront cottages painted to emulate the ones of Cinque Terre in Italy, with vivid hues of saffron, coral, and aquamarine. If a stroll is too slow-paced, rent surfboards, paddleboards, or bodyboards at Capitola Beach Company. Need to brush up on using them? Not to worry. The rental shop offers lessons, too.
After a morning of recreation, it’s time for lunch. Esplanade Park is the epitome of picnicking spots. A contradiction to its name, it’s really just a small lawn, but it provides an elevated roost right beside the coast where people can enjoy a sandwich with a view of the bluffs above and the waves below.
For visitors who would rather lunch inside, but don’t want to forfeit the seascape, Sotola Bar & Grill is an excellent option. The clean white walls and driftwood decor make this place as cool and airy as the ocean breeze pouring through their open windows.
Revitalized by a meal, visitors might choose to surf Capitola’s boutiques next. Find summer staples like swimsuits, sunglasses, and flip-flops along with year-round retail like clothing, jewelry, and art. If that last item is particularly intriguing, visiting Gallery 1 should be a top priority. Here, they create art out of license plates: individual letters have been arranged in word collages on reclaimed wooden plaques, and an entire guitar has been created of whole plates.
Interested in learning while on this excursion? Check out the Capitola Historical Museum. Outside the main museum, visitors can also find a fully furnished cottage showcasing how vacationers spent the holidays here in 1912.
For dinner, try East End Gastropub, a stylish brewery, or Bella Roma Caffe, an Italian restaurant reminiscent of Ancient Rome. But the crowning glory is Shadowbrook—a 1920s summer-home-turned-restaurant with seven dining rooms, including a converted wine cellar and a greenhouse. The natural beauty of the surrounding garden creeps inside the building itself: vines, along with strings of white lights, spiral around wooden ceiling beams, and a Cyprus tree shoots through the floor and exits out the ceiling like a natural pillar. There’s no question that this restaurant has earned its place in the Top 100 Most Romantic Restaurants in America.
Capitola’s manifest personality makes it hard not to humanize her. And once people have become acquainted, they’ll be drawn back repeatedly until it feels as though they’re visiting an old friend.
Capitola is the oldest seaside resort on the Pacific Coast. Its annual events include the Wharf to Wharf Race, the Art and Wine Festival, and a sand castle competition. Its most well-known celebration is the Begonia Festival, in which flower floats cruise down Soquel Creek to the lagoon.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.2 “Sight and Sound”
“We’re a people’s club. We want everyone to come out and enjoy the sport.” —Francesca Finato
It’s Friday morning at Gilroy’s South Bay Polo Club. The horses have just finished running laps around a dirt track that surrounds the lush green playing field. The sandy ground is still damp from the previous night’s rain. A peaceful silence hangs in the air for the moment, but come Saturday, the field will erupt with a roar of hooves and the joyful banter of spectators as the afternoon breeze spreads the smoky aroma of barbeque throughout the ranch.
Founded in 2012 by Tim Westin, Francesca Finato, and Santos Arriola, the South Bay Polo Club started as a humble four-member club guided by Westin’s vision to bring back affordable polo to the South Bay. Filling in the void left by the closure of Silicon Valley Polo, Westin sought to open a new club at the same site: a horse ranch nestled in the heart of garlic country. Westin hired Finato to run and manage the club, and chose polo veteran Arriola to be the club pro. For a year, the small team worked to restore the overgrown and neglected polo field that had been decommissioned six years earlier. After extensive mowing, seeding, and mulching, the field was back in playing condition. The club hosted its inaugural opening tournament in June 2012 and has continued to be thedestination for polo enthusiasts from all over the Bay Area. Every year, South Bay Polo hosts a series of interclub tournaments, such as the annual Garlic Cup, that bring players from other clubs throughout California together for a weekend of polo and the club’s signature postgame barbeque.
Three years after the club’s founding, Finato and Arriola took over at full capacity after Westin moved to Southern California. “It was either we leave or keep it going,” Finato recalls, “and it turned into a fun thing we could survive on, and we never looked back.” The responsibility of running the club, teaching lessons, and scheduling tournaments fell to the two of them. In addition to her position as manager, Finato became the club’s owner as well. “You learn as you go along,” Finato laughs, reflecting on her experience of owning and managing the club, a task she continues to perform with dedication and enthusiasm.
Polo has been a part of Finato’s life since high school. At seventeen years old, she began grooming horses at the Menlo Polo Club as a summer job after Tracy Conner, a member of the club, overheard her talking about her love of horses at the deli where she worked. She took her passion to the field during her time at Cal Poly, where she played three years on the women’s intercollegiate polo team. After college, Finato worked in construction management, but her love for the game left her longing for greener pastures. “All day, all I could think about was riding and playing polo,” she recalls. Fortunately, she found a way back to the field. Local polo pro Erik Wright offered Finato a job at Wrightway Polo, where she learned how to manage a club, exercise horses, and teach a new generation of polo players. The experience of working alongside Wright proved invaluable. “I wouldn’t have been able to start [South Bay Polo] without the knowledge I gained from working with him,” she says.
The true muscle behind any polo club lies in the horses. South Bay Polo houses over fifty horses, all retired racehorses. When their racing careers come to an end, Finato says, “they still have plenty of life in them.” The club reaches out to local racing barns and tracks in the area to recruit potential polo ponies, a term used to describe the small horses used in polo matches. “We want agile, cat-like horses,” explains Finato. For that reason, the horses at South Bay Polo are all under 16 hands, or five foot four inches. Once they’re off the racetrack, it takes anywhere from a year to two years for them to start playing tournament polo. “Green,” or inexperienced, polo ponies still possess the athleticism and raw power of their racing days, but they must learn to rewire some basic instincts in order to compete in polo. They need to abandon the pack mentality of running when all the other horses run, so that the rider can make a controlled pass to another player. Finato calls this “accepting the traffic,” a skill she helps green horses practice by using them for umpiring matches. Most horses at South Bay Polo are now experienced polo ponies, having undergone training in the club’s early years. Though they have been seasoned by years of on-the-field experience, they still must be walked and exercised twice a day to stay in prime playing condition.
With each horse comes a unique set of abilities and challenges. Finato encourages those who are serious about the game to own their own horse, so they can become familiar with their horse’s specific skills and characteristics. After spending enough time riding his or her horse, a rider can quickly determine if the horse is favoring a certain leg or not feeling well. The inverse is also true: the horse can internalize the subtlety of its rider’s saddle movements after enough time with that rider. “When the horse and the player know each other, they know what to expect,” says Finato. “It creates this amazing relationship.” Despite the benefits of horse ownership, the club recognizes that not everyone can afford to buy their own horse, so they have a rental program available. The club also offers lessons for beginners, taught by Finato and Arriola. Depending on the student’s comfort level on horseback, he or she can start playing the same day in a beginners’ match, usually held in the club’s covered arena, which is smaller and less daunting than the full-scale field.
Because of the limited player base and relative lack of mainstream coverage, polo is often misunderstood. “Most people haven’t ever seen a polo match,” says South Bay Polo Club member Peter O’Malley, “but it’s a contact sport.” Watching a chukkar, a seven-and-a-half-minute match, this becomes evident. Once the ball is in motion, the thunderous roar of hooves accompanies a frenzied race to the opposing team’s goal. Clouds of dust trail behind a sea of fluidly swinging mallets as the opposing team struggles for possession. Best described as “hockey on horseback,” the game is intensely physical and demands focus and precision, from both rider and horse.
Bringing riders from as far as San Francisco every week, South Bay Polo continues to attract seasoned players and onlookers alike. The club boasts one of the best playing fields in the Bay Area. Every spring, the club applies roughly 250 tons of sand and mulch to the field to keep it soft for the horses and the ball, which rolls best on soft terrain. But it’s more than the field that keeps members and first-timers coming back. “More than anything, I think it’s the social atmosphere here,” Finato observes. “We don’t just play the game, get in our cars, and leave.” Every Saturday, after the morning match, the club hosts a potluck barbeque on the field. As riders and viewers sit with a plate of food and a cold beverage, they relive the excitement of the game together. In addition to the Saturday barbeques, the club also has a tradition of going out for dinner or drinks after their Thursday night matches. The social aspect of the club is essential for Finato. “We’re a people’s club,” she says. “We want everyone to come out and enjoy the sport.”
In the tech-laden environment of the Silicon Valley, where most people are hunched over computers for hours a day, South Bay Polo offers an escape into a different world. “People come here and they can let their minds leave work and let it all go out on the field,” notes Finato, who has seen people speed down to the club from their day job to decompress with a chukkar. For those who don’t want to make the drive down to Gilroy, the club plays every Tuesday in the arena of the Horse Park at Woodside, closer to many riders’ Silicon Valley workplaces. As someone who works in e-commerce, O’Malley recognizes the power of a polo match to clear his head after a deskbound day. “When you’re out there playing, everything else that was on your mind is gone,” he reflects. Racing through the green field on horseback with a panoramic view of the Santa Cruz Mountains and Diablo Range, riders can forget their workplace stress and reenergize themselves with fresh air and a rush of adrenaline. South Bay Polo seeks to extend this experience to everyone. “Our doors are open to everybody all the time,” says Finato. “We’d love it if people came out and swung a leg over a horse for themselves.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.4 “Perform”
Visiting New York City can be tricky. A short trip only allows for a taste of the city, and the quest to make every moment count can add a strong dose of pressure. There is a multitude of things to see, do, and eat in the Big Apple.
Every visitor might as well start at the ultimate tried-and-true place to visit: Katz Delicatessen. This deli has been in the same spot since 1888 and still attracts locals and tourists alike to the Lower East Side. The long line is worth the wait. Once inside, skip the counter and head straight to a table (as Harry and Sally did). The must-try is a simple, juicy pastrami sandwich that’s big enough to feed two, especially with any sides.
Heading back uptown to check out a museum? Don’t just walk past Central Park. Make it a destination. Designed by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, the park’s 843 acres are home to a diversity of landscapes. There is a zoo, a castle, an old fort, a lake, an observatory, a carousel, an obelisk, and a public swimming pool. Sports fans can enjoy multiple baseball fields, two skating rinks, and tennis courts. Check out the park’s website for a calendar of events before visiting.
For those still wandering through Central Park on an early Friday or Saturday evening, go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Head straight to the roof, where the museum hosts an outdoor martini bar in the warmer months—a happy hour with a view that can’t easily be beat.
That’s enough of Manhattan for now; it’s time to hit the Brooklyn Bridge. This landmark is a sight in itself and offers a great chance to take in the skyline from across the East River. The wide pedestrian walkway above the car traffic makes it one of the nicest bridges to travel on foot.
Upon landing in Brooklyn, visitors will surely be ready for some food, and there’s no need to travel far. For those just looking for a treat, heading to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory is the way to go. There are only eight flavors here, keeping the focus on the small batch production and the cream. Take a cone and stroll around the Pier, or wander down Furman Street into Brooklyn Bridge Park.
For a full meal, there are two options to choose from for great pizza: Grimaldi’s and Juliana’s. Take advantage of their long-standing pizza feud, and pick the establishment with the shorter wait. For people who have eaten too much to walk back, the Water Taxi is ready to take them across the river.
If there is time to head out of town, take the Long Island Expressway to the end of the road. Travelers will find themselves on the North Fork of Long Island, a bucolic peninsula bordered by the bay to the south and the Long Island Sound to the north. The North Fork has worked to retain the East End’s farming heritage and offers a beautiful combination of old architecture, beaches, rolling farmland, and an abundance of farm stands and wineries. This old world, agrarian community made up of an interconnected series of small towns and hamlets will take visitors back in time.
To gear up for a day of wineries, start off with a stop at The Village Cheese Shop. Find all the fixings needed to pack a picnic or just snacks for the day. Be sure to try the Catapano goat cheese—a product made at a local dairy farm in Peconic.
While still on Love Lane, don’t miss the Roanoke Vineyards tasting room. The wine is produced by two men that some consider the best on the East End: owner and grower Richard Piscano and winemaker Roman Roth. Make sure to get a tasting of Gabby’s Cabernet Franc—this signature Long Island grape is exemplified in each vintage.
Farther afield, rent a bike in Greenport and head east on Main Road (Rte 25) to Orient Beach State Park for an idyllic ride. Take a detour into the small village of Orient, past Oysterponds Farm for berries for those lucky enough to visit in the summer, and onto the lighthouse. Once back in Greenport, end a day of adventure at The Frisky Oyster with a cocktail and a dozen Pipe’s Cove oysters.
This article originally appeared in Issue 5.1 “Sight & Sound”
It’s ten o’clock in the morning in Napa Valley, and the first stop planned is a winery for a wine tasting. Yes, that’s correct. 10am. Wine. Tasting.
Welcome to Napa wine country, one of the premier wine-growing regions in the world. An early start is recommended for anyone who wants to get a full day in: a day of beautiful scenery, a touch of history, a lot of wine swirling, some tasting, and even a bit of wine dumping (drinking it all isn’t necessary; pouring some out is encouraged).
That said, anyone visiting Napa Valley for only a day is likely to find that touring three wineries is the max. And while some welcome walk-ins, tastings by reservation will give the best experience.
But before that, visitors should have breakfast and something in their tummies before they start to imbibe—taste, that is. Gillwoods Cafe in the heart of St. Helena is a good starting point. Visitors should get there before 8:30am to avoid the lines and enjoy traditional breakfast selections. Instead of country potatoes, diners can ask for their roasted tomatoes as a side. Anyone starting on the northern end of the valley should try Cafe Sarafornia in Calistoga for breakfast instead.
However the day begins, the first winery visit should be Silver Oak Cellars in Oakville. This is one of the best tours in Napa Valley. The tour guides are entertaining and knowledgeable—and they often take a bottle or two along and keep refilling glasses. Visitors should plan ahead and reserve a tour, which starts at $40 a person.
Now it’s time for lunch. Visitors would do well to keep in mind that (even though the weekend traffic on Highway 9 screams a different scenario) Napa County’s Winery Definition Ordinance aims to keep this area an agricultural region, not touristy. This means most wineries do not allow picnics on their grounds. An exception is V. Sattui Winery. This is one of the few wineries in Napa Valley that has an extensive deli/grocery/gift shop onsite. Few wineries have such commercial enterprises on their property, but places like V. Sattui (and Inglenook) have been around so long that they are grandfathered in.
Because of that, V. Sattui’s deli can get crowded. Visitors enjoying the day with a partner might want to split up once inside: one heading to the sandwich counter (the tri-tip sandwich is particularly tempting), while the other scours the store for wine and dessert. Another option is just to scoop up a loaf of bread, chunks of cheese, and a ready-to-go packet of plates, napkins, and environmentally friendly utensils. From there, visitors can simply find a bench outside to use while scarfing up their sustenance for the afternoon round of wine tastings.
For anyone who would rather have a more leisurely lunch, reservations at Rutherford Grill are available. From lighter fare (like the Caesar and rock shrimp salad) to more hearty selections (like barbecue pork ribs with coleslaw), as well as a variety of burgers, Rutherford will make sure diners are sated before their next round of winery visits.
The next stop, Inglenook, offers up a healthy dose of Napa Valley history, not to mention a celebrity name. Plus it is one of the most beautiful wineries in the valley. Dating back to 1879, this is one of Francis Ford Coppola’s wineries, and it’s rich in Napa Valley history. The $45-per-person tour starts with a glass of their refreshing white blend, Blancaneaux, in another rare Napa gift shop—the most elegant that can be found in the area. Next, the tour guide takes visitors into the vineyard, which overlooks Coppola’s home. The visit ends with a group sit-down tasting and a dash more history of the wines and families behind the winery.
Ending a packed day at the low-key and bucolic Frog’s Leap Winery is ideal. The main building, styled as a country farmhouse, has indoor, porch, and outdoor seats for their tastings. The setting overlooks their organic gardens. With its laid-back, relaxing vibe, this makes for a perfect final winery of the day.
On the way out, visitors can stop by Findings to pick up some wine-related souvenirs. Rabbit Rabbit Fair Trade [now located in Calistoga] is worth a visit, too, for their eclectic fair-trade home décor, children’s gifts, and stationery. For anyone not staying the night, grabbing a bite to eat before heading back down the road is recommended. Cook St. Helena serves simple Northern Italian fare in a small, cozy restaurant on St. Helena’s Main Street. The perfect way to close out a perfect day.
Napa County is the epicenter of Napa Valley, which loosely encompasses one of world’s most highly regarded wine-growing regions. Cities include Napa to the south and Calistoga to the north, as well as Oakville, Rutherford, St. Helena, Yountville, and American Canyon. St. Helena has a very charming Main Street, as does Calistoga with its Lincoln Avenue. The towns of Napa and American Canyon are much more commercial centers.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.3 “Future”
Looking to get out of town for a weekend? Seattle’s a great place to explore. With daily flights to SeaTac International Airport from SJC, experiencing the Emerald City is just a quick trip away. Make sure to pack a raincoat and wear some comfortable shoes. There’s a lot to see and do.
Although Seattle might be the birthplace of the first Starbucks Cafe, why not try something different? Caffe Vita roasts all their coffee by hand in small batches, so each cup will be as fresh as can be. Start the morning with a drink in one of their seven Seattle locations. Don’t forget to take a pound of coffee home as a souvenir. For those who like having something a little sweet with their coffee, they can head over to one of Top Pot Donuts’ establishments for a fresh donut made the old-fashioned way.
Most visitors to Seattle find themselves at Pike Place Market. Visitors here should come hungry and make their way down Post Alley for a meal at The Pink Door. This quirky Italian joint is a hidden gem, serving up delicious food and offering an inviting ambiance. Dinner guests are treated to cabaret performances throughout the evening.
Getting around Seattle by car is fairly easy, especially with a navigation system or smartphone. Even without a car, the city offers a public transit system with light rail, monorail, West Seattle Water Taxi, and a network of free downtown buses. The Link Light Rail will take you directly from SeaTac to downtown Seattle.
For anyone serious about pizza, how about a pizza class at Tom Douglas’ Serious Pie Downtown? “Students” are taught pizza-making techniques—the pizza dough recipe is a closely guarded secret, though. Everyone makes their own individual pizza to eat at the end of the two-hour class using the finest ingredients (and wine pairing is included).
While venturing out from the city center, make a day trip out of it, and head to Snoqualmie Falls for some hiking and fresh air (check their website to make sure trails are open). On the way to the falls, stop by a Metropolitan Market to find everything necessary for a perfect picnic. Metropolitan has a wide selection of gourmet and artisanal food items, many of which are locally sourced.
Don’t want to go on a hike? How about kayaking Lake Union instead? Rent some kayaks from Agua Verde Paddle Club and explore Seattle from the water. Paddling through the Ballard Locks, kayakers might catch a glimpse of some sea lions. Visitors can also kayak through the water trails teeming with wildlife near the Seattle Arboretum. Go exploring alone or join a tour. Afterwards, replenish energy while taking in a view of Lake Union with some Mexican food at Agua Verde’s cafe.
For a fun night out on the town, head to Capitol Hill. Known for being the heart of Seattle’s gay and counterculture scene, Capitol Hill is perfect for people watching and bar hopping. Start off the evening with dinner and drinks at Quinn’s Pub, a place with a great selection of bourbon and beer. Wander around Capitol Hill, or stay here all night. Before heading back to a hotel, stop by Dick’s Drive-In Restaurant for a late night burger. A Seattle institution that’s been around since 1954, Dick’s is open until 2am every night.
After a weekend jaunt in Seattle, come back to Mineta San Jose International Airport. Sometimes the best part of traveling is coming back home.
This article originally appeared in Issue 4.5 “Ritual”
On the eastern edge of the Bay Area, about 20 miles north of San Jose, sits Livermore, an art-loving, cowboy-turned-wine-country town with a Mediterranean climate, rolling hills, and lush vineyards throughout. With an eclectic array of restaurants and small businesses, a thriving arts community, and a picturesque downtown, Livermore is an ideal place to spend the day.
To start the day out right in this gorgeous neck of the woods, visitors will no doubt want to begin at Espresso Rosetta, a locally owned artisanal coffee company. Every porcelain cup these knowledgeable baristas hand customers are filled with the freshest, most naturally rich espresso possible. For non-coffee drinkers, the cozy loose leaf tea service will be just what they’re looking for.
With Livermore’s typically warm days and cool nights, almost every day is a great day for a jaunt in the great outdoors. FOr anyone up for some boating, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, or hiking after morning coffee, Lake Del Valle, just a few miles south, would make for the perfect destination. Adventurers can enjoy the water with the activity of their choice or wander among the ancient oak-covered hills.
A day in the backcountry isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, so some visitors may prefer to rejuvenate themselves with a spa treatment, instead. Relax Ave Day Spa offers everything from a 15-minute chair massage to a luxurious 90-minute Ashiatsu DeepFeet Bar Therapy treatment. Guests should be sure to call ahead to make a reservation.
After either a blood-pumping excursion in the hills or a restorative massage, visitors will certainly be ready to explore the town a bit. Downtown Livermore has a surplus of unique, locally owned and managed shops, boutiques, and services to offer. One local favorite is Van’s Health Foods, a 45-year-old family-owned store that offers products to help everyone live a healthy lifestyle. Another option is to browse Baughman’s Western Outfitters and get in touch with Livermore’s ranching roots.
Now, onto considering meal choices. As far as downtown is concerned, one restaurant that’s always packed to the brim with people enjoying a good meal is the First Street Alehouse. With its easygoing ambiance, 28 rotating beers on tap, and the largest publicly displayed beer can collection in the country, the Alehouse is a great spot to grab a burger and sit a spell.
For something a little more wine country-specific, visitors can pack a picnic lunch and head over to Retzlaff Vineyards and Estate Winery. Whether inside the tasting room with a bottle of award-winning wine or outside on the shaded picnic area listening to live music on a Sunday afternoon, guests can’t help but enjoy themselves when surrounded by such breathtaking grounds. To top off an evening in Livermore, there are several great choices. Visitors in an artsy mood may want to grab a friend or two and create their own masterpieces over at Pinot’s Palette. Here, it is possible to enjoy both the arts and the wine culture of Livermore at the same time. With fun, friendly instructors, guided or self-guided art projects, and access to delicious local wine and craft beer, this art studio is a great place to come paint and sip with a friend or two.
Visitors up for a live performance might want to see what’s on at the Bankhead Theater. With live music, theater, dance, lectures, and other special events, they’ve a full schedule Thursday through Sunday nights. Other visitors might prefer to settle in at Wente Vineyards. As the oldest continuously operated, family-owned winery in America, Wente is home to a spectacular outdoor amphitheater, golf course, tasting room, and an elegant restaurant. So whether people want to grab a meal, enjoy a summer concert, musical, or theater show, or participate in a cooking or winemaking workshop, Wente has what they’re looking for.
With all the beauty and enjoyable activities Livermore has to offer, chances are good visitors will be back soon for another adventure.
Throughout the mid-1800s, when gold seekers traveled through the Livermore Valley towards the famed Mother Lode area in the Sierras, the abundant longhorn cattle grazing on Livermore’s rolling hills became the perfect resource for local ranchers to feed all the hungry passersby. After Gold Fever subsided, Livermore’s early inhabitants turned their attention to capitalizing on the climate and topography of the area—and a rich winemaking culture was born.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.5 “Profiles”
You always have plenty to see and do in Silicon Valley. But sometimes you just need to get out of town and off the grid. A drive to Monterey Bay can be just the fix. With views of the Pacific Ocean and untouched coastal landscapes along the Coast Highway, even the journey to Ocean Avenue—Carmel-by-the-Sea’s main street—is part of the adventure. You get there from Silicon Valley by taking US-101 South to CA-156 West to CA-1 South, or take the more scenic CA-17 South to CA-1 South.
Begin your day in the Monterey Bay area at La Bicyclette, arguably one of the best restaurants in Carmel. Toward the back of the restaurant, you’ll find a wood-fired oven where the staff prepares a handful of the breakfast plates. If you want a little taste of everything, you can’t go wrong with the Sweet & Savory dish: French toast and eggs—and don’t forget to order it with a side of bacon.
After you’ve filled your belly, grab a cup of caffeine from the Carmel Coffee & Cocoa Bar. You can easily spend the day taking a leisurely stroll and shopping in Carmel. It may be a small town, but the streets are jam-packed with boutiques and art galleries. One place truly worth visiting is the Cottage of Sweets, a candy shop straight out of a fairy tale that appeals to kids and adults alike.
If you’d prefer to get more exercise, head south on Highway 1. Head toward Point Lobos State Natural Reserve, where you can take in the views and be as one with nature. The drive from Carmel through Point Lobos and continuing all the way to Big Sur is one of the most beautiful stretches of Highway 1.
Spend a couple hours exploring the park and its many hiking trails. When you’re done, it’s probably time for lunch, and you’ll want to make it a healthy meal. Drive back north on Highway 1 and into Pacific Grove, where you can replenish your body with a fresh cold-pressed juice at Central Coast Juicery. Then, grab a poke bowl at The Poke Lab a few blocks away in Monterey. These are great ways to replenish all those calories you worked off during your hike.
A trip to Monterey Bay is not complete without a visit to the world-renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium. You’ll see real-life sea otters in action. For a preview, check out the video the Aquarium has posted on its website of a day-old wild pup with its mother. After you’ve toured the exhibits there, check out the shops on Cannery Row, a historic area made famous by author John Steinbeck. Then make your way to dinner at the nearby Jeninni Kitchen + Wine Bar for tasty Spanish fare and excellent wine choices. Call ahead to find out if paella will be featured. Otherwise, the eggplant fries, prosciutto plate, shawarma, and bullfighter’s steak are always superb.
If you’d rather enjoy your dinner in Carmel, stop in at Grasing’s to start off with a cocktail in an intimate setting. Then head over to Il Tegamino for a great homestyle Italian meal—the Ragu Napoletano is highly recommended. The Monterey Peninsula is world-famous for its many golf courses. Whether you’re a golfer or you just want to see what all the fuss is about, visit The Bench, a restaurant and bar overlooking Pebble Beach Golf Links. Enjoy some drinks and small plates, and take in the scenery at the famous 18th hole.
If you’re planning on staying the night, try a room at the Carmel Valley Ranch, which features a luxurious spa. Other amenities at this resort that make it worth your while are onsite beekeeping, s’mores at night for guests, and more, depending on the season.
Monterey Bay is a tranquil, incredibly scenic coastal destination. It’s easy to get to, provides a break from the buzz of Silicon Valley, and offers great food and drink. Head there once, and you’ll soon be making plans for your next trip back.
“We try to keep it simple; we try to keep it identifiable; we try to keep it artisan. That’s why we call it San Jose soul food.”
Park Station Hashery, a new neighborhood eatery, blends history with community connection. It’s nestled on the corner of Park Avenue and Naglee in the heart of Rose Garden, arguably one of the most beautiful historical neighborhoods in California. Rivaling the likes of Hancock Park, Pasadena, and Pacific Heights, the neighborhood’s architecture mirrors the California of yesteryear. The restaurant gets its name from Park Avenue and the building’s history as a gas station.
Chef Luis Silva of Naglee Park Garage fame and business partner Long Nguyen wanted a building that fit in with the history of San Jose. Silva had “been looking for something to do in the way of food, drinks, and community.”
He believes he’s found it.
With a dearth of dining options in the mostly residential neighborhood, The Hashery has filled a void residents were craving: appropriately priced meals packaged with community, creativity, and ambiance.
Silva brings inventive cuisine through his distinct, approachable menu. With food from around the world—like okonomiyaki, fideo, piri-piri chicken, flammkuchen, a proper chorizo breakfast casserole, and a good, solid burger—he understands the wide range of San Josean tastes. But it’s not just about the taste. “We’re trying to do as close to home-cooked meals as we can,” Nguyen elaborates. “A lot of people measure a restaurant on taste and ambiance. I think what a lot of them are missing is that magic third part, which is how they feel after they leave. With all of our fresh and locally sourced food, most people will walk away after having a great meal and then later on, they’ll just feel how nice it is to have fresh ingredients in their body.”
The Hashery softly opened with a Fourth of July barbeque, inviting neighborhood folks to check out the space in progress. From there, excitement has spread, and the restaurant has quickly become a staple in the community. “This is the kind of community-mindedness we wanted to create,” Nguyen says. “We grew up in big families and in big neighborhoods. When you come new to a neighborhood, you have a barbeque and invite everyone, break bread with them, and get to know them.” The Fourth of July barbecue was just the first step. The two partners also plan on hosting family movie nights once a month.
Silva and Nguyen also build on the aesthetically striking neighborhood. The outdoor façade and patio mural painted by local artists Ben Henderson and Lacey Bryant pay homage to the rich cycling history of the area. In fact, San Jose was home to seven velodromes at one point in history. “What Ben did with the murals and the painting makes you want to come inside,” Nguyen says. “He made something that looks beautiful and that fits the neighborhood. The Rosicrucian Museum is kitty-corner and is really special, and he created something that fits to that aesthetic, as well as all of the great homes in the neighborhood.” The Hashery’s marketing even caters to bicycles: customers who show up on bikes for the Two-Wheel Tuesday special can buy one beer and get one free.
Silva sums up the concept of the Hashery: “We try to keep it simple; we try to keep it identifiable; we try to keep it artisan. That’s why we call it San Jose soul food.” He smiles. “We want to keep the neighborhood happy.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.1 “Find”
Ben Parr had everyone’s attention in November 2011. In just three years he had gone from a staff writer to editor-at-large of Mashable, one of the most influential blogs on the internet, where he wrote over 2,000 articles and interviewed everyone from Ashton Kutcher to Mark Zuckerberg. But the days of Ben writing headlines were coming to a close. It was time for him to start making them.
Leaving Mashable, Ben divided his time between entrepreneurial projects and a variety of roles, from advisor to investor, with some of the world’s most powerful companies. Forbes even named him one of their “30 Under 30” young innovators to watch. For the last several years, however, Ben’s been working on a new project that just might be his most impressive yet. Poring over scientific papers and interviewing some of the world’s brightest minds, Ben has been studying the science of capturing attention. His new book, Captivology, is an approachable dive into the psychological and cognitive triggers that make people sit up and take notice.
Where did the inspiration for Captivology come from? When I was a venture capitalist, early-stage startups would always come to me for help with the same problems—press, marketing, customer and user acquisition, and virality. I realized that all of these topics fell into the same bucket—attention—and I became fascinated with the idea of helping my companies by doing research in this area. This led me to Captivology. I’ve had many book offers over the years, but this was the first time I found a topic that deserved a deep dive. It was a topic that could help not just startups, but teachers, musicians, brands, nonprofits, and anybody who wanted to impact the world.
Has the way people pay attention to things changed over time? Are there generational issues to consider when it comes to capturing someone’s attention? Yes and no. Thousands of years ago, we were hunter-gatherers. And back then, our attention was caught, when scanning the horizon for new information, by any new sound or movement, like a rustle in the nearby bushes. This was a defense mechanism—is that rustle my next meal or is it a predator out to eat me?
Today, we don’t have the same problems, but we still have the same psychology and attention mechanisms. So our attention now goes towards sources of novel information, the most prominent of these being push notifications on our smartphones. That’s where the generational difference comes into play: same brains, different technologies that are more effective at draining our attention.
“You will always capture more attention and change more minds with a personal story people can relate to.” _Ben Parr
You mention three different stages of attention: intermediate, short-term, and long-term. Do you see brands or individuals focusing too much in only one area? Are there any brands that are particularly good at all three? Brands focus too much on attracting short-term attention and too little on building long-term attention, long-term loyalty. It’s easy enough to get people to look at your commercial or product, but if it doesn’t lead to conversions and long-term retention, then it’s useless. Companies like Apple, and even celebrities like Beyoncé, do a great job of capturing attention for new products while creating long-term loyalty to their brands.
It’s more and more difficult for brands to cut through the noise these days. I’ve seen companies do some extreme things to get noticed. Are there “wrong” ways to capture people’s attention? A big mistake a lot of startups and brands make is trying to capture attention by using techniques that aren’t significant or aligned with their brands. Shock marketing is an example: you can say something controversial, but it won’t necessarily translate into sales. Quiznos had those weird-looking mutant rodents singing off-key with their sandwiches, but it didn’t prevent them from filing for bankruptcy.
There are so many surprises in your new book, but what did you uncover that surprised you the most? I was genuinely surprised by the Rokia Effect—the fact that personal stories will almost always trump statistics. You will always capture more attention and change more minds with a personal story people can relate to. Statistics often muddy the picture and make people feel like they can’t make an impact.
So many people can benefit from the insights you share in this book, but did you have a specific audience in mind? I wrote it for anyone who has to capture attention to do something meaningful. I wrote it for a purposely broad audience. I do think it has the most application in business and entertainment, though.
You took a complex subject and scores of scientific research and boiled it all down to an entertaining and approachable book that anyone can pick up and get value from. What was your writing process like? I spent multiple stints locked away from the world to focus on the writing and the research. I went to a secluded home on the river and to my home in Thailand to do this. You just can’t multitask if you want to write a great book.
Are there any lessons or insights from this book that you think would have helped you at the start of your career? I think if I had known more about the reward systems of the brain, I would have been a better manager, motivator, and public speaker.
What other projects or businesses are you involved with? I’m the cofounder and CMO of Octane AI, the easiest way to create and manage a bot to engage with your audience on Facebook Messenger. Octane AI removes all the technical barriers to bots and allows you to focus on being creative with the content of your bot. Maroon 5, Jason Derulo, 50 Cent, Aerosmith, KISS, SPiN, Lindsay Lohan, and Thirty Seconds to Mars use Octane AI to interact with their combined 150-plus million fans on Messenger.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.2 “Sight and Sound”
From pasture, barn, and seed to table
It’s a 20-minute drive from downtown San Jose to the Mount Hamilton GrandView Restaurant. From the terrace of the restaurant, the Santa Cruz Mountains turn violet as the sun dips and the waters of the San Francisco Bay shimmer. The planes glide below on their way to Mineta, and birds drift lazily on the thermals. As the sun disappears over the mountains, the lights of the city dance below.
The dining room, cleanly decorated with white tablecloths, lets the landscape take center stage. The waiters, many of whom are career servers, are dressed in classic tuxes and pride themselves on being exceptionally welcoming, knowledgeable, and sensitive to the diner’s needs. Maurice Carrubba, the proud owner, begins his tour of the restaurant by explaining his vision of an Italian steakhouse with a hint of Hollywood glamour, “a little old-school love,” as he puts it.
Maurice never planned to buy the GrandView. He was in the market for an investment property when he met a persistent realtor who was able, after a month of regular phone calls, to convince Maurice to climb the winding road up Mt. Hamilton to see something special.
Maurice listened to the history of how a stagecoach hotel and tavern built in 1884 evolved into a restaurant that had served the community for decades. The original building had burned, its replacement had burned, the building itself needed work, but the view, even in the rainy mist and faint light at dusk, was spectacular.
He bought the property with his brother and partner, Giuseppe Carrubba, and began an extensive remodel. As he worked, Maurice left the gates open, and locals wandered in, wondering about his plans. Maurice had envisioned an event space, rented out for corporate events or weddings. Yet as more people came to tell their stories and to beg him not to close the restaurant to the public, Maurice’s vision began to shift. “Through the remodel, I started telling people, ‘I’ll keep it open for one year, and you support us. If I see that you’re here, we’ll keep it open for another hundred years.’ ”
After the tour of the restaurant, Maurice hops onto his John Deere Gator to show off his farm. When the 50-acre parcel, just yards from the restaurant, came up for sale, Maurice didn’t hesitate. This old cattle farm, its soil packed and dry from decades of grazing, could one day supply the restaurant with everything it needed.
Though Maurice has never been a farmer, he’s not dabbling—he knows the name of every obscure heirloom bean variety in the raised garden beds. He is proud of his restaurant, but his face beams while he is on his farm. Eager now to show off the purebred goats and black-and-white-speckled hens, he races across the fields, slowing down so as not to startle the horses grazing along the fence.
At the highest point of land are rows and rows of kale, beans, peppers, and tomatoes. Maurice points to the tomatoes. “This is the end of the tomatoes—they’ve been left on the vine a little long, so we’ll use them to make sauce.” Everything is planted with a purpose in mind—to create a seed-to-table experience, connecting the land and the food. Freshly cut mint from the lush herb garden goes to the bar for signature cocktails; basil and parsley go to the kitchen.
A full moon rises, giving the land an ethereal quality. Maurice seems to know that this is a special place and that it’s not just his enthusiasm that makes guests smile as radiantly as he does. The bucolic spot sits above the stresses of the valley below and offers a connection to a nostalgic vision of the past. Maurice dreams of an Arcadian paradise, a place that not only supplies his restaurant with the highest quality produce, but offers refuge for those who have lost their connection to the land. He envisions one day hosting a farmers’ market and growing Christmas trees. He wants to welcome school groups, show children that there is more to the great wide world than iPad screens.
At GrandView, Maurice, along with his guests, have the opportunity to forge an indelible connection to the land—finding the peace that is so easy to lose in the frantic valley below.
Article originally appeared in Issue 9.0 “Celebrate” Print version SOLD OUT
President Dwight Eisenhower established the sister city program in 1956 to foster global awareness and peaceful relations. A design team from Dublin, Ireland, one of San Jose’s sister cities, presents their view of their hometown.
There are the usual guides of the city and “hop-on, hop-off” bus tours, but if you want a real insight into how Dublin functions, we would highly recommend the Le Cool Dublin Experience. Le Cool, an online weekly magazine, also created the “Le Cool Dublin Walking Tour” to help Dubliners, as well as foreigners, discover new emerging artists, chefs, and designers. The tours incorporate modern elements of Dublin life, such as pop-ups, collectives, and street art exhibitions, as well as quirky points of interest, such as The Waldorf on Westmoreland Street, Dublin’s oldest barber shop.
Dublin is the birthplace of James Joyce and Nobel Literature Prize winners William Butler Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, and Samuel Beckett. One tour that pays homage to Dublin’s literary tradition is the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. An engaging walking tour led by a team of professional actors, it follows the footsteps of literary greats such as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, and Brendan Behan. It’s a wonderful evening filled with prose, drama, and song.
Also a must is a visit to the Natural History Museum, or as Dubliners call it “The Dead Zoo”—for obvious reasons. It features a comprehensive display of Irish wildlife, from the skeleton of the extinct giant Irish deer to the rabbits introduced by the Normans. Other floors are devoted to international fauna. You will see elephants, a rare Tasmanian tiger, and a polar bear shot by Irish explorer Leopold McClintock. Now called a “museum of a museum,” the display is a fascinating glimpse of Victorian ways of preserving and displaying wildlife.
The Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) is worth visiting. A whole day could be spent here, with the museum housed in the magnificent 17th century Royal Hospital building, whose grounds include a formal garden, meadow, and medieval burial grounds. IMMA is Ireland’s leading national institution for the collection and presentation of modern and contemporary art.
Eating
A great place to eat during the day is The Fumbally cafe in Dublin 8. Situated just beyond St. Patrick’s Cathedral, an unpromising modern building gives way to a surprisingly welcoming space—with sheer concrete walls and an exposed industrial interior softened by wooden tables and chairs, tasseled lamps, and bright bowls of fruit and vegetables. The Fumbally’s colorful home cooking makes liberal use of Irish produce, “Mediterranean simplicity,” and Moroccan spices.
Brother Hubbard is another excellent eatery just across the River Liffey on Capel Street. As with The Fumbally, the food steps up to the plate. The popularity of its pulled pork special, with mustardy celeriac remoulade on sourdough, has driven it to become a daily inclusion on the menu. It’s wicked in the way only mollycoddled pork can be. Although they are famed for breakfast treats that range from granolas to hangover-hitters like the warm bacon and cheese sambo, Brother Hubbard offers an intriguing Middle Eastern plate. They also make some tasty juices and fruit iced teas—no surprise considering the Smithfield Fruit Market is less than a hundred yards away.
Drinking
At the top of most people’s Dublin bucket list is having a few pints of Guinness. There are two places that always come to mind when looking for the perfect pint. The first is the well-known Grogans Pub, with its outdoor seating spilling over into most of Castle Market on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings.
Another great place for a quiet pint is J. O’Connell in Portobello. This is a gem of a pub: it’s not loud, no neon lights. Deceptively small from the outside, the bar’s interior is typically Irish.
Just a few doors down from O’Connell’s is a more trendy bar called The Bernard Shaw, or “The Shaw.” A proper 113-year-old Irish boozer, The Bernard Shaw was taken over in 2006 by Dublin-based club promoters and label owners Bodytonic, who are known to throw the best parties in Dublin. It’s become a superb local. DJs appear nightly, covering everything from rock to hip hop, reggae to dubstep, and disco.
Markets & Shopping
There are several markets in Dublin, from fruit and food markets in Smithfield and Temple Bar to the Cow’s Lane Fashion and Design Market held every Saturday from 10am until 5pm, featuring stalls from rising Irish and international designers.
The most popular market is the now infamous Dublin Flea Market held on the last Sunday of every month in The Co-op on Newmarket Square, Dublin 8. With over eighty stalls each month, you can find everything you would expect to find at a flea market. Along with the buying and selling, there are DJs, live bands, or whatever they throw together to keep the folks entertained. Customers soak up the atmosphere, drink a coffee, and fill their bellies with homemade falafel, cakes, pizza, and Greek dishes. The Co-op’s organic food store is also open on market days with the best selection of organic and fair trade goods in Dublin.
In the same location is The Brocante Market, held every third Sunday of the month, which hosts oodles of antiques, stylish furniture, and quirky collectibles. Originally a hidden gem on the alternative scene, it has become mainstream. Packed full of bizarre and beautiful curiosities, it appeals to amateur and expert collectors alike.
SMITHFIELD FRUIT MARKET 32-37 Smithfield, Dublin 7
Revert Boutique
Revert Boutique is a boutique branding agency whose clients include companies from various industries around Dublin and further afield. We enjoy collaboration and long-term relationships with our clients, creating everything from logotypes to identities to websites as well as interior design and signage, paying close attention to the small details along the way. The end result is a young, well-crafted brand agency.
Article originally appeared in Issue 6.4 Retro. PRINT IS SOLD OUT
Though its ubiquitous nickname is “The Windy City,” Chicago has much more to offer its denizens than just wind and notoriously harsh winters. Chicago boasts a robust culture that makes any visit an exciting and unique experience. From dining to entertainment, activities to architecture, Chicago is a world-class city full of hidden and well-known gems.
Chicago is the United States’ third-largest city, and as would be expected, it has left its stamp on our country’s culture. We see her influence in our daily life—the speakeasy, deep dish pizza, and the idea of multiple hot dog toppings all originate from Chicago.
Good Eats
As any citizen of Chicago will tell you, Chicago makes the best deep-dish pizza in the world. What Chicagoans can’t agree on, however, is which is best. With over two thousand pizzerias in Chicago, it’s pretty obvious why people all have differing opinions. Some of the most well-known pizzerias are Pizzaria Uno’s, Gino’s East, Giordanos, Lou Malnati’s, and Pizanos. They all put their own spin on deep-dish, and all have several locations in and around Chicago. If this seems overwhelming, some instead opt to go on the Original Chicago Pizza Tour, which not only allows interested patrons to sample different kinds of deep-dish pizza, but aims to educate as well.
Another Chicago food staple is the multi-topping’ed Chicago Dog. The most famous eatery to serve this delicacy is Portillo’s Hot Dogs, which is considered a must-visit for any out-of-towner. But truly, the best Chicago Dog can be found at one of Chicago’s most iconic venues: Wrigley Field.
Celebrity chef Rick Bayless also has three restaurants in Chicago, all right next to each other. Xoco, Frontera Grill, and Topolobampo (in order from least to most expensive) all serve signature Mexican-inspired dishes with creative cocktails and farm fresh ingredients.
Another restaurant worth a visit is the Billy Goat Tavern—located beneath Michigan Avenue and forever immortalized by the classic Saturday Night Live “Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger!” skit. In fact, many of SNL’s great talents have come out of Chicago and its Second City comedy troupe, and a trip uptown to see a show is well worth it.
Drink Up
It seems that every city these days has its own special collection of “speakeasy” themed bars, but Chicago pretty much invented the speakeasy. Most notable is Violet Hour, a classy establishment complete with strong cocktails, house rules, low lights and a “secret” entryway behind a mural. Another speakeasy worth checking out is The Office, which requires an exclusive invitation for admittance.
Along with the speakeasy, another Chicago staple is the piano bar. Locals love the Zebra Lounge for its strong martinis, cozy atmosphere, and top-notch live piano music. There is also the famous Davenport’s, which prides itself on being Chicago’s premiere cabaret bar.
A fantastic bar of note is the Signature Lounge, which resides on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Chicago. They have a fantastic menu in addition to their full bar, but the real reason locals and tourists alike love the lounge is the spectacular view, framed by floor-to-ceiling windows.
Sightsee
One of Chicago’s most defining characteristics is its beautiful skyline, dominated by its largest tower, Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). As the tallest building in the country, its Skydeck is worth a visit to experience the unparalleled view. The Midwest is flat, and from 103 floors up, you can literally see for miles and miles in all directions.
In addition to Willis Tower, Chicago’s buildings are, in general, beautifully built. The city acknowledges this, and the Chicago Architecture Foundation offers an excellent boat tour along the Chicago River to view and learn about all these architectural masterpieces. The boat tours all dock at Navy Pier, which itself is worth a visit, if only to ride the huge Ferris Wheel and sample some of the locally made saltwater taffy.
Another well-known Chicago site is the public sculpture Cloud Gate, located in Millennium Park. Affectionately dubbed “The Bean” by locals, the stainless steel form was sculpted by Anish Kapoor and is usually swarming with tourists. No Chicago trip is complete without a picture of yourself in The Bean’s warped reflection. Millennium Park has several fantastic art installations in addition to The Bean and, on a sunny day, is definitely worth a stroll.
Right next to Millennium Park is the Art Institute of Chicago, a world-class art museum complete with Van Goghs, Monets, Picassos, Pollacks, and the famous Georges Seurat pointillism masterpiece immortalized forever in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
On top of all the amazing restaurants, bars, and sights to see, Chicago is also populated by Midwesterners, who are polite and friendly to a fault. Chicagoans really want you to love their city. Especially when the weather is nice, it’s hard to have a bad time in Chicago. Even when it’s cold outside, visitors from all over the globe still fall in love with the Windy City every day.
Article originally appeared in Issue 6.1 “Sight and Sound” (Print Issue is Sold Out)
“We work in the medium of bicycles to provide individuals with life-transforming opportunities.” —Jim Gardner
It was 2008, and Jim Gardner, a PhD engineer with four previous startups under his belt, was turning 40. He wondered whether the world was any better off because he was in it.
When he dropped off a donation at a homeless shelter, the sight of a man on an unsafe, rickety bicycle gave Gardner an insight that birthed Good Karma Bikes. “I realized that this was how this person got to the doctor, got to work, got to case management, got to whatever he needed, because it was safe, free, independent transportation,” he says. “I realized that a safe bike would get him anywhere he needs to go.”
He decided to see if he could help out himself. So he went down to St. James Park and began fixing bikes for homeless people there. “It took me about two weeks to see what was going on was not about bicycles at all,” Gardner recalls. “I saw genuine humanitarianism and philanthropy from homeless people, and I noticed that the ones who were the most generous had the best fortune. That’s where we got the name for Good Karma Bikes.”
Branching out from St. James Park, Gardner began fixing bikes at centers that feed the needy. Soon after, he began attracting volunteers from bicycling clubs like the Western Wheelers Bicycle Club and Almaden Cycle Touring Club, and he gained financial support from Barry Swenson Builder, Bank of America, the California State Automobile Association, and the San Jose Rotary Club.
Today, Good Karma Bikes is a full-service shop that serves about 18,000 people annually. Holding hundreds of safety checks, they don’t charge homeless or low-income individuals for repairs. They’re on a mission. “We work in the medium of bicycles to provide individuals with life-transforming opportunities,” says Gardner. In addition to refurbished bikes, they offer workstation rentals, onsite mobile repair services, and classes on bicycle repair and maintenance.
When he first opened his bike shop, Gardner began working with people in homeless recovery and learned that many of them had been in the foster care system. From there, he discovered some astounding statistics. “Approximately 50 percent of emancipated foster care youth are homeless by age 25,” he says. “Half of all females who have been in foster care will be teen-pregnant at least once, only one percent will graduate college, and 27 percent of California’s inmates have been in foster care.” But Gardner found there’s a good deal of research showing that those statistics are significantly reduced with the completion of 30 units of college credit.
This led Good Karma Bikes to organize their College Outreach and Opportunity Program for teens who have aged out of Santa Clara County’s foster care system, to prevent them from becoming homeless or incarcerated. “What we have them experience is working part-time in our shop, going to college, and doing community service,” Gardner explains. “We require all three.” He says that there comes a point for the young people he coaches where they make a U-turn. “They tell me that they actually start to like school. They become confident in their work skills. They gain self-esteem.”
The bicycles at Good Karma Bikes are sourced from donations and impounds from the Valley Transportation Authority, as well as universities and corporate campuses. The vehicles are rehabilitated by the co-op youth and volunteers, and the money made from selling bicycles is reinvested in the company’s programs.
For Gardner, what’s important is the role the bike shop plays in the community. “Our main impact is on preventing homelessness and incarceration,” he says, “but Good Karma Bikes is also a conduit for the community to invest in an even better community by participating.” To participate, community members can volunteer, make a donation, connect the organization with a grant—or buy a bike.
“The main point is that we are not about bikes,” he sums up. “We are about good karma.”
Cindy Ahola, Vice President of Operations
Cindy Ahola first saw Jim Gardner repairing bikes at Loaves & Fishes Family Kitchen when she was its executive director. She now works with Jim at Good Karma Bikes, organizing its Logistics and Transportation department.
“Until meeting Gardner,” recalls Ahola, “I hadn’t understood how important bicycles were to those who rely on them for their transportation. You can buy used bikes from Craigslist, but we give one bike away for every bike we sell. Those who can’t afford bicycles can volunteer and earn them. The revenue goes right back into our services. That’s why we consider our customers to be a very special kind of donor.”
Craig Jeong, Volunteer Mechanic
Craig Jeong calls himself a “wheelman” because he loves building and truing the wheels that go on refurbished bicycles. He found out about Good Karma Bikes from an Almaden Cycle Touring Club friend. He says his cousin, a volunteer at Turning Wheels for Kids, inspired him to volunteer.
“I want to help others,” Jeong explains. “Good Karma Bikes works with foster youth, and I want to help give them a chance to get on their feet. I was raised with what I now know was privilege in Palo Alto. I’m here because I want these kids to have a chance to get ahead.”
Hector Lopez, Assistant Manager
Hector Lopez, a part-time San Jose City College student, answered a Good Karma Bikes’ Craigslist ad seeking a volunteer bike mechanic. Lopez joined up, and 18 months later, he was hired as a paid staff member. Able to help Spanish speakers, Lopez pays careful attention to walk-in customers and their needs. He quickly diagnoses a bicycle’s problem and usually makes the repair while the customer waits.
“I see a lot of kindness here,” says Lopez. “Homeless people with wrecked-up bikes come here, and we have volunteers who don’t mind getting their hands dirty and putting in a lot of time to fix them up.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.1 “Find”
As a film festival representing the innovative Silicon Valley culture, Cinequest has always tried to stay ahead of the curve. From early adoption of digital cinema, to showcasing experimental approaches to filmmaking, to last year’s three-screen Barco Escape experiences, the festival has repeatedly introduced audiences to the future of movies and storytelling. This year, Cinequest is doing it again with a suite of virtual reality (VR) programming.
Virtual reality has been a staple of science fiction for decades, but the technology has only recently become available to the general public. Viewers donning headsets will see a three-dimensional environment that moves as they do, making it feel as if they are physically present in the world in front of them.
Cinequest newcomers Kendall Stevens and Samantha McGuire are heading up the VR program—taking on the challenge of integrating new technology into an already well-established event.
A native of both the US and Australia, Stevens has spent the last few years in project and event management for a real estate marketing company and is excited for the new challenge the festival offers. “It’s been such an adventure because I hadn’t been in VR,” she says of her move to Cinequest, where her first few days were spent immersed in the technology. “When you see it, you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I had no idea this even existed.’ ”
Originally from Hawaii, McGuire came to the Bay Area to study art and history before earning an MBA at Mills College. “What drew me to the festival was the possibility of being involved in something greater,” she says. “When I went through the interview process, they asked me if I had experienced VR. I said that I had a headset and loved playing the games, and I took the leap into VR from the start.”
The VR program at Cinequest will consist of several components: viewings of curated content, much like the short film series, where audiences will watch together in a room or theater; the VR Canteen, featuring arcade-style stations that will give visitors a chance to interact with the technology individually; and forums and networking opportunities with experts, where those interested in VR can learn more about what the future might hold.
“It’s so much bigger than just VR,” Stevens says. “It’s AR [augmented reality]. It’s mixed reality…the possibilities are endless. They have it in so many industries now. You can be a brain surgeon practicing in VR. Or you could be in the military and learn how to go into a special ops situation. And journalism is the next big thing because it takes storytelling to a whole new level. The New York Times has gotten into it, the BBC, CNN. Everybody’s kind of transitioning now to include that kind of technology in their media.”
Tech companies are making huge investments in VR. Facebook made headlines when it acquired VR startup Oculus Rift for $2 billion in 2014; Samsung’s VR integration with its phones was a large part of their recent holiday marketing campaigns; and Sony is offering a VR headset addition to its PS4 gaming console. HTC has developed the high-end Vibe, while Google’s $10 Cardboard is a surprisingly versatile VR viewer made out of—yes—cardboard.
The festival will partner with several leading companies, but one of the challenges is that there is little standardization among the various technologies. Material shot for one device may not play on another, and attendees will need to be loaned a viewer in order to experience the content. “It gets complicated,” Stevens explains, noting that some logistics of the program will still be coming together in the final weeks leading up to the festival. “I’ll have a new idea every day, and we’ll end up honing in on the ones that are the best fit.”
No matter the result, building this type of program—something no other film festival has done to this degree—has been thrilling for those involved. “It is a wonderful time to be getting into VR, as people are still excited and willing to help out in any way they can,” McGuire says. Because the technology is so new, Stevens and McGuire have worked directly with CEOs and industry leaders to determine how to best showcase their devices and films. “It’s been a privilege to get to hear them speak and dream about what’s going to happen,” adds Stevens.
The Cinequest Film & VR Festival runs from February 28 to March 12, with venues in downtown San Jose, Santana Row, and Redwood City. Learn more about the 2017 festival in the Cinequest Survival Guide.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.1 Find
Known for its near-perfect climate, and conveniently located halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, Redwood City is the oldest city on the peninsula. In fact, during the Gold Rush of 1849, it became an important logging town.
Redwood City has quietly been a tech town for over 30 years, and in the most recent gold rush of tech, it’s experiencing a boom of its own. To tech giants such as Oracle and Electronic Arts, Redwood City has added Box, Evernote, Shutterfly, and Shazam. With so many tech companies moving in, the city has seen a quickly evolving downtown expand into a super cool little city, with artisanal coffee and roasters, trendy places to eat, the arts, and great live entertainment.
On your day out, you might want to start with a cup of coffee—not just any coffee, but great coffee. Redwood City has grown into a superior coffee town, with some shops serving their own roasts, others selling many of the same artisanal roasters you’d find in the best shops in the South Bay. Start your day at Bliss Coffee right in the heart of downtown, on Broadway. Bliss serves their local artisanal coffee on a rotating schedule, and on any particular day you might find blends from Four Barrel, Verve, or Chromatic on the menu.
It’s likely to be a lovely day for a hike. Fortified with a jolt of joe, drive five minutes up Woodside Road into the town of Woodside to Wunderlich County Park. Beautifully shaded ferns and moss-covered boulders are surrounded by statuesque redwood trees. Hikers and horses share trails that pass the old Folger estate stables, for a step back in time. If you skipped coffee downtown, on your way up to the park you can enjoy a handcrafted pour-over, syphon, or cold brew at S’bastians Coffee, right along Woodside Road.
After a leisurely, woodsy walk, jump back in your car and, yes, another short five minutes and you’re back downtown for lunch at Vesta. Relax on the charming back patio and enjoy one of the incredible woodfired pizzas they’re known for. The crust is on par with what’s on offer in New York—it’s that good. You might try the sausage and honey: tangy tomato sauce with spicy Italian sausage, mascarpone, fresh parsley, honey, and a tiny kick of Serrano chili. Get there early. With limited reservations, there’s a line out the door nearly any day of the week.
In the afternoon, if you’re a history buff, check out Union Cemetery, a Civil War-era burial ground built in 1859. Use the markers and archives listed on the website, or wander about on your own. You might also browse through the San Mateo County History Museum, at the grand courthouse on Broadway. The museum is situated in a charming European-style town square dotted with mini-cafes reminiscent of Italy, Spain, or the Netherlands. In the summer, you’ll find the locals enjoying Friday night concerts here in the square.
If it’s a warm day and you’d like to cool off, head for Nazareth Ice Oasis. Built in the ’70s, it’s one of only two ice rinks between San Francisco and San Jose. The home rink of the Stanford hockey team, Ice Oasis boasts figure skating and ice dance coaches who’ve won national, Olympic, and World titles for both the US and Canada.
Ready for dinner? LV Mar’s white table–clothed dining room with its highly attentive wait staff should be top of your list. Chef Manuel Martinez creates Latin-inspired tapas, ceviches, entrees, and desserts. With your meal, try the refreshing nonalcoholic tamarindo with soda, a Pisco Sour, or a festive Brazilian Caipirinha.
After dinner, stroll on over to the historic Fox Theatre for live entertainment. The Fox, which has seen artists such as Etta James, Neil Young, BB King, and Melissa Etheridge within its walls, first opened in 1929. Its interior was designed to have a Moorish feel; its exterior, a Gothic style. Inducted into the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, it’s not to be missed. If what’s playing at the Fox doesn’t appeal, you might check out the intimate, not-for-profit, 70-seat Dragon Theatre, where the focus is often on emerging voices. Or if you’d prefer music—in fact, if you’d prefer dinner and music—try Angelica’s, which offers fine dining and live music five to six nights a week. Shows often sell out, so plan ahead.
With so much to see and do here in Redwood City, you may find yourself planning a second trip.
Article originally appeared in Issue 9.0 Celebrate Print version SOLD OUT
“Art is that light into other people’s cultures.”
Let it not be said that the School of Arts and Culture is an unfrequented place. The countless activities held throughout the week ensure that there are constant signs of life within its walls. Here, classes are offered in everything from folklórico dancing to violin to mariachi music. Here, huge annual events are hosted, including the Cesar Chavez Commemorative March (to celebrate the life of this civil rights activist), La Ultima Parada (to celebrate the Day of the Dead), and Fiesta Navideña (to celebrate the holidays). Here, the community can rent the facilities for a wide variety of occasions. The woman behind the school is Executive Director Tamara Alvarado. With a strong team and an ardent vision, Alvarado has infused this place of learning with a lively spirit.
The school’s mission is proudly emblazoned in its logo—a flying, feathered serpent called Quetzalcoatl. The Aztecs considered this dragon-like creature to be associated with learning and the arts, making it a fitting symbol for an institution that grounds itself in its Mexican heritage. Quetzalcoatl also has ties to other Mesoamerican cultures, reflecting the school’s desire for a multicultural perspective in an area with diverse cultural backgrounds. “We can’t get our work done in a vacuum,” Alvarado says with passion. “We can’t just be talking to ourselves within our own community.” And yet she believes, too, that embracing the beauty of one’s own culture will encourage appreciation for the beauty of other cultures. “I think art is the catalyst that helps you see,” she continues. “It’s like when you’re looking at a crystal or a diamond, but you need light to shine on it in order to see all its facets… Art is that light into other people’s cultures.”
Alvarado believes the school is allowed to flourish because San Jose is a community that rebels against passive consumerism. “They want to be the producer, they want to be the presenter, they want to be the dancer, they want to be the painter,” she observes. And that’s exactly what the school that Alvarado is shepherding offers, the chance to get clay on your hands, paint on your clothes. The chance to be a maker.
The school benefits as well by its location in the Mexican Heritage Plaza, which is intentionally sparing in its use of decorations. This design simplicity by no means makes the venue plain, as can be seen by a quick look around its premises. Walk past the buildings painted in warm desert tones and natural adobe colors. Step inside the pavilion with its floor-to-ceiling glass panels that attract the sunlight. Take a loop around the Chinampa Garden—through the rows of palms, past the sanctuary fountain, and under the wisteria-laden trellis. These grounds have witnessed personal milestones from quinceañeras to graduations to wedding receptions, and their 500-seat theater has seen countless dance productions, plays, recitals, and concerts. The facility is like a blank canvas, waiting to be painted on. Your imagination is the limit.
The year the school opened was also the year that Alvarado became its executive director, but Alvarado had been a steward of the arts long before life’s journey led her to this position. Her childhood was spent in dialogue with dance, theater, and music. Alvarado’s parents used to take her to Chicano Park every year to watch the Aztec dance ceremonies. It must have made quite an impression on the young girl, watching the dancers in their embroidered costumes swaying their heads decorated with pheasant- and macaw-feathered headdresses and shaking their ankles adorned with rattles, or chachayotes, to the beat of the drum. Later, Alvarado took up Aztec dancing for herself. “I was drawn to it because it was familiar to me,” she says. “It was part of my culture.” That was 17 years ago. Now Alvarado’s whole family participates and her dance group, Calpulli Tonalehqueh (“community of guardians who accompany the sun”), practices at the plaza.
Though Alvarado has made certain that the school continues to stay true to its roots, it has also grown in some incredible ways. “There wasn’t a lot of activity going on here,” she says of the institution when it first opened. “It was like peeking out the door and asking, ‘Anyone want to play with us? Anyone coming to our party?’ ” But that feeling subsided pretty quickly. The community’s interactions with the school have gone from tentative to embracing. “They weren’t used to consistent programs,” she points out. “I think now in our fifth year, the community knows we’re here to stay.”
Since the school opened, the number of annual visitors to the plaza has almost tripled. “So, yeah, people are coming to our party,” she chuckles.
This article originally appeared in Issue 9.0 “Celebrate”
Print Version SOLD OUT
Head out to the birthplace of Silicon Valley, where you can walk the historic streets that helped shape the technology industry of today. Visit the landmarks, sample fresh and local menus, satisfy that sweet tooth. There’s something for everyone in this beautiful city. Start your journey, naturally, on the tree-lined streets of downtown, just to the east of the Stanford campus.
Begin your day with a smooth latte from Blue Bottle Coffee, one of the largest and finest specialty coffee roasters in Northern California. Housed inside Palo Alto’s historic New Varsity Theater, now the HanaHaus shared tech workspace, Blue Bottle serves a range of sustainably grown coffees from around the world, including single-origin beans—all served within 48 hours of roasting. Although the interior of the building was recently remodeled, the early 20th-century Spanish Colonial Revival exterior remains intact: white stucco curves and arches, distinctive terracotta roof tiles, lines reminiscent of California’s famous missions.
Just down the street is Chantal Guillon, a purveyor of French-style macaroons baked in-house, served with teas from Mariage Frères, a Parisian tea company founded in 1854. The combination is beyond compare. In the macaroons, look for flavors such as lavender and black currant, Persian rose, salted caramel, and jasmine green tea. In the teas, all the classic varieties, as well as speciality blends.
If you’re in the mood for a lighter beverage, and perhaps a meal, then stroll over to Lemonade. The setup is colorful and cafeteria-style, the lemonade freshly squeezed and ice-cold, the quick-order menu seasonal and surprisingly healthy. Try the orecchiette pasta with cherry and sun-dried tomatoes. Or the ahi tuna and avocado poke with tangerines and icicle radish. Or a selection from their marketplace veggie dishes and slow-simmered braised meats. Pair your meal with a not-so-strictly-lemon lemonade. Expect variations such as guava limeade and carrot ginger.
If you prefer something a little less casual, you might give family-owned, farm-to-table Local Union 271 a try. Their mission is etched in their name: the food is fresh and local and sourced from a circle of member farms, ranches, dairies, bakeries, and other area producers. The experience is delectable. Even the interior decor is local, handcrafted by Bay Area artisans. Truly a must-stop restaurant for lunch or dinner. Note they also serve Verve Coffee from Santa Cruz.
Next, walk down University to the Stanford Theatre. Completed in 1925, this historic theater offers a portal to the past, with its neoclassical Persian and Moorish architecture, its vast ceilings and lush art nouveau interior, the scalloped red velvet curtains over the screen, and matching red velvet seats. Purchased in 1987 by the Packard Foundation, it was restored to its original splendor, reopening two years later. And it’s been entertaining audiences ever since with film classics from the silent era up through 1970. It’s one of the finest theaters on the Peninsula for experiencing Hollywood’s Golden Age.
After all this walking around, particularly if the day is warm, it might be time for something sweet and light. With locally sourced ingredients and ice cream that’s handcrafted, Scoop Microcreamery is the obvious choice. The shop is a tiny—well, micro—mom and pop affair, and they make their ice cream to order, using liquid nitrogen to flashfreeze the mixture to velvety, creamy goodness. Ice cream made this way packs more flavor. The creamery serves an incredible banana split in a range of artisanal flavors—green tea with mochi, bourbon vanilla with salted caramel swirl, and speculicious, to name a few. Prepare to be delighted.
Palo Alto is also home to one of the largest research universities in the country. If you follow University Avenue out past the shops, towards the hills, and continue along the long expanse of park, you’ll arrive at the Stanford University campus. Getting there from downtown is a bit of a hike. If you’d prefer, you can take the Marguerite shuttle from the Caltrain station at the top of University into the campus. The shuttle leaves frequently throughout the day, running from 6am to 7pm. Call 650.724.9339 for times. Once on campus, you can take a walking tour or just wander around on your own. Either way, there’s plenty to see.
Whether you take a guided tour of the campus or see the sights on your own, be sure to check out the view from the top of Hoover Tower. The observation platform is on the 14th floor, and there’s a tour guide stationed by the elevator who can point out university landmarks, as well as landmarks throughout the Bay Area. The view is stunning. The tower stands 285 feet high and its lobby houses exhibits of historical memorabilia from alums Herbert Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover. Pick up your tickets for the tour (less than the price of a cup of coffee) in the tower lobby. No reservations required.
HOOVER TOWER 550 Serra Mall Stanford, CA 94305 cantor-arts-center
Another must-see on the university grounds is the Cantor Arts Center. Originally built to house the personal collections of the Stanford family, the museum has long since expanded upon that early conception. With collections of modern and contemporary art, a significant collection of the graphic arts on paper— prints, drawings, photographs—from the late 15th century to the present, and art from the old world and the new, the museum covers a broad range of art history. Its entire Rodin collection is also on view. Closed Tuesdays.
In the hills behind the university sits a massive radio telescope known as the Dish. Built in 1961, originally for the purpose of studying the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the Dish spans 150 feet in diameter, antenna pointed to the sky. It has been used to communicate with satellites and spacecraft, including remotely recalibrating them. Today, it continues to be important for both academic and research purposes. Today, too, locals know the Dish largely for the nearly four-mile paved path (called the loop) that circumscribes the moderately hilly terrain and leads eventually to the telescope. Weekday or weekend, rain or shine, you’ll find them running, biking, or walking the loop. The trail is open roughly from sunrise to sunset.
Only a five-minute drive from downtown Palo Alto is the immersive experience of the Pace Art + Technology Gallery. Here, you do not view art so much as become completely enveloped by it. Opening just this year, the gallery is devoted solely to contemporary digital art in installations that are sometimes interactive, always expansive. Recent exhibitions have explored the influence of Zen thought on visual and conceptual linguistic systems in contemporary art, as well as highlighted the work of individual artists such as Nigel Cooke, Michal Rovner, Louise Nevelson, and Richard Pousette-Dart.
If you’ve got kids with you (even maybe if not), you might want to check out the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo, whose mission it is to engage and encourage a child’s natural sense of wonder about science and nature. The JMZ is like two stops in one—an imaginative museum full of hands-on interactive exhibits, and an expansive child-friendly zoo with natural habitats designed for exploration. Home to over 50 species of animals, the zoo alone could fill an afternoon. Fun for the young at heart of all ages.
This article originally appeared in Issue 8.4 Profiles
There’s always plenty to see and do in Silicon Valley. But sometimes you just need to get out of town and off the grid. A drive to Pescadero can fix that. While only about an hour away from San Jose, this “slow coast” town feels much farther away. With views of the ocean along the Pacific Coast Highway and untouched coastal landscapes along the way, even the journey to Stage Road—Pescadero’s main street—is part of the adventure.
Start the day trip with a coffee and some friendly ambiance from Downtown Local. The baristas double as DJs, playing records while making drinks to order. The quirky cafe is also a boutique, featuring a meticulously curated selection of vinyl records, vintage goods, and local wares. Be sure to check out the little theater in the back, too.
There are a few small boutiques along Stage Road, including SLOWCOAST. Although small, this little shop is hard to miss. Everything sold inside is made by local artists and supports a local cause, from coastal preservation to feeding local schoolchildren.
A visit to Pescadero is not complete without a loaf of artichoke garlic herb bread from Arcangeli Grocery Company / Norm’s Market. This little market with a very long name is full of house-made gourmet food items like salsas, baked goods, and wine. Don’t forget to bring a beach blanket from home, because these make for a great picnic—head over to Pescadero State Beach after you’ve picked out a few goodies. You might want to grab an extra loaf of artichoke bread to take home, too.
If you’re a fan of goats (or goat cheese), be sure to visit kid-friendly Harley Farms while in Pescadero. Sign up for a tour on their website in advance (they fill up quickly), or just arrive and stroll around the farm on your own. After you’ve visited with the goats and llamas, stop by their gift shop and pick up some freshly made ricotta or chevre cheese.
The pace in Pescadero moves a lot slower than in Silicon Valley, but that’s what makes a day trip here so enjoyable. The next time you feel like heading out of town for the day, check out Pescadero and savor all that this little coastal town has to offer.
Berkeley has a big name for being a relatively small town. Despite having just over 100,000 residents, Berkeley has a worldwide reputation and is often known by its alter ego: Berzerkeley. Most people think of hippies and crunchy granola types (head to Telegraph Avenue for this old-school Berkeley vibe), but this crazy town has a few tricks up its sleeve.
A good day trip, or any day really, starts out with a cup of coffee. Berkeley boasts the first Peet’s Coffee and Tea, which makes it arguably the birthplace of third-wave coffee circa 1966. You can find this original location in one of Berkeley’s most iconic neighborhoods, called by the locals “The Gourmet Ghetto.” It wouldn’t be difficult to spend your entire day in this four-block radius. After coffee, head to Cheese Board for a fresh pastry or renowned pizza—or like most people, both. As you sit to enjoy the pastry, glance across the street and see the world famous Chez Panisse restaurant. Look closely, the building is unassuming in classic Berkeley fashion.
If you wish to make your coffee journey progressive, move on to another Berkeley original: Artis Coffee. Barely two years old, Artis has gathered a committed following with its “live roasting” and impressive collection of coffee paraphernalia available in the shop. Now armed with your second cup of coffee, you can set out into another great Berkeley neighborhood: Fourth Street. Once the home of just a few local stores, this little shopping area now hosts global chains like Apple, Crate & Barrel, and M.A.C. Even as this shopping destination continues to grow, it maintains its original atmosphere of small stores in an open-air mall.
After you select an item or two on Fourth Street, head downtown to the newly built location for the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archives (BAMPFA). It’s housed in a beautiful and unique building in the heart of downtown, just on the edge of UC Berkeley’s campus. The museum is the perfect size for an afternoon of exploring and guarantees at least one Instagram-able moment.
From there, you can stroll straight onto the campus and wander the winding paths of UC Berkeley, the original of the UC schools founded in 1868. Head toward the center of the campus to find the Campanile tower. If you’re lucky, you might even hear its 61 bells as they ring out a dreamy tune.
By now you will be looking for dinner and the options are endless. You can head back to where you started and enjoy the famous Chez Panisse. Be advised that downstairs requires reservations and upstairs most likely won’t have room for walk-ins, so plan ahead. Or you can stay closer to campus with the many great choices in downtown. Check out Gather or Revival Bar & Grill for excellent food and ambiance.
Your day would not be complete without seeing the stunning views of the Bay Area from the Berkeley Hills. Indian Rock is a popular spot among natives and perfect for watching the sunset. Afterward, complete your day with a sweet note. Head to one of Berkeley’s most popular dessert spots: Ici Ice Cream. Don’t be intimidated by the line—this unique and freshly made ice cream is well worth the wait.
Berkeley is well known, but many of its best gems are unobtrusive, local secrets. All of the neighborhoods mentioned deserve their own day, and the endless number of unlisted restaurants could have you eating at a new spot for months. An easy hour drive from the South Bay, Berkeley just might become your regular weekend spot.
You can’t overstate the undeniable draw of a place like Santa Cruz. Where else can you hike amidst the towering redwoods and then hop in your car and within 15 minutes catch a wave at any number of iconic surf spots? As if its natural beauty weren’t enough, this dreamy beach town offers an incredible selection of food and drink and an independent spirit that creates its own unique culture.
When you visit Santa Cruz, start your day off at The Abbey, a coffee, art, and music lounge. This cozy spot just off the highway brews delicious artisanal Chromatic Coffee (San Jose shout out!), serves homemade pastries, and offers an inviting ambiance. Consider this your pre-breakfast caffeination destination, because before it gets too late, you need to get down the street to Cafe Brasil, a tiny, bustling breakfast hotspot. Their acai bowls are a must, and everything on the menu is hearty, healthy, and so, so tasty.
Next up, a couple of gorgeous ways to enjoy the coast. Keep heading up Mission Street and you’ll hit the breathtaking open road of Highway 1, where you’ll instantly feel as if you’re miles from any big city as you take in the stunning ocean views to your left and rolling hills and farms on your right. About three miles out, you’ll hit Wilder Ranch State Park, where you can you hop on a flat coastal trail—either by foot or on bike—to take a closer look at the untouched beaches and wildlife and the endless miles of ocean horizon.
If you want to stay closer to town, you can take a walk/bike/stroll along West Cliff, where you’ll enjoy a view of the Wharf, surfers just off Lighthouse Field, and maybe even a few of the thousands of dolphins and whales who come to feed in the bay. At the end of West Cliff, you can relax on the warm sands of Natural Bridges State Beach—and if it’s the right time of year, you can also enjoy the monarch butterfly sanctuary located there!
All that activity will work up your appetite and have you ready to visit The Picnic Basket, just one of the four brilliant establishments dreamed up by the team at The Glass Jar. Enjoy their selection of healthful and delicious sandwiches and salads (we recommend The Beet sandwich and Daily Grains salad), locally roasted Verve coffee, and one-of-a-kind ice cream flavors provided by The Penny Ice Creamery (another Glass Jar creation).
From here, you have plenty of options. Of course Santa Cruz’s iconic Beach Boardwalk is right across the street—but there’s so much more to discover as well!
Downtown Santa Cruz offers a taste of our town’s eclectic style, with lots of independent retailers to explore. Buying a book off of Amazon just doesn’t compare to the experience of shopping for one at Bookshop Santa Cruz, a local institution where you can seriously get lost for hours checking out current and classic reads. Give yourself time to wander around, and don’t miss Stripe and Stripe Men, two of the best lifestyle, gift, and accessory spots in town.
You can also head up to Mount Hermon Adventures for an exhilarating aerial Adventure Tour of the majestic redwood forest. This is an unforgettable way for a group of friends or family to experience the redwoods—book ahead to ensure your spot!
Recent years have seen Santa Cruz become a hotspot for independent breweries and tap rooms. Of the many to choose from, Sante Adairius Rustic Ales should probably be at the top of your list, having won international acclaim for its barrel-aged beers. You could also invest a few hours in a Brew Cruz, where a stylized bus will drive you around to a number of local breweries to tour their facilities, learn their history, and enjoy a pint at each spot along the way.
To finish up your day, there’s a ton of great restaurant options, including Malabar, which features a vegetarian Asian fusion / Sri Lankan menu, a calming atmosphere, and way too many amazing dishes for just one visit. Try the Mango Almond Curry, Mee Goreng, or really anything on the menu!
Want to catch some live music, a festival, an art show, or a movie screening? Santa Cruz always has an event to check out: visit santacruz.com/events for all the different goings-on you can enjoy during your visit.
The inviting charm of this little beach town with a big personality has made it a popular tourist destination for decades. Lucky for our neighbors in Silicon Valley, the trip over here is short—one you’ll want to make often!
If you are a Silicon Valley native, “a school bus ride to tour the state capitol” probably sums up your experience of Sacramento in a nutshell. Yet beyond the city’s rich political history, there’s much more to experience. Full of young creatives and innovative entrepreneurs, today’s Sacramento is building a hip community that promotes socially responsible businesses and locally sourced products.
A cup of joe is a great way to kick off any adventure, and Midtown Sacramento has a handful of coffee shops to choose from. If you enjoy your caffeine with a side of sunshine, Temple Coffee Roasters’ S Street location has a large patio perfect to lounge in while enjoying your specialty coffee selection. Roasting its fair trade beans on-site daily, this “Farm to Cup” coffee house always has unique brews to try, which are made possible by its direct sourcing program.
The Mill is another coffee-worthy Midtown option. They’re now serving made-to-order Belgian waffles, and these artisanal breakfast beauties can be whipped up simultaneously alongside your coffee beverage of choice.
From there, you can explore several points of interest within a two-mile radius of Midtown. Head to the Crocker Art Museum, the first public art museum founded in the West, which hosts one of the state’s premier collections of Californian art. Stroll the halls of its historic mansion, amongst antique Asian ceramics and ornate furniture. Then step over to its modern pavilion, to view large-scale landscapes and figurative works.
A stone’s throw away from the Crocker is a tourist favorite, Old Sacramento, a Wild West time capsule. Located along the Sacramento River, the historic old town will carry you back to the era of the California Gold Rush and the Transcontinental Railroad. Grab some taffy at The Candy Barrel and pop into O’Grady’s Old Time Photos for a picture-perfect memento.
If mingling with contemporary citizens is more your pace, make your way to the R Street Corridor. This once-thriving warehouse district is now a mixed-use neighborhood full of artist lofts, craft-cocktail bars, and stylish boutiques. A little over a mile long, the industrial quarter is very walkable. You’ll want to stop on the corner of R Street and 12th for happy hour at the Bottle & Barlow, a local watering hole with an art deco–inspired bar that’s attached to an upscale barbershop. Pick a drink from their seasonal selection, or have some fun and ask for an off-menu surprise.
When hunger strikes, head back to Midtown to a bevy of foodie-style restaurants. The Porch Restaurant and Bar boasts a savory menu, featuring a contemporary twist on classic southern dishes and drinks. Enjoy your meal and Sacramento’s fine weather on its charming porch patio. Be sure to order a whiskey cocktail crafted from their 52-bottle bourbon library, and their grilled Brie, with a delectable house-made jam.
Another local favorite, Lowbrau Bierhall is an understatedly posh eatery. Its communal style seating makes for a great family dining spot. Pair any of its gourmet sausages with a Bavarian pretzel or duck fat fries. Try one of their specialty beer cocktails spiked with an authentic schnapps.
Or indulge in French-inspired California eats at Paragary’s. A stylish bistro originally established in 1983, its chic and fresh interior design is the perfect backdrop for the locally sourced and carefully curated fare.
Why not end the day with a sweet treat? Dabble in chocolate heaven at Ginger Elizabeth Chocolates. Sink your teeth into a Fleur de Sel caramel, a creme fraiche, or hazelnut praline bonbon. Toss in a batch of their luxurious macarons to take home—they are only available as an in-store purchase.
Stop for a quick pit stop before heading onto the highway. Gunther’s Ice Cream store looks almost the same as it did when it opened in 1940. Cruise inside for some good old-fashioned ice cream made from original recipes developed by the Gunther family.
Reminiscent of Silicon Valley before the tech boom, Sacramento’s community and culture provide a much-needed escape from the Bay Area buzz. An easy two-hour drive from the South Bay, it’s definitely worth heading upstate to California’s capital for the burgeoning food, style, and art scenes.
Think Half Moon Bay, and you likely think pumpkins, but it’s so much more. Winter is a special time of year along this part of the coast. It’s cool and typically clear, making it a perfect time to day trip from San Jose. Just be sure to bring a jacket—it’s beautiful, but usually chilly.
Take the leisurely drive from San Jose up Highway 280 North to Highway 92 West, and you’ll soon find yourself winding your way over the Santa Cruz Mountains and down through the coastal farm valley that leads into Half Moon Bay. As you get close, watch for the famous horse at Lemos Farm, painted to reflect the changing seasons or holidays. You never know what it will be wearing next.
A great place to begin your day is at Raman’s Chai, arguably the best in the Bay Area. Order the original and don’t ask to change anything. Raman knows what he is doing. While sipping on the comfort of cardamom and honey, jump onto Highway 1 North to Pillar Point Harbor, where Dungeness crab season would normally be in full swing at this time. Even with the season postponed because of harmful algae blooms, though, you can still stroll the wharf and feel the bracing coolness of winter along the coast.
There are several restaurants around Pillar Point Harbor that serve great chowder and other fare, and it’s still fun to see the fishermen and boats in action. Mavericks Surf Shop is also right there at Johnson Pier. Learn who Jeff Clark is and get a T-shirt to prove it!
Just up the street, stop at Half Moon Bay Brewing Company for fish tacos and pale ale. Or indulge in fried artichoke hearts as you sit outside at one of the fire pits and listen to conversations take place among locals and tourists. After a bit of relaxing, head back south about five miles down Highway 1 to take a walk along Poplar Beach, or follow the cliffs. The dramatic views and scenic horizons can bring a sense of calm to anyone suffering from too much Valley hustle.
After soaking in the natural beauty of the coastline, head to Main Street for some retail therapy. A collection of quaint shops, including the Half Moon Bay Wine and Cheese shop, await your perusing. The shop owner is T. J. Rodgers (founder of Cypress Semiconductor), who’s also the owner and winemaker for Clos de la Tech, a winery known for its Pinot Noir. At Rodgers’s shop, you’ll also find a nice selection of wines from vintners of the Santa Cruz Mountains as well as other California regions. And the tasting bar provides a way to sip and discover a new varietal or producer before buying a bottle.
No trip to Half Moon Bay is complete without a stop for sushi at Sushi Main Street (actually located on Mill Street), which has one of the most unique and beautiful settings you’ll find along the coast. It’s a feast for all your senses. Order whatever looks appealing—it’s all excellent.
If you are in the mood for a sandwich instead, stand in line with the locals at the San Benito House Deli. They make their own old-world-style bread to create enormous, delectable feasts for the hands (turkey on olive-walnut bread is this writer’s go-to). Enjoy it outside on the patio, where you’ll often find a fire pit burning and a musician playing.
Half Moon Bay is a tranquil, incredibly scenic coastal destination that’s easy to get to, provides respite from the buzz of Silicon Valley, and offers great food and drink. Head there once, and you’ll be making plans for your next trip back. And when you do come back, consider hiking at McNee Ranch, just north of town—afterward, you might have to stop by the Brewing Company again to quench your thirst with another pint of pale ale!
There’s something brewing in the world of biotech, and Eri Gentry hopes you’ll be a part of it. As cofounder of the world’s first community biohacker space, she thinks everyone should get busy playing in the world of biology.
“We want more people to think of themselves as creators,” Gentry said. “Biohacking really is part of the maker movement and people getting their hands on tools. It’s not about making money—it’s about making visions a reality.”
In 2011, Gentry and a group of entrepreneurs opened a community biotech lab in Sunnyvale called BioCurious. Inside, citizen scientists have access to the kind of equipment you’d find in a traditional biology lab, along with the freedom to explore their own passions. Hundreds of biohackers have tried their hand at award-winning projects that include a 3D bioprinter that prints living cells and a process to make vegan cheese done in collaboration with Oakland’s Counter Culture Labs.
“The beautiful thing is that these projects are all very personal,” Gentry said. “Whether you get involved just to have fun, or you have a loved one suffering from a medical condition and you want to know more about biology, there’s a place for you.”
Gentry grew up in a small town in Arizona and went on to study economics at Yale. She pivoted to biotech and a job with a biotech research startup. In Silicon Valley, she said, for the first time her “weird ideas” didn’t feel so out of place.
“When I moved here, my ideas were met with curiosity and sometimes even blind encouragement,” she said. “Anything is possible here. So many places in Silicon Valley exist for you to reach your potential.”
It’s probably fitting that BioCurious evolved from a Meetup group whose first home was a makeshift garage lab. An audience—many with no background in science—would gather at a small home of one of the founding members, under a patio roof made of aluminum siding. A Venezuelan working on a diagnostic for a rare disease in his home country crashed on the couch. An app developer who wanted to give people a way to color-analyze bacteria without needing a lab was eager to meet new people. This is how a community was born of scientists and citizen scientists.
“Biology isn’t the biggest conversation starter, but if we can get people interested through food and drink, maybe they’ll also chew on how they can use biotech to solve bigger global problems.” _Eri Gentry
A $35K BioCurious Kickstarter campaign helped open the doors in 2011 to a place that connected people with ingenuity and drive to the tools and resources for innovation. Today, BioCurious members include students working on science fair projects, people who see potential in biotechnology making a mid-career switch, pro scientists self-funding their dreams, and those who simply enjoy tinkering.
“We see artists and bicycle mechanics who just think, ‘This is a really cool set of raw materials to work with,’ and I totally dig that way of thinking,” Gentry said. “That sense of approachability and play are so important.”
Encouraging a sense of play is a big part of why BioCurious is teaming up with The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose to host Creative Collisions: Geektoberfest. The second annual event is a fun evening of demos by citizen scientists and tastings by some of the best craft brewers in the Bay Area. In addition to the obvious chemistry involved in making beer, there’s a natural connection between biohackers and home and craft brewers.
“They’re not interested in making enough beer to sell on demand,” Gentry said. “They’re interested in making a beer that people love and want to drink. We love that spirit.”
The hope is that people who show up for the beer will leave with a sense that they, too, can be biohackers.
“Biology isn’t the biggest conversation starter, but if we can get people interested through food and drink, maybe they’ll also chew on how they can use biotech to solve bigger global problems,” Gentry said. “It’s an exciting time in biotech as barriers like cost and accessibility are dropping so rapidly. I want to open doors for really smart, passionate, and creative people.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 8.3 Show
“When they say, ‘It sounds like you have a lot on your plate,’ I like to say I have a big appetite.”
Bobbi Vie can’t sit still. Since high school, he has been a dedicated breakdancer with a restlessly creative mind. Vie developed his craft slowly and secretly throughout his high school years, but his passion took center stage when he began teaching weekly dance sessions at Evergreen Community Center. A tight-knit group emerged from Vie’s weekly sessions, but it faced the threat of crumbling under the community center’s financial pressure. To keep the program alive, Vie initiated a series of dance competitions. The events generated huge turnouts and helped to inspire FAME (Fashion Art Music Exhibition) to showcase the events’ clothing vendors. Today, Vie’s enthusiasm for outreach manifests itself in FutureArtsNow!, an after-school arts program for at-risk kids. SVCREATES recently granted the program $10,000, which Vie plans on using to implement a year-round cycle of activities for creative empowerment.
The Carreira family and their executive chef, David Costa, breathe new life into Alum Rock with authentic—yet modern—Portuguese cuisine.
In December 2015, Carlos and Fernanda Carreira opened Adega—Portuguese for “wine cellar”—on Alum Rock Avenue in East San Jose’s historic Little Portugal. They inherited and retooled the 33-year old legacy of the former Portuguese restaurant, Sousa’s.
“My husband and I approached the owner,” Fernanda says. “He was pretty much ready to retire. So we got lucky and approached him at the right time.”
“It was always a lifelong dream for us,” Carlos explains. “We’ve been in the wine business for 20 years and we always wanted to have a restaurant. It only happened when our daughter, Jessica, went to culinary school in Los Angeles.”
San Jose–born Jessica studied culinary arts in Pasadena, California, and honed her craft in Portugal, where she became a professional pastry chef at age 20. While working in the kitchen at Michelin-starred Restaurant Eleven in Lisbon, Jessica met David Costa. In early 2015, after three years abroad, she began to talk with Fernanda about starting something special back home.
“We want to keep and maintain those authentic flavors, but kind of jazz up the presentation, make it more youthful, more unique and special, and give it new life.”
The plans for Adega came together quickly. The space was renovated with an aesthetic that tastefully integrates Portugal, wine-cellar motifs, and modern dining. Just inside, the proud, glass-enclosed wine rack invokes the Carreiras’ Portuguese wine business. To the right, sculpted birds curve in metallic migratory flight as they would over the Azores. To the left, through the cellar doors, traditional barrel-making tools are hung along the main dining area. Dark walnut paneled tables echo the barrels themselves. The blue-painted tiles of Portugal’s azulejos are here too. Abstracted into a singular wave along the wall, the mural serves as a reminder of the source and approach of Adega’s cuisine: the traditional transformed.
The family asked Costa to serve as executive chef at Adega. Carlos says that Costa’s technique reflects what’s been going on in Lisbon for over a decade. “You get your traditional dishes—same ingredients, same way of processing and cooking them—but presented out of order. Everything makes sense, but everything is different. The way he cooks and presents his dishes is unique.”
In Costa’s hands, the original ingredients and flavors evolve into the evocative. The Bacalhau à Adega is his interpretation of the classic codfish dish. “The Bacalhau is a very old tradition,” Costa explains. “People would salt the codfish to conserve it, then soak it in water to remove the salt. There are a thousand and one ways that the Portuguese prepare codfish. Normally all of the ingredients are mixed together, like a big casserole. For ours, instead of being jumbled up, everything is plated individually.”
“We’ve had some of the older generation of the Portuguese community come in; they’re curious,” Jessica smiles. “They eat the Bacalhau, and they’re like, ‘What is this? This is not what I’m used to.’ But they eat it and they get it. They understand the idea, and they leave satisfied. We want to keep and maintain those authentic flavors, but kind of jazz up the presentation, make it more youthful, more unique and special, and give it new life.”
For Costa and Jessica, the process is a partnership. Jessica describes creating the dessert Arroz Doce Adega based off the traditional Portuguese rice pudding dish: “I had the idea of the flavors—rice pudding is just a big block of pudding, and it’s creamy, but I wanted to incorporate a lot of tropical flavors. But then I had no idea how to make it happen. David’s idea was to roll it into little balls, fry them up, and serve them with a coconut cream and mojito sorbet.”
Still, the landscape of East San Jose contrasts with what Adega offers inside.
“We looked at other options, other locations,” Carlos recalls. “Ultimately this made the most sense. For years this area was known—and still is—as Little Portugal. So it made the most sense to have an authentic Portuguese restaurant in what for so many people is—and hopefully will be again—Little Portugal. I think that’s actually been one of the keys to our success. We are meeting everyone’s expectations, in part because no one is expecting such a nice place here.”
Fernanda echoes: “Everybody asks us, ‘Why? Why here?’ We say, why not. We have people who come here and say, ‘We’ve never been to this side of town.’ They’re willing to come and explore.”
Chris Reed radiates positivity, and like his music, it’s infectious. He offers up an emotional integrity as he engages listeners with lyrical themes ranging from social plight to empathy and understanding.
Reed’s solo project represents a drastic departure from the reggae and world music sounds of his previous group, Aivar. And yet, he insists that this new direction has been in the works for some time. “I was writing music, and it didn’t all fit into that Aivar box,” he notes.
“To be able to go into the SoFA district and see it become what it’s become over the last few years is just awesome” _Chris Reed
His debut solo album, Sweet Destiny, was recorded organically over the course of two years with producer Steven Murr, a former keyboardist for Aivar. The DIY approach to recording the album reflects a passionate sincerity. “I was able to really work through a lot of emotional issues, to be honest with myself and write pieces that I’ve never written before.”
One thing Reed has taken from his collaboration with musicians is the universality of the medium. “Music is truly a language…you could sit down with anyone, play music together, and have that kind of conversation—without speaking the same language.”
He mentions the international artist Manu Chao, as well as Ben Harper, the Gipsy Kings, and a variety of blues and African musicians as sources of inspiration. Despite influences from all over the world, he is invested in the local scene. “To be able to go into the SoFA district and see it become what it’s become over the last few years is just awesome,” he says.
Arts Initiative, an organization started by Reed and his father, seeks to bring music and theater programs to elementary and middle schools that lack funding. “We’re just trying to find creative and sustainable ways to keep music alive and breathing for kids,” Reed states. Currently, the program spans four schools in the Willow Glen and South San Jose areas.
There is a refreshing extension of his musical message in his recognition of others. “I value people who fight the good fight,” he says. “Anybody in the public sector doing good for the world—they have my utmost respect.” Two of the songs from the album, “Because of You” and “We Are One,” are directly inspired by and feature the many voices of his students. His belief that there is an artistic outlet for everyone seems to be a driving force behind the project’s success.
Reed is currently working on the release of Odyssey, a multivolume collection of recent work.
Opening the Door to Parkour [Editor’s Note: Bay Area Movement is transitioning to the name Sessions Academy of Movement as of September 2017.]
When entering the Bay Area Movement (BAM) studio in San Jose, a buzz of energy and excitement fills the air. Huge wooden structures loom overhead, waiting for people to leap from them—into a foam pit, of course. A large spring-loaded floor, similar to what gymnasts use to reduce impact when training, takes up the center of the studio. A group of young kids and teenagers vigorously exercise under an instructor’s watchful eye, anticipating the moment when they’re free to practice the moves and techniques they’ve been working on.
Parkour, the sport of moving quickly and smoothly through an area, often urban, might sound like it appeals to a niche interest group, but as partners and co-founders Angel Abiang, Jr. and Diana Silva explain their journey, it becomes apparent how many people in the Bay Area have taken up this sport.
Angel and Diana, husband and wife of 10 years, discovered parkour through their son, Ryan. When he was four years old, he loved anything to do with ninjas. He became interested in online parkour videos because the athletes’ style was similar to that of ninjas. Ryan had no interest in conventional sports; he wanted to do parkour. Angel recalls this time fondly: “We would have loved it then if he’d just liked something easy, like soccer, but we knew we had to find something he wanted to do.”
They found Frank Fuentes, who was teaching parkour in Bay Area public parks. Frank had no formal class structure or meeting place—he just taught any kids that were interested. “We would use whatever we could find,” says Frank. “We’d be outside in a park using an old mattress for a mat.” Frank was already a close friend of another parkour enthusiast, Desheay Jenkins, and eventually, Angel, Diana, Frank, and Desheay sat down to discuss the possibility of starting an official parkour program. After finally securing a small space, they quickly realized they needed more room to keep up with demand. When they came across a large warehouse off Senter Road, they’d found the space they’d been looking for.
Parkour might be the most well-known style of urban athletics, but there’s also tricking, freerunning, and other specific techniques. The team didn’t want to alienate any one style, so they named their business Bay Area Movement, using the term movement to include all styles. Inclusivity, in terms of style and clientele, is important to the team. “There is a perception that people who do parkour are like skateboarders or punks,” says Angel. “That’s just not true. By starting these classes, we’re introducing it as a family activity, something parents can feel comfortable having their kids participate in.”
Today, BAM offers a wide range of classes for all age groups: for beginners as young as five years old, for preteens and teens, for adults, and recently, for women specifically. “We decided to introduce the women’s class to work on moves that are more customized for them,” says Diana. “So far, everyone has loved it. The women in the class are great; they cheer each other on in class and support each other.”
Angel, Diana, Desheay, and Frank welcome anyone and everyone to come try a class. With a little hard work and patience, anyone might be able to perform astonishing leaps, vaults, and rolls.
Suhita Shirodkar, a local artist involved in the Urban Sketchers Movement, fills the pages of her journals with watercolor sketches capturing snippets of everyday life. Rather than rough pencil-drawn outlines, Shirodkar composes intricate watercolor sketches of her surroundings, such as the façade of the historical California Theatre in downtown San Jose (pictured below).
What is the Urban Sketchers Movement?
Urban sketching is about drawing on location, drawing the world around you, and creating visual storytelling and reportage. It is different from other forms of drawing on location, like plein air painting, in that it is not just about color, line, tone, and painting, but also about being a part of the world around you, and sharing it through your sketches.
How did you become a part of the Urban Sketchers Movement?
I always drew in a sketchbook, and while some of my work is purely from my imagination, a lot of it is just capturing snippets of life around me. One question I constantly got when I drew was “What will you do with these? Will you make paintings of them?”—which really confused me. I see what I create in my sketchbooks as my art; it records how I see something or react to my environment in the moment. To refine, gloss over, or recreate a more “finished” form would be to lose that first, immediate, and fresh vision.
I found the work of urban sketchers on Flickr and found that there was a growing community of people worldwide who did just what I did. So, I started sharing my work online through their Flickr group and found this treasure trove of a community!
“Watercolor seems to have its own mind.”
-Suhita Shirodkar
How do you choose your locations?
Sometimes I choose locations based on an idea or a current obsession. Right now, I am on a hunt to find the fast disappearing artifacts of a time before Silicon Valley was as it is today: vintage signs, old-fashioned diners, old buildings…things that harken back to an earlier time, a different aesthetic, and just a very different place than what Silicon Valley is now.
Often, I don’t pick my locations; it is just where I am. I draw on family vacations: Mexico, Hawaii, India, all of it makes its way into my sketchbook. I draw at home. I enjoy it all; it helps me look at the world around me with the fresh and inquisitive eye of a traveler.
And then there is just my everyday life: I sketch in parking lots, when I have 20 minutes before a meeting, I sketch my kids as they play, as they eat dinner. Everything is fodder for my sketchbook. It’s a visual diary I look back at over time.
What is it about vintage signs and landmarks that attract you?
As a first generation immigrant that has only seen Silicon Valley in its present incarnation [Shirodkar moved here from India in 2000], it is fascinating to look at these landmarks and buildings that speak of a different time. It is also sad to see how quickly they are disappearing and being replaced by homogenous malls, parking lots, and chain stores. I feel a need to draw them all before they are gone.
I have only been drawing and blogging these vintage signs for a couple of months now, but I already have people writing to me to tell me about signs in the area I haven’t drawn, things that are going to be torn down, sold, closed…I love that connection with people, that sharing of knowledge. I love that people actually want to see me go out and sketch something they remember from a long time ago. It speaks to the power of a sketch, that someone might want to see this place captured as I see it.
How long have you been painting?
I have drawn and painted most of my life, but this current form of working on location in watercolors? I’ve been doing it for almost five years.
Why watercolor?
Watercolor is, perhaps deceptively, simple and versatile: I carry around a compact little kit with me everywhere, so I can paint as soon as something catches my eye. Watercolor also reacts beautifully to the environment. For example, on a muggy day, it sits wet on the page, refusing to dry, and I’m forced to work wet-in-wet, resulting in a piece that reflects the day.
Watercolor seems to have its own mind. You never control it completely, but it often surprises you with beautiful mixing and textures. The accidents and mistakes, the stuff you cannot correct and cover up in this transparent medium, I love those. They say so much.
Shirodkar’s book of vintage San Jose signs in urban sketches, Sign of the Times, can be purchased on her Etsy site.
Article originally appeared in Issue 6.2 “Device” Print version SOLD OUT
On Solace, Inclusion, and Poetry as Story Santa Clara County’s newest Poet Laureate, Arlene Biala, presents a rich Filipina and Pacific Islander heritage in her poetry. Everyone has a story capable of transformational effects—an idea cocktail with beneficent volatility. For the next two years, Biala’s mission is to find these stories and coax them skyward.
Why is it important for Santa Clara County to have an advocate for poetry? Our county, this valley, is not a melting pot. Each person has her or his own story to share through poetry, dance, theater, and all artistic genres. It is important to encourage each other to “talk story” so we can recognize and witness each other’s struggles and strengths—to lift each other up in song. We should all be advocates for this. Every day.
Does poetry have something to offer people who do not identify as fans of poetry? If so, what is it, and how might you help it reach the people it can serve? Absolutely, yes. It can spark dialogue, debate, conversation, and the inspiration to express and create in other ways. As an undergrad in college, I had an English teacher who actually said, “If you are not writing like Milton by the time you are 19, you may as well give up.” I never forgot this because I am vehemently opposed to that belief or anything that alludes to “the fine art of poetry” or that excludes anyone from poetry. So, my primary focus is to expand the accessibility and enthusiasm for poetry in our community.
One of my projects is a pop-up poetry-making station, which we are calling POETree, that will invite people of all ages to contribute lines for collective poems. POETree will happen at public spaces and events throughout the county over the next two years.
If it’s true that poetry begins not with words on a page but as a way of seeing the world stripped clean of one’s personal agenda, does that mean that poetry is in a way omnipresent—something you discover rather than something you create? I think it’s both. Through the process of creation—the intention and the physical act of writing—you are discovering the work. When my daughter was eight, she wrote a poem to honor the children who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She wrote, “The grass opens like doors.”
Poetry comes at you, through you. You have to get out of its way.
Sometimes you read a line that speaks to you at the root—something that you always knew was true, but never articulated until an author laid it bare. I know you’ve read lines like this. Tell us one, and break down what it does for you. This is one of the boom-POW lines of poetry from our current US Poet Laureate (#PLOTUS), Juan Felipe Herrera, in his poem “Five Directions to My House”: I said five, said five like a guitar says six.
This line has the impact of standing directly beneath El Capitan in Yosemite. Sense of place in the universe. Nature, poetry, music, art…moving us beyond words.
Once you’ve written something, what, if anything, is your relationship to it? Are you done with it, or do you hope it achieves something specific? Good question. It depends. Sometimes you know when a poem is pau, finished. You offer it to the universe. Sometimes you know it is not ready, but you nudge it out anyway. I always give thanks and send good intentions.
Do I hope it achieves something specific? Inspiration. A sense of peace. Healing from despair.
“People entrust you to do something that’s going to be permanent on their bodies, so you’ve got to not take that for granted—do your homework and draw…”
Though various designs now cover large swaths of his body, Orly Locquiao still remembers his first tattoo. Right after he turned 18, he walked into a shop near Notre Dame High School with $60 in his pocket and asked what he could get. He decided on a tribal band, though he was only able to get an outline. For another 50 bucks, the tattoo artist said, he could come back and get it filled in. Orly quickly showed off his new ink, but the response was far from what he had hoped for from his friends.
“They looked at me and said, ‘That is the stupidest tattoo I’ve ever seen,’” he recalls. “I kept on telling them, ‘Just wait until it’s done. It’s gonna be dope,’ [but] I never filled it in.” The band has since been covered up by a dragon that wraps around his entire leg.
The humorous moment—one of teenage impulsiveness gone awry—captures who Orly once was. Though at 18 he just stepped into a shop and pointed to something on a wall, he and his Humble Beginnings tattoo shop are now known for crafting detailed, thoughtful pieces tailored to each individual who walks through their doors. But he’ll be the first to admit that the person he was in that shop at 18 isn’t who he’s become since starting in earnest as a tattoo artist himself.
More than 20 years later, he’s grown through two apprenticeships and tattooed everyone from neurosurgeons to professional athletes, including San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Orly’s notoriety now means his sessions are booked out months in advance.
Out of Orly’s discipline came Cukui, a streetwear brand that began as a platform for Orly to showcase tattoo ideas that never made it to skin. The brand recently concluded a pop-up shop run on San Francisco’s famed Haight Street, exceeding the expectations he had when the company started. He says it felt like a milestone when they opened their flagship shop in Japantown five years ago. Much has changed, but his success has been built through learning from his mistakes and always being mindful of his humble beginnings.
Well before getting into tattoos, Orly became fascinated with art through tagging. He remembers the first moment that creative bulb went off: he was in the boy’s locker room at Sheppard Middle School, and he saw a friend of his write his name in Sharpie on a wall.
He loved the simplicity of the expression, and that night he came up with his first tagging name, inspired by a WWF wrestler: Genius. He says the tag he created with that name was one of the ugliest things he’s ever written, but he also admits he remembers how to recreate it.
After graduating from Independence High School, Orly enrolled at several community colleges but never ended up staying past his first term. He was caught up in the party life, “hanging out, smoking, drinking, just having a ball and having no responsibility, living at home,” he says. But when his ways finally started to get him in trouble, his mother suggested he move in with an uncle in Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago. It was there he found his footing at the Illinois Institute of Art, where he studied graphic design.
He also began driving an hour and a half several times a week to apprentice at a tattoo shop called Trial by Ink on Chicago’s rough West Side. Under the tutelage of Mike Cruz, he began to refine his skillset. “That was a turning point in my life,” Orly says, noting that his time in and around Chicago was “when everything came into focus. I grew up a lot there. I became a man.”
Four years later, Orly returned home to San Jose and began tattooing out of his house, but he felt he lacked a niche. While studying up on the art of Polynesian tattooing, he came across Po’oino Yrondi, the man who later tattooed the expansive sleeve and chest piece on Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. After locating his new mentor, he went to apprentice under Yrondi in Honolulu.
“I was there to reconnect with my culture, to reconnect with my roots and find out who I was,” he says of his second excursion away from home. “I was trying to find myself as a tattoo artist and see where I belonged in the industry.” He found his place with Polynesian tattooing, where every piece is created through an intimate, unique process. Each tattoo is meant to project a meaning translated into the style’s distinct aesthetic and to tap into its storied heritage.
With a new outlook and a specialized focus, he returned to San Jose after a few years and opened his first Humble Beginnings shop near Roosevelt Park on Santa Clara Street in November 2002. As Orly recalls, it wasn’t easy.
“I learned business day by day and client by client,” he says. “There would be days and weeks where I’d just do a couple tattoos and barely make ends meet, and there’d be points where I’d be completely broke and have to pull a loan from somebody just because I didn’t want to shut down.” Six years later, he had expanded his clientele enough to move the shop to its current midtown location at the corner of Meridian Avenue and San Carlos Street.
With Humble Beginnings growing, Orly looked to expand his creative endeavors. His old graffiti buddy Sam Rodriguez convinced him to design T-shirts. Since then, the two have spearheaded the designs that have come to define Cukui, a brand “rooted from a melting pot of Chicanos, South Pacific Islanders, tattoo artists, and graffiti heads,” as their site proudly declares. “All the ideas, all the motivation, it came from a tattooing foundation,” he says of Cukui. “I wanted to mix California and Hawai‘i—the island culture mixed with West Coast living.”
His new venture also offered a chance to start fresh with his younger brother, who handles day-to-day operations while Orly sticks to design and art direction. “After we decided to partner up to do Cukui, that’s when our brotherhood really began,” admits Orly.
In those 20 years since Orly first ventured to the chilly suburbs of Chicago, back when he says he wasn’t the best brother, things are looking much rosier for the man who just welcomed his second child into the world two months back.
“Like they say, if there’s no struggle, there’s no progression. If this takes you down, all you have to do is get back up,” he says. “It’s hard for some people to do it, but if you have the will and you have the tenacity, you can do whatever you want. I have that drive where I keep trying to succeed. If it doesn’t work, I get back up and look at it as a learning curve in my life.”
During the course of our conversations, Orly certainly wasn’t afraid to admit his errors. It seems that he almost embraces them, recognizing that they always lead to a choice: recognize defeat or fight on, for we all rise from our own humble beginnings.
Article originally appeared in Issue 7.5 Serve
Issue is Sold Out
Shooting in the International Luxury Suite and Fountain Restaurant at Fairmont San Jose provided the perfect backdrop for the Issue 8.0 Explore editorial.
Sydnie Dress – Manic Designs Heels – Stuart Weitzman, Nordstrom Valley Fair, $395 Cuff – Isharya, $248 Ring – Isharya, $118 Double Ring – Isharya, $98
Novelist Ann Bridges has worked among Silicon Valley’s corporate elite. Her work aims to reinvent the suspense genre with challenging plot twists and a sobering look at financial realities otherwise concealed.
Much of your new novel Private Offerings takes place in Silicon Valley. What is it about this place that people should know?
Even when the hills are brown, we see golden opportunities everywhere. Call it historical naiveté, call it dreaming—it fuels the entrepreneurial spirit.
Who do you love to read, and if you could steal one of their powers, what would it be?
Hemingway’s pithiness inspires me, as perfectly exemplified by his six-word story: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.” Readers fill in the blanks from his emotional imagery, rather than the novelist writing it all out for them.
Stephen King said, “Belief and reader absorption come in the details: An overturned tricycle in the gutter of an abandoned neighborhood can stand for everything.” Your thoughts?
Suspense requires stoking the reader’s curiosity with tiny details, enticing him or her to discover what happens next. If the details are too scant or unbelievable, it breaks the pact the author makes with the reader to embrace the plot and characters’ foibles and consider future possibilities. I add a little twist at the end of my novels to challenge the reader’s premise and encourage future open-mindedness about their own prejudices and initial conclusions.
What question are you never asked that you want to answer? And what’s the answer?
Why do you focus on business themes in your novels? Eighty percent-plus of Americans work in a business their entire lives, yet few understand its basic underpinning and goals. I want to demystify its inner workings, and share it with those impacted most. Stories involving China and Silicon Valley’s ongoing influence on our lives provide invaluable lessons and a timely investment in our future. As we encourage women’s business success with Silicon Valley–sized dreams, my novels also provide pragmatic, realistic scenarios of insider experiences with an inspirational touch.
Cocktails in Marin with J. K. Rowling or penniless in London with Shakespeare?
Brunch with Michael Crichton at Buck’s of Woodside talking about the ethics of technology with VCs.
Article originally appeared in Issue 7.5 “Serve”
‘We’re a platform for people to tell their stories or live out their dreams.’
When Raj Jayadev took a temp job after college to fund his world travels, he never dreamed it would morph into Silicon Valley De-Bug, a 1,000-member community support network and one of San Jose’s leading civil rights organizations.
It was year 2000 and high tech companies used temporary employees to perform the low-wage drudge work that has since been shipped offshore. Raj Jayadev’s new co-workers were youths and elderly immigrants struggling to make ends meet at a Hewlett-Packard printer plant on $8 an hour, with no job security or benefits.
In Silicon Valley’s early days, temp work was a pathway to full-time employment and a ticket to the middle class. If you worked hard, crappy temp jobs led to permanent positions with educational benefits, which qualified you for better jobs at that same company or at others. By Jayadev’s time, they had become low-wage limbos, dooming a new generation of workers to poverty.
Talks about workplace hazards and shortchanged paychecks grew into lunchtime meetings at a pho spot on First Street, inspiring them to turn these discussions into an action group that confronted management and got them fairer treatment.
Today, Silicon Valley De-Bug is located in a former speakeasy at the corner of Lenzen and Stockton Streets in San Jose. Eight paid staff and about thirty-five volunteers operate De-Bug’s Community Center where their darkroom, video production, and sound studios are available for little or no cost.
Funded by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and The California Endowment and with referrals from Santa Clara County’s Sentencing Alternatives Program, they conduct writing and media-making workshops at high schools, colleges, juvenile halls, prisons and community organizations, and provide legal aid services. They have after-school arts programs and offer computers and hangout space to anyone who walks in.
De-Bug Science
How are disadvantaged, underemployed youth able to do so much with so little? Adrian Avila, 28, calls it “De-Bug Science.” Says Avila, “After eleven years I still don’t know how it works, but it does work.”
Born in Mexico City, Avila’s mother brought him to San Jose when he was six. He discovered De-Bug when he was a Lincoln High School student working at a hot dog place. Today, he’s De-Bug’s art director, a mentor, and owns and operates After Dark Prints, a silk screening and design house. He manages De-Bug’s media-rich website, and has traveled with Jayadev and other staffers teaching video and media skills to youth around the country for the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
“We’re a platform for people to either tell their stories or to live out their dreams,” says Avila. “People feel like they can do it here because they see others doing it. You walk in as a blank slate and find out what you like to do—writing, design, video, music—and if it’s not here you can create it. That‘s what I did.”
“When I came here I created a graphic design business, so I started the screen printing and someone gave me most of the equipment I needed. I also wanted to write and travel and address the immigration issue. It’s the opposite of the commercialized co-opted youth culture we see on TV, at the mall, and social networking’s fake freedom.”
At De-Bug, it’s not what you do, but how you do it, and the “how” is collaborative and inclusive. Those hanging out soon find themselves writing for the magazine and website, creating art, producing videos, and taking part in political action as they connect their challenges to economic and societal inequities.
Organizing marches, community meetings, and City Hall speak-outs in 2009 against the San Jose Police Department’s public intoxication arrests and profiling record won De-Bug a membership on the city task force that lobbied unsuccessfully for a community-based selection process for new police chiefs. From that collaboration with the Silicon Valley NAACP, the Asian Law Alliance, SIREN and other groups, De-Bug co-founded the Coalition for Justice and Accountability and the Santa Clara County Forum for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, watchdogging County and city law enforcement agencies for civil rights violations.
The Invisible Become Visible
Elegantly dressed and fashion model-pretty, it’s hard to believe that Steeda McGruder, 29, was plagued by drug use and spent 18 months at Elmwood Jail fighting a charge that was eventually dropped.
Today she’s founder and director of Sisters That Been There. Headquartered at De-Bug, it’s a peer lead support and re-entry program of the Santa Clara County Probation Department that helps women released from jails, rehab centers and prisons to not go back.
“I had a plan to form a support group before I got out,” says McGruder. “I saw that we needed to do better for ourselves, but we didn’t have examples. No one who had ever succeeded ever came back to jail to tell us how to do it. We only saw the failures. So I decided to be the first example and if I were to make it, I’d turn around and teach other women to do it and we’d just keep helping the women coming behind us.”
She says it wasn’t by accident that she found her herself walking by De-Bug’s Community Center on a Sunday afternoon. It was divine guidance. She noticed people inside and found herself at a meeting of De-Bug’s Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project.
“What they were talking about sounded familiar to me, because of my own incarceration. I felt comfortable. So I sat down and just listened, and then I introduced myself and said what I was doing. I had just started a weekly support group that was meeting at the Billy DeFrank Center, but I spoke about the group as if it existed the way I wanted it to. It was alive to me and they got really excited about it. It was the first time anyone acknowledged it and believed in it.”
“Most kids have people who nourish their dream. Women like me who come from the institution lifestyle didn’t get their dream nurtured. We got shot down so we shot ourselves down. De-Bug was that family unit that nourished and supported my dream.”
“What I needed at that time in my journey was someone who could see my same vision. Because at that time, it was just me and God with this business plan I was carrying around. De-Bug handed my dream back to me and said ‘It looks good, go out and do it, we’ll support you.’”
The De-Bugggers
About sixty people crowd into De-Bug’s Community Center on Sunday afternoons and on Tuesday evenings at the East Valley Pentecostal Church for more De-Bug Science at their Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project, a “families and folks that been there” style of peer support and free legal aid that co-founder Gail Noble says works miracles.
In 2008, Noble, Jayadev, and former Santa Clara County public defender Aram James met at a juvenile justice conference and joined forces. Noble, a medical assistant, was trying to navigate through Santa Clara County’s criminal court system to save her 17-year-old son from a first strike and long sentence at a juvenile detention facility. Multiple witnesses attested to his innocence, and James and Jayadev’s research indicated that Karim was one of many African American first-time offenders railroaded into incarceration by county and national policies that failed to consider all of the evidence. That process of helplessness inspired Noble reach out to other parents and form the ACJP.
Noble says spirits are low when people find them. “We give them a game plan. They’re in overwhelm but we know the process and help them communicate with their attorneys, probation officers and judges,” says Noble. “We help them build cases that enable the court to see a person, not a number, and we go to court together. An attorney does the best he can to represent this person but when a whole community is behind someone, that makes the outcome different.”
“We see three strikes cases going to early resolution to time at County Jail. Many times our clients face significant sentences and get probation, which is amazing. We see them walk away empowered and that’s the most exciting part.”
Jayadev calls it “time saved” versus “time served” and says 1,377 years have been saved since the ACJP began. He says by using family and community engagement to save someone from incarceration, many more people benefit. He cites a single dad who got probation instead of jail time. His young daughters weren’t placed in foster care, which would have been catastrophic for them. Those helped by ACJP become closer to their families through its process. They get their lives back and on track and want to give back and become ACJP peer counselors.
“This is De-Bug Science,” says Adrian Avila. “People come in and we pay attention to what they’re saying and what they need. We help anybody with what we know.”
“Art is there to recover what is hidden and what has been lost.… Art starts a dialogue within yourself.”
Roberto Romo was born, as he puts it, “in the middle of nowhere” in the Sierra Madre; and throughout his early school years, he moved back and forth between Mexico and the US, which frequently put him behind in classes. When he did not understand a lesson, he would doodle. Today he is a MALI (Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute) graduate, the first in his family with a college degree, and he’s active in the San Jose arts community as a freelance illustrator, an art director at the newspaper El Observador, and a teacher.
For the Opera Cultura Theatre production Cuentos de Peregrinacion (Tales of Pilgrimage), Romo was commissioned to distill the Mexican migrant experience into five paintings. In “Working in the Fields,” a strawberry pierced by a nail dominates the scene, serving as pedestal for a pale gold hummingbird, its wings serenely lifted as though ready to take flight. The strawberry’s sweetness is juxtaposed with the physical pain and financial struggle of the migrant worker: that sweetness comes at the cost of someone else’s bitter sweat and tears. The hummingbird represents the migrant’s ability to adapt to and to survive, with grace and resolve, any situation. In “Leaving Mexico,” the Mexican eagle perches proudly before the Statue of Liberty as caballero, its familiar features distinctly Mexican, an ochre cowboy hat set firmly atop its head. The symbols of the two cultures are deftly interwoven into one whole, one new identity. In “Crossing the Border,” a silent trio of compass, water, and vulture conjures up the death that awaits so many who undertake that long and harrowing trek through the desert. “The empathy of the artist is universal,” Romo observes.
Empathy is only the start. For Romo, the drive to create is bound inextricably also to the drive to examine and analyze. At the School of Arts and Culture, he introduces art as a way to guide students to live their lives more consciously, exposing the dangers of not looking at the world with awareness, of not questioning, of too readily assuming that what is routine in life is also truth. Art, for Romo, is the cornerstone of mind, spirit, and individual thought: it is the magic created from meditation. “Art is there to recover what is hidden and what has been lost,” he says. “I paint to provoke. Art starts a dialogue within yourself.”
His current project, La Nueva Loteria, explores what he calls his hybrid self: the intersecting bloodlines of aboriginal and European. This 54-painting series is based on the widely played card game in Mexico, brought from Europe and assimilated into Mexican culture hundreds of years ago. “We are a society that has been vandalized,” Romo says. “We’ve been obligated to survive by any means.” Romo’s reenvisioning of the cards brings to the fore the symbols of a Mexican and an Aztec culture smudged out of existence by a dominant European system. In the original deck, La Muerte, the card of death, features the standard Grim Reaper of European religion and folklore. Romo has depicted instead a skeleton reclining, as if sleeping, on a pillow, an homage to the aboriginal view of death as a long sleep. In his vision of El Corazon, the heart is fully realized in ultra-realistic anatomical detail, with two delicate gold bands beside it, anchoring love within marriage and family.
The exhibition is scheduled for this coming November at the School of Arts and Culture, and Romo’s goal is to have the paintings available in card form as a real game: La Loteria reinterpreted for the new millennium.
In a world of ready mechanization and assimilation, a world too formed of and by mass culture, Romo pushes himself, his students, and us to question the picture of reality the world offers, calling upon all of us to press past that picture and to see what really is. In this quest, the artist leads the way. “We form matter out of antimatter. We are like God, like creators. Artists provoke the spirit,” he says. “We artists are the earthquake. Everyone stops and listens.” To do this, to be this, sometimes means leaving the comfort and safety of the established. But do not shrink from the task, Romo tells us. “You are a coward if you don’t launch yourself at the unknown,” he urges. “Go out and get it.”
Twenty years since purchasing Heroes, Alan Bahr still anxiously waits to see what goodies will walk through his doors.
If you live in the South Bay, chances are you’re aware of Heroes Comics, even if you’ve never read a comic book in your life. The shop has been open since 1985 and in its current location since 1990, and its sign—“HEROES” in black block letters accentuated by an “O” that resembles Captain America’s shield—dominates the East Campbell Avenue and Winchester Boulevard intersection. You might say it’s the unofficial gateway to downtown Campbell.
But take a closer look. Step over the threshold for the first time and be transported to a lush collector’s paradise of trading cards, action figures, graphic novels, and vintage comics. Original art adorns the walls while posters cover nearly every inch of the ceiling. If you’re looking for an out-of-print release or a rare alternate cover, chances are it’s here, lovingly tucked away on an overstuffed shelf.
After you speak with Alan Bahr, the shop’s owner for over a decade, it becomes clear that while the shop may be a business, its walls are an outgrowth and celebration of his own love for comic collecting. The decor seems to substantiate his belief that comic dealers aren’t a lot different than the collectors they sell to.
Though he’s lived in the Bay Area since 1985, Alan is native to Bagley, Minnesota. Bagley is a small town, and in his early years, Alan recalls picking up comics from the small selections of the only two local drug stores that sold them. Reading DC titles like Batman and Superman as a young child led to Marvel’s X-Men and Avengers issues in his early teens. But he fell out of collecting a few years later, gravitating toward cars and girls until he picked up the hobby again in college.
“I don’t think [collecting comics] was something that you were ashamed of in those days, but it wasn’t something that you would broadcast,” he recalls. “Now it really is much more mainstream and acceptable than it ever was.”
Settling in California came as a result of knowing the right people at the right time. A friend had moved to the Bay Area for a tech job and needed a roommate. Alan was fresh out of college and welcomed the offer to relocate, ending up in sales positions at Cyprus for more than a decade. When he had the chance to purchase the Heroes shop in 1995, he jumped at it. “It seemed like an opportunity that would be fun to try,” he says. He’s never looked back, and he’s still drawn in every day by the mystery of what might be in someone else’s collection.
As both a fan and a vendor, he particularly treasures original art pieces because each one is unique. And he still picks up World War II–era comics for his own collection whenever he can, even though nowadays his personal interests are largely satisfied by the shop’s inventory.
“When you’re a collector, every day to some degree is a treasure hunt, whether you go to a shop on your lunch break or go to a flea market when you’re in town,” he notes. “You never know what you’re going to find in that box. The greatest thing about owning the shop is all the stuff that walks in. It gets me up and going every day.”
It’s obvious that Alan values the rapport he’s been able to establish with his clientele. He says that 80 percent of his customers return weekly to check new inventory, and some have been popping in for over 20 years. When asked why comic books in particular seem to elicit such a passionate response from fans, he smiles and says, “Comics have a magical quality. For some people, when they hold an old comic book, it makes them feel like a 10-year-old again.”
Inside the cramped walls of the Winchester shop, customers get to experience the “a-ha moments” for which collectors live. Heroes Comics allows Alan to give back to the culture he fell in love with when he first picked up a Batman release in the back of a Bagley drugstore all those years ago.
This article originally appeared in Issue 8.0 Explore.
California’s Mediterranean climate is ideal for growing grapes for wine. Wine aficionados are spoiled for options in the Silicon Valley region. Here are three world-class wineries in our own backyard.
J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines Written by Michelle Rund
The best wines often come from an individual truly devoted to the craft, and that could not be truer than for Jerry Lohr at J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines. Jerry came to the Central Coast 40 years ago to plant grapes in what was then a relatively unknown growing region. Using the agricultural knowledge he gained from having grown up on a farm in South Dakota, Jerry planted his first vines in Monterey County. Today, J. Lohr has 3,700 acres of vineyards across Paso Robles, Monterey County, and the St. Helena appellation of Napa Valley. Headquartered in San Jose, J. Lohr recently celebrated its 40-year anniversary as a family-owned, family-operated establishment. The winery is also part of the Certified California Sustainable Winegrowing program, which indicates an ongoing commitment to sustainable and environmentally friendly practices.
J. Lohr’s presence in San Jose has been growing in recent years. As businesses have opened around The Alameda, more and more people are discovering the winery’s tasting room, which lies just off the main drag of the burgeoning area. J. Lohr engages with the local community as well, hosting wine and cheese evenings during the summer, as well as wine and chocolate nights, corporate dinners, and small private events throughout the year. The winery’s Paso Robles location is not to be missed: it boasts a three-acre photovoltaic tracking system—a solar energy grid that not only provides sustainable energy to the vineyard but also creates a beautiful light show when the midmorning sun strikes on a clear day. So whether you’re in San Jose, Monterey, Napa, or Paso Robles, be sure to take a moment to enjoy some wine with J. Lohr.
Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards Written by Flora Moreno de Thompson
The next time you’ve got some friends in town and don’t know where to take them, drive up Congress Springs Road to Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards in Saratoga for a bit of wine tasting and to take in the beautiful scenery.
Named after owners Kellie and Mike Ballard’s two daughters, Savannah-Chanelle already had a storied history long before they bought the winery in 1996. It was originally purchased in 1901 by Pierre Pourroy, a French immigrant. He built the stately family villa on the property overlooking the vineyards and named it Montmartre—builders misspelled it as Monmartre, and you can still see the typo in the building’s entryway. The winery barely survived the Prohibition era, and changed hands a few times before being purchased by the Ballard family.
Perched high in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Savannah-Chanelle Vineyards has a great view of the Silicon Valley on a clear day. The surrounding vineyards and mountains are a beautiful backdrop to experience the winery’s famous Pinot Noirs.
Visitors to the winery can sample wines in the Redwood Tasting Room from 11am to 5pm everyday, with live music available on Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 5pm. The scenic grounds make for a great spot to have a picnic or to sit in one of their Adirondack chairs and enjoy a nice glass of wine.
Regale Winery and Vineyards Written by Michelle Runde
Many areas in California are renowned for their impressive wineries, but most people don’t think of the South Bay as one of those regions. Thanks to Regale Winery and Vineyards, Los Gatos can boast such a destination. Larry Schaadt bought the vacant land in 2005 with a vision of creating a winery that would bring the classic Italian-Napa elegance to the South Bay. “I wanted to build a place where people would feel like they’d driven hundreds of miles to a beautiful winery, when really it was just a few miles away,” says Larry. Regale’s primary focus is Pinot Noir, but it also produces Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Many of the grapes are grown outside the estate, in the Anderson Valley, Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast, Santa Rita Hills, Napa Valley, and Santa Cruz Mountains. Regale even bottles its own olive oil from a grove of Italian olive trees that Larry planted on the estate.
Regale is a popular choice for private events, birthday parties, and corporate functions, and also hosts several events for its wine club members each year. Regale does not sell its wine to restaurants or stores; the winery is committed to keeping production at a small scale. “We’ve chosen to make just enough wine each year for our members and our events. Anyone can go to a store to buy wine nowadays; for us, the allure is the experience of tasting wine in a vineyard setting,” says Larry. When you’re craving a classic California wine experience but don’t want to drive to Napa, head to Regale for a glass. You won’t be disappointed.
Bringing art and community back to personal health
A person’s “third space” refers to the sociocultural construct in which each person derives identity from three places: the home space, the workspace, and the place where a person seeks community—the third space. It’s a classic ideology that dates back to the 1900s, but ThirdSpace Fitness is bringing it to the forefront of its business model in present-day Silicon Valley, smack dab in the middle of downtown San Jose’s SoFA district.
There are no machines at this gym, but a lot of open space, weights, and ribbon-like contraptions hanging from the natural wood rafters of the second floor’s high ceilings. With the exception of new bathrooms, no changes were made to the former Metro building. The rooms are bright and airy. Outside the yoga room, a striking sunset shows in the evenings. “The building kind of spoke for itself, so we just allowed it to do so,” Lance Miller says.
Co-founders Lance Miller, Danielle Valley, and DJ Downs spent a year planning a fitness space for those who have a lot of want, but not a lot of time—a centralized place. “We noticed we were all going to different places for a yoga class, going to a chiropractor, getting massage services,” Miller explains. “Not to mention taking time and money going from place to place and having to coordinate all these resources on our own.”
Miller owned CrossFit San Jose, the oldest CrossFit location in Northern California. Valley owned Breathe Yoga in Los Gatos. And Downs owned CrossFit Los Gatos. The trio fell to talking and found they shared a concern for centralizing health and wellness resources in one place, a place that also involved the community. “We all came into it,” Miller says, “with the idea of there’s so much more that needs to go into training an athlete than just the strength and conditioning.”
ThirdSpace offers educational classes and social events around downtown San Jose. It’s also an art gallery—a place intended, in Miller’s words, to nourish body and soul. Miller has a background in film production. Valley has a BFA in art history. ThirdSpace represents a marriage of their passions: art and fitness. “People come to yoga to learn how to move their body and breathe. Our main thing is teaching people how to take care of their bodies, and the goal-setting aspect to teach you how to create the process to get you there,” Valley says. “The art is in the journey.”
February was ThirdSpace’s first “First Friday” as residents of downtown’s SoFA district. One of Valley’s art teachers from Santa Clara came in with a group of students for what seemed like a full-circle moment. “It was a way of showing off the place to people who are important in our lives without knowing it was even happening,” Miller chimes in. “I think those students made it extremely special, probably very hard to re-create.”
ThirdSpace doesn’t follow the typical gym model. It isn’t focused on the quantity, but rather on the community. “You’re not going to see people come in here, put on their headphones, do their workout, and go home,” Miller says. “You’ll see people really interact, stay longer than classes, come before classes.” And—if Miller has his way—think of the space as their second home.
“We don’t really accept people leaving, and by that I mean, if someone isn’t getting what they need from the community, then the community has to change, and that’s just a lot of research on our part,” Miller says. “We still need to be a community,” Valley agrees. “We can’t have people who are invisible in this place. It’s like a family.”
ThirdSpace is also a place focused on recovery, a component Miller says is missing in today’s gym culture. “We go-go-go and expect to wake up and go-go-go some more,” he says. ThirdSpace sets out to be restorative. It sets out to be not simply a space, but a state of mind. One to help people recover from their (in Valley’s words) “high vibration” Silicon Valley lifestyles. People need instead to stop, she says, to take time to slow that process down, to take care of themselves. To know that once they take care of themselves, they can take care of others.
RRedemption Boutique owner Tammy Liu has watched the items we buy become increasingly disposable. While a low-priced tee from your local big box might work as a one-off, she believes, a beautiful garment made by hard-working, passionate hands can become a keepsake to treasure forever.
Liu’s mother was a maker. When she and her husband moved to the US from Taiwan for her husband to attend college, they brought everything she had made with them: clothes, curtains, an entire household. They didn’t have the luxury of discarding their belongings to later replace them; nor could they ever replace what Liu’s mother had lovingly made.
When Liu was two years old, her mother made her a plaid velvet dress with lace tulle lining and a Peter Pan collar. Liu says, “The dress that my mom made me—it made my year.” Over time, Liu became more conscious of the meaning behind the items her mother made—this appreciation for scarcity became the root of her buying mantra.
Inspired by her mother’s craft, Liu’s been determined to work in fashion and open her own store since she was a child. After graduating from Cal Poly with a business degree, she began working in a small Bay Area–based boutique as a sales associate. She was soon managing several stores and ready to break out on her own.
“It had always been a solo mission,” says Liu. But then Liu spent a year in Australia, where she met Dave MacGregor-Scholes. Connected by their mutual love of “thrifting,” they discussed Liu’s ideas for her dream clothing store and expanded the concept into a lifestyle emporium, one that would promote quality over disposability and offer ethically, locally made goods instead of generic products.
Back in the US, Liu had to find the right location to make her and MacGregor-Scholes’s vision a reality. While Liu was considering how much capital would be required to launch a startup given pricey Bay Area rents, the downtown Campbell space practically fell into her lap: 1000 square feet of shop space in a prime location on Campbell Avenue.
Liu’s customers endorse her ideals and support local, handmade goods. Says Liu, “The majority of my customers are just like me: 30-somethings who want to feel good about their purchases.”
Documentaries about poor working conditions in clothing factories inspired Liu to research production methods. Wanting to reach artists who could produce merchandise for her space, she started looking for creative craftspeople in California. “I wanted to design a collective space that showcases the talent all around us,” says Liu.
Liu made it her mission to personally meet every artisan and visit his or her workshop. By being selective, she hoped to find people who shared her passion for quality.
When she finally opened in May 2015, she had 40 vendors—now the total is closer to 60. Many of these artists donate a portion of their proceeds back to the community.
All of the bath and body products are fair trade; the display fixtures in the shop were made from reclaimed wood. The unfinished edges and stark geometric shapes echo the simple message of finding value in all kinds of materials.
During her thrift adventures in Australia, Liu developed an eye for good recycled clothing, too. “I don’t shop in department stores,” she says, “because I don’t want what everyone else has.” Her store features a section for recycled clothing that she’s sourced from antiques and estate sales. The racks are filled with men’s and women’s lines that are manufactured in California, using local materials and fabrics.
The positive response she has received from the community so far reinforces why she opened the shop. One customer emailed to praise her excellent sales associate. Liu laughed about this as she’s the only employee, working seven days a week.
The longer the shop has been open, the less research she has had to do. Customers bring in products and vendors. While Liu would like to take some time off occasionally to take her dogs to the beach or catch up on laundry, running Redemption has never felt like work.
“This is the happiest I have ever been,” Liu says. “I am exactly where I wanted to be.”
Maxwell Borkenhagen and Hiver Van Geenhoven have known each other for years. More recently, they’ve become partners with a shared vision of attracting more people to downtown San Jose—SoFA, specifically. Van Geenhoven is the roaster at Chromatic Coffee, which is served at Cafe Stritch, the renamed and remodeled SoFA restaurant that has been in the Borkenhagen family for over 35 years. Maxwell Borkenhagen books the musical acts and art displayed in the restaurant and music venue, bringing new life and crowds to downtown San Jose. Both Borkenhagen and Van Geenhoven are optimistic about the future of downtown San Jose and want to share their passions with old friends and new customers alike.
How did you two meet?
MB: We had a lot of mutual acquaintances when I was in high school…
HVG: The way we met was actually over coffee. The guy that taught me how to roast coffee was hanging around with Maxwell. We just got along. Maxwell, your parents owned Eulipia before Cafe Stritch, so you’ve been a part of the restaurant business for a long time. Did you ever think you’d be here, running part of it?
MB: No. All throughout high school, I was very weary of getting into the family business. Mixing business with family can be good for the business but not as good for the family. It adds a level of strain. Part of why I moved back to San Jose is because I had started discussing reviving Eulipia, bringing it back to its origins, and modeling it after these places I encountered while in Portland.
When I moved back, I saw potential in this place to do more than a restaurant. There was potential for live music. For so long, that’s what I’ve wanted to do. Seeing that opportunity with this place gave me a new motivation to work for my family. I’ve come to embrace San Jose more. I love San Jose. I truly want to commit to building a better community here. When my parents opened this place in 1977, there was nothing here. They were the first young people to open up a cool, hip place down here.
What sets you guys apart from other businesses in downtown San Jose?
HVG: Passion. When it comes to Chromatic, it’s a dream that I had. I love what I do, and I love working toward it. I love seeing the reaction that people have of “Wow, this coffee is different.” That drive to provide an authentic experience…I want you to have something that’s unique.
MB: What sets us and a number of others apart is that we have a belief in San Jose that it does not have to be a secondary market. I want San Jose to be respected as a place where quality doesn’t have to always be less than San Francisco. Whether it’s in music, art, food, beverage, what have you. I don’t want to be better than SF, but there’s no reason we can’t be as good.
Hiver, where did your love of coffee come from?
HVG: I started working at Peet’s Coffee and learning about coffee. It caught my attention and held my attention. Nothing much had ever really held my attention. After a couple of years, Peet’s had moved their roasting facility, and they had an open house. I went and saw the machines and thought, “This is what I want to do: I want to roast coffee.”
I’ve thought of coffee as a medium of directing culture. The ideas that can be shared over coffee can be very interesting. I’m mainly interested in bringing coffee to the forefront and sharing the value of what that beverage is.
You’re both a part of businesses that are bringing people to downtown San Jose and breathe new life in the SoFA district. What else do you want to see happen here?
MB: Low-rent housing downtown. I see this as a huge resource. I would love to get to the point where San Jose State students make this community their home, but SJSU only accounts for a segment of the community that I’m a part of. If we had one high-rise that had rent that your average 20-something could afford, that could bring such a breath of life into this community. We need a bigger group of people concentrated down here.
HVG: We want to show the rest of the Bay Area that we too take things seriously.
You are both raising the bar in your respective fields in San Jose: downtown venues and coffee culture. Can you talk about your influence on your customers?
HVG: I’d like people to enjoy themselves. But if I can spark an interest to where they want to learn more or be exposed to more… For so long, this area has been inundated by mediocrity. Mediocre clubs, restaurants, food, shit on TV. We don’t overwhelm; we’re approachable.
MB: There’s a lack of tastemakers in the South Bay. Inevitably, if we’re going to build a culture here, it’s going to be much more embracing and unpretentious than in other cities.
I attribute the lack of this niche art and music culture that we’re trying to cultivate to a lack of people that have the confidence to take things they perceive to be good and expose those things to as many people as they can. I don’t claim to have better taste than anyone, but I do have the drive to take something I like and have the confidence to put it on stage and create an environment where all these people can be exposed to something. It’s not shoving things down anyone’s throat, but it’s “Hey, look at this, we think this is good.”
What’s next for each of you? What can we look forward to?
MB: A big motivating factor that drives me to try and build the art and music community is that I don’t want the youth in San Jose to have the same experience that I did. San Jose can be a cool place. You don’t have to just love it because it’s your hometown. I want to see South First Street be the central point of downtown San Jose.
HVG: We’re aware that there were these culminating points in SoFA history, but it always fell off. I feel determined that this is the last time that’s going to happen. We’re bringing authenticity. It’s important to me to create this sense of a little city in San Jose and allow that sense of community to evolve around music and coffee.
Entire article originally appeared in Issue 5.4 Form
Print Issue is Sold Out
“What if we had a culture of support, rather than a culture of competition? I believe in creating alliances in the music and artistic community.”
Amy Dabalos is coming into her own. Sassy and sultry, deeply serious, playful. Confident and elegant, yet earthy and approachable. On stage, she cooly switches personas, her classical training in jazz and opera bringing depth and range to her work. Her covers of artists like Aaliyah, Madonna, The Beatles, and Stevie Wonder have the crowds up and dancing in the aisles. And now she’s introducing audiences to original pieces, as well.
Affirmations, an EP released this summer with her newly formed band, The Vibrant Things, adds two new recordings to her catalogue: “Believe in Love” and “Forgive You, Release You.” The mood is introspective: the jazz rhythms are cool, her voice liquid honey.
Dabalos’ music is rich with complexity. Of her lyrical “Paint The Scenes,” a previously released original single, she says, “It’s about the choices we have and do not, what we can control and what we cannot, the need to tell one’s own story. My style is more message driven, rather than first person.” The song is a multilayered exploration of what it means to build a life in a world of chance and uncertainty.
In the midst of building her own career, Dabalos is also in the business of nurturing other artists. She hosts Musicians Meet: San Jose, which aims to foster deeper connections between musicians and other artists in the creative community. “Friendships with musicians go beyond the hustle,” she explains. “What if we had a culture of support, rather than a culture of competition?” She has also become curator of the weekly live jazz night Rhythm + Wine in downtown San Jose’s Continental Bar.
With her dual commitment to her own artistry and that of the music community, the scene that Amy is painting is sure to be a satisfying one.
Curated for each issue of Content by Universal Grammar, Album Picks are highlights of recent music releases by some of Universal Grammar’s favorite artists. These picks read less like reviews and more like contextual introductions to each artist and their work: they aim to explore the cultural impact of the release itself in 300 words or less. —Caroline Beleno of Universal Grammar
Alina Baraz is a Los Angeles–based singer and songwriter connected with Denmark-based producer Galamitas via SoundCloud. Nine months after the independently released, bona fide hit “Fantasy” (with 14 million plays on SoundCloud to date), the two have collaborated to release Urban Flora, an EP featuring eight previously released singles, on the high-profile Ultra Records imprint. Galamitas’ subtle R&B with electronic elements and a downtempo vibe, combined with Alina’s soothing and seductive voice, creates a mood suggesting a pairing with a glass of wine, a book to read, and a hammock.
Off top, Syd the Kyd is my hero. I have been a super fan ever since my first listen of The Internet’s debut album, Purple Naked Ladies, back in 2011. Introduced via newly minted Odd Future Records, The Internet, which at the time consisted of Syd the Kyd and Matt Martians, displayed a certain kind of soul sound that was new, but right off the bat sounded in step with what my ears wanted and needed to hear. The Internet’s music is definitely soul, but a brand-new version of it, with elements of R&B, hip-hop, and funk organically injected with a modern and intoxicating swag.
With the release of their new album, Ego Death, The Internet puts Odd Future in the rarefied air of having two members of their collective produce two of the best and most innovative soul/R&B records of the last four years. I speak of Frank Ocean’s debut album, Channel Orange. For Ego Death, The Internet is now a band consisting not only of Syd the Kyd and Matt Martians, but Jameel Bruner, Patrick Paige, Christopher Smith, and Steve Lacy, as well, fully formed together in mid-2011. The Internet, too, will have wowed San Jose audiences by this time in their no-doubt stellar performance at the 2015 San Jose Jazz Summer Fest as part of the Jazz Beyond Stage programming co-presented by Universal Grammar (excuse the shameless plug).
By the time you read this, you might have caught Kamasi Washington at this year’s San Jose Jazz Summer Fest in downtown San Jose, as part of the Jazz Beyond Stage programming carefully curated and co-presented by Universal Grammar (shameless plug redux). I believe this will be as epic a performance as any at this year’s Summer Fest, although I am writing pre-performance in this quick review of Los Angeles–based Kamasi’s new album, The Epic. Known mainly for his tenor playing, following in the traditions of John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, Kamasi is modern jazz, or the future of it, but he’s making waves right now. The Epic is epic: it’s a triple CD release, a must-see in concert. Only then will you understand the full velocity and power of his music.
Released as an exclusive free download on iTunes at the end of May this year, the LP Surf is a product of the band The Social Experiment. Highlighted throughout the album is the work of trumpeter Nico Segal, aka Donnie Trumpet. Highly anticipated for The Social Experiment’s inclusion of Chance The Rapper as an official band member, Surf has a clear devotion to the art of a new cool, a bohemian mesh of musicians enjoying the process of making music with live instrumentation and of eclectic influences ranging from neo soul to jazz and hip-hop. The Social Experiment consists of Donnie Trumpet, Chance The Rapper, Peter Cottontale, Greg Landfair Jr., and Nate Fox. Surf guest-features current heavyweights in the game, including Big Sean, J. Cole, Janelle Monáe, and new kid on the block Raury.
Thundercat The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam EP (Brainfeeder)
To my enthusiastic enjoyment, Los Angeles–based Thundercat, one of my current favorite artists period, given best-in-the-universe status by some of my peers, has just released a new project, an EP titled The Beyond / Where the Giants Roam. Some of my favorite work from artists I dig can come from an EP release. It’s usually more daring and experimental, yet not too far from their familiar sound, taking listeners to new places with it or deeper—case in point here.
The Beyond, Thundercat’s third release following his solo debut album, Apocalypse, has Thundercat showing he is currently in a creative prime. Fresh off guest appearances and studio work on albums like Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly, with this new release, Thundercat is again establishing his own imprint on modern jazz and soul with futuristic incantations for mediation. The EP features a modern jazz vanguard of musicians, including Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, and jazz-futurist pioneer Herbie Hancock. (Also see: Suicidal Tendencies, no joke.)
Picks by Thomas Aguilar: Tommy has been presenting and promoting artists, DJs, and musicians from all over the globe in his hometown and other parts of the Bay for 15 plus years under the moniker Universal Grammar. Under the nom de plume “Charle Brown,” he shares his mix of global groove, soul, R&B, jazz, electronic, hip hop, funk, house, and Latin to his hometown audience, San Jose.
President Dwight Eisenhower established the sister city program in 1956 to foster global awareness and peaceful relations. A design team from Okayama, Japan, one of San Jose’s sister cities, presents their view of their hometown.
Often called the “Gateway to West Japan,” Okayama is a quiet, modern city that serves as a transportation hub for travelers moving from eastern and central Japan into the further reaches of western Honshu, Shikoku Island, and Kyushu Island. The central area of the city is easy to get around via the well-developed transportation system that features local and high-speed trains, streetcars, buses, taxis, and rent-a-cycles. Incorporated as a city in 1889, when Japan moved from a feudal system to a centralized government system, the city actually has a much longer history which extends back to the Sengoku Period (1467-1603).
Although the surrounding area was and is farmland, the city has played an important part in history and boasts a castle that attracted important political figures in the past, such as the Ikeda clan, who developed the economic and cultural status of the city under their rule between the 17th and 19th centuries. Currently, Okayama Castle attracts only tourists, but it’s considered one of the top castles in the country. The main tower (and most of Okayama city, for that matter) was damaged during WWII when the city was largely destroyed after having been bombed by the US Armed Forces. However, two of the watchtowers survived and have been designated as Important Cultural Properties by the government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the damaged sections have been restored.
Geographically, Okayama falls in the humid subtropical zone: although it does get chilly in the winter months, the summer months can get hot and very humid. Okayama enjoys relatively low rainfall year round and is known as hare-no-kuni, which means “Sun Country.”
While the municipal and the prefectural governments have been working diligently to post multilingual signage around the city, Japanese is the only language spoken and understood by most of the population.
Although there are pockets of history sprinkled throughout the city in neighborhoods that were not damaged by bombing, visitors will want to head to the suburbs to enjoy the city’s best historical features.
Points of Interest
Okayama has many historical points of interest, with Saidaiji Kannon-in being one of the most intriguing. This small, quiet temple dedicated to the Buddhist deity of Kannon is also home to the oldest and largest Naked Man Festival. The 500-year-old festival, in which nearly 10,000 men dressed only in loincloths participate, is held late at night on the third Saturday in February of every year. The men compete for two lucky sticks that also carry a large cash reward for the winners.
The Saijo Inari shrine and temple complex is a great location to visit any time of the year, and boasts the largest torii gate in West Japan. Visible for miles around, the giant torii gate beckons to visitors. The shrine is dedicated to the Shinto fox god Inari, the patron deity of business, which is appropriately ironic as the souvenir shops leading up to the shrine are fantastic in number and variety.
Visitors would also do well to stop in at Kibitsu Shrine, which is located near Saijo Inari. Folklore sets Kibitsu Shrine apart from other shrines: legend holds that a demon’s head buried under the temple causes a cauldron to ring out during fortune-telling ceremonies. The shrine dates from the ninth century and exhibits many unique architectural features, several of which are registered as Important Cultural Properties.
Dining
For a taste of fresh, local seafood, stop in at Tontonme in the southern part of the city. This seafood restaurant is known for its sashimi and sushi made from fish harvested from the nearby Seto Inland Sea.
For another healthy option, Okabe in central Okayama is a long-standing tofu shop with attached home-style restaurant. The restaurant has counter seating only and there are only three main menu selections, but you can bet the food will be fresh, delicious, and surprisingly filling.
For secret hideaway dining, Balloom is the place. This elegant and cozy little cafe/restaurant/bar serves up fresh and healthy meals made with ordinary but fine-quality ingredients. Guests can enjoy a selection of fine wines, draft beer, cocktails, drip coffees, herbal teas, and imported sodas. Lunch and dinner are served. Tapas and pinchos are available in the evening.
Shopping
For shopping, AEON Mall Okayama is a must-visit. Newly completed in December 2014, this shopping mall is one of the largest and top ranking in the country. Visitors can find an array of boutiques, interior shops, restaurants and food courts, a movie theater, and many other shopping options. The wine shop on the first level includes a winetasting vending machine.
Okayama has a number of covered shopping arcades, and Hokancho is one of the older ones. However, a recent influx of young, hip shop owners have breathed new life into this arcade, making it a great place to explore. Check out the eclectic mix of cafes, green grocers, boutiques, book and toy stores, dish supplies, bakeries, etc.
Nightlife
For a relaxing end to the day, stop in at Padang Padang to unwind. This chic little bar in the heart of the city also serves up European-style fusion cuisine selections made from top-quality local and imported ingredients.
Beautiful Places
Any itinerary should certainly include Korakuen. With a history of over 300 years, it is one of the top three traditional gardens in the country, and is well known for its use of “borrowed scenery”: in this case, Okayama Castle becomes part of the garden scenery despite the fact that it is a separate property. The garden is spacious enough to accommodate large groups while still imparting serenity.
Off the beaten track, the beautiful Sogenji Temple pleases the senses at any time of the year. Surrounded by tall trees and Maruyama mountain, this Zen temple of the Rinzai sect is near the city but feels secluded. Zazen sessions are open to the public on Sundays.
Kaigai Connection
We are a small branding company specializing in helping local businesses get their product overseas. We help customers with foreign language support, out-of-country PR, homepage and business document design, and nonnative staffing. We also work with a large, local tourist agency to bring visitors to Okayama and the surrounding prefectures.
How the local auto scene and Wekfest grabbed the world’s attention, through youth and fully embracing the powers of social media.
For a majority of people, the idea of a California-based car show revolves around lowered vehicles, loud mufflers, dynamic paint jobs, loud music, bright lights, and wet T-shirt contests. It’s a surface-level understanding of a misunderstood subculture that has often been presented to the world through television, movies, pop culture, and Vin Diesel. For others, these shows and the cars being highlighted represent a whole lot more: a culmination of high-quality engineering and the personalities that go into creating these machines.
Enter Wekfest (pronounced “weak fest,” a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the amazing car builds and their not-so-modest owners), a San Jose–based car show, whose goal is to capture car shows, car enthusiasts, and the youth culture in an entirely different light. Starting out in a parking garage in San Francisco’s Japantown, Wekfest has gone on to become a tour with seven national tour stops, as well as their first international stop in Nagoya, Japan. In its fifth year, Wekfest has grown from the locals’ favorite car show to an international tour, garnering the attention of a worldwide audience.
During its early years, the show focused on JDM (Japanese Domestic Model) builds, but it quickly pivoted to being the home of any type of car build that offered a unique personality. Currently, the show itself acts as a museum of sorts—carefully coordinated by a panel of judges who go through hundreds of entries to put forth the most dynamic personalities available. From trucks to wagons to American muscle cars and even Teslas, Wekfest soon became the car show for all people who put their hearts and souls into their vehicles. As the show grew out of the Japantown parking garage and into Fort Mason in San Francisco, The Queen Mary in Long Beach, and beyond, the way in which Wekfest differentiated itself from other car shows became more and more important.
Behind the new direction of the show was creative director Geoffrey Nguyen. A San Jose native, his goal was to create a car show with life, a show with personality, a show that fans could feel was their own. By changing the way car shows were covered by the press, by utilizing social media outlets at a time when no other car show was, Wekfest was able to connect with fans on a deeper level—before, during, and after the show. To do this effectively, Nguyen’s platform of choice soon became Instagram. “At the time, Instagram just handled photos better. Twitter always put media in the background and put words to the front. Being in a subculture that is visually driven, we had to move to a platform that was visual,” said Nguyen.
Instagram became the source for all things Wekfest. Its content was built around more than just cars, and it soon became the building block for creating the aspirational brand that Wekfest is today. By moving its focus away from simply cars, Nguyen began to curate content for Wekfest that allowed its followers to feel like they were traveling with the tour at all times. By pushing coverage of staff travel days, setup days, and the actual show day, Wekfest took fans along for the ride. Explained Nguyen, “We wanted to thank our supporters for being there with us since the beginning, and even though most show goers can’t go to all the shows, it was important for us to make longtime fans and new ones alike feel like they are integral to the growth of Wekfest—which they are.”
Like anything, to understand where something is currently, it is important to work towards understanding where it came from, where its roots lie. For Wekfest, it’s always been about San Jose, and to understand the show’s influence is to understand its hometown. Yes, tech is a huge influence. The show’s biggest support can been seen on its Instagram account, and while this “new tech” has certainly helped share the show’s experience with others, the core of the show is “old tech.”
Old tech, that is, the tech this generation’s parents thrived in. They’re the people who built things with their hands: tangible items that move beyond dating apps for an iPhone. For Wekfest, these feats of engineering are everything. Floating engine bays are valued over loud sound systems, spoilers, and flashing lights. For some, owning a Ferrari can be impressive enough. For Wekfest, taking that Ferrari, chopping it up, and presenting a whole new machine is what makes builds shine.
While the engineering influence can be seen in the cars, San Jose’s cultural influence on Wekfest can be seen all over the show. Taking influences from areas such as skateboarding, streetwear, music, dance, street art, food, and the cultural diversity that San Jose is touted for, Wekfest has proved itself a Trojan Horse of sorts when presenting itself to the world. Only this time, the horse is bearing gifts. By paying homage to all that influenced him while growing up in San Jose, and also urging the youth to be more adventurous and curious, Geoffrey Nguyen always aimed to entertain, as well as educate, the fans.
“We were the first car show brand to utilize Snapchat in a way that gave the followers unlimited access to our work, as well as our lives. I would Snap anything from the shoes me and my friends were wearing, to my barber cutting and styling my hair, all the way down to a bowl of Pho. Things that you and I take for granted, living here in San Jose, but I would get kids from the Midwest or all over the country who would ask me, ‘What is that? Where do I get it?!’”
Wekfest is at the crossroads of all things San Jose, and through its unwavering authenticity and undeniable style, the show has been able to bring San Jose to cities all over the world.
After a decade in the bookselling and book publishing industries, I discovered a new passion, and went back to school for community planning. Around the same time, I got back on my bike for the first time in nearly 20 years and fell in love with getting around under the power of my own legs. My real “a-ha” moment in terms of getting around by foot—whether that’s walking, pedaling, or using an assistive device—came when I began to explore the intersection of public health, equity, and transportation. The disparity between the celebration of a child’s first steps and the disregard for the “pedestrian” in much of our fast-paced, auto-centric adult lives is stark, and I’m fiercely committed to narrowing that gap.
The mission of my work with California Walks is so simple, and yet tremendously challenging: through advocacy and community empowerment, we are dedicated to creating healthy, safe, and walkable communities. My work in San Jose and across the state isn’t simply policy-focused: we look to celebrate walking and the sense of community that can be gained when we’re able to view our cities, and our neighbors, on a human scale. In fact, since moving here a little over a year ago from DC, I’ve learned the most about my new home, and met many of my new friends, while walking and pedaling around.
Mike McGee is a spoken word artist, author, and comedian. Every month, he hosts a series of live performance events in San Jose and Santa Clara, encouraging comics, poets, musicians, and other artists to contribute to the South Bay’s growing arts community. These include a talent competition (Go Go Gong Show), a storytelling open mic (The Burning Tale), and a literary arts open mic (Live Lit). At these and other events, he displays a rare talent for capturing audience attention and engagement.
According to McGee, the key to this is incorporating both dramatic and comedic material and being aware of audience experience at every part of the process. “It’s my job,” he says, “to make the audience’s facial expressions change—happiness, sadness, belonging. It should be an audible adventure that is malleable in some way.”
His book of poetry, In Search of Midnight, mirrors this sensitivity by offering a series of narrative poems that bring the reader to many different stops on an emotional spectrum. Understated and reflective pieces are often followed by what McGee calls comedic “release valves” that make the collection unique in its readability.
McGee also serves as a board member of Poetry Center San Jose, a non-profit offering programs and events that promote diverse literary expression. He wants to help local literary and performance art communities outgrow some of the traditional rigidity between performer and audience. “A lot of people perform as if the audience isn’t there, like they’re uncomfortable having a conversation, but performance isn’t that different from a conversation. Real conversation,” he says, “isn’t just about you. It’s about everyone involved. It has to be an equal blend of both. The whole time I’m performing, I’m listening to the audience. If you listen, they’ll tell you what they need.”
Mike McGee twitter: mikemcgee newsletter: mightymikemcgee Video and synopsis by David Perez Photography by Gregory Cortez
______________BELOW INTERVIEW FROM 2015________________
“It kills me that loneliness and boredom often are not motivating enough to generate more art.”
How would you describe yourself?
Professionally, I am a stand-up poet—a poet with a healthy dash of humor added for flavor. I am a late-blooming vagabond. A hobo-humorist. A get-paid-to-talk and say-things-my-way. Personally, I love making people laugh and cry in close proximity. I’m an ambivert—half extroverted, half introverted. As much as I love being the center of attention, I also eagerly desire solitude. One state helps me create; the other helps me promote. I love people and creatures very much. I am very honored to be alive in this now.
In his book, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield explains “resistance” as anything that blocks you from creating. What are some forms of resistance for you, and how do you deal with them?
I am often blocked by my lack of focus and motivation to write, due in large part to loneliness and boredom. It kills me that loneliness and boredom often are not motivating enough to generate more art. Three quarters of the time, I end up turning to my addiction: mindlessly surfing the internet until I fall asleep. The rest of the time I will go for a walk or ride my bike. If I am uninspired to write about life, it probably means I need to go live more of it. Whatever happens, I am always sure to never beat myself up for not being creative that day. It does nothing for future me. I am always productive—whether it is a product I can sell or merely a new thing I know, it’s still beneficial to me, especially future me.
Dream dinner party: You, Andy Warhol, and…?
Tough call. On a whim—Frida Kahlo, Nina Simone, Mark Twain, and James Baldwin.
What’s the best creative advice you’ve ever received?
Be patient and keep editing until it makes sense to all of your senses.
Content Magazine Literary Series is curated by Santa Clara County Poet Laureate David Perez
Curated for each issue of Content by Universal Grammar, Album Picks are highlights of recent music releases by some of Universal Grammar’s favorite artists. These picks read less like reviews and more like contextual introductions to each artist and their work: they aim to explore the cultural impact of the release itself in 300 words or less. —Caroline Beleno of Universal Grammar
The Groove Curse EP by Australia-based Jordan Rakei was a late August 2014 release. All songs are produced, recorded, arranged, and mixed by Jordan Rakei. Doing due diligence to the Universal Grammar sound, this EP, as well as other works of Mr. Rakei’s, have held a spot in my rotation. This is quintessential, timeless listening for the modern-era head-nodder who prefers the vocal stylings of Marvin and D’Angelo over that solid Dilla-esque swing. The music is raw, vocal-driven groove.
Groove Curse features many collaborating artists, highlighted by guest vocalist Gwen Bunn on the record’s first track, “Street Light,” a neo-soul ballad depicting a scene when a person is feeling that special moment of enjoyment with a significant other and both are feeling it—“She was food for the soul.” Along with laying down the vocals and vocal arrangements, Jordan Rakei displays his artistic versatility and musicianship, playing synth bass, electric guitar, and grand piano throughout the five-song EP.
Look, I’m sure everyone has heard of the artist Kendrick Lamar and/or his latest album. For my personal responsibility to these album picks, if I look back on 2015 to find this was not one of the selections, I don’t think I could forgive myself. Having no expectations on the release of Kendrick’s sophomore LP release, To Pimp a Butterfly, I was thrilled for what was brought to my listening pleasure. This album is electric, musically, with its message of cultural commentary throughout. And the blending and fusing of jazz, funk, soul, and poetry into the hip-hop spectrum was done beautifully.
After taking the time to study the liner notes to align my initial assumptions with the facts of which musician or vocalist or producer was used on which track, I found a veritable feast—from Grammy winners Robert Glasper, Lalah Hathaway, and Pharrell to left-field musicians like Thundercat and Terrace Martin influencing the game from another spectrum to vocalists like Anna Wise of Sonnymoon and Bilal doing the same. Legends Ronald Isley and George Clinton even guest-spot on this record, and last but not least, contributions from Flying Lotus and Snoop Dogg. To name a few. Whew! Artistically, this is a record well-curated, with a modern understanding of who is really making good music. Whether this record is a masterpiece, only time will tell. At least Kendrick threw out conventional wisdom to take a chance that I, for my part, can be thankful for. Take his journey on To Pimp a Butterfly, and if anything, come away with knowledge of the voices of influencers in this current generation of music.
I’d like to first highlight the label on which these artists and albums reside, Canadian-based record label OVO Sound. OVO stands for “October’s Very Own,” founded by rapper Drake and producer Noah “40” Shebib in a joint venture with Warner Bros. The label features a stable of producers, overseers, and artists. Favorites not mentioned in this write-up include ILoveMakonnen and Big Boi. The label currently is responsible for three records in Universal Grammar’s rotation.
The first project, PARTYNEXTDOOR’s PARTYNEXTDOOR TWO, was a sleeper in 2014. The second, Drake’s recent “mixtape” If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, is a project that needs to be taken a little more seriously. Due to contractual issues with Reading released on iTunes, it’s considered his fourth studio album for Cash Money Records. However, for all intents and for the purposes of this post, it’s a project that has come out of this OVO era of music making. The third is Majid Jordan’s A Place Like This EP.
Of these three projects, we are most excited about Majid Jordan, a Canadian duo consisting of Majid Al Maskati and Jordan Ullman. Late in 2014, the duo released the five-song EP A Place Like This on the OVO imprint. This EP exemplifies why I am so excited about the future of this label’s sound. The duo was featured on, and co-produced, the 2013 hit “Hold On, We’re Going Home” off Drake’s Nothing Was the Same, and they seem to have influenced the overall sound of the track. Like that track, A Place Like This reveals a mix of downtempo, contemporary, bassy grooves with elements of deep house and nu disco. On top, the duo laid creamy R&B-flavored vocals. Try this five-song EP on for size first, and I also encourage the exploration of the catalog of current OVO projects as a whole. It will reveal something that has me excited about the future of this label, and the contributions Majid Jordan will bring to it in 2015. Props to Drake and his “patna” 40 for a well-curated stable of artists—“far from over.”
Yes, we did cover this group in the last issue with regards to their EP By Fire. Since that time, their new LP dropped. When a new project matches its own hype and anticipation with a “blow em’ out of the water” effort, well, it gets covered in back-to-back issues, ’nuff said. With an effortless display of funk, soul, jazz, and electronic elements, this record is thick with sonic depth. Hiatus Kaiyote is another jewel of the Australian continent. Some very beautiful music is being produced in that region of the world, and it is on full display on Hiatus Kaiyote’s newly released LP, Choose Your Weapon. The obvious influence of American music has been dutifully shown its proper respect. Nai Palm is a gifted vocalist, and with this record has reached new heights in her vocal prowess. As well as growth and maturity from the band, this is exactly what I like to see in artists from one record to the next. No disappointment here, and as for featuring them in back-to-back issues—I have no reservations. I have received no payment from the HK marketing team and/or management. Go cop this, and see them live.
Picks by Thomas Aguilar: Tommy has been presenting and promoting artists, DJs, and musicians from all over the globe in his hometown and other parts of the Bay for 15 plus years under the moniker Universal Grammar. Under the nom de plume “Charle Brown,” he shares his mix of global groove, soul, R&B, jazz, electronic, hip hop, funk, house, and Latin to his hometown audience, San Jose.
From art school to zines to comics to advertising, what a long, wild ride it’s been
The shop walls of Wow Cool | Alternative Comics are lined with colorful comics of all shapes and sizes and an eclectic assortment of art, like the neon Barney poster with Japanese characters scrawled across it in electric pink. As I sat down to talk to General Manager Marc Arsenault, John Peel’s DJ set from the BBC is on and a mix of old-fashioned jazz, disco, and Rasta rap plays in the background. I asked Marc what originally got him into the comics industry, and he said, “It’s almost too weird a story to tell.”
Diagnosed at the age of nine with a heart murmur, Marc was forced to stay inside and so he read and reread comics such as Pogo and Adventure Comics (#360 was a particular favorite) until their bindings barely held the pages together. Instead of participating in the local little league, he spent his days in the adventures and misadventures of his favorite comic book characters. He was, however, allowed to bowl. “And so I became a really good bowler,” Marc says, laughing. The heart murmur was later discovered to have been a misdiagnosis, but the foundation for a future in comics had been firmly set.
Deciding to pursue illustration, Marc looked to the School of Visual Arts in New York, founded in 1947 by Burne Hogarth, the artist on the Sunday Tarzan newspaper strip. It’s one of the oldest comic illustration schools, and once was nearly one of a kind. Now, says Marc about the art school, “there are millions.” He took a cartooning class from Harvey Kurtzman, the creator and editor of Mad Magazine, and its main writer for the first 28 issues. Studying at SVA introduced him to the industry and many of its leaders.
Right around the time Marc finished school, Xeroxing Zines exploded onto the market. These small, self-published (often stapled) magazines were the inspiration for the foundation of Wow Cool as a zine and comic book mail order distributor in 1988. In those days, Marc says, the gateway to success was Sassy Magazine. Each issue featured a cute band alert—and a focus on up and coming zines. If your zine was featured in Sassy, you might find close to a thousand teenage girls scrambling the next day to read it. “Sassy completely changed my world,” Marc says.
A short time later, he began working at Tundra Publishing with Mark Martin, the artistic director for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman. While at Tundra, Marc was nominated for the Eisner Award for his work on the Michael Kaluta Sketchbook. The Eisner is “the Emmy of the publishing world,” Marc says. It was not to be his last nomination. Others followed, and so did the wins.
Leaving Tundra in 1993, Marc returned to California, to work full-time at Wow Cool. But a few years of eating Top Ramen convinced him to shift his sights again, and this time he headed northward to Seattle and Fantagraphics, publisher of The Complete Peanuts, the entire five-decade run of the black and white strip, and Peanuts Every Sunday, a complete collection of the Sunday strip. During his time at Fantagraphics, Marc frequently ate at the Chinese restaurant just down the street, graduating from Top Ramen to sizzling rice soup. Meanwhile, a friend of his kept Wow Cool going.
Eventually, the restless spirit led him to advertising, where Marc says he learned the ins and outs of marketing and publishing from the perspective of professional print production. After advertising, he says, “I floundered around for a while and didn’t really know what to do. I thought I could make it with music—but I also knew all these artists.”
He did some freelancing and started selling rare books online, and then people started asking him to put their books out too. This was the tipping point, and Marc started to do what he thought he’d never do again. Coming full circle, Marc asked Jeff Mason, publisher of Alternative Comics, if he could be General Manager. And that was the move that led him to where he is today.
When I asked him what Wow Cool aims to be, Marc said he’d like it to be “a small community bookstore.” He provides comics not normally represented, no superhero stuff. Marc is proud that Wow Cool is one of the few places where the esoteric, the cutting-edge, work is out on the shelves. The mission of both Wow Cool and Alternative Comics is to keep such work available, he says, so that artists can continue to produce and so that their work can find an audience.
It’s been a long journey and a wild ride. “It’s almost as insane as it sounds,” Marc says, reflecting back on his life. “Weird, right?”
“I’m intrigued by the idea of how and where we live, how we relate to each other, and our physical environment.”
Susan O’Malley
We were honored to interview Susan O’Malley and consider her a friend. Her work reflects her soft voice, gentle spirit, and kindness. We were inspired by her desire to make a positive change in our world. We will miss her and her influence. Our prayers and condolences go out to her family.
You graduated from Stanford with a degree in urban studies. How has that helped you become an artist?
Urban studies have always influenced the way that I see art or think about my own practice. I’m intrigued by the idea of how and where we live, how we relate to each other, and our physical environment. Urban studies help me explore ways to think differently about the space we inhabit.
The residential project I did in San Jose in 2008 was all about that; I was fascinated with suburban spaces, and private and public spaces. By re-arranging what was already available, like leaves on a lawn or the frost on a house, I was able to bring some fun responses in relation to everyday life.
In a text project I am doing, I am interested in how these spaces can be intervened through different texts. They might look a little like advertisements, but also part of it is an art project. I really love the blurriness of presenting work in this context because sometimes it’s not important, whether it’s an art project or just something that happens in the streets.
What’s important is creating a space that will shift one’s perspective to see the world a little bit differently. How wonderful would it be if we could leave our homes and look at everything with a sense of wonder?
Art has a way of heightening that experience for us.
So you were already thinking in terms of art space creation rather than going into city planning?
Focusing on community organizations and working as an intern at non-profits, it took me a while to put it all together. I wasn’t really exposed to contemporary art as an undergrad. As a graduate, I started going to more art shows and seeing the flexibility and expansiveness in the way these artists asked questions. It was exciting and much different than an academic way of viewing the world. It was a way of thinking I had never been exposed to, and it sparked a light in me.
How do you see the role of art in society?
That is such a huge question because there are so many different perspectives in the world. Art can help push us forward to be more radical, but it is not the answer to everything. It is just one thread of our cultural makeup. Art can help us see things in different ways and relieve the stress of everyday life. Art heightens our sense of space and how we relate to each other.
We live in such an isolated way. The way we’ve organized San Jose, it is a pretty decentralized city. If there are ways to go downtown, see different things, and connect to that space, that will begin to bring people together in a worthwhile way.
What are you working on now?
I have been working on two projects as part of Montalvo Art Center’s exhibition with two other artists, Leah Rosenberg and Christine Wong Yap. One is called “Happiness Is…” and is part of Montalvo’s 20-month theme, Flourish: Artists Explore Wellbeing.
One of my projects is a “Walk” on the Montalvo grounds. Along the walk, there are certain texts and signs that will hopefully help the walker be focused and reflective. Walking is such a simple thing that can make you feel good. It is amazing how altering your body can change your feelings.
The other project is creating a space within the gallery where people can sit down and talk to one another. One of the things I was most interested in in this space was getting people on the floor because being on the floor is so different than being in a chair; it brings a sense of groundedness. There is a lot of science behind what we do with our bodies and how that chemically makes us feel different. This project is about how our bodies exist in the world and how our bodies’ position and activity can change the way we feel.
Doing a project on happiness has been fun, as I had to think about what makes me happy. It comes down to trying to notice the small things. If we focus more on our current state of mind, on smaller things and the things that make us happy, and put those into practice, then maybe we can be happier.
One of the things that I notice makes me happy is being in dialogue with people. Talking to other people and sharing ideas really bring me a lot of happiness. It’s something I need to focus on more. Just noticing that has given me more permission to pursue it as a practice. So rather than meeting someone for coffee and feeling good about connecting with them, it is actually what I do as my work. That has been a really interesting result of working on these projects.
A public celebration of her life and contributions as an artist and curator is planned for March 22, 2015, 2- 5pm, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks for donations to the Susan O’Malley Memorial Fund for the Artsto support emerging artists and to commission a permanent installation of Susan’s work. Non tax-deductible donations can be made via Paypal (by using the donation button below or sending to inmemoryofsusan2015@gmail.com), or by check to the Susan O’Malley Art Fund (acct # for memo field 036838938). Checks can be deposited at any Bank of the West branch or mailed to Charles Angle, 555 Market Street, Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94105.
The interview originally appeared in Issue 5.0: UNDERGROUND
“Through our company, and our actions, we create the change we wish to see in the world.”
Cain Ramirez and Amanda Muehlbauer are pretty busy these days. As co-founders of Cowgirl Bike Courier, a bike messenger service out of San Jose, they have been working to keep their business running smoothly since it first opened about six months ago. “Now that we have a much higher volume of deliveries, [our couriers] have adapted gracefully to our growing demands,” says Muehlbauer, the company’s CFO. While she deals with the financial side of the business, Ramirez—CEO and bike courier—can be found making deliveries around the South Bay, delivering everything from Chinese takeout to CSA boxes to medicine.
Why did you decide to start a bike messenger service, and why in San Jose?
San Jose has not had a proper bicycle messenger service for almost two decades. There used to be a few companies back in the ’80s, but by the time of the Tech Boom, email and fax made conventional messengers redundant.
We found it intriguing that Silicon Valley had no bike courier service of its own. With the support of our local community, and a lot of personal time and energy, we spent a year researching what it would take to launch and operate a bike courier service before opening Cowgirl Bike Courier for business this past September.
Tell me more about your mission to empower women to take part in a male-dominated industry.
According to The League of American Cyclists, 24% of bicycle rides are by women, yet over 80% of women are in approval of bike use. By putting women at the forefront—in our company title, mission statement, and logo—when it came time to hire couriers, out of the 35 applications we received, 22 of them identified as women. Through our company, and our actions, we create the change we wish to see in the world.
How many couriers do you currently employ?
We currently have eight individuals working for us as independent contractors. Each courier makes 50% commission on every delivery charge they fulfill.
Is there such a thing as a typical day in the life of a bike messenger? If so, what’s it like?
A lot of waiting, actually. We typically have scheduled deliveries between 9am and noon, which are fun because we can take our time traveling across the valley. Then, there’s generally a period of calm until 5pm, which is when our restaurant clients open for dinner and make use of our delivery services. On a good night, we’ll be going nonstop from 5:30pm to 9pm. The night hustle is what appeals to a lot of our couriers. Riding at night, navigating through traffic, all the while moving fast to ensure food deliveries stay hot.
You’ve partnered with Veggielution to deliver their CSA farm boxes. What other businesses do you have partnerships with?
We’ve been very fortunate to partner with quite a few local businesses and nonprofits. Aside from Veggielution, we’re very fond of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and all of the work they do for cyclists in the Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
We also work very closely with La Dolce Velo bicycle shop. They’ve been rooting for us since day one, and continue to support us through thick and thin.
What’s the interview and hiring process like to become a Cowgirl Bike Courier? Do you have any advice for aspiring bike messengers?
Oh, man. We put our first batch of couriers through interview hell. It took part in two portions, with the first being a typical interview process at Roy’s Coffee in Japantown. We had two of our friends conduct the initial interview. What the couriers didn’t know is that the interviewer would be taking notes of what their initial impression was of the individual. After this, our friends stuck the note in an envelope, addressed it to a booth at B2 in San Pedro Square Market, and sent the courier off to make a delivery.
Every applicant took off at Mach speed, in an attempt to be a fast courier. We weren’t concerned with speed. We wanted someone who could be calm and cool under pressure. Amanda and I were the ones due to receive their delivery, and of course, each applicant that showed up was dripping in sweat, completely ecstatic with the opportunity given. A third of the applicants took the note to the wrong spot and left. They were cut instantly.
When the courier made a successful delivery to us, we introduced ourselves as the owners of the company, and asked them to take a seat for the second part of the interview. Each applicant, hopped up on adrenaline and endorphins, had to keep their cool while trying to convince Amanda and I that they were the right person for the job. This was to replicate the process as if they were delivering legal documents, as our clients would prove to be even more cutthroat than ourselves when it came to professionalism and dependability.
What is the weirdest delivery you’ve ever made?
Medication for a client’s pet. It’s definitely an untapped market that we’ll be looking into.
Article originally appeared in Reveal Issue 7.0
Print is SOLD OUT
At first glance, you might mistake a Vintage Electric bicycle for an antique, until you spot the sleek electric engine nestled inside the seemingly historic frame. This fusion of classic and modern is the vision of Andrew Davidge, the Los Gatos native who started Vintage Electric Bikes to market his unique brand.
Legally, a Vintage Electric is a bicycle, and it can be ridden in “street legal” mode, which caps at 22 mph. Aesthetically, it resembles a bicycle. Inspired by early twentieth century Harley and Indian board track racing bikes, the Vintage Electric E-Tracker picked up the windswept aerodynamic feel of the originals, but gave the design a slender frame and standard bike pedals. Yes, it’s a bicycle, with all the standard features of a bicycle, but riding it feels more like being on a motorcycle. After a moment of pedaling, you simply press the black button by the right handlebar to fire up the motor. Off-road, you can kick it up to 40 mph.
Davidge can trace the beginnings of Vintage Electric back to his high school days in Los Gatos, when he and a neighbor friend challenged each other to a race using gas-powered motorcycles they had put together. He soon found, however, that using a gas motor was too inefficient. They experimented with electric motors, and after Davidge put one together for himself, word spread and he found that other friends began to want one of their own. Business soon exploded. “I wanted to sell ten the first year. And now it hasn’t even been the first year, and we’ve sold over a hundred,” Davidge says.
The team itself is still small, comprised mostly of Los Gatos High School graduates who met back up with Davidge after finishing college. Davidge himself handles much of the design, while the engineering work and knowhow comes from co-worker Shea Nyquist. Each bike is assembled by hand in the Vintage Electric garage, with the construction lasting around five weeks from the time of order to delivery—this way, they can focus on each individual bike. Part of the time goes into finding quality parts to use in the bikes, many of which are bought locally at places such as Kearney Pattern Works & Foundry in San Jose. The goal is to find “true craftsmen, not just someone who can stamp out a whole bunch of parts.” Vintage Electric’s approach deliberately bucks the “planned obsolescence” trend of many products on the market today, products that tend to last only as long as the company’s product-to-market cycle.
“If [the bike] falls off the back of your truck, it doesn’t break into a million pieces and turn into a piece of junk,” Davidge explains. “We want people to be able to find it in their grandparents’ barn a hundred years from now, throw a new battery in, and have it still work.”
Their sales have shown a widening market. Initially, the bikes went to buyers who simply wanted to own an electric bike for novelty’s sake, but since then, many have gone to Silicon Valley employees who use it to commute to work. And over half have been shipped overseas to Europe, where such a method of transportation is more common. The team credits their features with BBC and Wired for their surprisingly immediate international presence. As newer models come out, Vintage Electric hopes to offer different types of bikes for different types of riders.
In particular, Davidge sees electric bikes as a viable alternative to owning a car. The bikes are not cheap, with the E-Tracker starting at $4500, but Davidge defends the price as, ultimately, still a better investment than a car. “Forty-five hundred sounds like a lot, but when you don’t have to pay for registration or insurance or fuel, it starts to make a lot more sense,” he explains. And, of course, the bikes are built to last. As far as customization goes, there are five base color schemes to choose from, although the team can match any color, citing “Ferraris and lady’s handbags” as previous colors they’ve been asked to match.
And Vintage Electric has just recently completed their second official model, the E-Cruise. In contrast to their original 1910s–1920s inspired model, the new model is a throwback to more recent beach cruiser bikes with a 1950s art deco aesthetic. The E-Cruise moves the design forward a few decades, but the “classic meets modern” approach continues—as does the quality design.
This article originally appeared in Issue 6.4 Retro.
Two movie buffs turned their love of short films into the internationally known San Jose Short Film Festival.
“We want our films to speak to as many people as possible.”
Bill Hargreaves and Sinohui Hinojosa had no idea they would start a film festival the first time they talked. Introduced to each other by a mutual friend, the two met for coffee at Philz to discuss their shared interests of film and filmmaking. They talked about their love of movies for three hours that day. “We found out we had a little bit more in common than that,” Hargreaves says. At the end of their conversation, The San Jose Short Film Festival was born.
“We hammered out all the logistics of the festival that day,” says Hargreaves. “I knew the marketing and business development side of a festival, but production-wise, I can’t do any of that.” Luckily for Hargreaves, Hinojosa is a producer and filmmaker who could. The two had the perfect match of skill sets to put on a film festival. The first year, they held it at Camera One in downtown San Jose. The event has grown exponentially since then and is now held at Santana Row’s Cinemark Theater.
Full article originally appeared in Issue 5.3 “Act” (Print version is SOLD OUT)
Jon Havens plays guitar and occasionally sings for Hurricane Roses. We asked the former Content Magazine contributor to give us a look into the making of their new album.
Help. Why is this word so difficult to say? Is it our society that tells us that we must do it alone? Or is there an innate feeling inside each of us that shrugs off this need to seek assistance? Whatever the reason, the word “help” often remains foreign to us. Perhaps it is a pride in us that wants to tread this path alone. And yet some of the greatest art ever produced has come about because someone decided that it is best to have more than two pairs of hands and eyes to create. Whether it is a book editor, a film team, or the opening of a new store, like-minded folks can produce great things. In Hurricane Roses, we saw this come to fruition in a tremendous way.
Our band formed out of the dreams and journals of our singer, Angi Lemucchi. For years, she had quietly crafted episodes of her life into songs. These songs were intimate and personal, offering the listener a glimpse into her life. Taking these songs anywhere else but her own bedroom would be to draw upon courage that she knew was deep inside her. But in order to give them the life that they needed she could not do it alone.
Frances Marin is a multifaceted artist who paints, designs, and illustrates original and commissioned artwork. Taking on a variety of projects—from painting people’s dreams to creating large paper installations—keeps her open and always growing and exploring as an artist.
Describe your process, your medium.
It generally starts in the sketchbook. I’ve always taken sketchbooks when I travel, but in the last three years I’ve been bringing one everywhere. In recent years, I’ve been into water media: Sumi ink, watercolor, and gouache. I like the immediacy and how it lends itself to being in the moment. It’s a good mix of control and accidents. When I use color, it tends to be mixed down and sort of faded. I also paint with acrylic on salvaged wood. In the last few years, I’ve made some paper installations and other large-scale work. I want to do more of that this year.
What themes do you use in your work?
My work goes between the familiar and the mysterious, often with a narrative. I’m really interested in the idea of escape by painting places that feel serene, welcoming, or a little strange. I love when viewers respond to my work by saying they want to live in my paintings. I think the work resonates with people by being a place they want to be in or that triggers a memory or nostalgia. Recurring themes include mysterious landscapes and places, architecture, objects, and people.
Tell us about your involvement in the creative community of San Jose.
I run a monthly sketch night called SoFA Sketch, which is held at SoFA Market on First Street. Everyone brings a sketchbook, and we hang out and draw. Sometimes it’s all friends and sometimes I’ll meet new artists. I recently received a grant through the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs’ Creative Industries Incentive Fund through the Center for Cultural Innovation. I’m excited to start on that project—I’ll be working with Black Arrow Printing to make a line of San Jose–based tote bags that are organic and made in the US. That’s something that is really important to me. I also show my work at Empire Seven Studios, Seeing Things Gallery, and Kaleid Gallery. I love the community we have.
What influences outside the visual arts inspire and impact your approach to making work?
Friends hugely inspire me. I went to a cabin with friends last November and had the best time. Being surrounded by trees, making a communal dinner, watching deer wander by, and hearing the rain fall on the A-frame roof was the best inspiration. The group there were mostly practicing artists and creative people. I need to get out in nature frequently, so living in San Jose makes it easy to escape to amazing places nearby. Quiet time is best to get creative energy. It’s pretty hectic living in the Bay Area, in terms of the speed in which everyone operates. Working in a fairly tidy studio is important for me too. And in 2014, I went to Cádiz, Spain, for an art residency. Wandering around a very old city and working in a studio that looked out on the Atlantic Ocean was incredibly magical and still influences my work greatly. Watching documentaries, recording things I’ve seen into my memory bank, and reading about new things also impact my work.
When you need inspiration, are there particular things you read, listen to, or look at to fuel your work?
I’m always learning and taking in information, whether verbally or visually. If I’m going to paint something new, like a specific animal, I like to learn all about it. Some of my work might appear simple, but I do tend to do research (the librarian side of me). I read pretty regularly and love reading books with adventure. I think it’s really important to not be thinking about art all the time.
What are you currently working on?
In the next few months, I’ll be completing book proposals so I can find a publisher, designing the San Jose tote bags, and I’d like to do another art residency. Other than that, I love that I don’t really have anything planned for this year. It’s kind of great and kind of scary, but I want to be more in the moment and focus less on the future.
San Jose is home to the only velodrome in Northern California. Hellyer Park Velodrome was built in 1963 and hosted the US Olympic Bicycling Trials in 1972. It’s not just for experienced cyclists—all types of cyclists are encouraged to ride the track. Each Saturday morning, novice sessions are held to teach beginners the basics of racing, safety, and track etiquette. Cyclists don’t even need a bike to ride at the velodrome: track bikes can be rented for as little as $5.
“Many of the riders and racers in our community started by riding fixies on the street,” says Elizabeth Hernandez-Jones, Vice President of the Northern California Velodrome Association. “Hellyer gives them the opportunity to take their riding to the next level and transition to racing on the track.”
People come from as far south as Monterey to as far north as Siskiyou to learn, ride, and race at Hellyer Velodrome. “We also host several events throughout the year where riders come from across the country to contest racing here in San Jose,” Hernandez-Jones says.
Not all riding on the track is about racing. Many riders come out for the fitness aspect of the sport. The skills learned on the track can translate across all types of cycling and other sports, too. “Good balance, sprinting, and speed skills also get bolstered when you ride the track,” Hernandez-Jones says.
A common misconception about riding on a track is that it’s a dangerous activity, but Hernandez-Jones says it is no more dangerous than riding on the road. “Most events are overseen by a Hellyer supervisor to make sure everyone is safe,” she says.
If you aren’t quite ready to take a ride on the Hellyer Park Velodrome, Friday night races at the track are always exciting to watch—the spectating is free.
This article originally appeared in Issue 6.0 “Discover”
Heath Winer and head coach Michael Botenhagen talk about the art of Fencing. Founded in 1981, the Fencing Center (TFC) is a non-profit club dedicated to furthering the development of the art and sport of fencing at the local, regional, national and international levels. Aside from coaching youth towards competitions, they also help coaches attain their credentials as well. For more information on the Fencing Center of San Jose, visit their website at fencing.com
TIPS and TERMS
Advance: take a step forward (toward one’s opponent) Beat:a sharp tap on the opponent’s blade to initiate an attack or provoke a reaction Engagement:contact between the fencers’ blades En Garde:position taken before fencing commences Épée:dueling sword, heaviest of the three weapons, V-shaped blade and large bell guard for protecting the hand Feint:false attack intended to get a defensive reaction from the opposing fencer Foil:court sword, lightest of the three weapons and blunted tip Guard:part of the weapon between the blade and handle Parry:defensive action where a fencer blocks opponent’s blade Piste:French term for fencing strip, the perimeter where actual fencing takes place Recover:return to the en garde position after lunging Saber:light and fast weapon, V-shaped or Y-shaped blade and used for cutting and thrusting
Scoring
Foil:fencers score points by landing tip of blade on area along torso from shoulders to groin in front and to waist in the back. Arms, neck, head and legs are off-target. Saber:fencers score points by hitting with point or edge of blade on target area above the waist, excluding hands. (Both Foil and Saber must follow right-of-way rule: the fencer who started to attack first will receive the point if they hit a valid target, and that their opponent is obligated to defend themselves) Épée:fencers score points by hitting their opponent first on any part of the body.
Sugar, pineapples, and coffee were the cash crops of the Hawaiian Islands for decades, but as the locals joke, these days the main island moneymaker is tourism. The islands have been built up around tourism, tailored to what tourists want to see and do.
Kauai—also known as The Garden Isle—fought this trend decades ago by implementing building and development restrictions. There are no skyscraper hotels here, and the main road doesn’t go all the way around the island. These laws have kept Kauai quiet, lush, and distinctively “untouristy.” The roads are two-laned and sugar cane-lined, and the humid air smells like flowers.
E‘ai kakou (Let’s eat!) It is entirely possible to survive an extended amount of time on Kauai solely on fish tacos and Mai Tais. But for those interested in diversity, the island has many other cuisine options to choose from. In recent years, the locals have turned away from their beloved Spam in favor of a more sustainable, locally sourced, and MSG-free diet. The result has been a new crop of restaurants serving delicious fresh fish and colorful island fruits and vegetables, mixed in with traditional Hawaiian flavors.
On the east side of the island in Kapaa is Hukilau Lanai, considered one of the best restaurants on the island. They offer their famous poké nachos, a huge menu of fresh fish, and an impressive wine list. Also on the east side is Monico’s Taqueria, where Monico himself will mix up a Mai Tai and serve guests Mexican-style seafood burritos with his famous jalapeño crema sauce.
In the north is The Dolphin in Hanalei, where fish burgers are perfectly complemented by a beautiful river view. For a more traditional five-star meal, check out the St. Regis Hotel in Princeville, located next to a mountain range, a golf course, and a beach.
The south side of the island is home to more traditional “tourist” fare. Brennecke’s Beach Broiler on Poipu Beach offers great happy hour prices on appetizers and the must-have Mai Tais, while also serving as a perfect place to wait out late-afternoon rainstorms. Kalapaki Joe’s, also in Poipu, makes the island’s best piña colada.
To satisfy a sweet tooth, there are countless shave ice stands throughout the island. However, Tropical Dreams Hawaiian Gourmet Ice Cream in Kapaa is worth a visit. They pride themselves on producing everything that goes into their delicious ice cream—all the way from owning the cows to the pineapple farms to the coconut trees.
Ho‘ohau‘oli (Do fun things!) A visit to any Hawaiian island wouldn’t be complete without a trip (or several) to the beach. Every Kauai beach boasts beautiful sand, warm waves, and prime sun-soaking spots.
In the north is Hanalei Bay, which might look familiar as the backdrop for the movie South Pacific. Another northern option is Tunnels Beach, which offers arguably the best snorkeling in all of Kauai.
In the east is Kalapaki Beach, perfect for families with young children, as the waves are fairly calm. Southern Kauai has Poipu Beach, which is a beautiful beach on its own but is also a favorite napping spot of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal. Among the south’s most famous beaches is Shipwreck Beach, aptly named for its strong riptide and picturesque—but not swim-friendly—waves.
Besides beaches, Kauai offers nearly endless sights and activities for the relaxed and adventurous alike. The absolute must-do activity for any Kauai visit is a trip to the Na Pali Coast, the lush, untouched land to the northwest. It is only accessible by kayak, an 11-mile hike, or a boat tour accompanied by a certified tour guide. The steep cliffs and turquoise water make the Na Pali Coast justifiably the most-photographed area of the island, and one of the most famous sights on all the Hawaiian Islands.
The scenic and quaint Kilauea Lighthouse sits on Kauai’s northernmost point and offers some of the island’s best bird watching. Also in the north in Princeville is the Queen’s Bath—where visitors can cliff jump into warm pools of clear water (as long as they remain aware of the high-crashing waves).
Opakaa Falls and Wailua Falls are both worth a visit, and on a sunny day, rainbows can be seen through the waterfalls. Spouting Horn—another of Kauai’s most-photographed sights—is best viewed on a windy day at high tide, when the water spouts as high as fifty feet.
Additional worthwhile tours include Kauai’s national tropical botanical garden, named Allerton Gardens, which features the famous “Jurassic” Moreton Bay Fig Tree. Tours of the Koloa Rum Company and the Kauai Coffee Company both offer free tastings and flavors for purchase that are not available on the mainland.
Kauai has perfect weather, stunning sunsets, fragrant flowers, warm waters, and friendly locals. The United States is lucky to have Kauai as one of its own. Californians are even luckier to be a mere five-hour flight away from this tropical paradise.
The sum of our yesterdays and the pull of our tomorrows shapes us today. Andre Hart is no different. The rural, golden east foothills, the house his grandfather built with his own hands and his wild Bob Dylan hair are not just where Andre has come from, they are the influences that shape him and his work today. Relatively new to the San Jose art scene, Andre, who has been drawing and painting since he was three, is primarily self-taught. Though he tried art school, much of his instruction has come from an unnamed early mentor and his family friendship with San Jose artist, teacher and gallery owner Al Preciado.
“I’m not a painter. I am an artist. It has nothing to do with paint or color; it is something you are.”
Andrew Hart
A little over a year ago, in the shadow of his grandmother’s passing, Andre’s grandfather gave him a nudge to move forward with his art. He encouraged Andre—not in an over-handed, “do something with your life, kid” approach, but with the blessings of an experienced man of a quiet generation gently sharing the potential he saw in his daughter’s son.
The result, among others, was a self-portrait.
Andre Hart: I see a part of my work as ‘paraphrasing’ or taking someone else’s ideas and going against them, kind of like how folk music has done—taking a theme and exploring it in new ways. Taking an idea and ‘twisting’ it a bit, that’s kind of how I work.
So, I was reading a newspaper article. I ended up wanting to do something different where I wasn’t focusing on faces, which I do a lot of, and I still ended up with a face in there, but it’s not my traditional face. I don’t have a lot of nudes, either, actually. I just wanted to do something different. At the time, I was listening to an old blues song by Booker White called “Fixing to Die,” and there is a line in it that says, “I know I was born to die, but I hate to leave my children crying.” I was listening to that song and thinking about our society. That one just came at a time when I was really irritated with everything that was going on all around me. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean an end-of-the-world kind of thing. I guess there were ideas about how I was very frustrated with our government and the way that there’s a left and a right and how those are our only choices when really that’s not a choice. That’s no choice. Two sides. It’s Republican or Democrat. That’s not a choice at all. So that’s what that came out of. Why was I born into this free country that’s not even free kind of a thing?
This is different from my other work, and when somebody who hasn’t seen it before sees it, they are turned around and completely terrified by it. It almost seems so foreign. That’s why the hand ‑‑ it’s not her arm, obviously. It’s very contorted, and there are six fingers on the hand. Everybody always misses it, too, because the hand looks so realistic. It’s elongated, it’s like she has two forearms. I made it that way because I think that the corruption in this government and in this society, and I’d say it’s in the world, is just so subtle that you’re distracted by so many things that you just miss the obvious.
The colors with that came from… I’m not an environmentalist in any way, really, I just wanted the whole picture to look like pollution. Not for the environment… pollution of our society.
Workouts in San Jose have just become a little more interesting.
Touchstone Climbing has opened a rock-climbing gym downtown. Located at 396 South First Street, The Studio is the only gym of its kind in San Jose, and only one of two in the entire South Bay. It features forty-foot high walls and over 11,000 square feet of climbing terrain.
The Studio takes its name from the classic movie house in which it has been constructed, the Studio Theatre. Long since converted into a nightclub, the building’s large and once brightly lit sign remains above the front entrance. Attractive as a climbing gym because of its large space and high ceilings, the interesting location and classic sign make The Studio unique and help it fit into the environment of downtown San Jose.
Touchstone CEO Mark Melvin and his wife, Debra, have been avid climbers since high school, and according to director of marketing and social media Lauryn Claassen, they often dreamt of creating a home for “climbers who love to climb.”
The Studio was not only built with climbers in mind, but by climbers themselves. Mark Melvin actually welded the walls, and as Claassen points out, “It’s an awesome company. Everyone who works here climbs.” She believes the environment makes it easy for everyone to have a great experience. The last time new member Cody Kraatz climbed was 2010, and he describes himself as “no expert.” He enjoys his workouts because they remind him of the outdoors and “there’s a point to it.” Kraatz admits, “It’s not the tallest set of walls in the area, but because I live downtown, it’s so convenient. I could climb on a first Friday, sauna, yoga, shower, and then hit the street with my friends to check out the music and art on South First.”
The Melvins founded their first gym in 1995, in the Mission District of San Francisco. Before the formation of their company, there were so few indoor climbing options that the new gym hosted the National Championship of the sport within a month of its opening. Touchstone now has seven locations in Northern California, making it the largest indoor rock climbing company in the United States.
There hasn’t been a climbing gym in San Jose for nearly four years, but The Studio isn’t the first venture downtown. In 2003, the company opened Touchstone Climbing and Fitness San Jose, a bouldering-only gym located across from Camera 12, and only about two blocks away from the new gym location. The smaller gym was forced to close in April of 2008 when there simply wasn’t enough room to accommodate all of the gym’s members.
Bouldering differs from the more traditional roped climbing in that it is done almost entirely freeform, or without any climbing gear. Referred to by climbers as “problems,” the bouldering courses don’t reach the extreme heights of the typical roped ones. Climbers can simply let go and fall to the padded floors when they reach the top. Kraatz is impressed with the new space. “Very nice bouldering area, too, catering to all the old guard that used to climb when Touchstone had a place on El Paseo de San Antonio.”
Though the focus is on roped climbing and bouldering, The Studio will offer other fitness options. Yoga classes are already open, and the company is planning kickboxing, Pilates, and core fitness classes as membership increases. Exercise machines have been set up on the second floor, which allows guests to watch climbers as they work out. There are also plans to establish youth classes, summer camps, and climbing teams in San Jose as soon as there is enough interest. Claassen, a coach of one of the company’s many youth teams, says rock climbing is a “great outlet for energetic kids.” First-time visitor Liz Sandberg, a mother of three boys, agrees, saying, “It’s fun. They want to keep coming back.”
The Studio will also incorporate a wireless café, built into its climbing walls. A large cutout in the main wall opens up almost like a balcony, giving café-goers a clear view of climbers making their way to the top. Claassen says that a quiet place became a necessity for their members because the gyms “become people’s homes.” The Studio’s café isn’t completed, yet, as parts of the gym are still under construction. Claassen hopes that the gym will be able to remain open during construction and that hours and membership will increase once the building is finished.
Climbers can become members for $69 a month or $759 a year. Membership includes access to all Touchstone gyms and the use of any of their facilities, including drop-in fitness classes, rock climbing, and exercise machines.
The Studio also offers individual day passes, which run about $18. The passes allow the same all-access use of the gym that memberships provide, and newcomers can sign up for a full “Intro to Climbing” class for $11 more.
There is one catch for those looking to drop in for a day of rock-climbing fun. For safety reasons, climbers must pass a few tests to climb on their own. The required skills include tying knots, attaching the harness, and belaying a climbing partner. This may sound difficult, but it only takes about three minutes. Kraatz says, “As long as you pay attention in the training class, it’s easy stuff.” Once the tests are completed, climbers are certified and receive a card verifying their ability to climb without staff assistance.
Claassen says The Studio is meant to attract members from “all across the board,” welcoming young professionals, college students, families, and seniors. The Touchstone team wants to reconnect with the community and is hoping The Studio will introduce rock climbing to many newcomers, as well. Everyone’s needs are met, whether the goal is getting in an interesting workout, sampling rock climbing without a trip to the mountains, or just having a day of fun.
Article originally appeared in Issue 4.2 Vacation (Print SOLD OUT)
“We are an eclectic, nutty group of people of so many amazing, fun personalities.”
From the moment audience members enter Camera 3 on Second and San Carlos, they are transported into a world of play. Theater Two’s turf-covered stage is home to ComedySportz San Jose, an improv comedy staple.
Each performance divides the cast into two teams who compete in exciting, head-to-head comedy games. The audience, fueled by Psycho Donuts and coffee, decides who wins the match using plastic flyswatters called “whapnerz.” The referee can call fouls on both the players and audience members for offenses such as inappropriate language, the “Groaner Foul” for using a bad pun, or the “Too Soon Foul.”
To keep the experience fresh, the team can choose from over 250 games. The games they play just to warm up include titles such as “Zoom Schwartz Profigliano,” “Bibbity Bibbity Bop,” and “Zip Zap Zop.” Some of these come straight from the ComedySportz World Championship, where 22 teams from all over the world convene each year to share ideas they have created and to battle it out for a tiny trophy called the “Meaningless Cup.”
Although teams are competitive, it becomes clear that making everyone laugh, including each other, is the goal. For players like Michael Wilcoxen, ComedySportz San Jose represents more than an improv comedy team. “ComedySportz is the Island of Misfit Toys. We are an eclectic, nutty group of people of so many amazing, fun personalities. A month ago, one of our players married one of the house managers, and it was a ComedySportz-style event. We take care of each other. That’s one of the biggest things—it’s a family. Some of my best friends I met through ComedySportz.”
This enduring connection extends to local high school students in ComedySportz’s workshops. Workshop alum Chayton Whiskey has even gone on to join the main cast. As Wilcoxen explains, “We bring the kids here twice a week and do workshops here on site. A lot of schools do challenge shows, where they’ll play against each other. They create a ton of relationships and friendships within that community. That is another Island of Misfit Toys. It’s so much fun to see kids that may not have fit in somewhere else. We don’t turn our back on people. No matter where you come from, we have space for you.”
More than just pure fun, these workshops communicate a core value of ComedySportz: showing respect for each other in performance and everyday life.
“Inappropriate comedy isn’t funny. That’s a really cool maturation for a high school kid to realize: ‘Oh wait, I don’t have to put somebody down or make fun of a group to be funny.’ We elevate their humor to realize, ‘I don’t have to bully, or I don’t have to hurt somebody or make fun of somebody to be funny.’ That’s something Scott [Schroder], the director of our high school league, has always done. We’re more than just a comedy group. We have a social justice message, and we don’t hurt people, and we don’t make fun of people. We never want someone in our audience to feel uncomfortable.”
Silicon Valley companies such as eBay and HP have taken notice of ComedySportz’s positive effect on team building. The troupe comes in with tailored games to bond new employees together and to help dysfunctional teams cooperate. The dichotomy between comedy actor and the tech world is part of what makes the interaction work. “Dropping us into a room full of engineers gives them permission to look at things different ways. You see everybody sitting with their hands crossed in their laps at first, and usually by the end of the workshop, everybody’s up and playing and laughing and doing all these silly activities, [such as] trying to build a grand piano just using human bodies.”
Back at Camera 3, the sense of community continues as audience members—once strangers—are now bound by their shared creative experience. At the end of every performance, the players line up to high-five everyone leaving the theater. The chorus of laughter and clapping whapnerz reverberate across the downtown streets.
Print Issue is Sold Out / Digital Issue is Still Available
Austin may be known as the “Live Music Capital of the World,” but it is also a burgeoning foodie capital and home to some of the coolest, friendliest folks anyone could ever want to meet. And breakfast tacos.
Austinites are an outdoorsy bunch, so a good start to any visit includes joining the locals on Lady Bird Lake, which runs right through the heart of downtown. The hike and bike trail that circles the lake is a fantastic way to start the day. It offers a great perspective on the city and its denizens.
When passing the Texas Rowing Center, visitors would do well to indulge the temptation to take a paddle board or a kayak out for a spin. After working up an appetite, it is the perfect time to try an Austin staple: the breakfast taco. Arturo’s Café and Jo’s are two favorites. Far less daunting than the breakfast burritos here in San Jose, these tacos can change a person’s life. Breakfast tacos are basically their own food group in Austin, along with barbecue and Tex-Mex.
The hot barbecue joint in town right now is Franklin. People line up for hours to try their famous brisket, since only a limited amount is made each day. Once they’ve run out, Franklin closes its doors, usually leaving hungry, hot, and disappointed folks out of luck.
There are loads of good Mexican food spots in town, from offbeat Chuy’s—where the ceiling is covered in hubcaps and Elvis is still king—to upscale spots like Manuel’s and Fonda San Miguel. A great way to start a conversation with a stranger in Austin is to ask, “Where’s your favorite place for Mexican food?” Literally everyone will have an opinion. An equally lively conversation starter is asking where to get the best margarita in town. All three of the aforementioned spots have excellent ones, but visitors should make time to stop by the Cedar Door for a Mexican martini or two.
For anyone hungry for something more chef-driven, Wink is a tour de force of intimate, farm-to-table cooking. Also worth checking out is Top Chef winner Paul Qui’s newly opened spot, Qui, on Austin’s up-and-coming East Side. The Rainey Street neighborhood on the edge of downtown is blowing up with new eateries, too.
But to find the soul of Austin, head to South Congress. South Congress Avenue is the essence of what makes Austin special. An extremely walkable area of town, it includes great shops that sell everything from folk art to high fashion. It’s also home to The Continental Club, a classic Austin honky tonk where live music drifts out onto the sidewalk every night of the week.
Visitors can stay at one of hotelier Liz Lambert’s amazing boutique properties to really soak in the experience. The Hotel San Jose and its pared-down Texas aesthetic is effortlessly cool. For visitors who really want to feel like celebrities (and maybe even run into one), Hotel Saint Cecilia is just down the block. Named for the patron saint of music and poetry, this sequestered property feels like the middle of nowhere, but it’s only steps from the action. For visitors who prefer a larger hotel, the W Austin is always a see-and-be scene spot, located right in the middle of the hopping warehouse district.
When the inevitable Texas heat starts to set in, visitors can head over to Barton Springs, one of the largest spring-fed swimming pools in the world. Nestled into a corner of verdant Zilker Park and maintaining a constant temperature of 68 degrees, there is nothing more refreshing in the Texas summer than a plunge into the crystal clear water.
At the end of the day, travelers will probably want to find one more good margarita before saying adios to Austin.
It’s about what you give back and how you change and help other people to become their best selves. I just want to give to others what they have to me.
Bay Area curler Gabrielle Coleman stands out in a sport that doesn’t.
Most Tuesday nights, Gabrielle Coleman can be found inside Stanley’s Sports Bar at Sharks Ice in downtown San Jose. She doesn’t drink, she’s not an employee, and she says she’s never been a great skater either. She’s not there for the hockey. She’s there for curling.
Once a week from 9:30pm to 11:30pm, Coleman and 40 or so other curlers join up at Sharks Ice for a curling league and a good time. Coleman, however, has aspirations that many of her co-competitors do not. The 33-year-old is such a good curler that she’s competed at the national level, even reaching the US Olympic trials in 2009.
Yes, her sport is curling, that shuffleboard-like ice sport that draws a lot of attention every four years when the Winter Olympics come around. But most of the time, it is forgotten here in the United States. There are a little more than 16,000 curlers across the country on record. Canada, regularly the favorite to win gold at the Olympics, has approximately 1.3 million by comparison, despite a population that is little more than a 10th of the size of the United States’.
Coleman and her coach Barry Ivy are part of one of the largest clubs in California, the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club. Established in 1958, their mission, along with the rest of the United States’ curling community, is to help the sport grow. Recently, it’s worked. Participation has grown by more than 50 percent since 2002, with an even more impressive 16 percent jump from 2010 to 2011.
For Coleman, it isn’t just the country’s reputation she’s trying to improve, but her specific region’s. Ivy calls the West Coast “the boonies of the curling world,” and while this statement is in jest, it’s not far from the truth. There are very few competitive curlers from the country’s Pacific coast. In fact, just one of the 10 teams at the US Olympic trials in 2009 was based west of Bismarck, North Dakota. Most are located in the country’s longtime curling hubs like Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Coleman, a Mountain View native, was a part of that sole western team, based in Seattle, Washington. She was also the lone competitor—of 42 total—who resides in California. It’s that obstacle that makes her curling commitment so much more demanding.
Paying out of her own pocket, she flies to Seattle or Vancouver almost every weekend from August to March for training. During competitions, she has to take time away from her work at NBC, which she credits as being not only accepting and understanding of her love for curling but “enormously supportive.” She doesn’t mind the commitment though and finds the bright side to her travels. “It’s like a mini-vacation every week.”
Other curlers live nearer to facilities dedicated to curling, and those among the highest ranked teams receive funding from the US Olympic Committee. Coleman and her teammates do not. As Ivy puts it, “People who play at a dedicated facility can go down and throw rocks at lunchtime for an hour.” The lack of practice time Coleman can get during the week presents a real challenge that other curlers, even in Seattle, don’t always face.
But while they have their advantages, Coach Ivy believes Coleman has some of her own. “If the rest of the United States curling world at the elite level was as committed as Gabrielle, we would be winning Olympics,” Ivy says.
The competition hasn’t always been that strong. Just seven years ago, Coleman attended her first curling event, just hoping to have a fun experience. Challenged by her brother that she couldn’t make nationals, she decided it was on. Within a year, she was competing at the women’s club nationals, who had trouble fielding enough teams for their 10-team tournament. That year, only seven teams had signed up to compete. This year, there are 18 teams vying for those 10 spots.
The US Olympic trials have also grown more competitive in recent years. The field of 10 from 2009 has been trimmed to just four for the upcoming 2013 trials. For Coleman, this means getting back will be harder than ever. In 2009, her team finished eighth, which wouldn’t be good enough to qualify this time around. Coleman knows her team has to win at nationals to qualify, since two teams have already qualified and the national governing body chooses the fourth.
She gives her team an outside chance at coming out with the win if they “have a good week.” Ivy is especially high on their chances. “Don’t let her fool you,” he says. “This is definitely doable for Gabrielle.”
While the increase in the sport’s popularity has made her goals more difficult, the NBC Bay Area morning show director is ecstatic to see so many new curlers, not only at her own club but around the country. As a member of the board for SFBACC, growing the curling community is important to her. She’s trying to help the club secure ice that’s dedicated to curling for the first time in 20 years, rather than having to share ice time with hockey players and recreational skaters.
Just like the sport as a whole, the Princeton grad has come a long way since 2006. She recalls her first national competition as something of a nightmare for Ivy, who tried to lead four curlers with about three years of combined experience. “I was so lost,” Coleman says. “In my first game, I had to ask my opponent when to start.”
Since then, she’s gone on to write an e-book on her experiences, directed at helping other beginning curlers. Break Through Beginner Curling details everything from curling basics to the confusing nature of large national competitions.
At Sharks Ice, it’s clear how much interest Coleman has in teaching others, taking time out to encourage a teenage girl who was just watching to give it a try. But while there is an inclination to teach, she also hopes to curl competitively for a long time.
The sport keeps drawing her back because, no matter how good she gets, she feels there will always be a new challenge. “Everybody who’s any good can throw the stone accurately,” she says. “It’s the complexity and the strategy of the shots at the higher levels that keep getting tougher.”
The unity and bond of a team is another aspect she loves. For casual observers, the team aspect might not be as obvious on TV as it is to those who know the game. “From the instant I release the shot, me and my teammates are communicating,” Coleman emphasizes. “It’s like any other team sport. We can’t win unless we’re all on the same page.”
On the ice, that communication is unmistakable. The sweeping of the ice, one of the most unusual aspects of the sport, relies on it. If their timing on when to speed up or slow down the stone is off just a little bit, the shot could end very differently.
Whether her team wins or not, Coleman hopes she and her teammates can be good examples of the increasing geographical diversity of the game in the United States. She also recognizes that her personal success can help grow the sport on the West Coast, especially in California.
“For me to win, for us to win, it would be a big deal,” she says. Both Coleman and Ivy believe that that kind of statement at nationals could lead to big improvements in not only her own curling environment but the West Coast overall. It would go a long way towards helping to find the dedicated curling ice SFBACC is still looking for.
From experience, Ivy knows that a lot of clubs don’t go to the lengths that SFBACC does. They require lessons for those wanting to join any of the club’s leagues, and Ivy knows they lose some curlers because of it. But he and Coleman both have a strong interest in passing the culture of curling on, and they want to do it the right way. “A lot of clubs will say ‘wing it’ and send you out on your own,” Ivy says. “We want to teach.”
Coleman remembers going to those training sessions and finding much more help than she thought she would. Though it was swarmed with close to 200 people, she said important members came up to her encouraging her to stay on because of the lack of women in curling. Ivy was one of those early tutors that kept her confidence and interest high, even if it was her brother’s challenge that made it stick.
With some of the founders of the club having moved on, Coleman calls Ivy the “resident expert” and lists him as her greatest inspiration on her USCA profile. She wants to give back, just like he has to her. “Even though it is about trying to be the best curler you can be and winning medals, it’s not really about that,” she says. “It’s about what you give back and how you change and help other people to become their best selves. I just want to give to others what they have to me.”
Growing up in the Bay Area, newspaper readers got to know Herb Caen and Leigh Weimers over their morning cup of coffee. That’s how it was. Regular columnists became old friends or the source of a good argument. Relative newcomer Sal Pizarro is only forty years old and just six years into the job, compared to Weimers’ forty year tenure. Pizarro is still finding his voice, both in print and through new forms of social media. Published six days a week, his Around Town column for the Mercury News is witty but never opinionated. When will he bring on the funny or unleash the grumpy old guy in the corner?
“I have been doing the column for six years, but I don’t feel like I have earned the right to be that crotchety yet,” asserts Pizarro. “It is being encouraged at the paper for me to insert more of my own voice into the column. I didn’t want it to be that suddenly you’re going from Leigh to this guy, and we don’t know who he is. I feel more comfortable making comments about what I perceive going on in the city. Taking what people tell me and sort of throwing it through my head and saying, ‘Here’s the word on the street.’”
So how will Pizarro make the column his own? Could he become a gossip columnist? He answers, “That’s so funny. I ask people who say they wish my column had more gossip in it, ‘What do you think is gossip? Do you want to know who’s dating who?’ Because no one really cares. It’s just not that kind of community.” Just by talking to so many people, Pizarro knows the local community well. “People are very comfortable telling me things because they’re pretty sure I’m not going to print it. And that’s something Leigh taught me: always know more than you write. So I sometimes know things that I really can’t write.”
But he still comes across as someone with a genuine desire to get positive news out there again. “My goals are to be entertaining and informative, and a lot of times that translates into being the person who writes about the good things. I happen to love that idea because I’ll say, ‘If I don’t write about this, no one else is going to.’ A missing girl in Morgan Hill is going to trump a lot of things I write about. It’s going to take up three reporters that aren’t going to be able to cover the Boy Scouts Character Awards. So I like doing that.”
He also likes being a stay-at-home dad with an 8-month-old son and a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. Pizarro does diapers and daycare from 7am until 3pm when his wife comes home from work as Public Relations Director for Presentation High School. They chat together and do a little download of the day’s events before he sets off for his job, which he will work at until late. His parents chip in and watch the children two mornings a week, which frees him up for the occasional morning interview or charity luncheon. Most of his writing is done at night in his converted office in the garage. His daily deadline is noon, so he can edit and read through his column the following morning during naps. “Not mine,” he quips.
The social butterfly lifestyle is not so easy when combined with caring for children all day. “Some days it’s really exhausting. I can be with the kids for basically nine hours, and then I’ve got to go to an event. But, on the plus side, after nine hours with really small kids, it’s nice to be able to talk to adults and have a glass of wine,” Pizarro says with a grin. “I get to spend a lot of time with my kids, so any time I think about complaining about my job and my hours, I just think: I get to spend all day with my kids and how many guys do I know who get to do that that aren’t collecting unemployment checks?”
When Pizarro gets dolled up for a Saturday night event, his daughter Mia often asks him if he is going to a wedding. “I don’t know where she picked that up. No,” he says. “Daddy’s going to work. I feel especially guilty because before we had kids, my wife used to go to a lot of these things with me, and it was great fun, and now we pick our spots carefully. It’s partly her choice, too, because she says if we’re going to use up a babysitting chip, then she doesn’t want to be going to work. Let’s go to a movie or dinner.”
While he relishes the flexibility of his job, Pizarro also misses the structure of his thirteen years working as an editor at the Merc—starting work at 4pm and clocking out by midnight. Many of those years were spent as Leigh Weimers’ direct editor. “Those years really prepared me. I’ve learned how [Leigh] took something and made it briefer. That’s the challenge of writing in this space. I have about 450 words a day. I try to fit as much as I can in. I will spend a lot of time trimming things down, and sometimes an entire item will go away because it’s sort of like doing surgery: once you’ve had to cut off both legs and both arms, what do you have left?”
Some of what Pizarro writes about comes directly from real people who call or e-mail and say, “I know about this thing that happened. It’s kind of a funny story. Chances are, if I’ve got room, I’ll get it in.”
A big chunk of his work concerns deciding which event to attend. His record is four in one night. “I don’t recommend that. It was crazy—downtown San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View. Driving all over the place and then stopping in at an event for an hour, and then moving on to the next thing. Politicians do that all the time, but it’s a little easier for them because all they have to do is shake a few hands, and then they can leave.”
Unfortunately, Pizarro has no entourage driving him around or sorting his mail. “If I had dreams, it would be to have an assistant of some sort. I always read about how Herb Caen had somebody going through his mail, taking his calls. Having the same general type of column, people make that assumption. Clearly you must have a staff. No, I don’t.”
Driving around is not so difficult because he knows the area like the back of his hand—Pizarro grew up in San Jose. “Being downtown in San Jose in the 1970s was, well…dangerous is a kind word. One of the reasons I transferred from San Jose State to Santa Barbara was because downtown San Jose wasn’t really there yet. The Jazz Festival, Cinequest, and Music in the Park all started in the ’90s because there was nothing to do. Now it’s changed with Sofa District getting going, cool places to eat. Eventually, San Jose grew on me to the point that I did not want to leave.”
But the future is uncertain for Pizarro—at least in print. Pointing at the paper, he says, “I think you will be surprised if we have that ten years from now. If you had said that to me when I started in 2005, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed, but now it is where we are. We have a point where we need to figure out how to make money digitally. It’s not just online ads; it’s a whole host of possibilities which aren’t just print advertising. That’s the joke. If Fry’s or Macy’s goes out of business, we’re in a lot of trouble.”
Pizarro’s tenure began during the recession, and he admits, “It’s strange thinking that I’ve only really done this job during hard times. I’d be really interested to see what things are like when the economy is up because it makes people a lot happier. I can’t imagine how many times I have written ‘despite the current economic woes.’ I might as well have that saved on a copy-and-paste.”
Many of the colleagues Pizarro began working with twenty years ago at the Merc are gone. “When I started writing this column, we had an art writer…a philanthropy writer, a dance writer. We had more education and theatre writers, and all those positions have gone away. And so everything eventually found its way to me. The reason I am saying this is because during all these bad times, these agencies need more help, and I am trying to get the word out. When things get good again—and I am counting on that they will—the agencies won’t need me as much. Wow, I am going to have some space to fill.”
But Pizarro has a new audience, and it is online. Social media allows him to express himself more freely, without space limitations. He can even crack jokes. “Twitter and Facebook are interesting,” agrees Pizarro. “This is maybe where eventually the crotchety old man will come out one day, but I still feel like it’s better for me to get in someone’s event or an extra few names than to make some joke that I’d have no problem making on Twitter or Facebook.”
Take last Friday night, for instance. Pizarro was covering a fundraising gala. “I was one of the few guys wearing a tie because it was all venture capitalists and they are all in shirts and sport coats looking hip. That’s what I was tweeting about. ‘Man, I am the only one wearing a tie.’ Or ‘MC Hammer’s here.’ So I am tweeting all these things, but none of that got into my column because that’s not about their organization—it’s just me making funny asides. I hope at some point we have someone covering their event and writing a story about what they do, and then I don’t have to carry that weight, and I can say okay, here’s what was fun about that. They had the most crazy expensive scotch I’ve ever seen at an event. They made fun of Jack Dorsey for wearing jeans by pointing out that Reed Hoffman from LinkedIn didn’t.”
“I don’t miss writing about gossip that much, but who knows, if I do this job for another twenty years, I may have a lot more bile,” says Pizarro. “I may just start writing about all these youngsters who are who knows doing what…I can’t imagine what this place is going to be like twenty years from now.” With any luck, he will be a little more crotchety but still bringing his positive message to a new generation of readers in San Jose and beyond.
Article originally appeared in Issue 4.2 Vacation (Print SOLD OUT)
“In the end, however, we get our stories, the important thing is to keep passing them on.”
People walking into Hicklebee’s at 1378 Lincoln Avenue in downtown Willow Glen are entering a child’s imagination. Here, the best in children’s literature lines the shelves, and the characters peer out from the walls. From the worn cushions to the mismatched chairs, Hicklebee’s is every bit an independent bookstore. There are no gleaming register lines or stacks of discount buys; instead, there is a bathtub filled with pillows (for reading in, of course) and Clifford the Big Red Dog’s collar.
On the walls, there is a collection that can only be deemed “Hicklebee’s Museum.” Framed original illustrations from Rosemary Wells’ Ruby and Max occupy a place of honor next to a model of the plug from King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub. A sign hangs nearby reading “Diagon Alley” right next to Charlotte spinning a web. What wall space remains is covered in signatures and drawings from almost every famous author or illustrator in children’s literature, including Jules Feiffer, illustrator of the classic Phantom Tollbooth, and Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling. Yet what makes the illustrations all the better is that many of them are scrawled across bathroom doors. It’s bathroom graffiti for children.
Enter Valerie Lewis, the last remaining founder and current co-owner of Hicklebee’s. “Sometimes we have a hard time explaining to [the children] why they can’t write on the walls at home,” she laughs. Lewis points out more artifacts littering the tops of shelves and signatures along doorways from authors and illustrators who have visited the store over the years. “We never know what they’re going to sign or what they’re going to do,” she says. “I always think to myself, ‘I know this person, and they just drew their character on a toilet.’”
When Hicklebee’s began over 33 years ago, the walls were blank. “It was like the artist looking at a canvas,” Lewis remembers. “I love the fact that I had this store and no experience and a zillion possibilities and that there was no end to the possibilities. I loved that idea.” Over the years, these same possibilities have shaped what has been recognized as one of the nation’s best children’s bookstores. Hicklebee’s stands alone in a market where the gap between quality children’s literature, found in the libraries of academia, and the overly commercialized form of children’s entertainment, found in modern bookstores, looms large.
In the beginning, however, it was simply the collective dream of four friends who had no experience owning a bookstore. “We all came in my house and sat in the kitchen, and everybody brought their favorite children’s books,” Lewis recalls. “I would open them up and see this one is from Harper and Row, and I would call information in New York.” Eagerly, Lewis would contact the desired publishers for catalogs. “We would think, ‘They are going to be so excited when they find out about us.’”
As straightforward as Hicklebee’s beginning was, the way it has unfolded and transformed has been anything but simple. Rather, Hicklebee’s has metamorphosed into something more complex over the decades through the collective efforts of authors, illustrators, and even the readers. During a tour, Lewis gently pulls down an unassuming brown shopping bag labeled “Ollivanders” from a top shelf. A child who frequents the store brought it back from a trip to England and gave it to Lewis for the museum. Peeking inside the bag, customers can see a magic wand nestled among the tissue paper wrapping. “We just started it,” Lewis emphasizes. “It was the authors who did the additions.” She points to a three-foot-tall cardboard cutout of a gorilla hanging from the ceiling. “See that ape?” she asks. “Well, Peggy Rathmann is a Caldecott award-winning illustrator. One day, she and her husband drove up. They opened the door, pulled out a ladder and a rope, and hung that.”
“Let’s go hang it at Hicklebee’s” is the quintessential thought behind this local treasure. With the opening and subsequent closing of the big chain bookstores, and the advent of discount online shopping, this small independent store has weathered the storm of consumer habits. Lewis and the shop’s associates often observe patrons browsing books, scanning their barcodes with pricing apps on smartphones, and then walking out the doors, perhaps only to order the same book with next-day free shipping and no sales tax from the internet. Some even download the books straight to their devices. Lewis comments powerfully on the recent trend: “When people compare electronic books for children and picture books for children, they are comparing apples and artichokes. An electronic book is no more a book than a radio or a television is a book. They are all telling stories, but a book looks like that, in my opinion.” Lewis points to a stack of books with crisp white pages, nestled between bright covers. One can’t help but think of the difference between seeing a photograph of a painting and being able to see the texture of the brush strokes on the original in a gallery.
Yet, Lewis remains optimistic. “We are not against electronic books; we are just pro-paper,” she says, laughing. So what’s next in Hicklebee’s storyline? More author visits, children’s story times, craft days, reading clubs, and, of course, additions to the walls and shelves. Customers continue to come in for the magic and wisdom that can only be found at the heart of Willow Glen and at the hands of Lewis’ expert staff, so she is not too worried. “In the end, however we get our stories, the important thing is to keep passing them on.”
This article originally appeared in Issue 4.3 “Branding”
Lacey Bryant’s curiously innocent demeanor, cloaked in an army jacket and paint-spotted boots, does not convey the depth of her talent or the grandeur of her paintings. San Jose is privileged to have Lacey and her work so accessible. For art enthusiasts, she is someone not only to watch but also to get to know.
Your work has been described as “cute and creepy.” How did that style come about? I guess I like the contrast. I think things are more interesting when there is a duality to them. If it is just one or the other, I would be done thinking about it pretty quickly. I like that kind of tension between things. I am not necessarily trying to make things hyper-cute. I like drawing things that are pretty, but at the same time, that’s so boring to me. The “weird” is always something that I have been interested in, and it took a while for that to come out in my work because I thought, “Oh, no one wants to see that.” But since I have been putting out more of the things that I think are great and weird and cool and I don’t care, people have actually really responded to it.
Your painting includes innocent characters and then things like birds flying out of their faces or berries that resemble blood. What’s your creative process in doing that? Oh, dang, that’s a hard one. A lot of them are just images that sort of pop into my head at random. I use a lot of imagery over and over again—things that I think are interesting or kind of symbolic of many things at the same time. It makes it more interesting, I think. The more things something can mean, the more interpretations the painting can have, and the more people are going to think, “Oh, that’s me.” So I like birds a lot; I like fruit a lot. Fruit is so cool. It means so many things to me, but when you combine these things in certain ways, they just become so much more interesting.
How intentional are you in that? Are you trying to say that you want the contrast, or do you think, “I enjoy this”? Where does that little nugget of inspiration come from? Or is it art school? Haha, no, it’s not that. It kind of evolved naturally with things that I like, but at the same time trying to make paintings that say a little bit about life and emotion. My paintings are very emotional. A lot of times, it’s just about a feeling of expressing some sort of longing or mourning and changing or shifting, just different feelings. A lot of things are hard to put into words. I try to put them into pictures instead. People can see the picture and get the words for themselves.
So the images communicate more of the emotion but not necessarily a story. Yeah, but they feel like a story to me in a way. You can look at them and wonder what just happened, what’s about to happen, what’s going on in this image. You have all you need to say, “Okay, I could leap from this to this.” It’s more interesting and reaches more people if they can bring their own context into it.
So when you come to a painting, you’ve got your canvas, and you’ve got your paints, and you’re sitting down…do you have a story that you are coming into it with, or is it more like how different artists talk about how the canvas brings it out? How do you come to that? I usually spend a lot of time in my sketchbook. I draw a lot of little tiny drawings. I will fill a page with just a whole bunch of things, and I’ll have an idea. Right now, for instance, I am interested in things with two figures. I’m interested in their relationships and how they are interacting; a lot of them end up looking like two of the same person. I’m not sure if they are twins or if they are just different aspects of the same person or if it’s all in their heads. I guess I usually don’t really know what’s going on because I don’t want to pin it down. But I’ll draw a whole page of something and pick out the ones that I think would be really interesting to take further. And with paintings, too, a lot of the time, I’ll make a small painting, and it will really work, so I’ll make it bigger so I can get more into it.
So you go down a path of noticing that something is interesting and then go on from there. I definitely notice things a lot. I go hiking once a week with a couple of friends, and I’m always out there taking pictures. I have a huge fascination with crawling things like little bugs, so they make it into my work a lot.
Do you think in your paintings it is just a curiosity that you have or a fascination or a longing/searching…or all the above? Yeah, it kind of goes back to the whole contrast thing because there are so many bad things that happen. The world has so much horribleness in it that we focus on that a lot. But if you get down to these tiny little crawling things, you get this sense of awe like, “Oh my God, there are these little teeny tiny things that survive somehow and are really magical.” And even things that are often thought of as ugly—for instance, cockroaches—I think they are fascinating. I think spiders are really cool. People think that’s the creepy stuff, and I think it’s really cool. There is this whole other side of things.
I love that about your work. It is full of emotion and tugs on so many different levels. There is such playfulness. Do you find yourself returning to some of those figures out of security, habit, or a desire to grow in that area? Usually it’s about taking an idea as far as I can take it. Then once it gets a little stale, I will move away from it. If I really like a painting, I will want to do it again but in a slightly different way to see if it still works. A lot of times I will repeat it on a larger scale so I can get more detail. A lot of ideas that I had and did in a simpler style, I want to bring back and try with a better background. You can change the mood so much with just changing the setting behind someone.
I have actually been doing the people in my paintings a lot older lately. I did the kid thing for a while and now am more interested in a slightly older mentality. The commission piece I am working on now was actually a guy who came in and saw a bunch of my paintings and said he would really love me to paint him as a kid, so he brought in a picture of himself as a kid. Most of the time when I paint people, I don’t have a model. I usually just make them up, and, for the most part, I can kind of fake a face, but they all end up looking like me a little. So I have been trying to explore other faces. I have actually been bothering people that I meet and asking them if I can get a picture of them.
You are exploring. What are you proud of recently? And then what do you want to explore more? I am not sure. Adding background and adding space, paying attention to the whole picture and not just the subject, has been a big step for me. It’s really something that I think has made my work more interesting to me and hopefully to others. I am using more actual people. A lot of the times when you are making people up, you still have to go to the mirror and see “how does the elbow bend like this?” and see how things actually work. To some degree, I like a bit of distortion in my images. So if you go and measure them, they are not quite right. But I like for things to be a little off sometimes. It’s interesting to me, and it gives it a bit of character when you let things be more exaggerated. But I am starting to move in the direction of using actual people. It’s kind of hard for me because I’m not super outgoing about going up to people and saying, “Hey, can I take pictures of you?” But I am getting to where I am doing it just to bring in more faces and more people.
I want to keep going in that direction right now. I am really interested in pushing the humanity of my characters a little bit so that they feel even more real. Not necessarily “real” as in realistically painted, but just real emotions.
MIKE!
So much of makers’ making takes place outside of the public eye, the effort is embedded deeply and meaningfully in their products, but is perhaps not readily apparent to the naked eye. There is a particular joy that comes from encountering a maker like Allysarhaye Graciano of BlackSheepMade, who can often be found during events crocheting or hand-knitting something on the spot for a customer, such as one of her incredibly popular pet beds, one-of-a-kind rugs, or elegant plant hangers.
Rayos works full-time for a non-profit community health clinic, but having to work from home during the shelter-in-place (SIP) has blurred the lines between business and a sacred space for pleasure and relaxation. A wrench has been thrown into his normal routine since, like many of us, once he rolls out of bed, he is already in his office. His art has become his saving grace, giving him structure and routine as he enters his studio.
