West Valley College’s Bill & Leila Cilker School of Art and Design has a bold goal: cultivating systemic change by offering accessible arts education. The school achieves this through its wide range of interdisciplinary offerings designed to encourage well-rounded and thoughtful students.
Cilker School of Art and Design is coming up on its second year in its new Visual Arts Complex, which opened in the fall of 2023. The building houses five different art studios for painting, digital media, sculpture, ceramics, as well as computer labs and machine shops. Designed to be a hub for the arts, the facility helps students further explore their interests and experiment with their craft in a safe and welcoming environment.
The complex is the site for the school’s 2025 Art + Design EXPO, which celebrates graduating students. The annual three-day event features work from current and graduating students across Cilker’s diverse set of disciplines, including architecture, art, graphic design, fashion, industrial design, film, music, photography, theater, and dance. The EXPO provides a space for students, faculty, and guests to connect across disciplines and collaborate, in line with Cilker’s goal of systemic change.
Clyde Elloso took his first class in fashion by accident; his high school mistakenly enrolled him in the wrong elective. Although he’d consciously cultivated his personal style, Elloso had never thought about designing clothes before. He stayed in the class, eventually taking a tour of West Valley College and its fashion lab. Elloso knew then that’s where he belonged. Elloso was born in the Philippines and moved to the US with his family in 2012. As a kid, he felt like he was always caught between two cultures—Asian and American. From this, he developed a mentality that would later influence his artistic perspective: doing what he wants to do and avoiding people pleasing. Now, in his second year at West Valley, he’s in a “gothic” design phase. At the beginning of his career, Elloso is excited to explore a wide range of aesthetics in his work.
Natalie Pineda learns something from each character she plays. Acting has helped develop her confidence as she embodies different roles. As a child, Pineda always wanted to act, but her parents couldn’t afford community theater, and her high school didn’t have a drama program. She later became a nursing major at West Valley College, but fell behind during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, in the spring of 2021, she attended the school’s production of Into the Woods. The show changed her whole perspective—she decided to change her major to theater. She enrolled in her first acting class for the fall semester and auditioned for her first role a year later. Since then, she’s performed in seven shows with the school and has taken all the acting classes West Valley has to offer. She’s hoping to transfer to UC Santa Barbara to continue her theater major in the fall.
Griffin Hennessy told himself that if he was ever injured skateboarding, he’d pivot to painting. After he broke his leg skateboarding two years ago, Hennessy decided to enroll in West Valley College’s studio art program. Years earlier, Hennessy studied business at West Valley and later moved to Washington. While working in sales, he also painted. He realized he didn’t see a future for himself in sales, and his injury further catapulted him into majoring in studio art. He’s now finished his degree at West Valley and hopes to transfer to UC Santa Cruz. Hennessy attributes parts of his surrealist style to his love of bold and wacky visuals from skating subculture. He works as a painter, illustrator, and sculptor, and says his process is materials-focused. The constraints of his materials and space help him conceptualize the direction for his work.
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.
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
