What led you to pursue a career in theater? I totally fell into theater by accident. I wanted to go to school to be a surgeon, but during my senior year of high school, I was bribed to choreograph for a musical. I was already a part of the marching band, a dance team, and color guard. The drama teacher approached me and said, “You’re a really strong dancer, you come highly recommended and we just lost a choreographer. Would you be interested in choreographing for a musical?” And I said, “I’m sorry. Theater’s not really my thing. I’m not interested.” And he said, “Well, I’ll pay you.”
And I go, “Okay. I’ll do it.” I had watched performances and opera singers, but I had never thought I’d be into theater for some reason. I had never sung a note in my life! Even though I come from a very musical family, I never thought it would be the road I would follow. But sure enough, it has turned into a dream that I have pursued into reality.
“You work so hard, so hard, so hard at memorizing, learning, making sure the notes and dialogue are correct. Then once you get up on stage, you have to let it go and trust that you know it—that you have it in your body.”
What is the most rewarding aspect of being a performer? The most rewarding aspect of this industry is how it touches people’s lives and brings them joy. They get the chance to escape their world and their reality, even if it’s just for a few hours. When they smile or hug me or shake my hand afterwards, it makes me feel like I’m able to do something good for someone. Even if it’s not open heart surgery, I’m touching a life in a way that not everyone gets to do. I also think being creative, thinking on your feet, and having the opportunity to do justice to a text—to make it come to life in your own adaptation—is an amazing opportunity.
What have you learned from your different projects? The number one thing that I have learned is that you really can’t give a shit about what negative people have to say about you and what makes you happy. [Laughs] You have to work very hard at your craft…and then you have to let it go. It’s a
complete juxtaposition in a way. You work so hard, so hard, so hard at memorizing, learning, making sure the notes and dialogue are correct. Then once you get up on stage, you have to let it go and trust that you know it—that you have it in your body.
Do you have a favorite role you’ve played and why? My favorite role I’ve ever done—the role I could continue doing the rest of my life and never get sick of—is the role of Franca in the musical The Light in the Piazza. She’s a hot-headed Italian, which for me comes very naturally because I grew up with a hot-headed Italian mother from New York. Franca is such a complex character. She’s spicy and sweet, exotic and nurturing. She’s all over the map. Not only does she have a kickass singing role, but her dialogue is so dramatic, funny, and powerful.
What has been the most challenging role you’ve played and how did you grow from it? I would have to say the role I just did in Hawaii: Contessa Almaviva in the opera Le nozze di Figaro. I don’t typically sing Mozart, but rather Romantic period music (like Puccini and Verdi), so this was a more “conservative” part for me, both vocally and in terms of character development. It’s very much about being contained—being poised and proper, singing clean and precise.
In rehearsal, because so often you work with fellow artists at different stages in their careers or training, you’re challenged to really know your part backwards and forwards in case others drop the ball. Despite this added pressure, you always have to maintain your professionalism and confidence so others can learn and pass that energy on to others in the cast.
The Cultivator of Content Magazine, Daniel Garcia, and The Developer, David Valdespino Jr., reflect on 2024 and the curation of issues 16.1 through 16.4.
Entering the thirteenth year of printing Content Magazine, The Cultivator, Daniel Garcia reflects on early goals set for the magazine. One goal, he recalls, was to “try to do a second issue and the third issue and the fourth issue. The early days were like, ‘Are we gonna be able to do another one?” Today, as Content Magazine approaches the release of its 70th issue, The Content team, which includes its publisher, SVCreates, editors, photographers, writers, graphic designers, and interns, has continued reaching the magazine’s goal of featuring local creatives in print.
In this conversation, David and Daniel discuss the production of issues 16.1 through 16.4, highlights from 2024, and David Valdespino Jr.’s 2nd anniversary as the Developer of Content Magazine.
Join Content Magazine on Friday, March 14, 2025, for The South Bay Artist Summit: Empowering creatives at the intersection of art and entrepreneurship, produced in partnership with the City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs, and Pick-Up Party 17.2, “Connect” at the San Jose City Hall Rotunda. The South Bay Artist Summit will feature an artist career panel, presentations on career development, a cultural exchange presentation, and an artist resource fair. Learn More.
Shane Martin Oseguera, also known as Quetsmo, is a muralist from Redwood City, California, currently based in San Diego. His moniker combines Quet, a reference to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god of creativity, with SMO, his initials. He has adopted Quetzalcoatl to represent his work, which includes the dualities of sun and moon, reds and blues–warm and cool colors.
After graduating from San Diego State University with a bachelor’s in painting and printmaking and pursuing a muralist career by volunteering with POW! WOW! Long Beach (now known as Long Beach Walls), Quetsmo was introduced to Carlos and Jen of Empire Seven Studios. He jokes, “…and they haven’t been able to get rid of me since.”
Quetsmo remembers getting the call about The Roosevelt Mural from Empire Seven Studios–“As soon as [Carlos] introduced this opportunity to me, I told him, Man, this has been a dream of mine. I have been waiting for this call for years, and hands down, I’m all in. I’ve been putting 110% 24/7 on this thing.” Quetsmo spent a couple of months preparing the design and two months on the wall itself.
The mural is over 100 feet wide, spans 77 feet vertically at its tallest point, and is 20 feet high along the sides. Focusing on plants and animals native to California, Quetsmo hoped to capture the diversity of the state’s landscape. The crown jewel, centered on the tallest portion of the wall, is a larger-than-life Elephant Cactus adorned with a single hawk and cactus blooms painted in pearlescent white. It can be seen from East Santa Clara Street and symbolizes the strength of the community in one of San Jose’s oldest neighborhoods.
“Not only this community, but so many others like it, and the people within it have endured many hardships but continue to stay resilient. And that’s exactly what this cactus represents.” -Shayne M. Oseguera.
About the Development:
The Roosevelt Park Apartments, a First Community Housing development, are designed for young adults experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness, homeless families, large families, and, if possible, foster families and/or survivors of domestic abuse. The project’s goal was to create a synergistic set of services and facilitate community building so that 80 families and transitional-age youth could remain in this rich and supportive neighborhood rather than being pushed out of Silicon Valley.
Artist Statement:
The composition transitions from the ocean to the west to the desert to the east. A unique quality we share all along the western coast, from Oregon down to Baja California and Mexico. The Santa Clara Valley mountain range stretches across the background, bringing a calming sense to the viewer. The foreground is a colorful reflection of the local biodiversity found within our community. People are seen interacting with the environment through activities they can engage in. The 1964 Impala lowrider in the bottom right-hand corner represents the surrounding area’s dominant Hispanic and Latino demographic. A large Elephant Cactus stands tall as the main focal point. Personifying the resilience of all demographics who have endured countless hardships yet continue to adapt and survive despite the odds against them.
Follow Empire Seven Studios on Instagram @empire7studios and their website at empiresevenstudios.com (Last featured on The Content Magazine Podcast Episode #16)
Born in Iran and raised in Boston, Mitra Fabian’s passion for art began at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. It was there that she took a sculpture class, which she describes as a turning point in her life. “That’s when everything clicked, and I realized, ‘Oh! This is what I can’t live without doing!’ ” she recalls. That spark pushed her into the world of art for good. She graduated with an art degree and moved to Los Angeles to try to start a career. “I quickly realized how difficult it is to maintain a studio practice and get anywhere in the art world. That’s when I decided to go back to school,” Fabian explains. She went on to earn her MFA at California State University, Northridge, where she also discovered a love for teaching.
Today, Fabian’s career is dedicated to both passions. She has had success as a sculptor and installation artist, including shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose and the Centre d’Art Marnay in France, has shown in galleries and museums across the country, and has been featured in several magazines. In 2021, she was commissioned to create five pieces for Google—large resistor “drawings” that now reside in one of their campus buildings. “It was an incredibly challenging but exciting job,” she says of the Google project. “I felt it was a significant milestone because it required serious focus, dedication, and professionalism. It also felt great to earn that chunk of money.”
In addition to her art, Fabian is an experienced sculpture and ceramics teacher. She began her educational career at Sacramento City College before moving to the Bay Area to teach at West Valley College in Saratoga. Currently, she serves as the chair of the art department. “I think I got really lucky with my teaching career,” she says with earnest modesty. “A year out of grad school I got a full-time, tenure-track position at Sacramento City College and was there for seven years. Then I got the position at West Valley and have been here ever since.”
Fabian’s teaching philosophy leans into the idea of artists as outsiders. She encourages them to embrace their creativity and find new ways to envision the world. “I really try to tap into their weird,” she says. “I’m pretty strict about foundational things, but then I really encourage them to take chances and forge their own ways.”
Fabian believes that there are many opportunities for artists in unexpected places, particularly in the Bay Area, and that art plays a critical role in many different professions, from engineering to business and beyond. “Art makes people more dynamic thinkers and problem-solvers in whatever career field they choose,” she says. “I believe the biggest opportunities might be in the arena of 3D printing and other digital technologies: we are already seeing how this technology is being put to incredible uses in the medical and architectural fields.”
The shift in learning styles and expectations post-COVID has been one of the biggest challenges of her educational career. “My goal as chair has been [to ensure] good and fair communication with my colleagues, as well as looking out for the best interest of our department and students,” she says. “This was especially tough during COVID. I think the greatest hurdles we face revolve around a post-COVID world in which many students are trying to regain a sense of normalcy. The ripple effects of mental and financial difficulties, as well as a general decline in enrollment, are still reverberating, and for who knows how long?”
Despite the challenges, the college and her department have exciting opportunities ahead, including a new visual arts building for the Cilker School of Art and Design. “It’s been a project long in the making!” Fabian exclaims. “We will have new ceramics, sculpture, painting, digital, animation, and drawing classrooms, as well as a new gallery. The new building is a beautiful state-of-the-art facility. Students will experience bright, clean rooms with new technology and equipment and great instructors. Our goal with this new facility is a private art school experience at an affordable community college.”
And while her role at West Valley is significant, she continues to find time to devote to her own art. Currently, she’s working on new pieces that will be featured at New Museum Los Gatos next fall. Staying creative herself mirrors the approach she takes to fostering artistic inspiration within the students in her classrooms. “In a world where we are constantly being asked to conform to certain standards and students are spoon-fed answers, I find that they discover genius when they can let go, get curious, fill their brains with wonderful stuff, experiment, make mistakes, and then make something good.”
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
Celebrating the vibrancy and impact of early-career artists across disciplines.
SVCreates is excited to announce the 2024 Content Emerging Artist Award recipients, celebrating the vibrancy and impact of early-career artists working in all disciplines across visual, performing, and literary arts. This award, a testament to SVCreates’ commitment to building the capacity and amplifying the voices of artists in our community, has been granted to two artists who have made a significant impact. These artists, who work with diverse communities and across mediums, have shown remarkable courage in taking risks and embracing challenges. Their unwavering commitment to their practice, intentional sharing of their vision, and rigorous approach to creation and production are commendable. We are privileged to have them as part of our community in Santa Clara County, where they have contributed significantly to the richness and vibrancy of our region. This year’s recipients are Esther Young and Elba Rachel.
Esther Young
When Esther Young sits down to write music, she processes the outside world by looking inward—a fragment of a memory, a dusting of spirituality, the electrochemical processor that analyzes those inputs. The intuitive nature of her work is reflected in lyrics and stories that sometimes even she can only decode once she steps away from the source. The product is what she calls “ethereal indie folk.” Her music videos portray things like going for a drive, playing guitar in the woods, or doing laundry, but they contain a tilt of celestial normalcy that begs viewers to review the lyrics in the description. In many ways, Esther is laying bare her process of self-discovery for listeners and asking them to join her. In many ways, that process of self-discovery has been a process of redefining community.
Esther Young grew up as a shy kid in the East Bay, raised by a Chinese immigrant family devoted to their Chinese Christian faith. Esther was enrolled in classical piano lessons, sang in church, and generally listened to the music her parents showed her. She recalls, “I grew up around a mix of crazy music. My dad likes Chinese pop music, and I wasn’t allowed to listen to a lot of secular music.” At that time, her relationship with music was structured with a focus on worship. Early on, the roots of her songwriting stemmed from the prayers she would journal. That practice was a haven for her intimate musings.
“To write a heartfelt song, you must live with an open heart so that the ache is tangible.”
-Esther Young
Esther’s teenage years proved transitional in her approach to life, music, and spirituality. She disenrolled from classical piano classes, picked up the guitar, and began listening to secular music. These developments drew Esther closer to her voice as an artist but were also forms of assimilating into an idyllic American lifestyle. She admits, “I wanted to blend in with American culture for much of my life. I tried hard to avoid the parts of me that are Chinese.” Esther later attended Santa Clara State University, where she majored in both English and music. She became invested in finding her voice through the communities she engaged with. That experience culminated in her disaffiliation with religion. She explains, “I don’t identify as Christian anymore. I thought so many people should be saved, but according to the rules I had learned, they wouldn’t be. It was the existence of all my beautiful gay and queer friends that made those rules not make sense. I just wanted to live my most authentic life, and I started to feel more like myself—less conflicted.”
Esther credits the open mics she attended in college as a critical moment in her trajectory as a singer-songwriter. She says, “Mighty Mike McGee’s storytelling open mics were the first I went to. It wasn’t even music open mics, but I knew that was the space I wanted to be in. As a writer, what’s valuable to us is what’s being said and why it’s being said.” That emphasis on storytelling is manifested in Esther’s lyrically driven compositions. Much of her writing is distilled from her own lived experiences, but she hopes to imbue her work with universal themes and community voices. Esther’s work as a journalist and non-profit cultural worker has helped shape that perspective and worldview. She says, “As writers and artists, to be effective, we must explore our blind spots; to know ourselves, we must know our history. My pet peeve is when songwriters put together lines that have no purpose other than to rhyme—what a wasted opportunity. To write a heartfelt song, you must live with an open heart so that the ache is tangible.”
Esther’s journey of self-discovery through song is ongoing, but she is constantly refining her process. As a recipient of the 2024 Content Emerging Artist Award, Esther hopes to spend more time in the studio recording unreleased music and begin work on new music videos. In addition, she has recently been collaborating with local contemporaries. “Playing with other musicians that I look up to, who have strengths that I don’t have, has been exciting to me,” she says. Esther’s emphasis on community parallels her reflections on the importance of art. She explains, “If the art community has a foundational belief, the way that church does, it would be ‘what you do matters,’ period. I feel like that’s what holds our communities together. Everyone has a chance to tell their truth. There’s that sense of acceptance. I think that’s the thing about art that is so healthy for people.”
Reflecting on her past, Esther says, “I’m grateful to the younger versions of me that spent time alone writing. I’m proud of her.” When asked why folks should care about Esther Young, she replies, “I’m always trying. When I see the worth in something, I will put some effort behind it. I’m always sincere.”
On a rainy night at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds, artists from Gilroy, Santa Cruz, San Jose, and beyond came together inside the Fairgrounds Fiesta Hall to celebrate the release of Issue 17.1, “Discover.” The issue connected elements of street art, graffiti, dance, fine art, and music.
This production culminated in a nearly year-long thought partnership with 1Culture Gallery in downtown San Jose. Conversations led to an interest in spotlighting the graffiti and street art culture and paying tribute to the “O.G.s” of South Bay graffiti, whose significant contributions to the area’s artistic culture have only recently begun to receive the recognition they deserve.
The Fiesta Hall featured a weekend-long art exhibition in which 12 artists produced original works on 12 18-foot panels that lined the walls of the building. The floor space displayed an additional 13 pieces on pop-up mural walls fabricated by the team at 1Culture. After a week of long nights and installations, the artists returned Friday night to engage with the community.
Food trucks curated by Feast Mode, a project by Culture Night Market, wheeled up to the southern patio of the hall, the bar was stocked with seasonal brews from Foxtale Fermentation Project, the stage was strung with lights, and guests began to arrive. The night started with time for guests to walk the gallery and examine the larger-than-life murals to the sounds of DJ Garlic Soul of featured collective Shades of Brown Alliance (SOBA) from Gilroy. Artists’ tables were surrounded by guests who asked questions about their work and wares. Around 7:30p, the Content team took the stage to thank the partners, artists, and community that made these events possible before introducing the breakdance crew, Elephant Graveyard. Elephant Graveyard performed a technical routine of breaks, spins, and freezes surrounded by audience members.
The night continued with the soulful selection of vinyl records while folks chatted at cocktail tables, wandered the hall, and grabbed last-minute bites. For a cold and rainy night the week before Thanksgiving, there was a tangible warmth emanating from connections, new and old, as guests discovered the essence of South Bay art and graffiti culture. The interactions between artists and enthusiasts at a venue that, for many, contained fond childhood memories created an atmosphere of family and thanks.
THANK YOU, Partners
Santa Clara County Fairgrounds | 1CULTURE | Foxtale Fermentation Project | Feast Mode SJ by Culture Night Market
Join Content Magazine for Pick-Up Party 17.2, “Connect,” on Friday, March 14, 2025, at The Rotunda at San Jose City Hall. The night is produced in partnership with The City of San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs and will showcase the contributions of Vietnamese-American creatives in the South Bay.
Issue 17.1 Featuring:
DJ – Brotha Reese | Muralist – Cameron “Camer1” Moberg | Breakdancer – Vicki “La Vix” chang | Painter/muralist – Scotty Greathouse | Textile Artist – Jaya Griscom | Grafitti Legend – King157 | Mural – “The Grand Strike,” Juan Velazquez, Analyn Bones, Miguel Machuca, Jordan Gabriel, Eddie Romo, and Melissa Manuel | Grafitti Legend – Nexus | Painter/Illustrator – Fabricio Ponce | Graffiti Primer – Joey Reyes | Shades of Brown Collective – Joey Castaneda, Jade Castaneda, Louie Andrade, Edward Valdez, Isaiah Kittles, Angelica Jimenez, Desiree Villescaz, Taylor Cherry, Itzayana Silva, Julian Torres, Sarah Cassandra Guizar Retana, Darlene Cordova
Celebrating the vibrancy and impact of early-career artists across disciplines.
SVCreates is excited to announce the 2024 Content Emerging Artist Award recipients, celebrating the vibrancy and impact of early-career artists working in all disciplines across visual, performing, and literary arts. This award, a testament to SVCreates’ commitment to building the capacity and amplifying the voices of artists in our community, has been granted to two artists who have made a significant impact. These artists, who work with diverse communities and across mediums, have shown remarkable courage in taking risks and embracing challenges. Their unwavering commitment to their practice, intentional sharing of their vision, and rigorous approach to creation and production are commendable. We are privileged to have them as part of our community in Santa Clara County, where they have contributed significantly to the richness and vibrancy of our region. This year’s recipients are Esther Young and Elba Rachel.
Elba Raquel
A young girl stares off into space while sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by family. “Elba!” the girl’s father says, snapping his fingers for a reaction. “Elba, where are you?” the man echoes. Elba replies as if a fog had begun to lift: “I am right here.” “No, we lost you,” her father replies.
Growing up, Elba Raquel was a daydreamer. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would reply with professions such as detective, writer, or world traveler. She shares, “I have a restless mind and a zest for life. My parents were protective of us growing up, but I always wanted to live a more exciting life.” As far back as she can remember, she loved drawing. When preparing for college, she knew “it was either going to be writing or art. I chose art because it was the only thing that fulfilled me 100 percent.” Through art, she could investigate the subjects she painted, travel to a world of her own creation, and tell stories through her imagery.
While steadfast in her passion to pursue art, Elba remembers her family’s skepticism. “They wanted to convince me to switch majors. They would say things like, ‘¿Dónde vas a comer? You’re not going to make any money as an artist.’ They thought I was wasting my potential.” She went on to earn an AS in two-dimensional design, a BFA in illustration from the Academy of Art University, and an MFA in art education from Santa Clara University. That self-determination to forge her own path has been a constant theme in her journey.
Elba discovered Mexican painter Frida Kahlo while in high school. Researching her work stirred Elba’s identity as an artist. Like Kahlo, Elba painted her reality, which included the pain of lost love, states of depression, and familial turmoil. Painting was a conduit for peace, a way to work through those emotions. She explains, “Art has been my savior. I also feel bad for my art because I place my burdens on it. Many of my paintings are about my torments, but I am working to make art about happiness and joy.”
Elba’s technical ability to produce masterful realism on canvas contrasts the time it has taken to discover her unique style and voice. That discovery process spanned a decade, including having children and becoming an art teacher. She truly fleshed out her approach only during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elba recalls, “I had completed enough Instagram challenges that asked artists to create characters in their own style, and I began to notice my own style. I was doing two-dimensional lead pencil realism with highlighter backgrounds. I started trying that style on a large scale and fell in love with it. I completed a piece called Mexicanas Unidas. That was my first ‘Elba’ piece.” Mexicanas Unidas is a 4-foot by 6-foot self-portrait in grayscale with a crimson-red background. The subject is adorned with colorful tattoos and is strangling a fang-baring snake.
“Art has been my savior. I also feel bad for my art because I place my burdens on it.”
-Elba Raquel
Mexicanas Unidas was a turning point in Elba’s career. Along with finding her style, she discovered her voice. Elba began painting murals at events like the Bizare Art Festival and with the San Jose–based artist collective Together We Create. She noticed the lack of women participating in live painting events and made empowering women part of her mission. “That’s my little bit of change. I know it has to start with me. The more successful I am as a female artist, the more others give themselves permission to do what I am doing.” As part of that mission, Elba has participated in the Art Builds Community’s Womanhood project that recognizes influential Santa Clara County women. She actively seeks women to assist her with projects, has created a portfolio of female muralists, and actively engages with feminist themes in her studio practice.
Elba describes her work as a muralist: “Muralism is my heart and soul because it gets me away from myself and takes me into a different role that serves the community. I love Frida Kahlo for her ability to put herself out there and be 100 percent vulnerable. But I admired Diego Rivera for his audacity in creating pieces that were larger than himself. Murals are my gift to the community. It’s their voice and vision through my style and symbolism.”
As a recipient of the 2024 Content Emerging Artist Award, Elba plans to create more from a place of joy, manifesting the reality she wants to live. “We think we have to create from pain. But we can also paint from light. We don’t always have to paint alone, either. Paintings don’t talk back to you. They don’t give you a life. People do.” She is currently working on a new body of work under the moniker “Bo$$ Bïtçh” that she plans to share with the community through social media by exploring performance art. Elba is determined to forge her own path and be a light for those who follow it.
Join Tara for the opening of her solo exhibition, “Mining the Plastocene,” at Felix Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz on Friday, November 1, as part of First Friday Santa Cruz.
Tara de la Garza’s art finds beauty and meaning in discarded materials. As a sculptor and artist in residence at the Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto, she approaches themes of environmental justice through visual storytelling. Tara began collecting plastics while pursuing a sustainable lifestyle and later found artistic potential in the often vibrant or semi-transparent commercial byproducts. Her work centers on both reuse and upcycling while inviting viewers to consider a future increasingly defined by the saturation of synthetic plastics. In de la Garza’s upcoming solo exhibition entitled “Mining the Plastocene,” opening on November 1, 2024, at Felix Kulpa Gallery in Santa Cruz, she continues to explore the inclusion of plastic within the sedimentary and archaeological record through the eyes of history. As part of this solo exhibition she will also host upcycling workshops and release a book showcasing the evolution of her work from collage to sculpture.
Tara’s artistic journey began at a magnet theater arts high school in Australia. She nurtured a passion for performance by studying film and television in college. The filmmaking process led to her love for computers, and she later spent a decade as a graphic designer, thriving on client projects but eventually yearning for a deeper artistic expression. She grappled with her message and intentions as she transitioned to fine art. She would experiment with various mediums, ultimately focusing on large-scale collages that explored humanity’s connection to the environment. A pivotal moment came when she encountered a haunting image of a dead albatross, its stomach full of plastic, which sparked a visceral response and prompted her to investigate the profound impacts of pollution.
Tara’s work resonates with sustainability and environmental advocacy. She credits the Australian sensibilities she grew up with for her belief that even one person can make a significant impact. In her youth, Tara saw people in her community of Fremantle, Western Australia working towards sustainability; composting, thrifting, and making do with what they had. Consciously or subconsciously, those experiences have inspired her current body of work.
In tandem with her solo artistic endeavors, Tara seeks to make tangible impacts through her nonprofit, Inventurous based in Palo Alto. Inventurous focuses on recycling plastic in innovative and community-oriented ways. The nonprofit aims to educate communities by taking in locally sourced plastic waste for creative reuse. A recent public art project facilitated by Inventurous used 3D printers to create papel picado from upcycled plastics in honor of Dia de los Muertos. These art-based community engagement initiatives open up conversations about where our waste goes and demonstrate circular economies and the potential for plastic waste.
In this conversation, Tara discusses finding her voice as an artist, the duality of plastic–its danger and potential, and the opportunity for one person to spark meaningful change.
Interview Transcription Hi. My name is Kija Lucas. I’m an artist working in photography and installation, and my exhibition at the Palo Alto Art Center is The Enchanted Garden.
The Enchanted Garden was the name of my father’s gardening business. He had a gardening business when I was a kid, where my brothers and I would go with him to work on days that we had off from school, or either maybe if we were just a little bit sick but not so sick, we had to stay in bed, and we would go with him to work and weed in other people’s yards. Sometimes help him plant plants and go to the nursery with him, and then otherwise watched him laying sod or trimming trees or whatever he had to do in their yard.
So the exhibition is in several parts. There’s a large, I’ll call it a mural piece in 36 parts on the front windows of the Palo Alto Art Center. It’s about 20 by 13 feet, and it has both botanicals and trees that reminded me of Palo Alto, as well as other people who I asked who grew up here or spent time in Palo Alto.
The inside of the gallery, there’s an alcove that will have wallpaper that I designed with lemons that are both ripe and unripe, and then blossoms. I love the way that citrus is constantly in all different stages of growing in the bay. And then on top of that, will be images of rusty tools hung in ornate frames. The tools sort of are calling into the labor of like what it takes to make a garden.
Between the alcove and the glass gallery will be an altered map of Lawrence Lane, which is the cul-de-sac I grew up in and where my father’s house was. Lawrence Lane was an intentionally integrated street that was conceived in the late 40s and built in the 50s; in the height of redlining, there were black families, Asian families, and white families, and it kind of helped me as a mixed-race kid, to see families of other races and also other black families on our street.
Also, thinking about it, I always thought it was like such an ideal thing, and talking to my brother, who’s studying it for his dissertation, like I’m learning more about the respectability politics that go into creating an intentionally integrated community in that time, and also probably today, it was at the height of redlining. And so when the people who were involved in this, what they called an experiment, were going to the neighbors to ask their permission, and had to go to the city to ask permission to create this cul-de-sac.
And then, going into the glass gallery, there is on the walls the entire gallery, other than the brick, will be wrapped in also wallpaper that I designed, which will be transitioning through the room, kind of like a garden transition as you see different plants growing in different places. It gets a little bit thicker over time; certain plants are added, and others are taken away.
There’s a bit of a compulsion to organize in the way that I feel like humans often have this impulse, especially like this colonial impulse, to like organize nature, whether it be in our garden or whether it is in science books and the way that we study the other than human world.
And then, on top of that wallpaper will be botanicals that remind me of Lawrence Lane or of growing up in Palo Alto: the sour grass that I used to chew as a kid or a pine tree that I used to climb in my neighbor’s yard.
Lemons come up a lot in my work because it reminds me of sitting on my dad’s front porch when he would smoke when I was a kid. He smoked indoors until I was in the second grade and then moved out to the porch. So, if we wanted to spend time with him, it was out there.
I include both Indigenous and misplaced botanicals and trees because I feel like the way that we discuss botanicals is very similar to the way that we discuss groups of people. The idea of invasive and native, and not really thinking of how those botanicals arrived. Why they’re often maligned and so those are all sort of mixed together in the wallpaper, and then also on top of it.
I think The Enchanted Garden is, at the same time, the most personal work I’ve ever made, but also the most impersonal work at the same time; it’s so much digging into my own childhood, my own feelings about growing up in Palo Alto, about being in a place where I never felt like I fit, and being a place that had expectations of me that I didn’t understand existed until long after I could have possibly met them.
I like, that’s one of the other reasons why I was interested in bringing in the like, misplaced botanicals. I felt like, always like, I stuck out like a sore thumb here. I didn’t quite know how to act. I didn’t quite know or have the money to dress in order to fit in, or, like, wear the uniform of, like, the place. I was kind of a weird kid, which, as an artist, I appreciate that, and I feel like it’s fine, but it’s so uncomfortable growing up being like undiagnosed ADHD, like, not understanding why I don’t fit into, like, the academic expectations.
That’s another reason why I wanted to name the show Enchanted Garden; beyond, like, naming it after my dad’s business, I feel like an enchanted space is something that has a spell on it that makes you think it’s one thing. When you’re in it, then you realize maybe that it’s something else. And I felt like that was a really important thing to bring into it, because I feel like that kind of is how I feel about Palo Alto.
I’m trying to learn how to claim having grown up here, but a lot of times when people say, like, Oh, you’re from the Bay Area. Like, where did you grow up? I’ll say the South Peninsula because I feel like when I say Palo Alto, there’s an assumption about growing up in Silicon Valley. There’s an assumption that, like, my family was in tech, or like, you must be super wealthy, and that’s just not the way that I grew up. I grew up like, like I said, with my hands in the dirt, like digging weeds out of other people’s yards.
With my work, I’m bringing in things that are beautiful, like I want them to be, almost stunning to look at. I think of a photograph as a great place to lie, as a place to like, where we put our truths. So I have this sort of, I use a little bit of a scientific visual tropes, like using the black background, having something with so many details in it. I do not, I on purpose, do not use perfect specimens of everything. I want us to think about all of these things as being beautiful and useful.
But one of the things that I want to do with my work is to draw people in, so then we can have the more difficult conversation, like, how do we think about these plants, and how does that translate to how we think about people? How do we treat these botanicals, and how does that translate to how we treat other people? And where does that come from?
Like, the same scientists that were categorizing plants were categorizing people, and this like way of like, I’m reading this book right now where the author talks about how the most plant specimens from around the world are from Europe, where they don’t have the most plant specimens. And so, people who are from nations or lands where these plants are indigenous to might not be able to study them because they’re not there for them to study.
So I feel like, how did these botanicals also talk about migration? How do they talk about the way that people have been interacting with the land over the years? Especially since the bay or the US was colonized; that interaction with botanicals, the bringing of the eucalyptus, but also the olive tree, which is like this symbol of wealth, or the Magnolia, I was learning recently is also a symbol of wealth. They planted magnolia trees here, but they’re like, they take so much water to keep them alive, and but we do it, and it’s like this thing that says, like, okay, cool. I have enough money to keep this beautiful tree, which might be the oldest flower in the world, alive.
So all of those things are sort of in there, but I want to draw people in. I want your grandmother to be able to walk into the exhibition and be like, Okay, I can get something out of it. And your grandma might be, like, super into these political conversations, but maybe not. Maybe she sees something, and then she reads a little something and then thinks about the world a little bit differently. I’m not out here to like, I’m not an activist. I’m not out here to change the world, but I do want to give a space for people to maybe have a different perspective on things.
List of events related to GROW and The Enchanted Garden Exhibitions
Join us on Thursday, August 22, for Pick-Up Party 16.4, “Profiles,” at The School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza. This magazine in-real-life experience celebrates the creatives featured in the issue and 2024 Content Emerging Artists Elba Raquel and Esther Young.
Featuring Performances from Hen Boogie, Ripplings, House of Inanna Belly Dance, and Esther Young, food from Mama Roc’s Kitchen, a gallery exhibition showcasing work from SJSU Photo 125, Elba Raquel, Stephanie Metz, Theo Mendoza, and Alyssa Wigant.
Issue 16.4, “Profiles,” captures a cross-section of Santa Clara County’s diverse creative culture. Once the magazine was sent to print and the team received the first proof, we recognized a thread of community connecting each article. Whether the many stages of Hen Boogie’s artistic career, the inspiration behind JUBO clothing, or the concept behind Theo Mendoza’s brand, community is at the forefront of what inspires the work that these creatives bring forth to the world.
In this conversation, Daniel Garcia and David Valdespino Jr., the Cultivator and Developer of Content Magazine, trace back to the creation of this issue through Pick-up Party 16.4 at the School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza. They spend time laying out who will be featured at the event, sharing some of their favorite stories and insights on select articles, and giving a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into the production of this print publication.
Thank you to our wonderful contributors. This magazine is only possible with your words, photos, and keen editing eye.
Thank you to our event partners: the School of Arts and Culture, Sushi Roku Palo Alto, Goodtime Bar, Filco Events, Works/San José, and Heritage Bank of Commerce.
Hip-Hop artist/DJ – ‘Hen Boogie’ Henry Alexander III | Interdisciplinary artist and Poet – Rosanna Alvarez | Liminal Space Collective – Weston Mossman, Wendy Frances, Taylor Royan | Graphic Designer – Stay Brown – Theodore Mendoza | Mexican Heritage Plaza Expansion | Middlebrook Center: California Native Garden Foundation – Alrie Middlebrook | Sculptor – Stephanie Metz | Jubo Clothing – Jason Nemedez, Averill, & Brian Nemedez | House of Inanna ATS Belly Dance Classes – Petra Pino | Painter and 2024 Content Emerging Artist – Elba Raquel Martinez | Math Rock Band – Ripplings – Anna Macan, Sean Bautista, and Jeremiah Ruperto | San Jose State University Photo 125 – Aahliya Mcelroy, Eric Luu, Jesus Sanchez, Josefina Valenzuela, Regina Joseph, & Stevie Salcido | Hair Stylist – Skittzz | Muralist – Alyssa W. | Singer/songwriter and 2024 Content Emerging Artist – Esther Young
Each year since 2018, the City of San José’s Office of Cultural Affairs has selected a number of artists in a variety of disciplines to be named creative ambassadors. These artists all have deep roots in the city and have shown creative inspiration in their fields, as well as a passion for connecting with the local community through their art.
The role of the creative ambassadors is “to champion the power of creative expression and engage members of the public in finding their creative voice.” They serve for one year and are given the opportunity to create public projects whose aim is to bring together members of the community as active participants in art. They also serve as a voice of the city’s cultural vibrance by engaging on social media and participating in person in a variety of city events through media interviews and elsewhere.
We are please to announce the City of San Jose 2025 Creative Ambassador Applications are now open. More information and application at: https://bit.ly/SJCreatives2025app
2024 Ambassadors
Alice Hur
Dancer Alice Hur is the creator of the grassroots event series Waack, Crackle, Lock!, which takes place in Oakland and San Jose and features waacking, a dance style that evolved from punking and incorporates dramatic poses, storytelling, and rapid arm movements synchronized to disco beats. Highly active in the street dance community, Hur has participated in battles throughout North America.
“Dance should be for everyone. Creating partnerships and highlighting waacking through these channels can help broaden the audience for this art form.” -Alice Hur
Pantea Karimi
Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist Pantea Karimi’s work explores the history of medicinal botany and geometry using virtual reality, performative video, animation, sound, print, drawing, and installation. Her works have been exhibited internationally, and she has received numerous awards and residencies throughout her career.
“Empathy is crucial in understanding different viewpoints and building strong relationships within the community.” -Pantea Karimi
Deborah Kennedy
Deborah Kennedy is an artist and author who communicates complex social and environmental themes with her intricately crafted, conceptually based installations, books, and performances. She brings visual drama and compelling experiences to viewers in galleries, museums, and public spaces.
“Art is a way for us to process and advance our emotions and understanding of ourselves and our increasingly complex and challenging times. Our community can use all the poetry and art we can make available!” -Deborah Kennedy
Rayos Magos
Mixed-media artist Rayos Magos uses symbolism in his work as a way of exploring the personal, spiritual, and communal elements of the human experience, tackling topics of mental health, social justice, and self-representation through collage, printmaking, painting, sculpture, and storytelling.
“I believe that in those moments of cultural exchange, art becomes a powerful vehicle for connection and communication. I feel that art acts as a bridge to connect us with each other, especially when we don’t speak the same language.” -Rayos Magos
Yosimar Reyes
Yosimar Reyes is an acclaimed poet, public speaker, and independent artist whose work looks at themes of migration and sexuality while celebrating and honoring elders and attempting to further intergenerational connections within our communities.
“I [hope] to align my vision for a world where immigrant labor, immigrant voices, immigrant lives, and immigrant contributions are recognized as integral parts of the city.” -Yosimar Reyes
West Valley College believes in the power of a well-rounded education to shape a future that extends beyond the classroom. Each year, graduating students have the opportunity to showcase their capstone work—a testament to their growth and achievements—to peers, instructors, and the community. In the third year of the Cilker School of Art and Design’s EXPO, they have expanded the event’s reach to celebrate the dynamic relationship between art and design and science and math. The inaugural three-day STEAMD (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math, & Design) Fest will create a platform that ignites interdisciplinary collaboration between students and faculty, reinforcing the essential symbiotic relationships between disciplines.
We also feature three notable students from the various disciplines of the Cilker School of Art and Design as they move forward in their craft and careers.
Joel Hangai Music Education
More than just being a student who is passionate about music, Joel Hangai is dedicated to helping others. Growing up, Hangai learned any instrument he could get his hands on. He put in many hours of work every day to become a more knowledgeable and capable instrumentalist. When he was unsure of where to go with his talents, West Valley College asked him to become a peer tutor for music majors. He fell in love with sharing his passion with others. Hangai has since delved into music education, teaching all types of students across the Bay Area. He hopes to one day become a music professor. No matter what, he will always find a way to keep music a part of his life.
Shraddha Karalkar was raised in India’s colorful and creative environment, a country of rich culture, wellness, and spiritual wisdom that shaped her views on critical thinking and aesthetics. Immigrating to the United States after earning multiple degrees in pharmaceutical science was challenging. In the fall of 2021, she enrolled at West Valley College. She was drawn to the thoughtful design of creative spaces after noticing how design elements could impact the moods and actions of others. Her interior design courses fueled her passion and led her to become a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Associate.
Since then, she has won multiple student design competitions held by the International Interior Design Association (IIDA) and received a Design Excellence Award from the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID). Shraddha is continuing her journey towards excellence in the field of interior design.
Joshua Cruz began his journey in fashion with a high school graphic design course, where he made designs for classmates. He was motivated by creating cool things and the hope that his work could inspire others to create and share artwork of their own.
Born and raised in Mexico, Cruz is inspired by his childhood. He experienced the realities of growing up in a poor and dangerous neighborhood, surrounded by graffiti, dirty sidewalks, walls with bullet holes, and cartel members on the corner. Cruz uses that imagery as inspiration and hopes to show the beauty behind what could be viewed as chaos. His fashion designs include a variety silhouettes, textures, and fabrics to represent a multitude of lives—lives which may seem unbearable to some. His goal is to mix art and fashion to create a combination that inspires others.
Francisco Graciano has been creating art in San José for as long as he can remember. His multi-disciplinary practices include sculpture, painting, music, and tattoos. His work centers on themes of evolution and human experience that follow a ‘continuous line’ and the many factors encountered through life that develop who a person may become. The ‘continuous line’ used to describe his wire sculptures is literally manifested in the unbroken materials he used to create three-dimensional impressions of the natural world, life, and society.
In May 2024, Francisco was commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center to design and fabricate a ten-foot-tall hummingbird as part of their 2024 Marcus Exhibition. The exhibition, “A Path Forward: Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit,” is a collaborative project led by our lead artist, Charlene Eigen-Vasquez, in partnership with the Confederation of Ohlone People and Santa Clara County Parks, dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating Ohlone Territories. Featuring a permanent pathway enhanced with augmented reality (AR) elements created by Jesus Rodriguez and Graciano’s hummingbird sculpture, the project will open on July 19th at the Montalvo Arts Center as part of “Future Dreaming,” an exploration of themes related to indigeneity. “Future Dreaming” will have its opening exhibition alongside “A Path Forward” and will also showcase works by Beatriz Cortez, including “Ilopango, The Volcano That Left” and “Cosmic Mirror,” Rayos Magos’s “Te Veo, Te Escucho, Te Honro,” and newly commissioned pieces by Ana Teresa Fernandez, such as “Circuitry” and “Pulse.”
Join Graciano and Montalvo Arts Center on Friday, July 19, 6–10 pm for their 2024 Marcus Festival, which celebrates the opening of their new outdoor art exhibition, Future Dreaming…A Path Forward.
A (Still) Life of Avocados, Lemons, Oranges, and Strawberries.
The morning before an art event, you might find James Mertke unloading the Tetris puzzle of art pieces and display shelves from his car. It’s been a little over a year since James started participating in art markets, and although he’s still learning the ropes, he’s grown a lot since his first event. He’s created an eye-catching display with hand-painted signage and a variety of shelves.
James can’t remember a time he wasn’t painting. He loves pushing color vibrancy and emphasizing shadows. “I’ve landed on acrylic paints because I enjoy the vibrancy that can be achieved and the fast drying times that encourage me to work quickly and deliberately.”
Talk with James for a few minutes, and you’ll find there’s a story behind each brightly colored still life—sliced fruit, donuts, Botan Rice Candy, strawberry “grandma” candies—simple and happy childhood memories captured on canvas. “That’s one of my favorite things about the things I paint. Just on the surface, it’s a lemon to someone. But when I tell them the story about the lemon tree, maybe they’ll share something about how their grandparents had a lemon tree that they remember.”
During high school, academics became the priority while art took the back burner. James discovered a love of mechanical engineering in 2018 at Santa Clara University. Practicing art became something reserved for weekends at home. But when many doors closed during the pandemic, a door opened for James to pursue art. Commuting time could instead be dedicated to painting.
Looking for new ways to practice his craft, James noticed a 100-day painting challenge on Instagram. Over the summer, he painted a new piece every day for 100 days in a row. With a time constraint, he spent less time adjusting the same painting and simply applied different techniques to his next piece. The subject of his paintings also shifted. “Before the pandemic, I was mostly painting ocean scenes…I would take reference photos when I went to Santa Cruz or Monterey…When the pandemic happened, I started transitioning to the still lifes because I was looking for things around my house to paint.”
A prevalent subject in James’s art is lemon slices. He finds eye-catching glassware from the thrift store, arranging and rearranging lemon slices around them to get the right reference shot. James details the strong shadows and vibrant yellows in his art, but the connection behind the lemons is personal and sweeter. The lemons come from the tree in his grandpa’s backyard. “I always say it’s a giant lemon tree, but it’s a dwarf one—I’m taller than it—but it’s the most prolific thing,” he says. His grandpa remains one of James’s biggest supporters and is always thrilled to offer him lemons. After an art market, James will call him to share how it went. “He likes hearing when I make a sale…he’ll be so excited and smiling all the time.”
After the 100-day challenge, James improved his skills—and his inventory. “I had boxes and boxes of paintings.” He made it a project to get himself into events and shows to sell his work. Since James didn’t study art or take any art classes, he didn’t naturally find himself surrounded by an art community. He’s worked to find community by joining his school’s art club, frequenting art events, and exchanging art pieces with new friends. The art community he’s found is extremely supportive. “Art is about abundance. There’s not limited space for all the artists,” he explains. “The more art people create, the more opportunities people create for people to appreciate art, and the more people appreciate art, the more people will want to support artists.”
Early this year, James was invited to show his work at the Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento. His pieces have been curated into an exhibit titled, The Still Life. James also connects with the local community for opportunities to display art at businesses like Voyager Craft Coffee and Fox Tale Fermentation Project.
Recently, James introduced mechanical engineering pieces into his work by snapping reference photos in the machine shop for mechanical engineering–themed paintings. He submitted a series featuring LED lights, electrical resistors, and 3D-printed items to an art show sponsored by the School of Engineering at SCSU to celebrate the art of engineers. The paintings were acquired by the Department of Mechanical Engineering and now hang in the office.
Mechanical engineering and painting used to be two unrelated interests, but James has found they go hand in hand. “I’m an artist and engineer. I feel like when people think of engineering, it’s all math and logic…but I also like expressing my creative side,” he says. “Engineering is creative too, in a different way. I think engineering and art coexist and create some really cool combinations.”
Kathryn Dunlevie has always possessed a magical perception of the world around her, even before she became an artist. Growing up all over the United States, Dunlevie developed a deep appreciation of what gives a particular area a sense of place. Nowadays, her artworks a connecting thread, bringing disparate places and ideas together in what she describes as “hazy vignettes are woven together.” She photographs the locales of her travels and sits on the pictures until she begins the process of collaging. Then, in construction, she finds a method of arranging her photos that poignantly displaces the observer’s sense of time and place. Being an artist located in Silicon Valley, Dunlevie is often inspired by San Jose’s diversity—not only in viewpoint but in its sense of locality. Given the difference in age and style that many San Jose neighborhoods possess, she believes that you can walk down the street and enter into a new world entirely. Alongside the San Jose art community, she happily stands with, Dunlevie’s work captures the ever-changing world we find ourselves wandering in.
“I have a fascination with history. I’ve always been riveted by old places, as if I can feel them. I’m always collecting images and trying new ways to combine them. My assignment to myself is to experiment with new approaches and see what ideas take shape. When something catches my eye, I grab it, often without any idea of where it will fit in. As for the themes of my projects, that inspiration finds me.”
At first glance, the Space Palette might appear to be an alien device. It consists of a large, oval frame filled with a series of holes (4 large and 12 small). If only observed, its function will remain a mystery. However, once you physically interact with the object, its purpose is revealed. By passing your hands through the smaller holes, different musical sounds are selected, while passing your hands through the larger holes allows the instrument to be played. Multicolored, abstract graphics on a nearby screen visually reflect your choices. Though the origins of the Space Palette may seem extraterrestrial, it is actually one of Tim Thompson’s many interactive installation pieces.
How would you describe your artwork?
Before 2002, I was a musician who developed nerdy software for algorithmic composition [the creation of music through the use of algorithms] and real-time musical performance [music performed through immediate computer responses]. This software was a platform for my creativity.
Since 2002, the first year I went to Burning Man, I’ve been developing interactive installations and instruments as platforms so others can be creative. Burning Man provides powerful inspiration, virtually unlimited and uncurated opportunities, and a large appreciative audience for interactive artwork. While music is still a key aspect, my artwork has expanded to include graphics, video, and physical structures.
Three-dimensional input devices are particularly interesting to me. Using a 3D input device can be as transformative as using a paintbrush instead of a pencil. The potential for 3D input in uniquely expressive instruments is exciting and only beginning to be realized.
You often combine art, technology, and music. What are some of the challenges of working with these mediums?
Dealing with complexity is a primary challenge. My installations are often intended to be “casual instruments” that can be enjoyed immediately, analogous to “casual games,” like Angry Birds. A simple interface is key to this, but simplicity shouldn’t limit an instrument’s creative use or depth of expression. I often make a comparison to finger painting—one of the simplest creative interfaces around. No one needs to be taught how to finger paint. A child doesn’t even need to be able to hold a paintbrush. Yet [finger painting] allows a depth of expression that can satisfy any artist. One of my most successful pieces is the Space Palette—its interface can essentially be described as finger painting in mid-air, where the “paint” is both visual and musical.
“Using a 3D input device can be as transformative as using a paintbrush instead of a pencil.”
Tim Thompson
In technology-based artwork, a simple interface usually corresponds with a great deal of underlying complexity. I have a lifetime of programming experience, so I’m well-prepared to deal with that complexity. I sometimes use a complex interface to contrast and complement a simple interface, incorporating both in the same artwork. The more challenging aspect for me is selecting the type of technology to use. New sensors and displays are being invented at a dizzying rate. It’s easy to find yourself always investigating the latest technology and never finishing anything. Deadlines work well to combat this tendency, and events like Burning Man make excellent deadlines.
What does being creative mean to you?
Being creative means creating something that didn’t exist previously, which applies both to me and the people using my installations. Up until recently, most of my efforts involved creating music and software out of “thin air.” With the help of TechShop San Jose, being creative with physical things is becoming easier and easier.
What are your plans for the future? Where do you think your work is going next?
I have been using and exploring three-dimensional input devices for over a decade. I will continue to explore their potential for the foreseeable future, in both casual and performing instruments as well as installations. I’m particularly looking forward to using the Sensel Morph, a new pressure-sensitive pad being developed in Mountain View.
What response are you hoping for when someone interacts with your art?
I want people to realize that they are in control and are creating their own art and experience, especially if they haven’t previously considered themselves a musician or otherwise creative. Most instruments require a long learning curve and finger dexterity, which are barriers to entry for creativity. My casual instruments attempt to break down these barriers without sacrificing the potential for expressiveness or creativity. The response to the Space Palette has been particularly gratifying. The most common things I’ve heard as people walk away from it, smiling, are: “I want one in my living room” and “I could stay here all night.”
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.”
At West Valley College in Saratoga, Shannon Mirabelli-Lopez and Mel Vaughn have joined forces to launch the college’s first interdisciplinary graduation expo, STEAM’D Fest, where “Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math, and Design” reimagine collaboration.
Guided by the collective vision of Dean of The Cilker School of Art & Design, Mirabelli-Lopez, and Dean of The School of Math and Science, Vaughn, STEAM’D Fest represents a step towards fostering future integration across traditionally divided academic disciplines and further building a culture where all disciplines at West Valley recognize their connections and contributions to problem-solving in this modern world.
STEAM’D Fest plans to catalyze cross-pollination between sciences and arts by showcasing the work of students graduating from both schools. The 3-day public event will feature an art & design industry night portfolio review, film festival, Cilker School of Art & Design Fashion Show, and Dance Caravan, as well as birds of prey raptor show, chemistry and physics demonstrations, planetarium exhibition, and moon garden tour. As educators, Mirabelli-Lopez and Vaughn believe that STEAM’D Fest creates a unique platform for students and faculty members to break down boundaries between respective disciplines and leverage the complementary nature of their fields, emphasizing user experience and human-centric approaches.
Mirabelli-Lopez’s success in organizing two previous graduation expos for her school fuels her desire to support Vaughn in elevating his disciplines, aiming for increased visibility and recognition in Silicon Valley’s tech hub. In their eyes, a successful STEAM’D Fest would allow visitors to seamlessly engage with the event’s artistic and scientific dimensions.
In our conversation, we discuss Mirabelli-Lopez and Vaughn’s journeys toward higher education, their thoughts on how teachers impact students’ lives and academic success, and the music they are listening to. RSVP Here: https://bit.ly/pup163perform
Featured Artist: Kim Meuli Brown
Kim Meuli Brown is an artist and graphic designer whose journey began with a Bachelor of Science in Textile Design from UC Davis. Inspired by nature, Kim’s creations blend traditional textile techniques with contemporary innovation. Her canvas, often cotton, silk, or wool, becomes a testament to the beauty of local flora, adorned with natural dyes and botanical prints. Her current focus on fiber arts celebrates sustainability, weaving a narrative of harmony between humanity and the environment.
Silicon Valley Open Studios 2024 will take place the first three weekends of May and showcase the studios of over 200 Silicon Valley Artists. Weekend two, May 11-12, will be held in the Mid-Peninsula region, and Weekend three, May 18-19, will be hosted in the South Bay. Thirty-three artists at The Alameda Artworks in San José, including textile artist Kim Meuli Brown, will open their studios to guests on May 18 and 19.
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
Pick-Up Party 16.2, “Sight and Sound,” was the 12th anniversary celebration of Content Magazine featuring the innovative and creative people of Silicon Valley. The party was an ambitious collaboration among venue host Creekside Socials, event designers Asiel Design, Filco Events, and Illuminate SJ Now!!!, along with supplied food by Barya Kitchen ,and the dozen or so creatives featured in the magazine, who displayed their work.
Creekside Socials is a Google project managed by Jamestown, activating San Jose’s Downtown West. They have a full lineup of community events and workshops scheduled for 2024.
Our Pick-Up Party was the first event of its kind held inside Creekside Socials and was a fantastic opportunity to activate the warehouse at 20 Barack Obama Blvd. With support from our partners, we brought in a stage, lighting, and projectors that illuminated the sights and sounds of Issue 16.2. We even introduced our partnership with Needle to the Groove Records, which made our long-dreamt-of flexi-disc magazine insert a reality.
Guests were treated to a live studio pop-up hosted by Brittany Bradley, a wet plate collodion photographer, performances by 2024 Poet Laureate and Creative Ambassador Yosimar Reyes featuring Ivan Flores of Discos Resaca, Srividya Eashwar of Xpressions Dance, singer-songwriter Amara Lin, Needle to the Groove Records, and Kid Lords who closed out the night. In addition, six visual artists featured in the magazine displayed their work, including 2024 Creative Ambassadors Deborah Kennedy and Rayos Magos, Shaka Shaw, and Girafa.
This evening brought together various genres and mediums of music and visuals, exposing individuals to creativity they may not have been otherwise exposed to. Our goals of creating a magazine real-life experience were highlighted by our fantastic community of creatives, supporters, and partners who are essential to Content Magazine’s future.
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 artists of Santa Clara County.
We hope to see you again on May 17th at the West Valley College School of Art and Design for Pick-Up Party 16.3, “Perform.”
Musician – Amara 林 | Videographer – Victor Aquino | Photographer – Britt Bradley | Rapper – Chow Mane | RecordLabel – Discos Resaca Collective | Dancer – Srividya Eashwar | Artist – Girafa | Rap Crew – Kid Lords | Photographer – Josie Lepe | Artist – Julie Meridian | Record Shop and Label – Needle to the Groove Records | Illustrator – Shaka Shaw | 2024 San José Creative Ambassadors – Dancer – Alice Hur – Artist – Pantea Karimi – Artist – Deborah Kennedy – Artist – Rayos Magos – Storyteller – Yosimar Reyes
Pamela Walsh is an artist of a different sort. As a gallerist, her work lives in the margin between artwork and art buyer. A gallerist’s art is not just curation but creating a space that brings people to artwork and telling those stories-becoming a conduit between artistic expression and the community that is engaging with it.
Pamela Walsh Gallery is a contemporary art space in Palo Alto’s Ramona Street architectural district. The historic building housing the gallery was designed by Stanford architect Birge Clark in 1929.
Having opened in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Pamela was able to weather the turbulence of unprecedented times and is set to celebrate the gallery’s 4th anniversary with a group exhibition opening in December 2024.
The gallery’s focus on contemporary art is on creating a platform for diverse creative expression or establishing emerging artists. Having spent 20 years before opening her gallery, Pamela sold works from historical artists. Still, she decided to move forward with contemporary art as a fun and inspiring way to work with artists who are currently practicing. Small local galleries like Pamela’s are crucial to the arts ecosystem by encouraging artists, providing opportunities, and fostering a culture of art.
In our conversation, Pamela shares what it means to be a gallerist, her background in art and working in galleries, her journey toward becoming a gallery owner, and the role her space plays in the broader arts ecosystem.
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.
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”
“Five, four, three, two…” Standing in his living room, where bright teal couches and dark walnut cabinets complement cerulean walls, Paul counts down to his own interview: “Are you ready for launch? Let’s go!”
In the world of artist and designer Paul J. Gonzalez, possibility is as limitless as outer space. No conversation is ordinary, and no day is without surprise. So, one should always dress for—and anticipate—the possibility of splendor. Even to buy groceries, he’ll sport a one-off steel bracelet or flat top sunglasses or a metallic jacket.
But if a blur of futuristic inventions and astrological predictions is what you’re envisioning of his world, you might be surprised to learn that all his clothing and accessories come out of a color-coordinated, space-optimizing closet. In fact, he may be one of the most organized and self-analytical creatives you’ll meet.
Inside his home office, a small but well-lit room boasting groovy shelves he built himself and wide dual monitors—one of which he places sideways like a long scroll—he regularly takes stock of his life: body, mind, and soul are assessed as though they are pillars of a business (and arguably so for a full-time artist).
Here, Paul files away his receipts, categorizes his spending, and tracks personal data. The daily work certainly serves financial accountability, but he aims to cultivate improvement. “There are three Pauls: past, present, and future,” he declares. “All Pauls have to relate to each other.” Present Paul tallies interpersonal interactions and inventory alike: “Maybe, I got a little too drunk at the Cure concert,” he ruminates. “But it was Robert Smith!” he weighs. “But still,” he concludes, “I’ve got to check myself. I spent a little too much on alcohol, and I can put this money towards a new tablet.” Then the emotional check-in: “Did I have any breakdowns? Did I have any arguments? Why did I have arguments?”
Few may manage their daily lives so closely, but these routines feed his artistry. Health fuels work and rest, feeding not only into great ideas and the execution of them but, ultimately, more time for his family.
“By handling different mediums, you’re able to overlap the multiple skills and sometimes create something new that you never thought would happen.”
-Paul J. Gonzales
“Appreciating what you have,” he stresses, “is key.” Rather than crediting knack or discipline, he pinpoints gratitude as the primary engine of his self-managed, independent lifestyle. He recalls one low period of his life when he had just lost his job: “All I’d been doing was working and coming home with no time to create. I was depressed for years.” But inertia struck while watching a PBS documentary about a survivor. “I’m watching the show in my room, depressed, probably drinking a beer,” he recalls. “This guy climbed mountains and had to hunt his own food. I was sitting at home thinking, ‘I have nothing to complain about.’ It’s all in my mind.”
So, he began to move. He ran and rode his bike. He packed himself lunch. He went to work, and repainted vandalized buildings with San Jose’s Graffiti Removal program. He did push-ups in between lifting cans of paint. “I started figuring out ways to work out my time,” he recounts. “So then I had time to draw.”
As a kid, he knew he wanted to become an artist. For that very reason he fought to get into art school and then didn’t complete the degree. His program was setting him up to become a teacher or professor even though he signed up with the expectation of being an artist, completing projects, and learning from each piece along the way. So he sought education elsewhere.
“I needed to learn about business, marketing, finances, and management.” He found mentors and picked the brains of those he calls his “elders.” “If you want to really learn more about yourself,” he recommends, “talk to these elders who are already done with their work—anyone who’s willing to share the honest truth, because they’ve lived it.”
About to turn fifty next year, he’s ready to offer the same—such as how writing down experiences to look forward to can alchemize stale energy. “I’m looking forward to my mom, the calls, her visits. I’m always looking forward to adventures with my wife: Burning Man, Machu Picchu in the fall,” Paul shares. “I’m looking forward to cleaning my house and the yard. I’m looking forward to building the fence.”
Before the list is exhausted, he’s on his feet. There are many projects, murals, and presentations that he’s in the midst of at this very moment—but the process of each one, ironically, keeps him from succumbing to overwhelm. They will all be completed “so that I can either move on with it or critique it,” he says.
It sounds far-fetched, but it’s working. Over two hundred murals deep, he’s still excited for what he hasn’t yet done. “By handling different mediums, you’re able to overlap the multiple skills and sometimes create something new that you never thought would happen,” Paul remarks. From designing costumes to creating games for events, from woodworking to ceramics, he finds joy in both the start and the finish.
Whether someone wants to purchase a piece or he has to move out of his home, he sees it all as a chance to “start all over.” He can leave behind the custom fence, the teal walls, and the toolshed floor he laid down brick by brick in exchange for a whole new experience. After all, who’s to say that any part of his past didn’t have his future in mind? His life today is the dream of a shy kid who hardly spoke up but could definitely dress up.
As a child, Paul remembers being picked on for his soft-spoken nature. But in fifth grade, he discovered the Cure, and in sixth grade, he heard the Sex Pistols, and by middle school, he had found his voice through the sounds and fashions of punk rock. Standing out with bleached hair and leather jacket in the ’80s, “I was picked on even more then,” he recalls. “They’d call me gay, this and that. But the LGBTQ kids would hang out with me, and we’d have a blast.” Paul followed his crew to the gay bars and clubs, where all hues and textures of hair and fabric flourished, and he did too.
He is the only son of a young mother who raised him along with his grandmother and aunt. Her handy resourcefulness crafted a home that was eclectic and wondrous, with sculptures like King Tut’s head and his uncle’s live piranhas in the living room. “It was a small house on 25th Street near San Jose High,” he shares. “We were a low-income family, but I didn’t feel like I was without. She was always designing from a thrift store perspective and fixing things. So she would also help me with my costumes, too.”
He mentions breezily, “We’ve been winning costume [contests] in my family since the ’50s.”
These days, he likes to have his mother climb on the scaffold and paint with him. “She’s on her fifth mural,” he says proudly. As for his vast collection of art in every medium, “I don’t want to be a master,” he says, “but I definitely want to have a good time playing.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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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.”
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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
