There’s a reason why Wendy Neff and Felipe Bravo named their space Fox Tale Fermentation Project. A sip of a sour ale might include tamarind, candy cap mushrooms, or Asian pear. Elderberry, sage, grapefruit, and jasmine transform into effervescent kombuchas. Stout-like sodas feature vanilla, honeybush tea, wild cherry bark, molasses, and fermented cacao bean syrup.
Drawing from Felipe’s experience in electrical engineering and production brewing and from Wendy’s background leading Facebook’s superfoods and fermentation initiatives, the pair experiment with fermentation processes and ingredients for their eclectic menu of beers, kombuchas, mocktails, and vegan cuisine. “A big part of Fox Tale is that experimentation—trying new things and sharing them to keep people inspired and excited about food, agriculture, and what’s around us,” says Wendy.
Fox Tale’s ethos of co-creating, tinkering, and fostering community involves centering locally grown produce, collaborating with other breweries, and providing performers and artists a space to show their work. Wendy says, “It’s not just about what we’re making and doing, but it’s a space where everybody gets to do it together […] Everybody can get a little bit playful and creative with it. I think San Jose deserves to be a space where other people are doing that. It just needs to be recognized.”
A growing industry in San Jose is the creative retail world. Largely supported by San José Made and its sister company MOMENT, many local artists have turned their craft into thriving business ventures. Genevieve Santos, owner of the stationary shop Le Petit Elefant, is one of them. Deeply inspired by travel, she makes watercolor illustrations that explore themes of culture and heritage, food as a love language, and the power of place. When she’s not traveling to BTS concerts or reconnecting with her culture in the Philippines, she’s painting and making ceramics in her Japantown studio, housed just behind the MOMENT JTOWN storefront.
Genevieve credits her business’s growth to working with San José Made, a local company aimed at growing small businesses through curated craft fairs, pop-ups and micro-retail storefronts, maker meet-ups, and social media campaigns. Genevieve testifies to their impact: “[Working with them] is an incredible marketing opportunity and learning experience. We have such a vibrant artists scene because SJ Made is there to guide the growing process.”
MOMENT has multiple locations downtown, but for Genevieve the JTOWN location is a special place. She describes the neighborhood as “this beautiful blend of old and new,” where you can simultaneously discover new artists, appreciate multi-generational restaurants and businesses, and learn local history in one of the few remaining Japantowns in the United States.
Join South FIRST FRIDAYS ArtWalk SJ on Friday, June 6, and Saturday, June 7, for the 16th Annual SubZERO Festival to celebrate local subcultures of art, music, craft, and tech in San Jose’s SoFA District. This two-day celebration features outdoor stages, vendors, artists, designers, musicians, and performers, forming a creative mashup of indie spirit and innovation.
When Cherri Lakey and Brian Eder first launched Two Fish Design, their plan wasn’t just to continue their graphic design work—it was to build something radically different. Inspired by a yin-yang logo of two fish swimming upstream, the duo adopted the motto: “Those who swim against the stream come to the source.” This philosophy of challenging the status quo and seeing what others overlook became the heartbeat of their now-iconic creative ventures: Anno Domini Gallery, Kaleid Gallery, Phantom Galleries, South FIRST FRIDAYS, and SubZERO Festival.
When they chose San Jose over the more established art hubs like San Francisco, they saw possibility within the void. San Jose could be viewed as a cultural wasteland at the time, but Brian and Cherri were determined to see what others didn’t. While Anno Domini Gallery started slow with its first show, its second, featuring a young Shepard Fairey, was electric, with a crowd forming around the block. That spark expanded their vision to include impact-driven experiments, such as Shark Bite Art, a massive public art initiative that raised $300,000 for local nonprofits while paying artists fairly.
To Brian and Cherri, Anno Domini was never just a gallery; It was “The Second Coming of Art and Design” —a sanctuary for street art, counterculture, and art as activism. Their curatorial philosophy is radical yet straightforward in that they curate the artists rather than the work. This belief in autonomy and trust, especially toward first-time or nontraditional creators, allowed for a space where raw and urban voices could thrive. Furthermore, when opportunities were scarce, they launched Phantom Galleries with the intention of revitalizing downtown San Jose by transforming empty storefronts into art spaces and creating safe environments for all artists.
The SubZERO Festival emerged from this same impulse. What began in 2006 as the “Street Market,” a simple stage and vendor tables outside the gallery, has grown into a flagship celebration of subculture and creative rebellion. Today, SubZERO offers a platform for emerging voices and unconventional formats, featuring experimental fashion shows, live music, and interactive installations that present raw, accessible art.
In this conversation, Brian and Cherri recount their journey from design to street art, their curatorial risks, the birth of SubZERO, and how they continue their hand in shaping San Jose’s cultural ecosystem.
