“I HAVE TWO RULES when you enter my studio. One: no negative self-talk. Two: we always ask for consent.” Brittany R. Bradley, Britt for short, is an award-winning alternative process photographer. She uses the collodion wet plate process to memorialize her participants on a tin or metal plate, portraying them such that they feel powerful and authentic to themselves. Through her Calumet Cambo 8×10, Britt not only captures moments in time but also sparks a dialogue that resonates deeply with those who encounter her work.
As of January 2023, Britt is one of 21 artists in the city of Palo Alto’s Cubberley Artist Studio Program (CASP). The program offers artist residencies at a subsidized rate in exchange for artist-led free public programming. The four-year residency allows artists to dive deeply into their art practice while allowing time to create community with their fellow artists and the public.
Upon stepping into Britt’s studio, one feels safe and comfortable. Britt’s collaborative process allows participants to control how they are portrayed. She offers her expertise and skills to guide the collective vision, ultimately empowering the subject with the creative reins. “If there is something you don’t like, we talk about it directly. Accurately representing people and history feels more important than making a good technical photo. Photography focuses far too much on the technical and not enough on the humanity of it.”
The community aspect of the CASP program was essential for Britt. “Your identity is such a complex thing. It is a learned behavior to negate our multifaceted selves, to shrink ourselves down to fit into something comfortable for others. I think that just means you’re around the wrong people. When you’re around the right people, they want you to take up space and be louder. Being here at Cubberley, surrounded by incredible women artists, empowers me to do so.”
In 2019, Britt and two other photographers were hired to document a two-day event where over 150 members of the Bay Area’s Indigenous community came together for the reclamation of the site where the Early Days monument once stood. The project emboldened the local Indigenous community to redefine their public perception. Britt feels it is important for her to use her seat at the table to demand there be one for the Indigenous community, allowing for a more accurate representation of our collective histories. “Photography has a history of not accurately representing communities of color, the queer community, women. I want to do my part in changing that narrative, giving those communities the power to represent themselves.”
Since the collodion process requires several steps to capture a single shot, access to a permanent studio allows Britt to have a round-the-clock space to shoot and develop photos in her darkroom at her own pace. When out in the field, Britt utilizes her custom-built mobile darkroom, Ruby. This allows her to transport all the necessary materials needed to process wet plate photographs on the go. Britt typically uses Ruby at protests and rallies but also to provide interactive public demonstrations and collaborative group sessions.
Britt grew up in Groveland, located in Gold Rush Country near Yosemite. Both of her parents were educators and encouraged Britt and her three brothers to spend time outdoors. “When I was eight, my father taught me to develop film.” Today, both Britt’s day job and art practice focus on photography and its related practices. “While my mom never discouraged me from pursuing the arts, she was worried I wouldn’t be able to make a living. But she isn’t as conventional as she thinks. She is strong, outspoken, does everything her own way, and has an unwavering moral compass.” One might describe Britt similarly, noting her alternative photography process and fight for uncovering historical and modern-day truths.
When not capturing people on a metal plate or tin, Britt is the collections care specialist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. This work allows Britt to use her technical skills in a different way. She currently lives in San Jose and is part of Silicon Valley Roller Derby. In an upcoming project, Britt will use the alternative photography process to document the eightwheeled sport, noting how it challenges athleticism and how it is presented in society.
Britt’s work goes beyond the visual, becoming a captivating narrative delving into history’s obscured corners. With a discerning eye and a genuine commitment to authenticity, Britt’s lens captures more than just images but also the essence of forgotten stories, inviting viewers to explore the complexities of our shared human journey.
“None of it is easy; it’s all slow,” Britt shares, referencing not only her art practice but life itself. “It’s a challenge to love and be in love in this day and age. All we can do is try. Try to be good to ourselves, and to our communities. In little ways, every day, we undermine ourselves. I think what is so important about being an artist is surrounding yourself with enough people who give you permission to stop doing that. Being able to be in a community that speaks your name in a room when you’re not in it—that’s the only way we get to push forward.”
Britt’s intentionality and care allow her to view problems not as problems but as indicators for deeper issues. “The truth exists somewhere between your experience and someone else’s. Perspective is a form of truth, but it doesn’t mean your perspective is the only truth.”
“…I would pick up one of my dad’s guitars at home and download tabs from the Internet and try to teach myself Green Day songs.”
Raised on San Jose’s South Side by two social workers, local punk guitarist Mike Huguenor’s upbringing was culturally eclectic. His parents actively encouraged the consumption of all genres of literature, film, and music. If he wanted a particular book, they would purchase it for him. Musically, he was raised listening to the likes of Van Halen and other ’80s “fun rock” groups with his mom, jazz and opera with his dad, and Huey Lewis with both his parents. His dad routinely made mixtapes for him and his brother to listen to. When it came time to choose an instrument for middle school music classes, Huguenor settled on the alto saxophone, an instrument he remembers his father playing. But his excitement for it was no match for his obsession with punk rock. “I was playing sax in the school band, but then I would pick up one of my dad’s guitars at home and download tabs from the internet and try to teach myself Green Day songs.”
Huguenor had discovered the genre through San Jose’s now defunct rock station KOME. It was where he first heard acts like the Offspring and the Bay Area’s own Green Day. Shortly thereafter, a relative of Huguenor introduced him to the Berkeley-based underground band Operation Ivy. “When I heard them, it just opened up everything for me. They were my first real favorite band,” Huguenor says. About 11 years old at the time, he thought it was the best music he ever heard and still thinks their sole, self-titled album is “one of the best punk records ever.”
Huguenor is not alone in that sentiment. Despite the band’s short, three-year tenure, Operation Ivy’s influence on modern punk music—especially the ska subgenre—is difficult to overstate. Dozens of bands, including Goldfinger, Green Day, and Rancid, have released covers of Operation Ivy songs. Most recently, Machine Gun Kelly licensed the hook lyric from their song “Knowledge” for his song “all I know.”
Huguenor was given a starter electric guitar by his ever-supportive parents for his thirteenth birthday. “That’s when I started thinking about it intentionally and started writing hypothetical songs for bands that didn’t really exist.” Huguenor soon formed his first band and took his songwriting from hypothetical to actual. “Let’s just do it,” he recalls saying to a friend. “All these bands are all just people doing it. Let’s start a band.”
That sentiment gave birth to the short-lived punk group, Shooting Blanks. From there, Huguenor experimented with several punk acts throughout high school, but it wasn’t until shortly after graduating in 2002 that he formed his “real, I-actually-want-to-make-a-band, band,” Shinobu. “At the time, I thought it was going to be my not-punk band,” he says. “But in spirit it ended up being so, and that was the community that accepted us.”
After releasing several albums and touring occasionally over the course of six years, Huguenor soon found himself the lone member of Shinobu remaining in California. Another South Bay act, Pteradon, was in a similar situation, having lost their guitarist to the tech industry. Huguenor joined them and formed Hard Girls in 2008. Hard Girls’ songwriting process consisted of simply jamming a riff over and over together until it became a song, as opposed to Huguenor being the primary in Shinobu’s process. Huguenor found the new approach “very freeing.” It got him thinking about music differently, he said. “I was trying to write guitar parts that were interesting and were non-chordal. I was trying to fill out a song with just one guitar and have it sound huge and have it not just be strumming chords.”
Huguenor quickly found that composition wasn’t the only major difference between the two acts. “Shinobu would play San Jose shows and there would be 20 people there. Then Hard Girls would play shows and there would be 150 people there. It seemed like the scene had changed a lot.” Shortly after the formation of Hard Girls, Huguenor received a life-changing phone call. He was told that Jesse Michaels, frontman of aforementioned Operation Ivy, was starting a new musical project and wanted Hard Girls to be a part of it. Michaels had been in the South Bay recording some demos for the new project with Asian Man Records, the same label who had released Hard Girls’ first album. While recording, it was obvious the tracks needed a full band behind them. Mike Park, founder of Asian Man, suggested Hard Girls. The quartet became Classics of Love. “I was just completely blown away at the thought of it and could not believe it,” Huguenor says. “It was a dream situation.”
Hard Girls continued writing and touring at the same time as Classics of Love. Despite consisting mostly of the same members, the type of music differed significantly. “Hard Girls was writing more indie rock music,” Huguenor said. “Jesse was writing straight up ’80s hardcore punk songs. So we were playing way faster, in a totally different harmonic register.”
Over four years, Classics of Love released an EP and a full-length album that spawned tours in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Michaels then relocated to Los Angeles and continues releasing music under the Classics of Love name. Huguenor looks back at the time fondly, having had the opportunity to work so closely with one of his musical heroes. “I don’t really feel a lot of ownership of it. I am just happy to have been a part of it.”
Since then, Huguenor has gone on to record and perform with other acts, both local—such as the Bruce Lee Band and Teens in Trouble— and beyond—such as Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room and Jeff Rosenstock. He currently writes, records, and performs regularly with Rosenstock. In 2020, he also released a solo album of instrumental music in which he plays all the parts on the guitar.
Huguenor’s path has become iconic for many San Jose punk rockers. Ask any musician or fan in the local punk or punk-adjacent music scenes, and they’ll instantly recognize his name. While his stint working with a punk legend may have accelerated that image, Huguenor has now blazed his own reputation that easily stands on its own. “Every year I meet more people who have Shinobu tattoos and who say we inspired them. I really appreciate all their love for the band. It makes me really happy to know that we did connect with people.”
He hopes he can leverage his experiences to help those struggling to find their break. He also wants to see the local music scene grow and thrive. “The punk community has never been able to get a foothold here, and I feel like it needs that. It needs to be allowed to have a permanent space. I need to be involved in some way locally because I need to advocate for the people who are currently teenagers, who have nowhere to play because there’s no room that accommodates major touring bands in San Jose.”
In the heart of Silicon Valley, where technology and innovation reign supreme, lies a hidden gem in the world of textile art. Jaya Griscom is a talented artist who has been weaving a new path in the world of textiles, blending figurative abstraction with cutting-edge textile technology. Griscom was born in Menlo Park, California, and lived in the Bay Area through grade school. From a young age, she knew that creating art was what she was meant to do. “I knew from the time that I was quite little that art was kind of what I wanted to spend my life doing,” Griscom recalls. “From being very tiny, as soon as I could hold markers and paints and everything…that was always my first choice of what I wanted to spend my time doing.”
Her parents quickly realized that art was their daughter’s passion and enrolled her in the Peninsula School, which emphasized art programs and self-directed creative time for its students. “One of the founders of the school over 100 years ago had been a weaver. So [they] started a weaving program at the school that then ended up sticking with the curriculum, because they had the looms and they had the materials,” says Griscom. Although she didn’t know it at the time, this was the gateway into her lifelong pursuit of weaving and creating textile art. She states: “I ended up learning how to weave when I was like five, and I fell in love with the tactile experience of working with fiber.” Griscom describes textile art as soft and “that it feels good, that it’s cozy, that it’s kind of quiet and absorbs sounds.”
“Operating on a scale that is at least as large as the human body, if not larger, has a very different kind of physical relationship when you’re viewing or touching it.”
Griscom began her formal fine art education in high school, by earning a visual art certificate from Idyllwild Arts Academy. She then studied at Bard College, double majoring in studio art and religious studies. From there she moved back to the Bay Area and completed an additional degree from Cañada College in fashion design merchandising and small business management.
Eventually, she found herself back at Peninsula School, this time teaching the very same weaving class that had inspired her as a child. “It was wonderful to be back. I love being in the classroom,” recalls Griscom. As with so many educators, Griscom’s job was impacted by the pandemic, and she was forced to shift to remote work. “Teaching anything remotely is certainly not optimal, but specifically teaching something that is so hands-on and material intensive was really challenging to make work.” While she made teaching work remotely for a while, she decided it was no longer a fit without being in-person and instead focused more attention on her own practice.
Working with various types of looms, from traditional to new age, has allowed Griscom to create both simple and complex designs. Most recently, she was excited to have access to a digital Jacquard loom through a residency program at Praxis Fiber Workshop in Cleveland, Ohio. This loom unlocked new opportunities for creating more photorealistic designs, which often depict human features such as hands. “The human body is fascinating, and I think that as much as we all are so familiar with bodies…it can be a really exciting way to kind of reexamine that connection with self, as well as reexamine the hefty societal expectations placed on ourselves in terms of physical appearance.”
Griscom makes a point to share that the intersection of the ancient art of weaving and modern technology isn’t new. “There have always kind of been these parallels in this dialogue between computer coding and weaving.” She adds, “You have warp strings, your vertical strings. You have your weft strings, your horizontals. It’s either a weft on top of a warp, or it’s a warp on top of a weft. It’s a zero or one, like it is with binary code.”
Griscom has also recently started combining prints, repurposed clothes, and 3D contours into her larger-scale textile artwork. Griscom admitted that while she does enjoy art in all sizes, she’s found herself drawn to larger pieces. “Operating on a scale that is at least as large as the human body, if not larger, has a very different kind of physical relationship when you’re viewing or touching it,” she shares. As a result, she has been accepted into the Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto, which provides a large studio for bigger projects. Griscom is excited to continue to expand her practice with new techniques and materials, weaving the old and new together.
New Museum Los Gatos aims to inspire, illuminate, and instruct. Gabriel Coke’s atelier is a revitalization of a tradition popularized during the Renaissance. His curriculum is designed to prepare students for professional art study through a well-rounded education, mastering the basics: still life, landscape, portraits, and drawing.
Some of his youngest students’ paintings hang among the masterpieces of the visiting instructors in the gallery. A collection of self-portraits, for example, showcases incredible realism and richly reflective imagination. Gabe took his students’ photos until each had one they liked. Then, he helped them streamline their invention of symbols, colors, and illustrations to tell their life story. “It’s so important when you’re working with young kids, because they still have imagination, to let their imagination have a voice,” Gabe emphasizes. His mission is to teach the foundational skills that promote that confidence.
On the lower floor of the museum, where Gabe holds his classes, each workstation is designed to set students up for success. Lamps wrapped in cones of black tape focus light away from the eyes, shining directly on the easel without polluting the subjects to be drawn. At each station, Gabe has placed an egg. “The egg is a metaphor for something more complicated,” he explains. “I don’t want them to ever feel like they can’t do something. Almost everyone can draw an egg, but I explain everything that’s going on to make it look realistic.”
From there, a student of any age can draw something more complicated. “It’s really not me,” Gabe promises. “If you’re born with talent and ability, you’re never going to lose it.”
“In a sense, that’s my mission: to hold onto what’s transient, even as it fades, leaving traces behind.”
At an early age, Vĩ Sơn Trinh learned of his parents’ journey as refugees escaping Communist-ruled Vietnam. They spent seven days and nights at sea, eventually arriving in Galang, Indonesia, where his mom promptly gave birth to Vĩ Sơn. While his parents’ story illuminated his own journey to find his identity as a second-generation immigrant, Vĩ Sơn realized his experience was one among many and became inspired to use visual storytelling to give voice to other similar narratives of immigrant families.
Vĩ Sơn’s different projects, such as Silk Rise, Chinatown, and The Stories We Carry, aim to preserve everyday moments that explore cultural identity among second and third-generation immigrants. His photography immediately draws you into small, nuanced moments that carry a weightless glow of compassion and gratitude. The soft, faded, dream-like tone of his images feels like long-forgotten memories that unexpectedly visit you, almost like déjà vu. His images are comforting in their reassurance, giving order to the disorder that arises from intergenerational trauma.
As a visual journalist, photographer, and full-time cardiac nurse, Vĩ Sơn Trịnh uses his photography and filmmaking to uncover stories of resilience, the perseverance of familial bonds, and identity among refugees and immigrants.
Your images communicate a quiet, emotional depth, even out of context. Are there other elements in your life that influence your work? My influences are like waves—each one carrying fragments of memory, connecting the past to the present in ways that feel both vivid and elusive. Some inspirations are simple moments, like the hum of tires on the road when I drive alone. It reminds me of family road trips, my dad guiding us to visit relatives in Los Angeles, those long hours becoming my first experience of quiet spaces, where my thoughts could wander freely. There’s a kind of longing to capture those fleeting moments, to preserve the simplicity of what once was. This is why I’m drawn to photographers like Rinko Kawauchi; her work feels like visual haikus that honor small, often overlooked details. Her images remind me to pause, to see the truth in the subtleties, to find beauty in what others might overlook.
Do other art forms inspire you as well? Music also plays a crucial role in my creative process, adapting with my environment and mood. When I’m out on the streets, blending into the rhythm of city life, I listen to Shigeto. The intensity of his beats fuels my energy, pushing me to navigate crowds, cars, and alleyways with purpose. In contrast, when I’m seeking something introspective, I turn to the calming compositions of Olafur Arnalds or Ryuichi Sakamoto. Their music has a way of evoking nostalgia, allowing me to connect with fragments of memory that need space to breathe and take form.
Grief, too, influences my work. Creating has become a way to process loss and transform pain into something tangible. It’s an attempt to find beauty in absence, to honor what’s slipping away by capturing it.
In a sense, that’s my mission: to hold onto what’s transient, even as it fades, leaving traces behind.
There is a quiet tenderness to your photos with an emphasis on small moments, often up close. When you shoot, do you have a vision of what you want already in mind or are you simply paying attention to those moments as they unfold naturally? When I first began, there was no map, no destination—just the pull to capture everything under the sun, as if each moment could somehow fill an emptiness I hadn’t yet named. I was chasing a high, really, capturing whatever caught my eye, drawn to the sheer wonder of it. The camera became a net for everything fleeting, everything that seemed to slip away as soon as I looked at it. These days, when I work on a project, I carry that same innocence, that same sense of wonder, but there’s a steadiness to it now, a direction. I still find myself searching for that pure feeling, that unfiltered connection. I might start with a goal, an idea of where I’m headed, but once I’m in it, once the subject and I begin to share a kind of quiet understanding, that’s when things start to bloom on their own. The moments become softer, truer. It’s as if the image decides to reveal itself, layered and deep, only once we’ve learned to be still enough to listen.
I recently came across a wonderful explanation of how poetry, in particular, can be this improbable portal, or backdoor, into the cosmos by sneaking ideas into our subconscious, ultimately changing the way we perceive the external world. I realized how photography, likewise, can do the same thing…a visual poem, if you will. With that said, how did The Stories We Carry project change your perspective and the way you relate to the world? That’s such a beautiful way to put it, Taran—“poetry as a portal,” a doorway into other lives and experiences, ways of seeing we might never have considered. The Stories We Carry project felt like stepping into that portal, and through it, I was able to witness the inner worlds of first- and second-generation immigrant families, each one carrying their own histories and memories, held in everyday objects and stories. While I’m part of this community through my own family’s journey, the project gave me something rare: a deeper, more intimate sense of what it means to walk in someone else’s shoes, to feel their joys, their struggles, their resilience. Photography, for me, became a way to bridge that space, to capture glimpses of lives that are both familiar and vastly different. Each person I photographed gave me a doorway into their reality—a chance to see not just the visible details but the weight of their histories, the layers of their identities. The project reshaped my own understanding of belonging and displacement; it reminded me how nuanced these experiences are, even within a community I thought I knew well. It’s one thing to know that each immigrant story is unique, but it’s another to witness it, to be invited into those spaces, and to come away changed, with a broader compassion and a new way of seeing the lives around me.
Your journey to become a nurse, and the job itself, seems to play a big part in your identity and, likewise, your approach to your projects. Would you say there are any relative parallels to your visual journalist work and your day-to-day profession? Nursing and visual journalism share a surprising intimacy—both are grounded in careful observation, empathy, and the power of listening. My work as a nurse has shaped me into a more attentive photographer, just as my background in photojournalism has helped me to see my patients in greater depth. Nursing calls for a sensitivity to detail, a watchfulness that allows me to notice the smallest changes in a patient’s health or demeanor, knowing that these subtle shifts can mean everything. It’s a skill rooted in close observation, much like photography, where one frame can hold a world of unspoken truths.
In both fields, there’s an art to asking the right questions. As a nurse, I ask patients about their symptoms, their medications, their financial and emotional well-being, their homes and support systems—each answer adding another layer to their story, much like a journalist drawing out a narrative. It’s not just about gathering information; it’s about understanding how each piece of their life impacts their health, their journey. And when I’m photographing, that same curiosity shapes how I approach people. I’m attuned to the layers beneath their expressions, their gestures, the environment they inhabit.
Perhaps the deepest similarity is the sense of compassion each role demands. Nursing has taught me to look beyond the immediate—to see my patients not as cases, but as individuals with stories, histories, and vulnerabilities. That awareness has changed how I approach photography, too, infusing my images with a tenderness and empathy that only comes from bearing witness to both the fragility and resilience of others. In both nursing and photography, I’m reminded that what I capture or care for is not just a single moment or person, but a piece of a much larger, intricate story.
Do you have any projects on the horizon or ideas ruminating? Some days, the weight of picking up the camera feels heavier than I remember, like the lens has grown distant, more elusive. The everyday currents of work, the quiet exhaustion of life—it all leaves me feeling like creating is both a refuge and a labor. But I often find myself drifting into a daydream, imagining a project I haven’t yet begun: an archive of my father’s old Hi-8 footage and old photos from his visits to Vietnam in the ’90s, woven with scenes of our family’s early days here in the States. I want to tell our story, to trace our family’s path, the way memory lingers in old tapes, how it shapes us in ways we’re still learning to name.
Recently, I’ve felt a pull from others in my generation, other creatives using art to reach into their own histories, to confront the weight of intergenerational trauma and shape it into something tangible, something that heals. There’s a kind of solace in that, a shared language. I hope to make space for this work, to find my own way of piecing together fragments of that story, connecting with others who carry a similar thread of resilience and memory. Maybe, in time, these fragments will take form—a new project, a way to honor what’s been both lost and found.
In fourth grade, Rosanna Alvarez once laughed from under her desk as an earthquake shook her classroom and the rest of Eastside San Jose. Her classmates thought she was demented. She didn’t know how to explain that she was nervous and had not actually enjoyed the temblor.
These days, Rosanna expresses herself through all the languages a multifaceted interdisciplinary artist works with. As a painter, dancer, jeweler, and poet, among other things, she has plenty of outlets. But a good giggle opens her pressure valve. “I laugh all the time,” she says, punctuating it with a small but generous chuckle.
Levity helps balance the consulting work Rosanna provides, which often includes navigating sensitive matters for governmental agencies like Santa Clara County Social Services and Executive Offices. She provides support to the people who do the groundwork so that communities can thrive.
In her own life, Rosanna’s mother greatly supported her dreams. It was her mother who helped Rosanna sew the artist’s first set of regalia. “She didn’t know what the hell I was asking her to do, but she was like, ‘Okay. Sure. We’re gonna do this,’ ” Rosanna explains.
Inside iJava cafe, underneath Highway 87 on the edge of Downtown San Jose, Rosanna looks at her phone, obsessing over an Aztec regalia she wants to buy online. She dances with and is a founding member of the Aztec dance group Calpulli Tonalehqueh.
Rosanna credits her mother’s creativity for drawing her to community and adds that her mother would never claim to be artistic. “But then you look at the way she ran her household,” Rosanna adds. From Halloween costumes for Rosanna and her siblings, to countless party favors for baptisms and quinceañeras, her mother was there.
“My mom taught us the art of the glue gun—[she had] so many glue sticks! That is her love language—helping other people,” Rosanna says. “Folks appreciated the love she put into everything she made,” she adds.
To meet Rosanna is to be met with her big hoop earrings and an ensemble of dark and vivid colors that almost run counter to her stoic nature. She describes herself as a bit of a peacock but exhibits a locked-on-target focus—one that remains engaged as she tells a story while a dozen police cars scream past the cafe. Rosanna finishes her thought, then calmly peers out the window, succumbing to curiosity.
Originally, Rosanna wanted to become a lawyer. After studying political science at Santa Clara University and in grad school, her focus shifted to community and art as she worked in youth development, hopped around non-profit organizations, lectured on Chicano and Chicana studies at San Jos é State University, and co-founded Eastside Magazine
While pregnant with her second daughter, Rosanna’s family lost their house in San Jose during the 2008 market collapse, forcing them to move to Gilroy. Her daughter was born with congenital birth defects, so Rosanna and her husband began advocating for the best medical care they could get. Their daughter is now a teenager and is doing well.
Rosanna’s firstborn recently told Rosanna that she decided not to join MEChA, a high school club that focuses on empowering Latinx students, because other club members made her feel not as Mexican. “I thought I fought that battle!” Rosanna says, and adds, “How can we be less ugly with each other?” She offers her daughters guidance through their own art and teaches them about their deep cultural connections.
Whether she is speaking in front of students, government workers, or employees at Apple, Rosanna brings her authenticity. “I think I show up in a way that encourages people to remember that it’s okay to put aside what might feel like a costume for some of us and to just connect.”
Online she sells T-shirts, one of which reads, “Hocicona eres mas chingona.” This translates to “You’re more badass for being outspoken,” Rosanna explains. Growing up, hocicona meant “Don’t be so outspoken. Don’t have that audacity.” She shares that in reality, “It’s the container for the audacity of certain behaviors women in particular aren’t supposed to have, [like] being outspoken.” She counters that idea by stating, “I am raising hociconas.” Her daughters wear the shirt.
Rosanna adds a final meditation on the word. “It’s a reminder that if I wanted to show up in bold red lipstick and my big hoops and speak in my eastside twang, that I’m still the same person with the same insights as if I chose to show up in a blazer and the neutral lipstick and the styled hair.” When asked what her love language is, Rosanna responds with “gangster rap,” an example of her sense of humor, which she uses to balance the heavier parts of the world.
As an advocate for authenticity, Rosanna seems to be less of a peacock and more like a raven in a purple sweater, armed with a glue gun and voice that will be heard.
“I discovered that my art form was not creating art but bringing people to art and telling those stories [and] being a conduit for artistic expressions and the community that needs to engage with them.”
A wood-cut sign hangs from the eaves of a Spanish-style balcony on Palo Alto’s Ramona Street architectural district. The sign reads “Pamela Walsh Gallery” in gold lettering. Inside, contemporary works of art hang neatly on the white walls of the historic building designed by Stanford architect Birge Clark in 1929. The gallery is named after owner, curator, and gallerist Pamela Walsh. More than simply managing a gallery, Walsh carefully orchestrates exhibitions, weaving together visual narratives that connect artists to space and viewers to artwork.
Curating exhibitions requires close collaboration with artists, pushing them to dig deeper into their craft, shaping themes, or relying on creative instinct to curate engaging experiences. Walsh explains, “That’s the part that I think is sometimes misunderstood. Real gallerists are artists. I attended art school and studied fine art in art history. I discovered that my art form was not creating art but bringing people to art and telling those stories [and] being a conduit for artistic expressions and the community that needs to engage with them.”
Walsh’s journey to owning her gallery has been a puzzle of self-discovery, business, and inspiration. Originally from Tennessee, she developed an interest in painting during high school, eventually pursuing a degree in art at university. After college, Walsh moved to California, hoping to break into the art gallery business. She was determined to get her foot in the door as a woman in a male-dominated industry. When she did—essentially paying to work on a draw against commission—she took a gallery job at Franklin Bowles Gallery in San Francisco. She worked her way up the ranks, creating a career over two decades. “I’m deeply grateful for that because [Franklin Bowles] really believed in me and taught me so much about the business…and when I was ready to go, he had three galleries in San Francisco and one in New York. It was a big company with many employees. I ran three locations and had 25 salespeople working under me. [That experience] has informed me about what my path [would] be as a gallerist,” she says.
Before opening Pamela Walsh Gallery in 2019, Walsh explored running her own art advisory business to free herself from the overhead of operating a brick-and-mortar location. Before long, she realized the importance of space. “Having worked in another gallery space for many years…I was coming out of that experience, wondering at the time [in] 2017, ‘Do you really need space? Is space important?’ ” She continues, “What I found is that space is precious. What space allows you is not only what artists really, deeply desire, which is a place to exhibit art and put together meaningful exhibitions that tell stories that you can’t tell otherwise, but it also allows you to build relationships with your community.”
Opening in November 2019, Pamela Walsh Gallery aimed to forge a new path, transforming the Palo Alto art scene by creating a destination for art buyers and enthusiasts on the peninsula in a region outside of San Francisco’s bustling art community. Sensing the absence of many thriving art galleries in the area, Walsh envisioned fostering an ecosystem of contemporary art in the heart of Palo Alto. Originally planning to open the gallery with partner and renowned gallerist Michael Schwartz, Walsh came as close as signing term sheets before Schwartz became ill, forcing him to pull out of the arrangement. Walsh recalls, “It was a tough moment. We had come so far, and I had spent so much energy and money figuring out how this business would work. And I had to think it through. Could I do it alone? And I just decided to go for it.”
Pamela rounds out that conversation by honoring Michael, who passed away in 2020. “He was a lovely, wonderful man. He was really somebody who believed in me in a way that was so powerful that it compelled me to do something that I was supposed to do. And I hope to return those gifts to someone in the future. Sometimes, you meet just a couple of people along your path who are the people who change your course.”
Even though the gallery opened just months before COVID-19 shutdowns, the pandemic underscored the importance of physical spaces for art. Walsh recognized that without space, she had nothing to offer potential art buyers, and coming out of the pandemic, she witnessed firsthand how people longed for in person art experiences. Galleries, museums, and art were pivotal in providing solace and inspiration during trying times. Walsh’s commitment to fostering art and community was reaffirmed.
In the ever-evolving landscape of contemporary art, Walsh remains a steadfast advocate for artists, their work, and women in the art business. As a mid-sized gallery, she is a crucial element of the arts ecosystem that provides a platform for emerging talents, curates impactful exhibitions, and serves as a link between art and community.
In the courtyard of Mexican Heritage Plaza, accompanied by the gentle sound of a waterfall and a slow sway of a dense crop of palm trees, Jonathan Borca admits he’s often a bit too busy. And in a moment of reflection, he shares the fascinating reason why.
“I feel I have an existential window,” shares Borca. As a very proud advocate of San Jose’s East Side, he feels a deep connection to, and urgency toward, his community work. But even after 10 years in the nonprofit space, he’s still finding ways to grow.
“This is the first time where I’ve never had to compartmentalize who I am,” he says of his time at the School of Arts and Culture (SOAC), where he serves as deputy director. The role is quite the achievement for someone still in his 30s, but Borca’s nonprofit success is merely one dimension to his story.
His life is a tale of dualities. Born to a Mexican mother and Filipino father who met at Eastside Church of Christ near Alum Rock Avenue, Borca spent his earliest years in Japan before returning to San Jose at age 7. Raised by his mom and grandmother, he remained entrenched in the East Side until he attended Bellarmine College Preparatory through a yearly, merit-based scholarship.
“It was visceral to me, the gross inequities [compared to] where my homies went,” says Borca of the transition he experienced. “[You take] a 12-minute drive to Bellarmine’s campus, and it’s a completely different world: state-of-the-art library, multiple sports facilities, you name it.”
Fueled by a desire to help even that divide, he first got involved with nonprofit work in high school. While juggling course loads at the University of San Francisco, he commuted home to work 30 hours a week at YWCA Silicon Valley.
“This is the first time where I’ve never had to compartmentalize who I am.”
That fervent pace was burning him out, but a fateful meeting with Jessica Paz-Cedillos, co-executive director at SOAC, in early 2020 helped reignite faith in the work he was doing. “I felt her passion immediately and saw her vision as a leader,” he notes. “So for her, I leaned in.” In two years, he’s successfully led state-wide programs and grown SOACs sponsorship numbers, earning two promotions in the process.
Yet well before finding his place in such spaces, he was a confused kid trying to make sense of the world. “Coming from Japan and arriving in San Jose, I was a bit of a knucklehead,” he recalls of his childhood. His mom and grandmother tried desperately to figure out ways to ease his temper and channel his energy. He found a release in hip-hop.
First learning from the works of Arrested Development and Tupac Shakur, Borca used rap as a framework to better make sense of the paradoxical nature of his experience: “I used to think I wasn’t Mexican enough, Filipino enough, East side enough / Too private for public schooling / Too hood for private students,” he shares in his poem “Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá” (“Neither Here, Nor There”). His narratives are often woven into a jazz-centric framework, intimately shared alongside a lone piano or strewn atop a wall of sound when he’s spitting bars as the resident emcee of 7th Street Big Band.
The name “Francis Experience” is an invitation toward deeper connection with those listening. It’s also a reference to his personal journey of cultural acceptance. For years, he thought his middle name was Francisco, but later found out it was actually Francis. It was a call back to his Filipino side—and the father he rarely saw—reminding him of his layered story: Mexican and Filipino, Francisco and Francis, performer and community builder.
In 2019, he took his passion for the arts one step further by presenting his first “Francis Experience” event at Tabard Theatre. Rather than present a variety show, he chose to stitch together different musical styles and arts disciplines into a thoughtful, three-act format. The concept was also a bit of a thought experiment.
“The inspiration was really based on an assumption. We hear that life imitates art, but I thought, ‘Can art imitate life?’ ” he points out. “Just like I’m trying to chase the thread between different creative offerings, [I hoped] that people in the audience could find a thread amongst each other.”
He’s brought that same programmatic diversity to more of his events, including A Little T.L.C., a literacy event spearheaded alongside Oakland’s Akira’s Book Club, and “Colour Me Gold,” an affordable monthly series meant to empower small businesses and showcase local BIPOC creatives.
“Living in between worlds doesn’t have to be a deficit,” Borca goes on to share in “Ni de Aquí, Ni de Allá.” “It can make you a bridge builder / It can birth new hues and add to your specialness.”
Though he may not have seen someone living the example he’s now setting, he’s making sure to be as visible as possible to those in his wake.
“People will always want to talk about [my past] because it’s exciting. They focus on who you were, not who you are, or who you’re trying to become.” -Steven Free
Steven Free spends a lot of time with animals, whether it be the dogs he walks to pay the bills, the kittens he and his wife live with, or the giraffe that lives in his heart.
A radio plays to the hum of an overhead projector in a suburban backyard studio. A shelf stuffed with toy giraffes looks down on a tidy workspace. There are sketch boxes, a sink surrounded by binders filled with paint swatches, and a table topped with replica shipping containers that exhibit pieces by an (in)famous Bay Area graffiti artist. Hunched over the desk, standing in the spotlight of the projector’s halogen bulb, or tagging paint mixture instructions on index cards is Steven Free, better known as “Girafa,” a painter with a past that keeps his hands hard at work and his head in the clouds.
Steven’s artwork centers on a character that he developed as a teen. He was adopted as a toddler after his birth mother left him in a Bay Area motel room. That experience, subconscious in specificity, set him on a path of self-actualization. Stimulated by the response he got from recreating comic panels as a child, he gravitated toward creativity. Always doodling and looking for ways to express himself, Steven enrolled in capoeira, a martial art and dance form originating among enslaved Brazilians. He practiced capoeira for 18 years but gained an identity that would last a lifetime. As a rule, the Mestre, or instructor, would give his students nicknames. He landed on “Girafa,” the Brazilian Portuguese word for giraffe, for Steven, in reference to his lean and towering frame. “Since I have always been interested in comics, superheroes, and their alternate identity, I ran with the nickname and developed a character,” he says. By the early 2000s, the character most commonly associated with Girafa was painted on over a thousand walls, trucks, and pieces of property that did not belong to Steven. That version of radical self-expression resulted in arrest and restitution but began a new life for the giraffe that was once Steven Free. While not initially inspired by his inherited alter ego, giraffes have grown on him over the years. “When my Mestre gave me the nickname,” he explains, “I thought it was dumb, but I started to realize its potential. The long neck. The pattern. The environments I could include.” The versatility of the giraffe, combined with his appreciation for animals, stemming from his mother’s passion for bringing home pets, fostered themes of interspecies communication. “Animals can’t tell you what they need,” he says, “but if you pay attention, you know. It is a weird dialogue we have with our pets. I don’t draw people; I’m not interested.” Transposing elements of pop culture and human expression on the characters he illustrates has drawn audiences to his work. “I like giving animals human qualities when expressing sorrow, anger, or excitement.”
When asked how he feels when stumbling across pieces of his past life in the wild, Steven shares, “It’s the paint; it’s the sun that has eaten it away. It’s trippy because I know that was me, but I’m not carrying that same feeling.” His time creating graffiti will always trail him, “People will always want to talk about it because it’s exciting,” he claims. “They focus on who you were, not who you are, or who you’re trying to become.”
Today, Steven splits his time between walking dogs and creating art under his Girafa moniker. He shifted his focus from producing art to designing products after his 2019 solo exhibition at the late Arsenal SJ. Having difficulty selling artwork, Steven wanted to make his brand more accessible to those who followed his graffiti. He produced T-shirts, totes, keychains, and air fresheners, his latest push being a collection of replica trucks and shipping containers bearing iconic Girafa pieces. “After wrapping that show, I was burnt out with painting. I jumped into product design, but that took on a life of its own. That’s pretty par for the course,” he claims. “Every artist lives in the process of gradually evolving their work. I am excited to jump back into art and see if I can make a living being a full-time artist.”
Searching for greener pastures can be challenging, especially for a giraffe accustomed to the city streets. Steven’s shift to studio practice has been a change of pace. “Projects can take a long time. I didn’t have weeks to complete work in the street. I had to learn to be okay with not finishing a piece within an hour.” That extra time allows Steven to mix paint colors and meticulously document the shade and mixing process on index cards he catalogs in binders. While working fast is no longer a requirement, he always looks for ways to optimize his processes. “How can I work smarter, not harder? Sometimes, my process is very rigid, and I do things until they burn me out,” Steven says.
Steven’s contemporary work is still inspired by and attributed to the Girafa character he imagined as a teen, but he now distinguishes between foreign and familiar imagery. “I have a bad habit of trying to reinvent the wheel. I try things and start to lose the core of my work. It is a balance. I want to maintain what I am known for.” Pieces displayed in his studio depict a classic Girafa spot pattern composed in multi-color abstractions, a process formed by creating templates, masking lines, and inverting colors; his interests in color theory and intricate detail are on full display. “I can get into these pattern paintings with multiple color overlays until the process takes it out of me, and I need to scale back. I want to continue doing Girafa; it is what I am known for and enjoy doing, but I want to see where that can evolve.”
The next step for Steven is branching outside of the South Bay. He is working on a catalog that he hopes to display in galleries nationwide. This ambitious next step is one of evolution and self-determination. “Having work shown outside the Bay Area would give me much more confidence. There’s fear, because you don’t have hometown support, but you must be comfortable with things not working out, pieces not selling, or not being invited back. That’s the artist’s journey; even when things aren’t working out, you still have this drive. It’s who you are. It would be like telling somebody they can’t breathe anymore. You can’t help yourself.”
In addition to enduring the growing pains that come with forging a new path, Steven is a newlywed and lives a simple life with his wife and cats. When asked why folks should care about Steven Free, he counters, “I don’t think people should care about me. They should care that there are people like me willing to express themselves through art. I am not where I would like to be, but maybe somebody out there looks up to me. If they could see what I went through, the struggle, and how I continued to do work and want to progress as an artist, and that gives them hope? Being an artist is hard. We need people doing that hard work to prove it is possible.”
“I see a beautiful mirroring of papermaking to mental health as a whole because while people can be delicate, people are also so tough and resilient.”
Bay Area native Chelsea Stewart dances in her studio with a brush in each hand, pushing paint together before it has a chance to dry. Her impulsive process leads her to work on five to six different pieces at a time, moving from one to the next. “I’m somebody who, if I don’t like something, I’m going to cross it out and start another painting. I’ll come back to it later.” Stewart’s youthful vibrancy can be felt as she considers all possibilities for a lifelong career in the arts. Outside of her art practice, she works as a gallery manager and volunteers with art-focused nonprofits. “I want to help others share their narratives; I know art will always be there.”
For the last two years, Stewart has been exploring papermaking, a craft she picked up during a virtual artist residency. “I think I’ve always been interested in the process of papermaking and how meditative it can be. You get your hands dirty, blend the paper, wash it out, blend the paper, wash it out…figuring out flaws along the way, then making the flaws part of the final piece.” The systematic and rhythmic papermaking process can take Stewart many hours, even days. As she works, she listens to a podcast or instrumental music in the background, such as Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague. Stewart creates mixed media work by combining this newfound skill with the acrylic-based paintings she did as an undergrad, contrasting the two media.
As Stewart spins her anxiety ring, she dives deeper into a recent piece mixing paper and synthetic beads with acrylic on canvas, fusing it to her relationship with mental health. “I want to make something that reflects my own personal experience, using these elements to say more about my life. I wasn’t sure how to express it because the topic of mental health is so delicate, similar to papermaking materials. But when the delicate fibers interlock, you create a strong piece of paper. I see a beautiful mirroring of papermaking to mental health as a whole, because while people can be delicate, people are also so tough and resilient.”
