Perform 10.3 digital by Content Magazine

ISSUE 10.3 July / August 2018

Silicon Valley’s Innovative and Creative Culture

UNLIKE ME

by Erika Gómez Henao

Perform 10.3 Clandestine Brewing Super Soul Bros CONTENT MAGAZINE, SAN JOSE $9.95

Jeremiah Kille

EASTRIDGE EASTRIDGE multi-million dollar full-remodel in 2018 Full remodel! All new interior updates & amenities. More murals than any center in the nation.

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EASTRIDGE EASTRIDGE

CONTENT ISSUE 10.3 “Perform” July / August 2018

Cultivator Daniel Garcia Editors Elizabeth Sullivan Kelsy Thompson, Grace Olivieri Samantha Tack, Marissa Ahmadkhani Linnea Lukatch Circulation/Distribution Elle Mitchell Communication Manager Julia Canavese Community Partnerships Kristen Pfund

Designers Elle Mitchell, Maggie Moore Jeff Gardner Photographers Gregory Cortez, Arabela Espinoza Scott MacDonald, Robert Schultze Jacob Martinez, Joey Pisacane, Mark Chua David Ho, John Agcaoili Writers Brandon E. Roos, Cathleen Miller Michelle Runde, Nathan Zanon Johanna Hickle, Gillian Claus, Demone Carter Brad Sanzenbacher, Daniel Codella Tad Malone, Diane Solomon, Thomas Ulrich Marissa Ahmadkhani, Esther Young Kunal Sampat, Brooke Olsen Roush David Ma, Allen Johnson, Jeff Brummet

Publisher SVCreates Though we are not merely what we do, who we are is deeply connected to how we act, what we consume, and how we choose to spend our time. In this issue, we feature people that illustrate that universal bond between our being and our doing. No matter how we think of ourselves, what is in our core begins to find its way out in our private and public realms. Thus, each person here represents their inner being through their making and creating. Whether an artist, musician, actor, chocolatier, or change leader like Mr. Diridon Sr.—a catalyst for civic transportation change—each person here is performing as an outpouring of their character. In addition, in this issue, we are honoring the SVLaureates. These creatives have demonstrated a commitment to their craft and have been recognized for their artistic contributions to our community. We congratulate you all. As you read, may you be inspired by the stories of our neighbors to think how you can align the who you are with what you perform. Enjoy. Daniel Garcia THE CULTIVATOR

IN THIS ISSUE Rod Diridon Sr. / Clandestine Brewing / Red Ladder Theatre Company / Jeremiah Kille To participate in Content Magazine: daniel@content-magazine.com Subscription & advertising information available by contacting elle@content-magazine.com

CONTENT MAGAZINE is a bimonthly publication about the innovative and creative culture of Silicon Valley, published by

CONTENT PERFORM 10.3

July / Aug 2018 San Jose, California DAY TRIP 08 Boulder Creek, Ca. ART & DESIGN 10 SJSU Animation / Illustration Club, Shrunkenheadman Club 14 Stanford Art+Science Learning Lab, Katherine Van Kirk 18 Photographer, John Atomos 22 Artist, Erika Gómez Henao 28 Artist, Jeremiah Kille PERFORM 34 WESTCA, Meaghan Karabatsos & Tory Woodward 38 Transportation Leader, Rod Diridon Sr. 40 Wrike, Andrew Filev 44 Children’s Musical Theater San Jose 48 Red Ladder Theatre Company, Karen Altree Piemme 52 San Jose Jazz High School All Stars 56 SVLaureates, SVCreates

Erika Gómez Henao , pg. 22

FOOD/DRINK 64 Ser Winery, Nicole Walsh 68 Clandestine Brewing, Colin Kelley, Adrian Kalaveshi, Liz Scandizzo, Rob Conticello, & Dwight Mulcahy 70 Mutari Chocolate, Katy Oursler & Stephen Beaumier WRITINGS 74 Poet, Robert Pesich MUSIC 78 Rapper, Ziggy 82 Musician / Singer, Ashlee Vivo 86 Band, Super Soul Bros 90 Album Picks, Needle to the Groove 92 94

Rod Diridon Sr., pg. 38

Calendar Contributors

All materials in CONTENT MAGAZINE are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published, broadcast or modified in any way without the prior written consent of Silicon Valley Creates, or in the case of third party materials, the owner of that content. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of this content. For further information, or to participate in the production or distribution, please contact us at editor@content-magazine.com.

Shrunkenheadman Club, pg. 10

Mutari Chocolate, pg. 70

Need an escape? Don’t have a lot of time? Living in Silicon Valley provides you with all kinds of options for a short getaway. From the beach to the mountains, wineries to windsurfing, the South Bay is one of the best hubs for launching into world-class scenery and activities. So why not take a day trip?

Day trip

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Boulder Creek, Ca. Written by BRAD SANZENBACHER Photography by DANIEL GARCIA

There are two main roads that will take you to the town of Boulder Creek from Silicon Valley. There’s Bear Creek Road, which ascends into the mountains just about due west from Highway 17, climbing sharply at times and offering stunning views of Monterey Bay before descending lazily into the river-cool air of the San Lorenzo Valley. To the north, Highway 9 enters Boulder Creek after a steep ascent from Saratoga and descends from Castle Rock State Park. Downtown Boulder Creek conjures up images of frontier life as depicted by vintage Hollywood, complete with falsefront architecture and little Victorian homes behind picket fences, often overgrown with roses or vining wisteria. A wooden shingle hangs on the door of the Sheriff’s Office, telling visitors whether the deputies are on patrol or available for a drop-in. And there’s ample street parking, something visitors from Silicon Valley—or “flatlanders,” as the locals call them— always get a kick out of. To say Boulder Creek is a sleepy town is to overlook its perfect weirdness. There’s Joe’s Bar, glowing in the night with neon Americana, and lille æske, the beautifully decorated art-gallery–cum–music-venue, which emanates bluegrass and folk from touring musicians on weekend evenings. There’s a fortune teller, a radio station, and maybe more than one bong shop. There’s also Scopazzi’s, with Italian food so good you’ll wonder how it got here. Hanging

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throughout town you’ll see hand-painted signs remaining from a small blaze last October saying, “Thank you firefighters.” In this forest town with few exit routes, the gratitude is real. If someone in the Bay Area has heard of Boulder Creek, their primary reference point is usually Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Big Basin is the oldest state park in California and one of the largest. Most natives from the peninsula will visit a handful of times in their childhood as part of activities planned by adults: field trips, church hikes, or camping with the Scouts. As is often true with children’s memories, they may not remember where it was or how to get there, but it exists in images: winding roads, big trees, ghost stories, the smell of a campfire. Near Big Basin is Little Basin State Park, which you can find by leaving Boulder Creek on Route 236 and turning left onto Little Basin Road a mile or two before the entrance to Big Basin. The road is in poor repair but easily driven. On the left, after about a mile, a small dirt ramp leads to a metal gate, where you can park and begin your ascent to Eagle Rock. Eagle Rock is a rugged outcropping with a summit height of just under 2,500 feet that scrapes the Santa Cruz Mountains sky. It’s a moderate uphill hike that’s about four miles round-trip. From your parking spot, you’ll climb up a hill for a short distance before immediately descending on the other side. At the bottom of this

gully, you’ll hop a small creek (or creek bed, depending on the season) and see the wooden ruins of an old campground where a few half-rotted structures still stand in the forest. Bear left, and follow the trail upwards for the next two miles. The views from the trail to Eagle Rock present a perfect diorama of the Santa Cruz Mountains. You’ll start in moist redwood forest and, at higher altitudes, break through to dry, sandy soil and layers of Pacific madrone, manzanita, and chaparral. And of course, you’ll experience the fragrance of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which is either the smell of sunshine or of life itself—pine, ocean, wildflowers. At the summit, you’ll find an abandoned and heavily graffitied fire lookout tower. You can scramble onto the top of Eagle Rock—being cautious of the 100-foot vertical drop on its southern face. On most days, you’ll see the deep blue outline of the Pacific Ocean to the west. If it’s really clear, to the east you’ll be able to make out the shining white bubbles of Lick Observatory on the top of Mount Hamilton, with a million or so people in between that point and where you stand. Keeping that fact in mind may make you appreciate the breezy quiet of this remote place even more—and with it the semiisolation of Boulder Creek, where the middle of nowhere has never been more convenient to reach. C

Highway 9

Scopazzi’s

Joe’s Bar

JOE’S BAR

13118 Highway 9 Boulder Creek, CA 95006 joesbc.com

LILLE ÆSKE

13160 Highway 9 Boulder Creek, CA 95006 lilleaeske.com

SCOPAZZI’S

13300 Big Basin Way Boulder Creek, CA 95006 scopazzisrestaurant.com

BIG BASIN REDWOODs STATE PARK

21600 Big Basin Way Boulder Creek, CA 95006 www.parks.ca.gov/bigbasin

LITTLE BASIN STATE PARK

Big Basin

Lille æske Photo by Steve Kuehl

21700 Little Basin Road Boulder Creek, CA 95006 littlebasin.org 11

Marie Dal Porto

Raymundo Mendoza Landa

Megan Grace Jacobi Rah Riley, Marketing Manager

shrunken headman

Written by Daniel Codella

San Jose State Animation / Illustration Club The Shrunkenheadman club immediately stands out from the others at San Jose State University (SJSU): spend any amount of time walking around downtown and you’re bound to spot their eye-catching logo—a warped human skull—on T-shirts, backpacks, and the bottom of skate decks. At nearly 500 members, Shrunkenheadman is the largest student-run club on campus. The most remarkable thing about the club is the passion, boldness, and dedication of its members. These artists and storytellers know that the animation industry is a difficult one to break into, yet they’ve banded together to pursue their dreams and help each other along the way.

Photography by Daniel Garcia

Shrunkenheadman shrunkenheadman.com Instagram shrunkenheadmanclub Twitter shrunkenheadman

The club was formed in 1995 to support the animation and illustration degree program and provide students with support and networking opportunities. The name, Shrunkenheadman, was inspired by a sketch from one of its early members, Dave Gustlin, but the logo was born when paint spilled on a stool and dried into an odd skull shape. “We still have that stool,” says Megan Jacobi, the club’s librarian. “Everybody wants it.” In addition to standing out and being creative, the name holds a lot of meaning for the group. “It reminds us all to stay humble. This is a small industry, and your reputation is everything. We never want to let success get to our heads,” explains club president Raymundo Mendoza Landa. Shrunkenheadman has plenty of success stories to brag about: several of its past members have gone on to work for companies like Pixar, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Warner Brothers. No matter how impressive the company, though, alumni members hold true to the club’s values and pay respect to their humble roots by sneaking Easter eggs into feature films. Marie Dal Porto, the club’s social media coordinator, shares a few examples, “You’ll see the number 218 show up in movies a lot; that’s the classroom the club started in. The track in The Incredibles is the Spartan track. There are Easter eggs and secret messages about Shrunkenheadman in some of our favorite movies.” 13

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Animation has grown tremendously over the last few decades, with feature films now costing millions of dollars to create and involving the talents of hundreds of individuals. “Most people don’t realize how difficult it is to create an animated film. It’s harder than it looks. The skills needed have grown so specialized, and it’s nearly impossible for one person to learn how to do everything on their own,” says Landa. Students in the animation and illustration program at SJSU study things one might expect, like figure drawing and 3D animation, but also some that are more surprising, like physics. “You need to understand how things really move,” says Jacobi. “But ironically, you also need to know how and what to exaggerate to make it look more natural.” This understanding of movement and emotion has protected animators from technological advances like motion capture, where the performances of real human actors are mapped onto computer-generated characters. Even though every movement and facial expression is rendered onto the character, animators are still brought in afterward to touch up the character’s movements and add more feeling. Despite the rapid growth of the animation industry, job opportunities are rare and the competition is intense. The club’s members are not naive or overly optimistic; they’re well aware of the challenges that await them once they graduate, but they remain undeterred. Shrunkenheadman brings in artists from companies like Disney, Pixar, Blizzard, Playstation, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon each month to share their experiences, give advice, and provide insight into the industry. “I’ve learned a lot from my classes and the experts we’ve brought in, but I’ve also learned a lot by being a club officer,” recounts Landa. “This industry is all about communication and collaboration, and we practice that every day.” With virtual reality, augmented reality, holograms, and other technologies on the horizon, animation will continue to evolve, and animators will need to adapt to survive. While the formats may change, animation at its essence is storytelling. And while humans have been narrating through images for thousands of years, stories continue to captivate and inspire us. It’s safe to say that the storyteller will always have a special place in our society—as long as they don’t let it go to their head. C 15

“When you are able to pull back these layers, you get a window into the artist’s past.” –Katherine Van Kirk, Stanford Student

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WINDOW Katherine Van Kirk Finding Diebenkorn’s Underpainting

Katherine Van Kirk experiences galleries a little differently than your typical art museum frequenter. When she takes in a piece, her eyes are drawn to that patch of acrylic thicker than the rest of the paint, that unrelated fleck of color peeking through a crack line, that odd bit of texture mismatched with the natural flow of brush strokes. These details, so often overlooked, prompt Van Kirk to wonder if the work is hiding secrets underneath its surface. Van Kirk’s affinity for art originates from an early age roving through art museums with her family on weekends and playing with paint on the floor of her grandmother’s studio, “probably getting paint where I shouldn’t have gotten paint, but smearing it all around and having a lot of fun in that space,” she adds. But her uncommon perspective first emerged when she learned that Picasso had painted over some of his older works. “It meant there were these hidden paintings hiding in plain sight,” she shares. Intrigued, she determined to hunt down her own underpainting.

Written by Johanna Hickle Photography by Daniel Garcia

Cantor Arts Center Stanford Campus 328 Lomita Drive Stanford, CA 94305 Facebook cantorartscenter Instagram cantorarts Twitter cantorarts

As a physics engineering undergrad at Stanford University, Van Kirk believed she could accomplish her mission by leveraging her studies. Her choice of major emerged from her other two passions: a desire to challenge her mind and a thirst to understand the way the world works. “I love it when I read a question and I don’t know the answer,” she smiles. “When I’m doing physics, a lot of times I have to read the question two or three times before I actually understand what’s going on.” Then Van Kirk found out about the Art+Science Learning Lab Chen-Yang fellowship at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center. The intersection of two of her favorite subjects made it the ideal outlet. When the program heard about Van Kirk’s desire to uncover an underpainting, they expressed support but also impressed on her the rarity of making such a discovery, wanting her to come in with realistic expectations. Eager to begin her search, Van Kirk stepped into the campus art museum wielding a digital camera modified to be sensitive to the infrared part of the spectrum. “I asked myself,” she recalls, “ ‘OK, what are the most famous and well-known works in the Cantor’s collection?’ Because, of course, you have to image those first.” The first painting revealed nothing, but on the second, she struck gold.

The painting in question, Window, by contemporary artist and Stanford alumnus Richard Diebenkorn, depicts a cityscape view from the artist’s studio. Van Kirk’s camera revealed details that didn’t belong. “I saw a pair of glasses in the middle of all these buildings,” she laughs. “That didn’t make any sense.” She also identified a phantom candelabra floating in the background. Beneath Window’s top layer of paint, Van Kirk had discovered a still life. “I’m not really sure what happened the rest of the day, because I was so incredibly excited that we’d found something that no one knew was there,” she admits. After her initial discovery, Van Kirk couldn’t simply pluck Window off the gallery wall and whisk it away to the lab for further research. The director of the Art+Science Learning Lab, Susan Roberts-Manganelli, advised her to find a wellknown, well-loved painting to fill that empty space by flipping through Cantor’s catalogue of contemporary paintings and suggesting 10 possible replacement works to the contemporary curator. “She’s taught me how to get things done,” Van Kirk says of Roberts-Manganelli, “how to be persistent, how to push forward with what you’re trying to do while also being respectful of everybody else’s needs.” In other words, she’s well-versed in the art of “helping other people understand that they want the same thing that you want.” After receiving permission to take Window to the lab—a facility beneath the Cantor’s galleries, accessed by way of a labyrinth of underground white corridors and a series of card scans—Van Kirk and the Art+Science Learning Lab began seeking a tech upgrade. Their answer came in the form of the Osiris camera, provided by the Bank of America Art Conservation Project. It allowed them to penetrate the thicker layers of paint and expose a third layer: a drawing of a female nude. Further research revealed a striking resemblance to work in Diebenkorn’s earlier sketchbooks. Beyond surface level, this series of layers holds deeper meaning—they are a visually striking representation of Diebenkorn’s journey, capturing each stage of this artist’s evolution. “You’re seeing him transition,” Van Kirk notes. The female nude sketch reflects his time as a key figure in the Bay Area figurative movement early in his career. The candelabra and glasses hail from the following period as he dabbled in still lifes, and the abstract depiction of the cityscape depicts his progression toward abstract expressionism.

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There’s even significance in the chair depicted in the final painting. Initially, it was turned facing into the studio, drawing the viewer’s attention to the present space. “However, when he was reworking the final composition, Diebenkorn decided to turn it facing the land, the cityscape, which then inspired the next series of paintings he did, the Ocean Park series,” Van Kirk says. “So every single part of it plays into the storyline where he starts at the figurative and then ends at the abstractive.” There are a variety of reasons an artist might choose to paint over a sketch or previous composition. “Whatever it may be, the artist chose to cover it up. The artist chose for the world not to see it. It’s an interesting line that we’re playing with, because the artist didn’t mean for it to be seen,” she muses. “At the same time, when you are able to pull back these layers, you get a window into the artist’s past and the artist’s process of coming up with this final piece…you get to actually be with the artist in the studio and see what he’s working through at different moments in time.” Van Kirk’s own process is currently on display. Her interactive exhibition, Through Diebenkorn’s Window: Transitions in Time, will be featured at the Cantor from April through August. “Play detective yourself as you walk around the gallery,” she invites museumgoers. Visitors will experience Van Kirk’s discoveries themselves by bringing up an infrared image of the artwork and clicking through objects from the different layers. They’ll also have the opportunity to look through sketchbooks with relevant pages as well as view some of the paintings that came before and after Window in order to truly experience his transitions. The next step in Van Kirk’s own personal journey? “I tend to live by the mantra of ‘live a great story,’ ” she says, before then emphasizing a desire to continue applying that mantra beyond Stanford and an excitement to see where she’ll find herself next. “I think this research has taught me that everything is a process, everything is transitioning and to go with it, because you don’t know where it is going to take you. Change is OK…because look what Diebenkorn came up with in the end!” Like Window’s layers, Van Kirk realizes life doesn’t remain the same, and it’s precisely the ever-changing nature of those phases that creates a satisfying whole. C

See artwork above photo come alive with PhotoBloomAR App.

“It’s like being a mercenary man—I’m a gun for hire. If there is something to be shot, I’ll shoot it.” – John Atomos

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JOHN

AT O M O S

WHETHER IT’S A SMALL wedding or an internationally acclaimed arts festival, videographer John Atomos captures the moment with his trademark cinematic verve. Born and raised in East San Jose, photographer and videographer John Atomos finds the cinematic in even the most ordinary things. Videography and cameras were never a big part of his early life, but when he was searching for creative outlets after his teenage years, cameras were the first thing that really spoke to Atomos. “At the time, I was making music and just looking for different paths into art, experimenting with things,” Atomos recalls of his creative journey. For some of his music—which was hip-hop—he decided to make music videos for the added enhancement. A friend and videographer knew what Atomos had planned and offered to let him borrow a camera. “It was a bad camera with terrible image quality,” Atomos recalls, adding, “but it got the job done, and I quickly found out that I liked making videos more than I liked making music.”

Written by Tad Malone Photography by Gregory Cortez

Instagram johnatomos

With encouragement from his friend—the one who let him borrow the camera—Atomos began pursuing photography and film, freelancing as a cameraman, finding any which way he could to make a buck and get his name out there. For Atomos, the first and most logical option was to continue making music videos. Enlisting a group of friends who were into making music, Atomos convinced them to let him film videos to accompany their songs. “And it kind of blew up from there,” Atomos remembers. The turning point, though, came when Atomos was working as a server at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Right before his shift on a Friday afternoon, he got a call from a colleague who asked him to come and help out with an E-40 music video shoot. “Basically, I had to make a choice between pursuing the opportunity to shoot a music video for E-40 or going to work that night,” Atomos recalls, adding, “I chose the former, and I never looked back.” From there, Atomos recognized it was sink or swim, but he was okay with that, because he was pursuing something he loved. Armed with a full-frame Nikon, Atomos embodies the spirit of the creative hustle. As for influences on his music video production, Atomos looked to his childhood for inspiration. “When I look for influence, I really think about TRL and MTV when they still played music videos,” Atomos says.

Aerial shot of Story Road and White Road

“Lord Knows” music video for Dirtbag Dan (2018 release)

“True Colors” music video for Vincent Jay

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“Every morning when my sisters were getting ready for school, they would put on music videos. I always try to emulate the look, feel, and style of that golden age of music videos.” This reference back has resulted in a developing trademark style, with Atomos often employing a wide-angle lense, an in-your-face sense of expression, and a style reminiscent of No Limit or Trick Daddy music videos or the glossy, explosive video work of David LaChappelle. Atomos, however, doesn’t want to limit himself to just music videos. With a freelancer’s sense of hustle, Atomos is shooting any event or activity that he can get hired for. “It’s like being a mercenary man—I’m a gun for hire,” Atomos laughs and adds, “If there is something to be shot, I’ll shoot it.” Branching out from the strictly artistic, Atomos is shooting everything from tech company events to houses for real estate agents, all with the intention of building up his portfolio and skill. This has led to gigs with such international big hitters as the Pow! Wow! Festival and local heroes like the Bay Area Creatives Klub. In the long run, Atomos hopes to branch out even further, with the explicit goal of doing more documentary work. He is also still expecting to release a few music videos with local rap empresario Dirtbag Dan this summer. C

Erika Henao

Written by Marissa Ahmadkhani Photography by Daniel Garcia

erikagomezhenao.com Instagram erika_gomez_henao

Gómez

Daring to Create Color is abundant in artist Erika Gómez Henao’s work. Through the use of several artistic mediums, including painting, performance, and ceramics, the vibrancy of Gómez Henao’s work captures audience attention, while her choice in subject matter commands it. Born and raised in Colombia, Gómez Henao credits her love of color to the richness of both her culture and the area where she grew up. As a child, Gómez Henao used artwork as a way to keep herself entertained, often spending her free time creating and performing. After high school, Gómez Henao moved to the United States, joining her mother in Philadelphia and enrolling in community college. Of the experience Gómez Henao says, “It was very difficult to adjust. I didn’t know much English—only what I had learned in high school, and we were a working-class family. My mom was working in a factory, and, I mean, I had a home and food, but I had to work.” Despite these difficulties, she acclimated, learning how to speak English and earning an associate’s degree in art and design. With experience in design, Photoshop, painting, and composition, Gómez Henao began to explore the field and worked to find her niche. Reminiscing on her journey, she says, “I started testing the waters, and I knew that this was it. It felt like my calling in a way.” Working for the Mural Arts program in Philadelphia, Gómez Henao began to meet people in the art community, including mentor Meg Saligman, who, upon seeing Gómez Henao’s work on a mural, recruited Gómez Henao and opened her up to more work. However, with the lack of art commissions available during the 2008 economic crisis, Gómez Henao ultimately decided to return to school and continue her studies. Upon receiving a scholarship to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Gómez Henao found herself in an environment that she felt lacked diversity and creative freedom. “I was like the only Hispanic out of 300 students. I experienced a lot of racism and a lot of uncomfortable situations. I was learning a lot though, and I was so passionate, especially about the human figure. I was learning about

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Erika Gรณmez Henao SnS 10.2

“Oblivious” Oil on canvas 48 in x 48 in 2017–2018

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“Precious time” Oil on canvas 30 in x 40 in 2016

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“Live for your likes” Oil on canvas 24 in x 30 in 2016

“I’ve had men come tell me that they’re intimidating. And, yeah, they’re kind of daring. Like, you know what? I’m not your subject to be looked at. There’s something challenging about them, and I’m definitely okay with that.” –Erika Gómez Henao

“Live for your likes” Oil on canvas 24 in x 30 in 2016 using all these colors that never even crossed my mind. It was amazing, all that I was learning. But I was unhappy,” Gómez Henao shares. Ultimately, she and her husband decided to move to California, where Gómez Henao transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute. Here, she flourished as she made lasting friendships, experienced the open, conceptual culture of her surroundings, and experimented with her own work. Once Gómez Henao graduated in 2015, she and her husband moved to San Jose, where she quickly made connections and began working at the San Jose Museum of Art, in addition to having her studio space in San Jose’s Local Color. About her life in San Jose, Gómez Henao says, “I’ve met so many incredible people. I feel super welcome here, and I really just love it. I just came back from back home—from Colombia—and I love it so much there, but I tell people that this feels like home now.” In terms of her work, Gómez Henao describes her art as an exploration of the sexualization of women in current consumerism, particularly in today’s social media culture. From her perspective as a female artist and a woman of color, she questions these often “shallow human connections” and the pervasive perception of women as fetishized objects. “I kind of stay away from the traditional, historical view of the nude female figure and what it meant, to be looked at, especially by men. My paintings are more…I don’t know. I’ve had men come tell me that they’re intimidating. And, yeah, they’re kind of daring. Like, you know what? I’m not your subject to be looked at. There’s something challenging about them, and I’m definitely okay with that,” she says laughing. Gómez Henao explores these concepts through not only her painting and ceramic work but also through installations and performance pieces in which she uses bold colors, wigs, fabrics, and her own self-made props. Next month, Gómez Henao will be partaking in a group show, sharing paintings, a video, and a ceramic installation. The show, titled Raices y Alias, will focus on Latinx and Chicanx artists. C

JEREMIAH KILLE Written by Tad Malone Photography by Daniel Garcia

jeremiahkille.com Instagram jeremiahkille

Torn between the real and concrete and the abstract and otherworldly, artist Jeremiah Kille creates art that finds the happy medium in between extremes of technique and style. Jeremiah Kille creates art that blurs the line between figurative expression and geometric abstraction. Born and raised in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, Jeremiah Kille has liked art as early as he can remember. Though his family moved around from Arizona to Sacramento, Kille’s love of art kept growing. An avid skateboarder and snowboarder, Kille’s early artistic influences came from the bold graphics that adorned his decks. “Early on, I was exposed to a lot of skate art and culture,” he recalls, adding, “Like skateboarding, a lot of my art is pretty graphic.” Kille drew more than the average kid, but it wasn’t something he took seriously until much later. He spent most of his twenties outdoors, working as a mountain guide at ski resorts, making and shaping surfboards—anything that was outside and required his hands. Kille credits all these almost-careers with informing his artistic expression. At the time, Kille was living in Santa Cruz with his then wife and was looking for a direction to take his life in. He considered nursing like his wife; instead, she encouraged him to go into art. “I was a late bloomer,” Kille laughs, “and it was pretty amazing how supportive of my art she was.” He started attending San Jose State University in his late twenties, where he studied pictorial arts, including oil painting, printmaking, and drawing. “At that time, I was really focused on making surfboards,” Kille says. “But at some point, there was a shift for me, mostly with my son being born.” He knew that making surfboards wasn’t a lucrative enough industry to support his family. Around that time, he also started hanging large paintings at Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz. Kille wasn’t expecting much, but the work hanging in Verve was a hit, and he sold a number of paintings while still in school. The positive reception of his work, plus the good money he was getting for it, really shifted Kille into being an artist full-time. “It sounds bad, but money was a big motivator,” Kille says. “Times were tough, so I gave myself a year window to really pursue art.”

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“I am drawn to art that has elements of abstraction with moments of realism or recognizable objects. To me, that combination is provoking. When I look at art like that, I am drawn in by the tensions between the two worlds as well as the balance.” –Jeremiah Kille A couple of months into his self-imposed time frame, Kille knew that he wasn’t going to quit art anytime soon. “I was all in,” he recalls, adding, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” Kille’s art is a bold, explosively toned journey into his subconscious. Much like his juggling of jobs, Kille’s work is a kaleidoscopic expression of the warring sides of his brain, where one day abstraction takes the driver’s seat and on another day figurative composition bleeds in. Focusing often on living, breathing motifs, such as elephants, birds, and matadors, and on the more inanimate, like boats and hot air balloons, Kille transforms this familiar imagery into a vibrant, texture-hopping landscape of metaphysical possibility. Working mostly in oil and acrylic paint, Kille creates geometric compositions that melt into graphic representations of dreams through the use of loud, wild color. By combining the familiar elements of different styles, Kille creates entirely unique and unfamiliar compositions. “I am drawn to art that has elements of abstraction with moments of realism or recognizable objects,” Kille says. “To me, that combination is provoking. When I look at art like that, I am drawn in by the tensions between the two worlds as well as the balance.” Through most of his artistic life, Kille has been met with pushback to his desire to jump around between styles and techniques. He understands unifying one’s work and seeing the artist as a brand, but Kille refuses to be tied down to one style or forced into one direction. He says, “If you look at my work, I do a few different things. I think it’s natural for me to not be boxed in creatively.” As for the future, Kille’s work is going to be featured in an art show in Sacramento, as well as at numerous outdoor festivals, where he hopes to expand his large-scale painting skill. Either way, Jeremiah Kille is going to continue making art on his terms—and sometimes get recognition for it. C 35

WESTCA Written by Michelle Runde Photography by Arabela Espinoza

WESTCA westcasj.com Downtown San Jose 30 N Third Street San Jose, CA 95112 Instagram westcagym

Strength + Beauty There has never been a better time to get fit in the Bay Area. With trendy fitness classes, boot camps, and franchise gyms around every corner, there are endless options for anyone looking to add some movement to their life. People seek a sense of community and a unique vibe in a boutique gym. Balancing modern aesthetics with a fully equipped gym and personal training, WESTCA (West Coast Aesthetics) offers a refreshing take on a classic gym. WESTCA was founded by co-owners Meaghan Karabatsos and Tory Woodward, two young entrepreneurs who brought their vision to life in 2017. Business partners—and now engaged—the couple combined their passions for fitness and fashion to create a space that’s both attractive and functional. Starting out as a personal trainer at Ray’s Built Tuff Gym, Tory decided to enter a 2012 men’s physique show in San Jose. “I entered my first show in hopes of maybe placing, and I ended up doing better than I thought I would,” said Tory. “After that, I built a bit of a name for myself on Instagram.” Soon after that, Tory met the owner of the activewear clothing company Live Fit and started meeting people in the fitness fashion industry, too. Rising quickly through the ranks of bodybuilding competitors, Tory ended up competing three times in Mr. Olympia, the same competition Arnold Schwarzenegger famously won. Through collaboration with Live Fit and competitive successes, Tory grew his social media brand and name recognition in the Bay Area. Tory made the difficult decision to leave Ray’s in 2013. “My personal training business had gotten so big, I wasn’t really able to scale. At that point, I figured with everything that was going on in social media and with my personal business being very successful, I felt like the only next step was to open my own facility,” said Tory. That same year, Tory and a former business partner planned to purchase a location but had a sudden falling out, leaving Tory back at square one. “Even though it was devastating, I never felt like I wasn’t going to succeed,” recalled Tory. “Then Meaghan and I got together, and she was the best business partner I could ever ask for.” Meaghan had a background in tech sales and a love of athletics, but she had no idea when she started dating Tory how much she would shape WESTCA. “When we first started dating and the first business partnership didn’t work out,

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Co-owners Meaghan Karabatsos and Tory Woodward

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“It’s a culture where everyone who walks through the door works hard, and they feed off each other to build that mentality.” – Tory Woodward I sort of stepped in just to be a helpful girlfriend,” said Meaghan. “But as time went on, with Tory’s marketing background and reputation combined with my business experience, we ended up becoming fifty-fifty partners.” After two years of searching, Tory and Meaghan found their ideal location in San Jose, and completely gutting out the original space, they created their vision of what a modern gym should be. High ceilings and sunlight from skylights create an open, clean space where members can enjoy their workout without feeling boxed in or confined. The mix of white walls and natural brick seems to reflect both owners’ personal aesthetics: a combination of rugged strength and graceful elegance seamlessly blended. The space allows members to focus on their personal goals while still fostering a collaborative atmosphere. “It’s a culture where everyone who walks through the door works hard, and they feed off each other to build that mentality,” said Tory.

WESTCA also has a limited line of custom-designed activewear—hoodies, leggings, tanks, and other accessories—sold online and onsite. They’ve even shipped their activewear as far as Australia. With Tory’s previous success working with Live Fit, they knew the importance of building their brand outside of the gym itself. “It’s been amazing to see people buying our clothes who haven’t even been to WESTCA,” remarked Meaghan. As lovers of fashion themselves, they’ve shaped their clothing line to match their vision of the WESTCA brand perfectly: clean cut and stylish, yet also functional for any workout. Tory and Meaghan are excited to grow their brand in the South Bay fitness community. With a beautiful space and passionate owners, it’s only a matter of time before WESTCA becomes widely known—get your membership now. C

“If we’re going to survive as an economy—let alone as an environment—we have to finish the mass transportation system.” – Rod Diridon Sr.

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Rod Diridon Sr. The Father of Silicon Valley’s Modern Transit Service No one has more experience than Rod Diridon Sr. with moving car-centric Silicon Valley to more cosmopolitan transportation options, but his accomplishments aren’t limited to improving public surface transit. He’s an Eagle Scout that served two tours of combat duty in Vietnam in the Navy. When he served on Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors, from 1974 to 1995, he modernized the county’s public transportation system and grew its parks from 800 acres to 43,000 acres. He cofounded the Mineta Transportation Institute, an internationally renowned research organization with a transportation workforce development program at San Jose State University. He’s the only person to have chaired all three of the San Francisco Bay Area’s regional planning agencies: the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. He’s chaired over 100 nonprofit governing boards. He’s recruited hundreds to join the Rotary Club of San Jose and support its philanthropic projects. He’s happily married, and his grandkids and his friends’ kids call him “Poppa.” His achievements are so great that San Jose’s main train station is named after him. The San Jose Diridon Station is served by Caltrain, Amtrak’s Altamont Corridor Express, Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor route, and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority’s (VTA) light rail. It’s also the hub for VTA busses and Amtrak’s Highway 17 Express bus. Without Diridon’s work attracting these services, this station would likely have closed. He came to San Jose State College in 1957 from Dunsmuir, California, which was a Southern Pacific Railroad hub. Diridon’s dad was a railroad brakeman. His mom was a school teacher and concert pianist. In those days, Diridon says, Caltrain ran poorly and lost money, public busses were operated by private companies that provided unreliable service, and there were no routes that enabled travel throughout the county. Diridon kicked off public transit’s modernization when he championed a bill making the county a transit agency and providing permanent sales tax dollars for county public transportation. This

enabled the county to start what is today’s VTA. The success of this project marked him as a smart leader who could drive complicated public works projects to completion. Diridon can solve difficult problems because he’s a critical thinker. “When I’ve reasoned through the variables of a decision,” says Diridon, “my head just automatically comes out with the best course; that’s the skill of a dyslexic.” Diridon claims childhood failures drew him to a life of public service. Dyslexia handicapped his early years until an elementary school teacher noticed Diridon’s intelligence and taught him how to read. “I grew up thinking that I was not very smart,” says Diridon, “so, whenever I’ve seen a challenge, I’ve had this compulsion to do well at it.” Another best course and challenge was the county’s first master transportation plan. It was approved by voters in 1976, along with a half-cent sales tax to fund it. Under Diridon’s direction, it has birthed 42.2 miles of VTA light rail service with 62 stations. It has two major routes and connects San Jose to Mountain View. This plan, says Diridon, calls for about 150 miles of light rail and a 5,000-bus feeder and distribution system. It will enable commuters to travel from home to work using BART and the California High-Speed Rail. Diridon was instrumental in getting the High-Speed Rail routed through San Jose when he chaired the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s first governing board. He’s passionate about the Bay Area’s need for an integrated public transit system like Japan’s and Europe’s.

Written by Diane Solomon Photography by Daniel Garcia

Mineta Transportation Institute transweb.sjsu.edu Facebook minetatransportation Instagram mineta-transportation-institute Twitter minetatransportation

Diridon says the valley’s congested highways will worsen and eventually won’t be viable for commuters. “If we’re going to survive as an economy—let alone as an environment—we have to finish the mass transportation system,” Diridon says, “and cluster high-density housing near transit stations, like they do in other parts of the world.” The San Jose Diridon station is slated for BART service by 2025 and highspeed rail service by 2026. Looking forward, Diridon says, “We’re going to be looking a little more like Paris, France, and a little less like LA.” C

“I love the feeling of helping people build products they can use every day.”– Andrew Filev CHEN 42

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Wrike Interview by Kunal Sampat

The New Age of Collaborative Work Management THE INTERNET is one of the most powerful technological advancements we enjoy today and has enabled decentralized team members to collaborate remotely with one another. But collaboration can be messy, especially for global teams and dynamic, fast-paced businesses. Andrew Filev, the founder and CEO of Wrike, seeks to change the nature of remotecollaboration with his companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cloud-based project management software. Filevâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal is simple: to make collaboration fun, easy, and effective for thousands of businesses and nonprofits alike.

Photography by Daniel Garcia

Wrike wrike.com Downtown San Jose 70 N Second Street San Jose, CA 95113 Facebook wrike Instagram wriketeam Twitter wrike

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What inspired you to bring Wrike to life? It’s a combination of work and personal passion. Before starting Wrike, I was a cofounder at a professional services organization, and after simultaneously running 20 software delivery projects for different customers, it became clear that there were too many moving parts to keep tabs on. I wanted to get more transparency around the business and gain the confidence that we were executing our jobs well. Email and other generic collaboration tools did not give me an actual grasp on the work and what was happening. Then I looked at work management tools, which were built for a more predictable world—a world that moved slowly. My world, on the other hand, moved very fast, and that’s when I realized that there needed to be a new category of tools. We created a collaborative work management category, which basically allows users to manage their digital work in a fast-paced environment. You can collaborate, you can plan, you can execute, and you can do it all with confidence.

How has your childhood influenced your career? I’ve got two boys now. In general, I don’t try to force them to do anything. I’m very relaxed in terms of what they decide to study or what their hobbies are. I try to inspire them, but I don’t force them to do anything—except I’m a little bit more persistent in my recommendation for them to play chess. When I was a kid, it was quite easy, because back then we didn’t have tablets, and I barely watched TV. Instead, I spent time reading books and playing chess.

From your perspective, which industries are lagging behind in adopting collaborative work management tools, and how do we get them there sooner? Many industries, including automotive, healthcare, media, government, and technology are adopting collaborative work management tools, and that requires an understanding of which problems can be solved collaboratively. With that understanding, we can then provide the perfect solution for each company’s problem. For example, email is just a tool. The goal isn’t to provide better alternatives to email. The goal is, “Can I help you ship the product?” or “Can I help you create beautiful marketing campaigns and deliver them to customers faster?” I love the feeling of helping people build products they can use every day.

What advice do you have for people wanting to adopt technology more quickly? The problem you’re trying to solve will always be your North Star in terms of selecting the right tool and reminding your team of your choice in the first place. The goal is then to follow through with that commitment and achieve productivity. I’m a big believer in small wins and not trying to do everything at once. Figure out what will give you an 80 percent increase with 20 percent effort—an action that is relatively simple but gives you a lot of value. Do that first before you do everything else. The “small wins” framework can also be applied to the entire organization. Whenever you deploy a large solution to your customers, instead of focusing on every single process in the company, focus on a couple of critical ones first. Then add more as you roll out the tool. Start with teams for whom it will be easier to adopt that technology and focus on them. Achieve that success first, and then build off of that initial success story.

If you look at it through the lens of the actual business outcome for that customer, then it becomes so much easier to build an optimal solution and rally people around that cause. If you tell them you’ve got a nicer tool, one day they’re excited and the next day they’re not. But if you’re telling them, “Hey, listen, you’ve got very, very big competition on the market, and we need to ship this right,” it becomes a do-ordie situation. That’s when people get really, really, really excited. Digital scaling is another area of work management tools that has seen tremendous adoption. For companies going through a digital transformation, there is almost always initial creative chaos while the company tries to figure out what works. Once they figure it out, however, the beauty of digital work is that they can now replicate it as needed. When you’ve figured out that something works in the digital world, it’s like “Go, go, go!” If you want to deliver a consistent experience to millions of consumers or tens of thousands of your business customers, you want to drive certain consistency and quality.

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What chess taught me is something that I feel needs to be explicitly taught to kids these days: the ability to just sit down and think. It sounds simple, but in today’s reactive world, it has become an extinct skill. It’s become rare for somebody to just sit down and think hard about something for an hour or two. While chess is not something that the kids are going to use every day, being able to sit and think without external stimuli has helped me in my career and will help my kids, too.

Do you still code? Only on the weekends and only on home or hobby projects related to artificial intelligence and robotics. This helps to keep my coding skills in shape. I don’t mess with production code, because I think the team would do a much better job than I would, and they would hate me if I tried. Do you have a daily routine you follow? One of my hobbies is Brazilian jiu jitsu. I really love it. It’s kind of a full-body workout, similar to judo or grappling martial art. It’s a great way to exercise and keep your body and mind in shape. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now and also compete from time to time. Last weekend I brought home three medals from the San Jose Open tournaments. Jiu jitsu is an outlet for me to completely disconnect from the working world and enjoy physical activity with my friends in the evenings and on the weekends. C

Written by Brooke Olsen Roush

CHILDREN’S MUSICAL T H E AT E R

Photography by Daniel Garcia

World-Class Theater Featuring Local, Talented Youth

Children’s Musical Theater of San Jose cmtsj.org Offices and Rehearsal Halls 1401 Parkmoor Avenue, Suite 100 San Jose, CA 95126 Facebook childrensmusicaltheater Instagram cmtsj Twitter cmtsj YouTube cmtsanjose

Fifty years is a long time, especially in the context of Children’s Musical Theater San Jose (CMT), where the average performer’s age is 13. Compounded by thousands of rehearsal hours, countless set designs and costumes, 365 shows, and over 50,000 performers, 50 years can seem like an eternity. Those 50 years, however, have been a rich training ground for several generations of San Jose’s youth. For some, CMT has led to a professional theater career. For others, it has provided the life skills to thrive in places far from home. Regardless of the path students have taken, CMT’s lessons in empathy, collaboration, and preparedness have followed them and contributed to their success as adults. “Our goal,” says Kevin Hauge, CMT’s artistic director for the past 22 years, “is always to put together a great show, but that is not our greatest victory. Our greatest victories are private—and that is why I am at CMT. Being a steppingstone on the path to a child’s success is an honor.” In 1968, at just 17 years old, John P. Healy, a musical theater performer, conceptualized a children’s theater in which every child who auditioned would be cast. From that vision, the Cabrini Community Theater was born, giving life to an inaugural production of Robin Hood, written and directed by Healy and performed by 35 of his friends and siblings. In two short years, the theater grew to over 300 performers and adopted the name San Jose Children’s Musical Theater. Since that time, CMT has made changes in leadership and broadened its

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mission to include training classes and education programs, but their production of consistently confident, empathetic kids has remained constant. “We want the very best in our area to come and be in these productions,” Hauge says. “We also want those who have had a seed watered along the way and are interested but don’t really have the skills. And we definitely want the disenfranchised to feel like they can come and be a part of what we are doing, each one feeling rewarded, valued, and stretched.” Mercedes Dawnte Long, 2016 winner of the Frank Frye Award for outstanding vocal performances, is headed to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts this fall. “When I got to CMT,” Dawnte reminisces, “I had never seen a theater show or even knew what a callback was. Kevin saw that and taught me the importance of practice and knowing your part so that you can be off book and feel confident because you’ve prepared.” “The biggest lesson that I’ve learned is that whatever part you get is what you make it,” Samara Yellin says, a current Rising Star. “I’ve gotten big parts, and I’ve also been in the ensemble. One of the things that I love about CMT is that the director and choreographer try to give everyone a moment. If you are willing to put in the hard work to learn your dance and song, then you can take that moment and make what you want of it.”

J O Y OSBORNE CMT Alumna, Marquee Performer and Board Member

“What I’m preaching right now,” Hauge says, “is making sure kids are getting exposed to the arts. The fine arts are the springboard to a variety of careers, but a lot of kids aren’t getting that opportunity. One of our alums, Ryan Vasquez, is a perfect example of that. He is incredibly articulate and a ridiculously talented actor, but he will probably go on to do more than just acting.” The Ryan Vasquez that Hauge is referring to is a distinguished CMT alum who is currently performing on Broadway in Hamilton and has an impressive list of credits that include Wicked and Waitress.

With CMT’s success has come a call to remove “Children’s” from its name. “For most of us,” Hauge claims, “we resist it. If we can define what children’s theater should be, that’s our job. Why should we shy away from that word? Children should be celebrated for what they have to offer.” Managing director Dana Zell agrees. “We are a world-class theater featuring local, talented youth. We just received our 11th award from the National Endowment for the Arts. It is unprecedented for a children’s theater to get that support. To be able to put that stamp on our work is powerful and encouraging for us.”

“Because CMT casts everyone who auditions,” Vasquez says, “the expectation is that we band together to create a show. There are people who are there for the first time, all the way up to professionals. But we are working together to create something and confront their worst fear of performing in public.”

Commenting on CMT’s commercial success, both Hauge and Zell are quick to point out that CMT is a collaboration of talent and volunteers. “As a team, we figure out how to make these productions happen,” Hauge explains. “Just because you have the most lines in a production, doesn’t meant that you are the best problem solver. It can be anyone

SAMARA YELLIN Rising Star Performer

on the stage. We also know that if parents are not involved, the experience isn’t the same. I love that moms and dads can have a shared experience with their child and that if one child’s parent isn’t volunteering, there are enough parents who are in the theater for that child to feel totally supported by our strong community of adults.” Zell points out, “CMT finds a way for every child to reach their highest potential and be successful by combining inclusivity and excellence. Inspiration is so accessible because you are constantly watching what the next level does and being challenged by your peers and the artistry of a big picture. It’s remarkable to watch the development of these kids from the beginning to the end of a production.”

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Ask any performer, past or present, about their favorite CMT memories, and they will laughingly mention “Kevinisms.” Alum and current performer Joy Osborne explains, “If Kevin is directing or doing choreography, he’ll say ‘OK, I need you guys to catch up. Mmmm. Ketchup.’ Another one would be the names that he has for different dance moves so that people immediately know what he’s expecting, like ‘Ring of Fire,’ ‘BBQ Tongs,’ or ‘Feel the Mattress.’ ” “I get it,” Hauge smiles. “There are a lot of people on stage who don’t have a ton of training, so to use a bunch of French words for dance steps doesn’t make sense. You have to make it accessible to everyone and hope they’ll be inspired to learn the more technical terms at some point.”

MERCEDES DAWNTE L O N G Mainstage Performer

When pressed on the most important tenet of CMT, Hauge answers, “How we treat people. When we are in a room together, let’s respect everyone and feel free to take some risks. No one here is going to laugh at you; well, we might, but in a positive way. These kids’ lives are completely different, but they feel comfortable to take a risk and say, ‘I’ll try it, if you try it.’ ”

The CMT legacy of the last 50 years is vast and has included one of the most prolific performance portfolios in children’s theater. But perhaps the most significant measure of CMT’s success rests in the thousands of lives that have stood on its stage and found purpose and belonging—a legacy well-lived. C

To celebrate 50 years, Hauge has curated a showcase season with a variety of Broadway classics and iconic CMT productions, which included Guys and Dolls (April 20–29), Seussical the Musical (May 3–6), and Avenue Q (May 11–20) and the upcoming shows The Wiz (July 13–21), West Side Story (July 27–August 5), and Robin Hood (August 9–12). All shows are presented at the historic Montgomery Theater in downtown San Jose. CMT will also host a Reunion Weekend celebration (August 3–5) to honor CMT’s rich history and its illustrious alumni.

Interview by Gillian Claus Photography by Joey Pisacane

Red Ladder Theatre Company redladder.org Facebook redladdertheatrecompany Twitter redladderco

Red Ladder Theatre Company Karen Altree Piemme Karen Altree Piemme is the director of Red Ladder Theatre Company, a nationally acclaimed, awardwinning social justice theater company. After moving to the area 25 years ago and raising her daughter here, Karen considers herself a native. She squeezes in some time for performing in ShakesBEERience and freelance directing around the Bay Area. How did Red Ladder first form? John McCluggage, assistant director at San Jose Repertory Theatre, came out to the Living Stage Theatre Company to see our performance workshops in the federal prison system in 1990. He raised a bunch of money to bring us out here on residency to train his first set of actors. And finally he just asked, “Can’t you come out here and help me create this company?” So I left and came out here in 1993. Been here ever since. What is the significance of the name? It is this iconic image. Red is a bold color. You say the word, and everyone knows what that looks like. It is not pink or blue, so it is not about being a boy or a girl. And there is the significance of the ladder, so it is about climbing higher and reaching beyond. Have you always been interested in social justice? Has that always been your bent? It has. I remember when I was studying in school and everyone was asking, “What do you do when you go to the city, and how do you get an agent?” And I responded, “What do you do if you are not necessarily planning to go to the city or look for an agent?” And people just kind of looked at me like I had three heads. There were maybe one or two people on the faculty who

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understood what I was talking about and were excited about my doing sociopolitical kinds of projects. What excites you about your work at Red Ladder? Red Ladder is founded on the principle that creativity is what is most fundamental to us as human beings. That is what we do. Fish swim, birds fly, human beings create and make things up. That’s when people are most connected to themselves: when they are being creative. And there are a whole host of people within our community that are cut off from their ability to tap into their creativity—so we work with homeless and runaway youth, pregnant and parenting teens, kids in the foster system, juvenile halls, and men and women in prison. Why go to prisons? The men and women that we work with in prison—there are so many of these guys that we work with that were sentenced as adults at the age of 16. These are guys who bought the lie, “All you are going to amount to is a thug, or a hoodlum, or a gangbanger.” And so, they essentially fulfilled what they were told they would become. Within the performance environment, they are able to try on the shoes of someone else, and their minds go to all the different things that they can do and be. What challenges do you face in the prison environment? We have had occasions when we show up for the final performance and a person who was a lead in the show is not there because they’ve been transferred to another institution or they’re on lockdown. Two weeks ago, there was a race riot in one of the facilities we program. We work there

Director Karen Altree Piemme

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Photographs provided by Red Ladder Theatre Company.

“We have had occasions when we show up for the final performance and a person who was a lead in the show is not there because they’ve been transferred to another institution or they’re on lockdown.” – Karen Altree Piemme

on Tuesdays, and 4pm Monday, I was still waiting to see whether the yard was going to come back up, because there had been a murder in the yard earlier that week. Here are guys who, on the yard, can’t associate with each other at all, and then they come into our workshop environment and are so excited to collaborate creatively. We have a multiracial, multilingual company, which is really important to who we are. Anyone that we are working with needs to be able to look to our company and see examples of themselves. You also work in preschools? I think it sometimes seems strange to people that we run this gamut, but it really is about how we are as people. Young children are constantly creating. For a lot of people, they are being told to set that aside and focus on other things. So we get disconnected from our humanity and lose our capability to be empathetic. Instead of merely tolerating that preschool behavior for a while, if we can nurture, revere, and support it, then fewer people are going to go off the rails. Is it strange to do workshops with both kids and adult inmates? The process is not markedly dissimilar. Fundamentally, it is about tossing out a problem to be solved and then allowing people to work collaboratively to figure out how they want to solve that problem.

And you teach training workshops? We talk about how the imagination is like a muscle: the more you use it the stronger it gets. It doesn’t matter how many times I go to the gym; there is only a certain amount of weight I will ever be able to lift. But there is no limit to our imaginations, so we want to be able to provide that opportunity to as many people as we can. How did you cope when San Jose Rep closed its doors? It was actually at the time when we had just learned that Red Ladder had our first contract to go into the prison system. The Arts Council came to us and asked what we were going to do. It functions like a bidding process. You get what you proposed or you get nothing. So I asked if they could just contract with Red Ladder as a separate entity from San Jose Rep. I then had to try to disentangle it all—statements from bankruptcy attorneys, new nonprofit ID number, guarantees from funders—we had to get all that in two business days. But, most importantly, the community made it clear that Red Ladder was an asset they felt was important to continue. It is amazing to me that, now, here we are four years later, and the budget size is greater than it ever was. What will you do next? Empower my company members to take on leadership roles. If I have to be at every performance and workshop, there is only so far we can grow. I want to make sure that it can continue. C

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Top row (L to R): Evan Vlahos, Katie Chiu, Brian Belluscio, Enzo Filangeri, Aaron Lington, Shane Turner Middle row (L to R): Tim Youngman, Everett Pustell (seated on case), Colin Fujikawa, Carson Trail, Joseph Ramirez, Rebekah Davis, Dorian Lemarchand, Rachel Davis, Sumi Govindaraju, Carlos Solorzano Bottom row (L to R): Ethan Tran, Chris Martinez, James Anderson (Not pictured: Paul Heo)

SJZALL STARS PACKED FULL of musical overachievers, San Jose Jazz’s High School All Stars program offers advanced young

Written by Brandon E. Roos

musicians the chance to push one another to new heights.

Photography by Daniel Garcia

Inside a classroom in San Jose State’s music building, San Jose Jazz High School All Stars (HSAS) Music Director Aaron Lington prepares to cue the big band into a Tito Puente tune. “This is a very aggressive style. It’s a take-no-prisoners kind of thing,” he prefaces before counting in the tune from the top.

San Jose Jazz

He’s right. The horns are bright and punchy—a hard-edged counterpoint to the percussive piano grounding the ensemble. The band works through the song for about 30 seconds before Lington cuts them off. He’s spotted a teaching moment. “What isn’t awesome about it?” he asks the room of high achievers, content to facilitate a dialogue. Greeted with brief silence, he fills in the blank: “Everyone’s not playing the articulation the same way.” Articulation—the way each note is emphasized—isn’t being followed in unison by the brass section, leading to a mild atonality. Picking up again, they make quick work of the roadblock, the troubling section now sounding pristine.

sanjosejazz.org/high-school-all-stars Social Media sanjosejazz

The moment is a great reflection of Lington’s crystal-clear command of the room. Throughout the rehearsal, his focus and criticism is acute, delivered with speed and precision. It also speaks to the high degree of musicality present in the room. The pacing of his live touchups would be difficult for a novice to keep up with; this, however, is the San Jose Jazz High School All Stars, a collection of nearly two dozen musicians from throughout the region that are among the most talented high school instrumentalists around. San Jose Jazz’s High School All Stars program, founded in 1997, fields a full big band each season from October through August. The audition-based band was created to help advanced music students find a musical kinship with like-minded musicians. Throughout the season, the program advances each student’s understanding of music theory, arranging, composition, performance, and jazz history. This year’s All Stars are comprised of 19 musicians from 13 schools throughout the South Bay and Peninsula.

The All Stars come in two formats: the full big band and the small combo, called the U19s. This pared-down group, selected by Lington, gives a handful of ensemble members an intimate, student-led experience performing in a working band. The U19s often feature simply a rhythm section and a few brass soloists. Several ensemble members mention that All Stars rehearsals and performances offer a level of focus they wouldn’t otherwise receive in their school bands. This is a point echoed by Brian Belluscio, a first-year ensemble member who’s a sophomore at Leland High School. There, he’s active in the school’s jazz combo and wind ensemble. “The skill’s higher here,” he says of the All Stars. “I definitely have to practice a lot to keep up with everybody.” He’s following in the footsteps of his brother, Austin, a former All Star who previously filled in on trombone as well. At this rehearsal, pianist Shane Turner seems most at ease among those in the ensemble, either because this is his fourth year as an All Star or because the rhythm section has received few notes tonight. He seems destined to follow his passion in music. He remembers recalling song lyrics almost word for word at a time when he could barely form sentences and crawling into bed with his ukulele at age three or four. Asked if the All Stars has helped him progress as a player over his four years with the group, Turner says, “Tons. Absolutely tons. Some of that is alone time, because you grow on your own, but I’ve become a much better player, especially in my earlier years with the ensemble, going through and playing the charts we do. You play with some really good players. It forces you to get better.” He may now be the seasoned veteran, but Turner remembers when he was the wideeyed freshman of the group, trying his best to keep up with far superior players. This season, there’s a freshman drummer, and Turner and his fellow upperclassmen now have the chance to push their younger counterpart by kindly reminding the newbie from time to time to pick up the pace. Carlos Solorzano, a senior from Willow Glen High School in his first year with the band, felt energized by the discomfort and unfamiliarity of playing with a group of strangers at the All Stars’ first rehearsals. For him, the unfamiliarity helps keep the focus on the music. “Since you don’t see each other every day—you aren’t schoolmates—it’s not like you’re very comfortable right off the bat,” he notes. “Everyone

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wants to be their best when they’re not playing with people they’re the most comfortable with at the beginning.” He has experience playing with all-star student ensembles in the past, but they were usually one-time events. He craved something more regular, which is exactly what he gains from the All Stars’ weekly rehearsals. “I have a home band, a weekly band that I can see,” he shares. “It’s people I can call up for gigs that live in the area, not just the entire state.” All Stars alumnus Nick Panoutsos is currently studying at NYU and freelancing as a musician out in New York and back in the Bay Area when he’s home. To him, those opportunities came thanks to being pushed as a High School All Star. During his season and a half with the ensemble, the group gave him the confidence to step into new roles. “Debuting some of my arrangements with the combo at Cafe Stritch for Winter Fest was a highlight of my experience with HSAS,” he says. “Winter and Summer Fest 2016 provided me with early valuable experience as a bandleader, when I was faced with the responsibility of writing out arrangements and organizing combo rehearsals. The experience provided me with the confidence and necessary skills to lead my own projects after graduating.” Another common point among All Stars is the reverence they all share for Music Director Aaron Lington. That’s for a good reason: in addition to his work with the All Stars, he’s coordinator of jazz studies at San Jose State and has been named the 2011 Jazz Educator of the Year by the California Music Educators Association. He’s also a gigging baritone saxophonist and Grammy Award winner, earning the accolade for his work with the Pacific Mambo Orchestra. “Aaron is a force—he’s absolutely brilliant,” says Turner. “He has a lot of patience and compassion. He says what he wants out of the group and gives a little bit of lenience for what he thinks the players can and can’t do.” It may be hard work, but the High School All Stars all seem energized by the chance to pursue new musical challenges together. “Studying jazz is essential for a complete musical education. Not only does it require a sophisticated knowledge of harmony and rhythm, but it demands extreme vulnerability and flexibility from its performers,” adds Panoutsos. “I speak from personal experience when I say that learning this music is an invaluable vehicle for self-discovery and growth.” C

Laureates Written by Nathan Zanon Photography by John Agcaoili David Ho Daniel Garcia

Since 1991, the SVLaureate program has awarded more than 150 of the finest artists the SVCreates svcreates.org Instagram svcreates Facebook svcreates

South Bay has to offer with honors, recognition, and a cash prize to assist them in pursuing their craft. This year, awards were given in several different categories: Off Stage (an artist working offstage, backstage, or pre-performance), On Stage (a performing artist), On the Wall (a visual artist working in traditional or mixed media), Off the Wall (a visual artist working in sculpture), and Emerging Artist (a young artist in any medium who shows promise for continued growth and excellence). This year the program added a new award, the SVNexus Award, honoring an artist who uses technology to fuel their creative work. These artists are chosen based on the work they have created and their commitment to their communities. Through their work as teachers, artists, and performers, each of the SVLaureates has shown a devotion to their craft that includes mentorship, service, and forging new cultural understanding. The awards were presented at the annual SVArts ceremony on June 21 at the Mexican Heritage Plaza.

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J O E L S L AY TO N SVNexus Award Recipient

joelslayton.com Twitter joelslayton Facebook joel.slayton.7

Joel Slayton is the inaugural winner of the SVNexus Award, which recognizes pioneering artistic achievement at the intersection of art and technology. Slayton’s 40-year career has taken him from the Visual Language Workshop at MIT to San Jose State, where he founded the CADRE Laboratory for New Media. He served as the Executive Director of San Jose’s ZERO1 Biennial and now teaches at Stanford, where he curated the art-and-technology-focused LAST Festival. He’s a curator and visual artist whose works include multimedia, print, and performance pieces that have been displayed around the world. His “next big thing” is a new platform called L&J Ranch, which will fuel new creative research, support art and science initiatives, and more. “I am very proud to have fashioned a career that combines art practice, academics, and curatorial work. I’ve never viewed these as separate activities but rather both complementary and necessary. My interest is in provoking our understanding of the relationship between emerging technologies and their impact on contemporary culture. I am not interested in making things for creation’s sake but rather as a way of researching and provoking ideas. I suspect that I am a hard target to track as an artist, since I don’t fit into categories easily. That is certainly not unusual in the arts, especially for those whose work is more conceptual than media specific. Silicon Valley is full of possibilities, extraordinarily open to new strategies, and accepting of experimentation. It is not the art capital of the world, [but] this is more than made up for in terms of the freedom that comes from being in a place where reinvention is a constant.”

G A I L W I G H T On the Wall Recipient

gailwight.com Instagram gailandia

A native of the Northeast, Gail Wight spent her childhood painting, drawing, and playing on the beach. Wight attended the Massachusetts College of Art, then moved her family to San Francisco to get her MFA at the Art Institute. An early encounter with a family member suffering from mental illness inspired an interest in both neuroscience and how human biology influences perception, and her innovative works tend to be a convergence of science and art, with experimental photography, installation, and multimedia pieces that incorporate biological mediums, video, print, and more. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and collections in galleries throughout North America, and she has lectured around the world in both the arts and sciences. Wight currently teaches at Stanford University. “I want to understand life, so the biological sciences have provided a wealth of inspiration. Lately, I’ve returned to thinking about the ocean. The ocean feels like the mother lode for thinking about evolution, time, and infinite variety. Evolution, deep time, and the Byzantine interrelationships of the astounding variety of life forms are things that keep my imagination humming. I can’t say that I’ve made my life simple, so my challenges have mostly been trying to uncomplicate the busyness and chaos I tend to create. This community has been supportive in so many ways, and it feels wonderful to think that I’ve contributed something meaningful in return. I feel truly grateful to be part of such an amazing arts community in such a stunningly beautiful part of the world. I feel lucky to be able to do what I do, both as an artist and as an educator.”

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T A S I ALABASTRO Emerging Artist Recipient

Instagram tasialabastro

“I burned a banana tree when I was a kid,” says Tasi Alabastro by way of an introduction. The winner of the Emerging Artist award grew up on the island of American Samoa, dropped out of college at San Francisco State, and wound up in Hawai’i, where he enrolled in an acting class at Leeward Community College. This class launched his career in the arts, and since his return to the Bay Area, he has found continued success, landing roles in a wide range of theatrical productions, short films, and feature films, including the indie hit Yes, We’re Open. He describes many Bay Area artists as “accidentally multi-disciplinary,” and he embodies this description, working as a photographer, visual artist, graphic designer, and content creator on the live-streaming video platform Twitch. “I’ve always been inspired by creative problem solving. When working in theater and film, you come across a lot of interesting problems. I think the sense of empowerment doubles when one applies their personal creative wealth toward solving problems. Growing up and not seeing myself represented in what I was watching, reading, and experiencing contributed to so many challenges in my career, and being the recipient of the Emerging Artist award means I am paying tribute to my past and my roots as an artist. It is the manifestation of all the support I’ve received from those I’ve surrounded myself with and a personal milestone in an arts track that doesn’t have easily identifiable milestones. Even with this distinct honor, I’m still finding new ways to emerge and grow. My craft becomes more defined and specific with each audition, workshop, cast, rejection, article, and role played.”

FARAH

YAS M E E N

SHAIKH

On Stage Recipient

farahkathak.com Instagram farahyasmeenshaikh

The daughter of Pakistani immigrants, Farah Yasmeen Shaikh grew up in Salinas. Encouraged by her parents to pursue her artistic side, she began dancing at age five. Shaikh began learning Kathak—the classical Indian dance that has become the focal point of her career—in her first year of college at San Francisco State. That college class was taught by Pandit Chitresh Das, an internationally renowned master of the craft who soon became Shaikh’s mentor. Since then, she has built a 20-year career as both a performer and instructor. In her ambitious dance drama The Forgotten Empress, she took an entire team of musicians to Pakistan to perform. Her newest work is The Parting, a collaboration with EnActe Arts that uses dance, theater, and multimedia to tell personal stories of the displacement caused by the 1947 partitioning of India and Pakistan. “What I love about Kathak is that it connects me to my history and culture. It presents a unique approach to music and rhythm, and its powerful technique, juxtaposed with grace and expressive storytelling, offers the opportunity to enlighten and inspire others. It is wonderfully invigorating to be in an environment of such creativity and innovation, but I often feel that our region is so tech dominated that those of us in other fields of work are not acknowledged for our creative endeavors. Artists are always looking for ways to fund work that we want to share publicly, and to be acknowledged as a worthy recipient of this kind of support in a region with so many talented and qualified artists is truly humbling. What I do love about the Silicon Valley is the diverse population that we get to reach out to, and though I am immersed in the arts of South Asia, I am thrilled by the interest of people of various ethnicities.” 62 Perform 10.3

PANCHO JIMÉNEZ Off the Wall Recipient

panchojimenez.com

Growing up in Santa Clara, Pancho Jiménez always loved working with his hands and building things. This inclination eventually drew him to the field of sculpture. He attended college at Santa Clara University, then went to grad school at San Francisco State and returned to his roots in Santa Clara as a ceramics instructor in 1999. His work, which is deeply influenced by Mexican and Mesoamerican culture and carvings, has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and public spaces throughout California and across the US. While the bulk of his work consists of carved sculptural pieces, a stress injury in his elbow six years ago forced him to rethink his process, bringing him to incorporate commercial molds into his work. “As I began to gather these molds from a variety of sources, it became apparent that what I was looking at were things that trigger memories, experiences, and dreams—things that contribute to our biography,” he says. His new pieces “suggest a vocabulary that is both familiar and mysterious...a dreamlike state wherein images, such as ideas, experiences, and emotions, come in and out of focus.” “Silicon Valley is a very wealthy and diverse community, and that diversity enriches my work. [It] exposes me to various cultures and visual traditions that I believe feed both my artwork and my aesthetic. My current work draws on the densely carved textures of the geometric designs and hieroglyphs found in ancient works of art. I think the greatest success up to this point in my professional life is that I’ve been able to continue making art while sharing my knowledge and artistic skills with others, particularly students. It is a unique and empowering experience to make an object that had previously existed only in your imagination, and helping students create their own work and have this same experience is a real joy.” 63

KIMBERLY MOHNE HILL Off Stage Recipient

kimberlymohnehill.com Twitter kimmohnehill

Kimberly Mohne Hill grew up in the small Northern California town of Kelseyville. At age nine, she saw her first play—a high school production of Annie Get Your Gun—and was immediately hooked on the possibilities of live theater. After studying acting at UC San Diego, San Jose State, and A.C.T. in San Francisco, she performed in a number of productions around the Bay Area. A natural teacher, with an ability to empathize with both characters and actors, Hill eventually shifted gears to directing as she helmed The Seafarer for the San Jose Stage Company in 2009. She has had continued success with productions of In the Next Room, Venus in Fur, and others. “I have always had a vivid, deeply empathetic imagination. When I read a novel, I believe in the circumstances of the characters so easily and fully...the stage is a place where that kind of active empathy has a home; I am able to live inside the stories I read for an extended time. Theater is the place where I feel normal, like my way of looking at the world isn’t weird, but required. “I’m inspired in different ways by different people for different reasons. My daughters inspire me to seek out stories that encourage and uplift women. My husband inspires me to do work that is worthy of taking my time away from him and our family. As I age and our kids get older, I realize that time is precious and I want to spend it on quality experiences, quality art, and quality time with quality people. I feel very blessed to get to do what I do; if this award opens doors for me to help advance the arts and cultural landscape in San Jose, then that would be the best part about receiving this honor.”

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SVCREATES thanks the 2018 SVArts Awards Sponsors

Heritage Bank of Commerce Hopkins & Carley Adobe

City of San JosĂŠ, Councilmember, Don Rocha Jane Decker

County of Santa Clara

Written by Thomas Ulrich Photography by Daniel Garcia

Ser Tasting Room serwinery.com Downtown Saratoga 14572A Big Basin Way Saratoga, CA 95070 Facebook serwinery Instagram serwinery

Ser Winery

Nicole Walsh

Nearly a quarter century ago, Nicole Walsh began her quest to express the essence of a vineyard. She launched her journey from Michigan State University, where she studied viticulture and enology, then traveled to Costa Rica to explore sustainable agriculture, cultivated organic vegetables on a farm in Rhode Island, and landed a job as a bottler/winemaker at Bonny Doon Vineyard in 2001. Years later, she managed vineyards, made wine, and advised growers for the irreverent, imaginative, and innovative industry icon Randall Grahm. Today, she oversees his estate vineyard located southeast of San Juan Bautista. Popelouchum, “paradise” in the Ohlone language, is part of their grand experiment to marry the land—its climate, soil, and topography—to the grapes they harvest from the 14acre vineyard. “We want to make wines that reflect the inherent qualities of this place,” Grahm says. To date, Grahm and Walsh have planted pinot noir, furmint, grenache blanc, and grenache gris. They are evaluating several other varieties, including picolit, rossese, and ruché, to determine which vines they should add to the mix. They cultivate the vineyard organically, blend their own compost, mix and apply their own soil preparations, and harvest according to a celestial calendar. By farming the vineyard biodynamically, Grahm and Walsh are balancing the fertility of the plant with the well-being of the planet. “We’re planting varieties here that grow with the lightest possible touch,” Grahm says.

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TRUE TO HER ROOTS Walsh’s quest for self-expression took another turn when she launched the artisanal winery Ser in 2012. She selects vines that embody the character of the land and ferments wines that express the nature of the grape. Aroma, acid, sugar, and tannin combine to yield the varietal character of a mature grape. Yet, as Walsh and Grahm have discovered, vineyard practices can influence the color, taste, and texture of wine as well. Without synthetic fertilizers, harsh chemicals, or viticultural practices that manipulate the vintage, the wines made with the grapes she selects from several Central Coast vineyards reflect what each vineyard and variety can bear. “I want to be true to variety and place,” she says. As a vineyard manager, she must strike the perfect balance between temperature, sunlight, shade, and air flow around each cluster of grapes. Every variety demands its own mix of climatic and field conditions to satisfy winemakers like Walsh who harvest to taste. For her, knowing when to pick is more art than science, more intuitive than analytical. Researchers have shown that grapes can deliver textbook concentrations of sugars and acids but lack the aromas and flavors that add complexity to wine. “As varietal characteristics develop,” she says, “seeds mature and the stems lignify. The sugar is there without the fruit being physiologically ripe.” When sampling for harvest, she tastes for flavors

“Wine is made in the vineyard.” – Nicole Walsh 67

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and aromas that express the varietal character of the grape. She waits for tannins and other compounds to mature, adding color, body, aroma, and flavor to the vintage. “Wine is made in the vineyard,” Walsh says. “Not all varieties and sites are the same.” She culls grapes from Coastview Vineyard in the Gabilan Mountains, the Lilo Vineyard in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and Wirz Vineyard in the Cienega Valley. “A cool vineyard that ripens berries slowly is the ideal place to grow wine grapes,” Walsh says. “Vines that struggle to bear fruit can produce higher quality grapes.” At 2,300 feet above sea level and 25 miles from the coast, Coastview Vineyard yields chardonnay and syrah from decomposed granite and limestone. “The [nutrient-poor] soil reduces the size of the clusters, concentrating flavors,” she says. “Cooler nights preserve the acidity of the ripening fruit.” At 1,100 feet above sea level and below the fog line, Wirz Vineyard grows riesling and cabernet pfeffer from decomposed granite and limestone. The soil reduces the vigor of the vines, prompting them to commit more energy to the development of the fruit, and cooler temperatures lengthen the growing season. “Cabernet pfeffer takes two and a half months longer to ripen,” she says, “but the long hang time allows it to develop varietal aromas and flavors.” At 1,000 feet above sea level and 10 miles from the coast, the Lilo Vineyard yields pinot noir from sand-

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stone, shale, and schist soils along a steep south-facing hillside. “We can produce delicate, balanced, subtle wines from this vineyard because of its cool climate, Dijon clones, and a commitment to natural winemaking,” Walsh adds. EARTHY TO ELEGANT “I want to express the vineyard as naturally as I can,” Walsh says. Only a handful of yeast strains can survive the early stages of fermentation. “My philosophy for using indigenous yeast is not to impart my own ideas but to let the vineyard and its particular mix of yeast and other organisms express their unique aromas and flavors,” she says. “Some winemakers don’t want to guess what a mix of wild yeasts might produce. They like the consistency and reliability of cultured yeast. I choose to work with natural cultures because I find them to be more expressive of the vineyard site.” In addition to converting sugar to ethanol, indigenous—or feral—yeast can enhance the flavor, aroma, and texture of wine. True to her commitment to single varieties, Walsh does not blend before bottling. She also stays true to the variety by not diluting wine with water. “I am careful when using new barrels, which impart flavor,” she adds. “Aging wine in new oak interferes with the expression of variety.” Size matters, too. “I

like larger format puncheons,” she says. “The larger surface area allows the wines to age a bit slower. I have also made wine in ceramic for Bonny Doon and would love to explore them again for Ser. I find the wines to be fresher, more complex, and expressing more varietal character.” Her wines embody the French notion of vins de terroir, or wines of place. Walsh produces aromatic, flavorful, silky wines—the essence of carefully cultivated vineyards and carefully crafted vintages. “It’s not simply letting go,” she says. “It’s paying close attention to the vineyard and the winery.” Her labor has yielded: a full-bodied, elegant Cienega Valley cabernet pfeffer; a Santa Cruz Mountain pinot noir that is light in body, yet full of complex aromas and flavors; and a savory Coastview chardonnay with fresh fruit flavors, a creamy mid-palate, and a long finish. Current releases also include a 2015 Olof Vineyard sparkling rosé of nebbiolo, a 2016 Dorcich Family Vineyard rosé of cabernet franc, and a 2017 Wirz Vineyard dry riesling. Each vintage reflects the variety, the season, and the place. You can sample the best that these vineyards have to offer at the Ser tasting room on Big Basin Way in Saratoga.

“It’s not simply letting go; it’s paying close attention to the vineyard and the winery.” – Nicole Walsh

“Every year the land provides me with a chance to learn something new,” Walsh says. “I’m interested in the story yet to be told.” C

Clandestine Brewing Interview by Michelle Runde Photography by Daniel Garcia

Clandestine Brewing clandestinebrewing.com Downtown San Jose 980 S First Street, Suite B San Jose, CA 95110 Instagram clandestinebrewing Twitter clandestinebrew

Artisanal Small-Batch Beer without the Fuss Picking the perfect spot to grab a cold beer can be a formidable task. With so many breweries and restaurants with full beer menus in San Jose, the choices are endless. But if you’ve ever felt the options on tap were a bit underwhelming, Clandestine Brewing offers artisanal, small-batch brews to suit even the most adventurous palate. Originally tucked away in the Monterey Avenue manufacturing area—as the secrecy in their name suggests—this co-op of homebrewers is now serving in the SoFA District of San Jose. Rob Conticello, one of the co-owners, shares the brewery’s journey. How did Clandestine Brewing get started? We have a rather interesting history. We’ve only been open at this San Jose location since November last year, and we had a grand opening in February. Before, from about 2014 to 2015, we ran a brewery that was a much smaller size. It was a great facility, but we ended up outgrowing that space. Everything there was handmade; we built out the whole thing ourselves, pretty much hammered every nail. We knew we wanted to expand, so we went through an exhaustive search to find the right place. We finally found this place on First Street in San Jose, and it worked out beautifully for us, because there are so many breweries that are a close distance, so very walkable for people. Going through city planning took a lot of time. It actually took us longer to get permits than it took to build. It took us about 18 months, but it was worth it to have this location now. How did you and the team meet each other? I’ve known co-owners Adrian Kalaveshi and Colin Kelley for a long time—since we started getting into homebrewing together. I’d homebrewed some in college, and they’d had some background in it too. We were all into craft beer, and we decided we could take up brewing just as a hobby. We ended up doing that for almost six years, and through that, met our other partner, Dwight Mulcahy, also a big homebrewer. We actually met through a homebrewing club, and after a while, we decided to take it more seriously and become a mini co-op.

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“We finally found this place on First Street in San Jose, and it worked out beautifully for us because there are so many breweries that are a close distance, so very walkable for people.”

Since we didn’t have a lot of professional experience, we knew we wanted to start small to learn what worked and didn’t work for us. We also learned what our customers liked and what they wanted to drink. For example, IPAs are a craze right now, but we want to have some diversity in our taproom. We didn’t want to become “just an IPA place.” There’s nothing wrong with that. Plenty of breweries are following that model, and people love IPAs. We love IPAs, too! We just want to have something for everyone. How does Clandestine work today as a co-op? We have five people that brew— myself, Adrian, Colin, Dwight, and Liz Scandizzo (Colin’s wife). At our old location, we all still had our day jobs, so it was a passion project to keep things going. Today, Adrian and Colin are managing the business full-time and brew during the week, while Dwight, Liz, and I spend a lot of time here on the weekends brewing. We all share the responsibilities of brewing, and it works great. Christine, Adrian’s wife, helps out around here, too. How do all of you collaborate on a menu? It’s great to have so many brewers. We have ideas that we share and bounce off each other to expand and improve on. Right now, the only beer we’ve had on tap since we’ve opened is our Milky Way Stout, but we have a regular set of other beers that are available maybe 50 percent of the time on the menu. So we’ll have a Kölsch, a Pilsner, a hefeweizen, and always some number of rotating IPAs. We’ve had a lot of people follow us from our old location, and with the number of breweries in this area, I think it’s going to be great for everyone. We’re looking forward to collaborating with other breweries on some beers in the future. We’re still newly opened, but we’d like to begin some sort of partnership in the summer or the fall this year. We’re just getting started. C

Above (L to R): Adrian Kalaveshi, Liz Scandizzo, Rob Conticello, Colin Kelley, and Dwight Mulcahy

M TARI Written by Johanna Hickle

nwrapping the facts of craft chocolate

Photography by Arabela Espinoza

Mutari mutarichocolate.com Factory & Shop 504A Front Street Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Pop-Up Chocolate House 1108 Pacific Avenue Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Social Media mutarichocolate

Nonalcoholic drinks have gained prominence in America’s hangout culture ever since the teens of the 1950s started splitting milkshakes at diners and carbonated drinks at drugstore soda fountains. Over the years, coffeehouses claimed the title of designated social stimulant. But in years to come, could a newcomer dethrone coffee as the conversational beverage of choice? A drinking chocolate shop called Mutari, located in the affably offbeat town of Santa Cruz, allows for a glimpse of what might be. As soon as the curious passerby cracks the door of Mutari, there’s no turning back. The scent of chocolate comes out to greet visitors and then ushers them inside. Within, empty cacao bags hang on the walls, burlap sides stamped with names and symbols of various origins. Choose the drinking chocolate flight (two thicker sipping chocolates alongside two hot chocolates), claim a 72 percent Venezuelan chocolate brownie, or simply browse the selection of White Label Chocolate (Mutari’s bean-to-bar line)—then get to know the owners behind the counter. After years of experience in the food industry— Katy Oursler grew the farm-to-table movement and Stephen Beaumier worked as a chef at a number of Michelin-starred restaurants—both embraced the chance to delve into the specifics of a single ingredient. And why not one as well-loved as cacao? More than 764 tons of chocolate are consumed by Americans a year—the equivalent weight of five adult blue whales or 153 bull elephants.

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Mutari’s owners are continuously unearthing new information about this exceptional bean. “We want people to learn something every time they come here,” Beaumier says, “no matter if they’ve come one time or a dozen times or a hundred times.” They’ll point out Nerf football–sized cacao pods on the shelf, then describe how these are cracked open with a machete before the beans can be detached from a vein called the placenta. They describe how the wet cacao travels to central fermentaries and drying beds, then voyages on to its final resting place at Mutari. The beans then take a subsequent journey through the shop’s in-house machines. They’re handsorted, cycled in batches through a roaster, husked with a winnower to extract the cacao nib, smashed into cocoa liquor with a pre-grinder, further ground for over 24 hours in a melanger, poured onto sheet pans, then shredded and bottled. From bean to final product, the preparation process takes more than quadruple the amount of time coffee beans do. But Oursler, Beaumier, and other craft chocolate makers share a commonality with baristas, as well as sommeliers. They understand that, like coffee beans and wine grapes, the taste of cacao beans varies drastically depending on their origin, and they seek to accentuate rather than mask those differences, from the cream and citrus notes of cacao from Kilombero Valley, Tanzania, to the spruce and spice notes of Ucayali, Peru.

Perform 10.3 Katy Oursler and Stephen Beaumier Co-owners

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This appreciation is what sets quality chocolate apart from those one-dollar bars you can buy in bulk at the grocery store. There’s a reason behind that cheap price tag. “Big Chocolate,” as Beaumier refers to them, stuffs their bars with ingredients like vanillin (synthetic vanilla), soy lecithin (a GMO emulsifier), and that ominously vague umbrella of additives lumped together under “artificial flavors.” Craft chocolate, on the other hand, consists of four or fewer ingredients: cacao, sugar, and occasionally cacao butter and vanilla. Craft chocolatiers also pay above adequate market prices for cacao beans, supporting quality product from farmers. From its launch, Mutari has attracted several followings. Those from culturally diverse backgrounds revel in the chance to experience home away from home through the various origins, vegans appreciate that the drinks are made with coconut milk, inquisitive souls find kindred spirits

in the shop’s staff, and experiential foodies adore the atmosphere. “We love having this cozy space that feels almost outdated in a fantastic way,” Oursler mentions. There are also the night owls who arrive when the shop is converted into an alcoholfree lounge in the evenings. You may be surprised to learn that people with a sweet tooth are not one of Mutari’s target groups. Though some confections are served, they’re not sugary sweet. “We’re not just slinging sweets out the door,” Beaumier explains. Oursler agrees, “We’re not so much a candy shop. If they want candy, we’re the first people to send them to Marini’s around the corner.” If, however, you’re looking to encounter chocolate in a delightfully startling way, look no further than Mutari. C

“Poetry allows you to have these feelings, to explore your grief and joy. Poetry is a spit in the eye of the monster—a knife in its gut.”

– Robert Pesich

Ro b e r t Pesich The Making of a Poet

When Robert Pesich arrived at his new Sunnyvale middle school sporting a tan leather briefcase and a hint of a Serbian accent, the school bullies must have rubbed their meaty paws together in anticipation. Having recently arrived in the neighborhood, his Yugoslav parents bought their 12-year-old son an elaborate briefcase to start his new school experience on a high note. Instead, his sartorial difference stood out to the school neophobes, tipping them off to fresh prey. They moved in for the kill, delivering two years of nonstop abuse. However, the bullies’ plan did not go as they had hoped. Instead, the boy developed intense coping mechanisms. He learned how to read people. Under such pressure, an interior life developed—an important first step on the path to becoming a poet, Robert notes.

Written by Cathleen Miller Photography by Daniel Garcia

robertpesich.com Poetry Center San José pcsj.org Facebook poetrycentersanjose

He also bonded with the bullies’ other victims, and this camaraderie not only helped them cope, it thrust Robert into the role of leader. Sports was another coping mechanism, and Robert went out for cross country, track, and soccer— becoming captain of his soccer team. He looked out for the younger members of the team by communicating with them about their needs and fears. He was the oldest child and very concerned that his younger brother not have similar problems when he started middle school. The young Pesich also continued his escape into literature, a practice that had been with him even as a young lad, when he and his brother climbed into trees and read all day—Treasure Island, Huckleberry Finn, Moby Dick—the ultimate escape novels. During his senior year of high school, Robert encountered a creative writing teacher, Richard Canavese, who taught him to create his own works of poetry and short fiction. Another influence on Robert came by happenstance, when his mother took him to the Stanford bookstore one day, and he picked up a college text on genetics. He became curious about the field; it seemed a natural confluence of his parents’ careers—his mother, a nurse, and his father, a design engineer.

Robert received a degree in genetics at UC Davis, but he also carried with him to college his fascination with poetry and enrolled in creative writing workshops. His literary mentors at Davis were doyens of the poetry world: Walter Pavlich, Sandra McPherson, and the legendary Gary Snyder. Snyder’s Buddhist influence taught Robert skills that helped with all his studies—the notion of merely “watching the movie in your mind, which helped mitigate anxiety, whether from poetry or a research project,” he says. The dual forces of science and language continue to propel Robert decades later. He works by day as a lab manager and research associate for Stanford University School of Medicine and Palo Alto Veterans Institute for Research. But after he returns home for dinner with his wife, Sanja, and their two sons, spends time with homework, reads to his children, and says goodnight as his wife heads to bed, in the quiet of their Sunnyvale house, Mr. Pesich transforms into a poet. While lesser mortals would let the fatigue be their undoing, Robert says it serves a positive function: to suppress his internal editor. He has published the poetry collections Model Organism and Burned Kilim and contributed to the anthology Cuts from the Barbershop. Today, he’s at work on a new manuscript, “Erratum Corrigendum,” a collection he loosely calls love poems, although his definition of “love” is not necessarily romantic, but rather in the vein of an homage. Here he’s experimenting with longer lines, prose poems, and sometimes drawing from his experiences in the lab. “There’s a love of the language in the sciences, and I like to bring that into the poem.” Another inspiration for Robert’s work is his passion for tango music, particularly the use of the accordion. He’s intrigued by the dramatic changes in mood and tempo—from tenderness to violence. Robert has inherited the editorial duties at poetry publisher Swan Scythe Press; he believes poetry serves a purpose in today’s society. “There’s a lot out there that takes away our joy—that says ‘no.’ No, you can’t be a woman in the sciences. No, you can’t be a man and write poetry. You’re not allowed to have these feelings. But poetry allows you to have these feelings, to explore your grief and joy. Poetry is a spit in the eye of the monster—a knife in its gut.” He goes on to explain that “whereas science is trying to come to a clear understanding of a phenomenon, a kind of mechanistic understanding, a poem doesn’t have to be black and white. Competing ideas can be held together simultaneously. It helps us endure these conundrums.” Poetry also serves a role in the current political resistance movement against Trump. “The idea is married to the engine of passion, to keep that idea moving forward.” The same spirit Robert invoked to fight schoolyard bullies can be seen today in his role as a community organizer for Poetry Center San José, bringing people together for a common goal and mentoring the younger members of the group. As president, he strives to provide venues for poets to share their work, organizing 100 events for 2018 alone. He believes that “in a live reading, there’s a raw honesty you don’t have in social media feeds. They’re the antidote to ananodized digital world.” Robert Pesich especially takes great strides to nurture young poets, advising them that failure is allowed. “So, you put yourself out there with a poem, and it fell flat. That’s okay, you’re learning something now. Test and retest. Remind yourself to look for a little deer path or some evidence that will likely lead you in a direction you were not aware of. Budding writer, be mindful of interrogating yourself,” words that seem suspiciously like they come from a scientific researcher who moonlights as a poet. C

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Nature Boy in Silicon Valley by Robert Pesich

Naked, Apollo was reading while feeling the breeze up in his tree-house as I was doing in mine. When the older kids found him they circled the trunk chanting Hey Nature Boy! Hey Faggot! while tearing apart his sister’s Barbie dolls, fighting over the pieces, ammo for their new slingshots. The heads flew best, blonde comets ending up tangled in the branches or impaled on the bark. They stole white stones from his mother’s garden and nailed him, repeatedly. The branches broke his fall and body twisted and unconscious on his neighbor’s lawn. Everyone scattered. I climbed down after dark. A month later, before the family moved, his father chopped down the tree and uprooted the stump. For years, sawdust and needles dressed the street, the sidewalks, my bedroom floor. These pills do nothing. I’m still waking up at night, sometimes to collect the dust that my feet and legs become, trying to mold the dried pith into feet, a boy, a bird, but never fast enough before my hands dissolve.

Written by Demone Carter Photography by Polaroid Jay

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ZIGGY

Fighting for Something Else In rap music, as it is in real estate, location is everything. As an emcee, the municipality you represent can mean instant credibility and a springboard to success—or it can hang as a detriment to your progress. Cities like Oakland, Atlanta, Detroit, and New York all have cultural capital that allows denizens from those locales to be understood more readily by a national hip-hop audience. It should come as a surprise to no one that San Jose is not very present on America’s hip-hop landscape. This is not to say America’s 10th largest city doesn’t have talent; acclaimed producers Traxamillion and Peanut Butter Wolf both hail from the 408. West San Jose product Ziggy is keenly aware of the fact that San Jose is a relatively unknown quantity in the hip-hop world. “We don’t have a face,” says the 27-year-old rapper. Ziggy also understands the unique burden of trying to put your city on the map. Over the past few years Ziggy has established himself in the greater Bay Area music scene by working extensively with San Jose producer and hyphy music pioneer Traxamillion, penning the hook for Philthy Rich and SOB x RBE’s “Right Now,” and working with one of Kendrick Lamar’s favorite rappers, Mozzy. On his latest album, KHAKIS, Ziggy connects with producer Krikit Boi for eight tracks of weed-infused aspirational braggadocio that would not be unfamiliar to fans of Drake or Big Sean. But unlike the aforementioned urban radio deities, Ziggy manages to craft party-ready ear candy that is not awash in clichés. In the lead single off KHAKIS, “Outcome,” Ziggy boasts: “still in the building / you still in ya feelings? / Zig never had to find it / Zig had it in ’em.” This palpable hunger for bigger and better things, a hallmark of a young rapper on the make, is present not only in Ziggy’s songs but in the way he carries himself. His raspy, cigarette-charred voice machine guns parts of speech as if a hot verse will leap out of him mid-sentence. He says this hunger is part and parcel of being an artist from San Jose. “Being from San Jose kept me hungry. Being a San Jose artist, you already know you are fighting for something else.

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You’re not from Oakland and San Francisco; you’re not from these places that have an established type of sound. When I fight, I am fighting for everybody. Being a San Jose artist, you always have that on your back.” “I was listening to a lot of Pac. Also, my grandmother used to play a lot of oldies—Stevie Wonder, the O’Jays, and stuff like that,” Ziggy says, explaining the influences that made him want to start rapping at age 11. “But then, on top of that, it was a lot of C-Bo, RBL Posse, and just real Bay stuff. And then when I started to think of myself as a rapper, I did my own research, and that’s when I found out about rappers like Nas and DMX.”

“I’m not just trying to make something that sounds hot right now. When I make an album, I am trying to make something that will sound good 5 to 10 years later.” –Ziggy

Listening to KHAKIS, you can tell that Ziggy has been paying attention to the mechanics of what makes a hit rap record. So much so that his penchant for writing radio-friendly choruses has made him a sought-after “hook guy” in Northern California rap circles. When asked about being a specialist of this sort, he hilariously demures, “My mom called me a ‘hooker’ because I was just doing hooks for other people. I can rap, too. I’m not out here trying to be T-Pain or anything like that.” When asked about how he wants people to respond to his music, Ziggy remarks that he wants the listener to empathize with his struggle and his joy. “I just want people to feel my struggle,” he proclaims, adding, “to have people feel what I was feeling when I made the music. I consider myself a storyteller. I want people to learn something from the stories that I’m telling. I also want it to slap too. I want people to have a good time to my music. I want people to be excited to tell other people about my music.” Upcoming is Ziggy’s five-year plan, which includes establishing himself as a brand and potentially moving to LA to be in closer proximity to the music industry. Ultimately, however, the primary goal is for him to create timeless music. “I’m not just trying to make something that sounds hot right now. When I make an album, I am trying to make something that will sound good 5 to 10 years later.” C

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Music and Growth Music wasn’t always a major part of Ashlee Vivo’s life. In fact, though she has always harbored a love for singing, it wasn’t until her early twenties that Vivo fully dedicated herself to developing her musicianship. Looking back, Vivo credits the beginnings of this journey to an intense and fast-paced year spent learning everything about the industry, from music theory to studio recording. “It really all came about when I started singing with my neighbor who was across the street. About two years ago we produced our own album, which was such a huge personal steppingstone for me. She’s classically trained, and her mom ended up being our manager, and I was just able to learn so much from them.” Upon completing their joint album, the two amicably parted ways in order to follow and focus on their own musical trajectories. Today, Vivo is 27 and, in addition to focusing on her own music, works as both a music teacher and a nanny, all while raising her six-year-old son, Isaiah.

Written by Marissa Ahmadkhani Photography by Daniel Garcia

Social Media vivolove

“I had Isaiah when I was 20,” Vivo shares. Describing the birth of her son as a truly transformative event in her life, she states, “Suddenly there was something so much bigger than me. It was life changing. I felt like a phoenix, constantly being recreated.” Pausing, she adds, “He is why. Why I sing. Why I do everything.” When Vivo decided to continue exploring her musicality, she resolved to only take “inspired actions.” In other words, as she pursued music, she vowed to dedicate her time and energy solely to projects that allowed for her own personal growth. Explaining this, she says that she “decided that there would be no I-have-to-dos, only I-want-to-dos” when it came to her music. Embracing this mindset, Vivo continues to carve time out of her busy schedule to record videos in her home. Though she thoroughly enjoys being in the studio, Vivo says that she feels most creative when recording in her room. “My room is where I feel the safest. The most myself. There’s just something about creating and recording in my own

space that has taught me to really love myself and to love myself enough to know that I really like what I am doing and that I want to share it with other people.” Aside from being a creative outlet, music has also afforded Vivo the opportunity to work at the Bay Area–born organization Starting Arts. Starting Arts is a nonprofit that works to bring not just music but also dance, theater, and the visual arts to schools that otherwise lack the funding to provide these courses for their students. Vivo works with the organization as a music teacher, sharing her acquired knowledge with the young, aspiring students. When a friend first introduced her to the idea of joining Starting Arts, Vivo’s first reaction was to feel unqualified for the position. However, she soon recognized that up until that point, her dedication to her music was also a dedication to building both self-love and inner confidence. With this realization, Vivo pursued this opportunity and began what she now calls her “dream job,” where she teaches her students how to tap into their own creativity. “I also get the opportunity to practice and play my songs in front of them. It’s just so much fun,” she adds. Vivo is excited for what’s to come, not only with her music, but also her life as a whole, including watching her son grow and settle into his own creativity. Smiling, she says, “Isaiah sings constantly, and it makes me so happy to hear him. Right now, he’s at that age where he doesn’t get embarrassed or scared and just sings in front of anyone. We’ll see how long it lasts, but I really hope he holds on to that.” Vivo’s EP, while still in the works, will most likely consist of about four songs. Heading into the studio four times a month to record with mentor and producer Jimmy Goings, Vivo is itching to share her work with the world. “I’m ready to birth these songs and let them out into the world. Then I can really open myself up to new material.” C

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“There’s just something about creating and recording in my own space that has taught me to really love myself and to love myself enough to know that I really like what I am doing and that I want to share it with other people.” – Ashlee Vivo

JOHNSON

SUPER SOUL Interview by Esther Young

Photography by Joey Pisacane anjelah.com Super Soul Bros Social Media anjelahjohnson supersoulbros.com Social Media supersoulbros 88 SnS 10.2

BROS

Come within hearing range of any of their shows—the music of Super Soul Bros sweeps you up in a celebration of nostalgia and colorful jazz-funk fusion. They’ve gained recognition not only for their fantastic arrangements of video game music, but for rewarding audiences with a “circus.” Their first show in San Pedro Square featured someone in gorilla suit chucking bananas at the stage. A dozen box TVs around the stage flashed game footage to match the songs that were playing—an extraordinary visual component from the mind of bandleader Robbie Benson, who is as much an inventor as he is an artist, filmmaker, and musician.

How did the idea for Super Soul Bros form? My brother and I used to make films together, and we got Fangamer’s attention back in 2010 when we made an EarthBound fan film. When our parents had to sell our home, my brother moved to Tucson, Arizona, to work for Fangamer, and I stayed in San Jose. During the late ’80s/early ’90s, when a lot of these games came out, jazz was huge in Japan. The average gamer might not realize the influence, but I thought, “This is clearly some jazz composer having a fun time and getting paid to make music for a video game.” I had been jamming with guitarist Brian Sheu and another drummer. As Fanime 2012 rolled around, I proposed playing together at Iguana’s. So we rehearsed and coined our band as Super Soul Bros—it was our first true debut. I set up video game visuals on a projector, promoted the event, friends came out, and my Zoom audio recorder was going all three nights. I edited the video footage some, put it on YouTube, and made a sort of CD: Live at Iggy’s (2012). When did you realize the potential for Super Soul Bros—that there was an audience for jazz-funk video game music? Fangamer sells a bunch of merch at PAX conventions, and that year they invited me to come along. I hopped into the van, I played all day, and people would immediately react, taking videos. These professional breakdancers dressed up as zombies in disco attire—from the Plants vs. Zombiesgame—danced along, and even passed around a tip jar my brother made after seeing all of this. We were producing a circus at that point. I love making not-the-average thing happen. That’s kind of the ulterior motive of the whole project. The kind of music I like playing, I feel like it’s a little marginalized, at least within our generation. And so the style we’re playing, that’s our EarthBound. We’re

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making jazz cool for a bunch of nerds and making video game music cool for the older generation who wouldn’t even know that these compositions existed. How did Super Soul Bros grow among this existing fanbase after that? We played at PAX every year after that, by the Fangamer booth, and people started recognizing us. We booked bigger shows, added horn players, rubbed shoulders with nerdcore artists and festival execs. We started to build an internet following on Twitch. They made us partners so we could stream on the front page. We sold out all our merch at our live performances—and yet, we still hadn’t played on the main stage of PAX. Evidently, 2016 was a big year for Super Soul Bros: MAGFest started booking you, you released two more EPs, and you even played E3, which was an industry-only event till 2017. What do you think got their attention? That was definitely a big notch in our belt. No other group has done that, maybe because no one else thought to reach out. As a jazzfunk group, we play in so many different ways and take requests. It’s very interactive. In 2017, we finally got the email: “PAX West: Main Stage.” The show was cathartic. Working on our first studio-produced album, Motherlode, and all the Twitch streams had kind of burned us out. The initial fun of it was starting to wear off. It’s sort of poetic that as soon as we were less interested in the project, we got the call. Now you’ve played the major gaming festivals and conventions, released Motherlode, and concert organizers are calling you. What’s next? I want to do fewer big shows, rather than a bunch of smaller shows like we were doing…and my own art, really. Whether it’s film or art, I’d rather start putting eggs in that basket and see if anyone enjoys that, even if it’s a very small audience. That’d be good for my soul, basically. C

“I love making not-the-average thing happen. That’s kind of the ulterior motive of the whole project.” – Robbie Benson

BRIAN SHEU Guitar / Co-Leader

CHRIS HAMAN Drums

ROBBIE BENSON Keyboards / Bandleader

BILL SMOLIK Trumpet

ALEX POPOFF Saxophone

CHRISTIAN MANZANA Trombone

ALBUM PICKS Curated by Needle to the Groove Instagram: needletothegrooverecords

Hinds

Shannon and the Clams

“If you do it wrong, do it strong” is the motto for the Madrid-based band Hinds. From making songs in their bedroom with borrowed instruments to opening for bands such as the Libertines, the Vaccines, and Black Lips, Hinds has come a long way with the DIY attitude. On April 6, Hinds released I Don’t Run, their second studio album on Lucky Number and Mom + Pop Music, recorded with Gordon Raphael, acclaimed producer for artists such as the Strokes and Regina Spektor. Hinds delivers yet another consistent and catchy full-length LP, making it apparent where they channel their influence—but don’t drown in it. The work of Hinds continues to keep a strong balance, with their own originality and energy. Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote lace their vocals in a very Pete Doherty and Carl Barat fashion—with fantastic, crunchy guitar riffs drawing from sounds by bands such as the Strokes and Dead Ghosts, along with an appreciation of the beloved SoCal garage scene. Hinds shows a positive progression with this album and a strong awareness of who they are as a band, artistically. The band’s calculated approach and demeanor is sorely absent in a scene dominated by male presences—making this one of the freshest records to start off 2018.

One of the most endearing efforts this year is Shannon and the Clams’ Onion, a melodic garagerock release with nods to soul, Buddy Holly, and heartache. “If You Could Know” is a colorful standout that exemplifies the album, much like its lead single, “Onion.” Both speak to the possibilities of being bare and of the walls we build for ourselves when unsure of reciprocation. Shannon, on “If You Could Know,” sings, “I can’t stop looking at your sparkly eyes / Wondering how you taste.” These are emotional messages wrapped up as pretty ditties. They are textured much like the Clams’ previous releases—galloping and spirited, layered yet uncluttered. Unlike their previous release, 2015’s Gone by the Down, their songs are more visually impactful and compelling than before. Most of these songs are from the perspective of starving, lovesick runaways, cautiously optimistic about life’s misfortunes. It should also be noted that while the Clams emerged from Oakland, they also have a South Bay connection as well. Will Sprott, one of the Clams, was the frontman for the Mumlers, whose soulful, jangly rock cuts brought attention to the San Jose indie rock scene. One of Sprott’s latest singles, “Psychic Lady,” was released as a limited 45 on San Jose’s Needle to the Groove. Shannon and the Clams are certainly on the ascendant.

Favorite track: “Finally Floating” HINDSBAND.COM Facebook: hindsband

Favorite track: “Onion” SHANNONANDTHECLAMS.COM Instagram:: shannonandtheclams

I Don’t Run (Lucky Number) Re-release date: April 6, 2018

Onion (Easy Eye Sounds) Release date: February 8, 2018

Written by Tucker Gottee

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Written by David Ma

Darto

Pax

Human Giving is a departure from Darto’s earlier murky soundscapes. Recorded in the Washington wilderness, it is full of varietals of many colors. “I Am” and the following “Omniscient” are examples of this new way to get their sonic ideas across. Sharing echoes of Broadcast and Twin Peaks–esque balladry, these cuts manifest heightened vocals from Candace Harter and Nicholas Merz. “I brought you flowers / I said goodbye three times / All the petals turned brown so I left them in the lawn.” This mysterious imagery is present throughout, not as an obtuse trick but as an angle into feeling. The lyrics are broadly themed yet intensely personal, about the attempt to evolve as people and artists. “Fell Ill,” crooned by Merz, hits emotive strings without being overly sentimental. As he sings “My eyes are blank and the world is bare / If you peer further down, maybe I’ll still come around,” the listener is taken to a place of vulnerability—never contrived, always pure. “No Self,” with its opening mantra sung by Greg Flores, is another example. Darto is truly the sum of its parts with no real frontman or single composer—they all switch off instruments and vocals with fluidity and purpose. Human Giving is a record that actually says something—very refreshing in this era of faux feeling. Soak it in.

San Francisco–based producer/songwriter Pax has teamed up with Brooklyn label Paxico Records to release his new LP, Wildflower. His previous LP, Junior, was released on Bandcamp in February of this year on Paxico, and despite being comprised of short, jazzy hip-hop beats, it reveals Pax’s proclivities for ambience and softer tones. It makes for a terrific pairing with the folks at Paxico Records, who take an organic approach to their releases, combining folkloric music with modern and futuristic electronic elements and creating handmade artwork for each release. His new LP is colorful, soothing, and sonically seductive as he marries modern hip-hop rhythms with delicate melodies and sparse walls of sound. The current state of hip-hop is a constant concern for its most hardcore followers, but Pax has all the makings of an unsung hero, fusing New Age folk and softer tones to his minimal, soul-jazz productions. On songs like “The Way (You)” and “There There,” you’ll hear influences of J Dilla and Madlib, but Pax deliberately goes a softer, more subtle route. From unquantized hi-hats to no rides at all, Wildflower is an ethereal extrication of down-tempo soundscapes— it’s truly a flower in a concrete jungle. Wildflower isn’t a hard-hitting LP full of hit singles. It’s a different conversation for folks who enjoy a long-play experience. It’s a warm, dreamy, and unassuming project from a creative and thoughtful young talent.

Favorite track: “Fell Ill” DARTO.BANDCAMP.COM Facebook: dartowa

Favorite track: “Long Distance” PAXICORECORDS.COM Instagram: paxicorecords

Human Giving (Aagoo Records) Release date: November 5, 2017

Wildflower (Paxico Records) Release date: March 16, 2018

Written by Jeff Brummet

Written by Allen Johnson

CONTENT CALENDAR

JUL/AUG #ContentPick

Wekfest

Dine Downtown

Downtown Comedy Night

WEEKLY

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San Jose Obon Festival

Bang! Bang! Discussing America’s Second Amendment

Japantown’s largest festival of the year brings together multiple generations for a rich cultural experience with music, food, games, and over 1,200 dancers each evening. 7/14–7/15 Japantown San Jose sjbetsuin.com

This discussion, in conjunction with the Guns: Loaded Conversations exhibition, covers historical, social, and cultural topics. 7/15 San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles sjquiltmuseum.org

Dubbed the “dopest car show in the nation,” the Wekfest international tour returns home to San Jose to celebrate a decade of gathering automotive enthusiasts together. 7/1 San Jose Convention Center wekfest-usa.com

Some of downtown San Jose’s best restaurants offer prix fixe meals, discounts, and chefs’ specials to encourage diners to explore the area’s varied culinary experiences. 7/13–7/22 Various Downtown San Jose Venues sjdowntown.com

Presented by Content Magazine and Michael Gilkison, South Bay standup comedians play to a lively crowd for an evening filled with food, beverages, and laughs. 7/14 Tabard Theatre content-magazine.com

United States of We

Shiny Side Up Bicycle Show

Hecuba/Helen

The opening festival for the Art on the Grounds outdoor exhibition includes three newly commissioned works as well as a showcase of poetry and performance. 7/20 Montalvo Arts Center montalvoarts.org

This show features all types of bikes, from fully custom-built bikes to original rusted Schwinns, plus vendors, stunt shows, and more. Pre-show rides fill out the weekend. 7/22 History Park shinysideupbikeshow.com

Stanford Repertory Theater, celebrating its 20th anniversary, presents a multidisciplinary summer festival featuring new adaptations of Euripides’ Hecuba and Helen. 7/26–8/19 Roble Studio Theater stanfordreptheater.com

SUN 7PM–11PM The Eulipions Jazz Jam Session The house band led by saxophonist Tim Lin plays a set followed by an open jazz jam. Cafe Stritch cafestritch.com

WED 9PM The Caravan Lounge Comedy Show Comics from all over the Bay Area and the world perform, hosted by Ato Walker. The Caravan Lounge caravanloungesanjose.com

THURS 5PM–9PM Taylor Street Night + Market Street cuisine, musicians, makers, and breweries come together for an outdoor event the whole family can enjoy. Gordon Biersch Brewery nightmrkt.com

MON 7PM–9:30PM Red Rock Open Mic Night This family-friendly open mic experience welcomes people of all talents to share and perform their art. Red Rock Coffee redrockcoffee.org

WED 7:15PM–11:45PM Wednesday Night Hop This swing dance party is preceded by a choice of classes, introductory to advanced. First United Methodist Church (Palo Alto) wednesdaynighthop.com

THURS 9PM The Changing Same This excursion keeps time with the future of soul, R&B, and jazz through guest DJ sets and live performances. The Continental Bar thecontinentalbar.com

Gilroy Garlic Festival

Sweet HayaH

West Side Story

San Jose Jazz Summer Fest

Works/San José Annual Member Exhibition

Worldcon 76

San Jose Renaissance Faire

Diamond in the Rough Film Festival

Fremont Festival of the Arts

10.4 Pick-Up Party

This festival attracts garlic-lovers from around the world for three full days of incredible food, drink, arts and crafts, live music, and cooking competitions. 7/27–7/29 Christmas Hill Park gilroygarlicfestival.com

Shakespeare’s young and idealistic Romeo and Juliet are transported to mid-century New York City in what is still one of the most innovative and relevant musical dramas. 7/27–8/5 Montgomery Theater cmtsj.org

In this annual salon, the artist members of Works San José present pieces that display their unique artistic style. 8/3–8/19 Works/San José workssanjose.org

This full-scale, interactive experience features about 800 costumed performers bringing Shakespeare’s England to life and 100 artisans displaying their wares. 8/4–8/5 Discovery Meadow sanjosefaire.com

The largest free street festival west of the Mississippi, this event is celebrating 35 years with over 500 arts and crafts booths, two music stages, plenty of food, and more. 8/4–8/5 Downtown Fremont fremontfestival.net

The word “hayah” means “life” in Arabic, and the band Sweet HayaH truly celebrates the sweetness of life through an original rock-soul-funk sound. 8/5 City Lights Theater cltc.org

San Jose becomes the temporary epicenter of the jazz universe with over 100 performances on 12 stages presenting jazz, blues, Latin, salsa, R&B, New Orleans jazz, and more. 8/10–8/12 Various Downtown San Jose Venues summerfest.sanjosejazz.org

This international gathering of science fiction and fantasy fans, writers, artists, and other creators, first held in 1939, features a presentation of the prestigious Hugo Award. 8/16–8/20 San Jose Convention Center worldcon76.org

This festival highlights truly independent films that might get lost in an over-saturated field. Even films that are “rough around the edges” have a chance to find their audience. 8/17–8/19 The Cinema Exchange ditrfilms.com

Content Magazine invites the community to celebrate the array of local makers, artists, and creatives featured in Issue 10.4 “Profiles” while exploring a San Jose landmark. 8/21 Winchester Mystery House content-magazine.com

MONTHLY

Events are subject to change. Please confirm event details with the presenting organization or venue.

2ND TUES 7PM Well-RED Reading Series Poetry Center San José hosts different featured readers each month, followed by an open reading. Works/San José pcsj.org

3RD THURS 5PM–8PM Third Thursdays at SJMA Admission to the galleries is $5 after 5pm, and the museum offers a variety of nightlife programming. San Jose Museum of Art sjmusart.org

3RD FRI 8PM San Jose Bike Party This themed ride is a place to make friends and have a good time. Riders without lights can get free lights installed. Announced 24 hours prior sjbikeparty.org

3RD THURS 6PM Brews & Beats Diners can enjoy hip-hop and craft beer culture with beats provided by resident DJs Mr Choe and Cutfresh. Park Station Hashery parkstationhashery.com

1ST FRI 5PM–9PM First Friday Santa Cruz Enthusiastic arts lovers can enjoy an evening of art, music, and more offered by the Santa Cruz community. Various Santa Cruz Venues firstfridaysantacruz.com

2ND SAT 6PM–9PM Songwriter Saturday Showcase Coffee is served while local songwriters perform. New Crema Coffee facebook.com/ songwritersaturday

CONTRIBUTORS The production of CONTENT MAGAZINE would not be possible without the talented writers, editors, graphic artists, and photographers who contribute to each issue. We thank you and are proud to provide a publication to display your work. We are also thankful for the sponsors and readers who have supported this magazine through advertisements and subscriptions.

LINNEA LUKATCH Linnea is a lover of literature and the wilderness. When she isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t reading or backpacking in Yosemite, she is enjoying her days as an enthusiastic middle school English teacher and is currently learning to tame the wild coffee bean as a barista in training at Academic Coffee. instagram: jklinnea

BRAD SANZENBACHER Brad is a public relations professional and folksinger from the Santa Cruz mountains. His machine has not yet killed a fascist, but it will never stop trying. instagram: bradsanzfolk

DEMONE CARTER Demone is an award-winning artist, educator, and social entrepreneur from San Jose. Performing under the name DEM ONE, he has released several albums and was named a 2016 Silicon Valley Artist Laureate. instagram: lifeafterhiphop

ESTHER YOUNG Esther is a graduating senior at Santa Clara University. She has written for Santa Clara Magazine and The Owl.

JOHN AGCAOILI John is a photographer and the cofounder of Darkside of the Moon and Hangar X, a production company based in Silicon Valley. Throughout the years, he has found inspiration in collaborating with some of the most influential artists of his generation. instagram: dsotm.us

DAVID MA David is a longtime music journalist whose work has appeared in Pitchfork, Wax Poetics, Rolling Stone, Red Bull Music Academy, Mercury News, The Guardian, The Source, and other publications. instagram: _davidma

DAVID HO David is a photographer, member of Darkside of the Moon and Hangar X, a production company based in Silicon Valley. David received a BFA in photography from San Jose State University in 2017.

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BROOKE OLSEN ROUSH Brooke recently repatriated to the US after eating nasi goreng in SE Asia for four years. She has been married for 16 years, is a mother of three, and is vice president of the consulting firm Know Your Strengths. Brooke played Division 1 volleyball and studied English literature with an emphasis on the medieval period at Montana State. skype: brookeroush10

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DINE DOWNTOWN SAN JOSE

Restaurant Week 10 Days Prix Fixe Menus 3 Ways Chef Specials Let’s Graze Food & Drink Pairings dinedowntownsj.com

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design community Get out and get connected with like-minded individuals. Becoming a member of American Advertising Federation Silicon Valley is more than just about listing your membership on LinkedIn or padding your resume. It’s about coming together as a marketing community to share ideas and honor the work we do. Membership also includes discounts and perks for the following: the Annual Silicon Valley ADDY Awards • ADWEEK AdAge • Ad-ology • Experian • FedEx Nationwide • The New York Times • Office Depot the AAF Job Bank • Upcoming Design and Networking Events

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DANCE NOW THINK LATER O P E N DANC ING & L E SSO NS • L IVE M U SIC • B E E R GA R D E N

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Content Magazine and Michael Gilkison presents:

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