15.2 Sight and Sound (Spring 2023)

ISSUE 15.2

SPRING 2023 C

SIGHT AND SOUND

FEATURING:

SJ Photo Walk

Angela Johal

MANOS

Mama Kin

Trinh Mai

Silicon Valley’s Innovative and Creative Culture

Power Grunge Duo

XO 2022

Artists: Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg

Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport

City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs Public Art Program

Photo credit: Adrien Le Biavant

ISSUE 15.2

“Sight & Sound” Spring 2023

Cultivator

Daniel Garcia

Producer

David Valdespino, Jr.

Editors

Elizabeth Sullivan, Grace Olivieri

Katherine Hypes, Virginia Graham

Samantha Peth, Katie Shiver

Esther Young, David Ngo

Design

Jesse Garcia, Kevin Peth

Writers

Michelle Rundowitz, Katie Shiver

Ethan Gregory Dodge, Michèle Jubilee

Brandon Roos, Esther Young

Nathan Zanon, Priya Das

Demone Carter, Chris Jalufka

Taran Escobar-Ausman

Photographers

Stan Olszewski, Peter Salcido

Avni Nijhawan Levy, Alex Knowbody

Cyntia Apps, Arabela Espinoza

Ngozi Harrisom, Eva Schwank

Danielle Caryl Robinson

Welcome to spring! Most of us are looking forward to a possible new start, and after these past three years, we are looking forward to returning to normal. I have to admit, New Year 2023 did not feel like a time of “New Beginnings,” but I am eagerly looking forward to spring and this year’s Sight and Sound issue. It is the start of our 12th year in print!

The artists and creatives we have in this issue, once again, demonstrate the innovation and creativity of our region. This has to be the 62nd time in our opening notes that I have said that, and though it is repetitive, it is illustrative of the people in our community—from the innovation, tenacity, and “wow factor” of Kayla Dinh’s K Café to the global photography of John Todd, the new photographers who are building their careers and community with the San Jose Photo Walk, and the raw youth-power grunge of RAUE. This issue gives you diversity in fields, talent, and demographics that bring the taste, flavor, sight, and sound of the South Bay.

Thank you,

Daniel Garcia THE CULTIVATOR

IN THIS ISSUE

Danny Fernandez | Azeem Ward | Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus | John Todd

To participate in CONTENT MAGAZINE: daniel@content-magazine.com Membership & sponsorship information available by contacting david@content-magazine.com

y e ars

Art

Featuring

CONTENT

SIGHT AND SOUND 15.2

Spring 2023 San Jose, California Est. 2012

SIGHT

10 Stylist, Kelly Peters

14 Tattoo Artist, Danny Fernandez

18 MANOS, Jimmy Castañeda

22 Visual Artist, Trinh Mai

28 Painter, Angela Johal

34 Photographer, John Todd

38 San Jose Photo Walk, Polaroid Jay, Julie Chon, Sheldon Chang

Yvonne Yeh, Diana Mae, Sheldon Chang , 35mmallie

SIGHT. SOUND. TASTE.

44 Gathering Artisans Collective, James, Clarice, & Jafar Green

48 K Cafe, Kayla Dinh

52 Mama Kin, Andrew Saman

SOUND

56 Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus

60 Flautist/Teacher, Azeem Ward

64 Raue, Paige Kalenian & Jax Huckle

68 Album Picks, Needle to the Groove

70 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

Azeem Ward, pg. 60

Yvonne, San Jose Photo Walk, pg. 38

Angela Johal, pg. 28

Trinh Mai, pg. 20

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Written by Esther Young

Photography by Eva Schwank kellypetersstylist.com Instagram sheworeopium

Stylist Kelly Peters

KELLY PETERS ST YLE the

Walking around town with Kelly Peters is like walking with a bouquet of balloons. Children’s faces light up, families smile in appreciation, some share compliments, others just stare. Her furry shoes with eyeballs evoke special delight, but you mustn’t miss an entire outfit for a pair of shoes. The magic is in the assortment of bright colors, bold shapes, and textures—the entire bouquet.

Styling, or the strategic building of many individual expressions, is a talent Kelly has honed all her life.

Her first opportunity arrived in the form of Barbie clothes. She enjoyed mixing the outfits, just as she enjoyed skateboarding and launching those Barbies off in her brother’s Tonka trucks. In high school, her mother’s vast, generous wardrobe became her playhouse, when she wasn’t on the soccer field. An armoire of accessories she could raid belonged to the woman who “epitomized a beautiful, strong-yet-fragile, real human being…I remember when she would get dressed, she always would get dressed from head to toe, then brush her teeth,” Kelly chuckles. “And then she’d ask me, ‘Will you take the lint roller and roll it over me and just check and make sure?’ Only then would she leave the house.”

Throughout her life, Kelly and her mother maintained a close bond. Kelly’s mother, an immigrant from Norway, was a forward-thinking woman who nurtured her daughter’s taste for fashion. She was the numbers-savvy parent who saved and tracked the family’s finances—yet she was just as happy to take Kelly shopping for precise items she desired, such as a red suede belt.

One time, Kelly told her mom about a pair of “incredible black patent leather Mary Jane heels.” Her mom’s first question was, “Did you get them?” Kelly responded, “Of course not, they’re like $600.” Ten minutes later, her mom called back and said, “Go get them. I’ll pay half.”

Still, even as everyone in Kelly’s youth and adult life urged her to work in fashion, she lacked language for the work she wanted to do, which wasn’t designing or modeling. The option to be a

“Instead of letting life happen to me, I decided to design my life and my path.”

-Kelly Peters

“stylist” only emerged decades later—after she’d studied fashion at West Valley College, nannied, worked in a Los Gatos fashion boutique, earned her English degree, and worked her way up from receptionist to executive assistant at a billion dollar furniture company.

When the option did emerge, Kelly had been cultivating her sensibilities for some time. Not only did friends and family pick her brain for advice on what to wear, she was advising style shoots for her company’s product ads. Though her title still read executive assistant, she worked as an in-house liaison of sorts, assisting the freelance stylist her company had hired. Kelly carried a sense of what passed and didn’t pass in a corporate setting. Eventually, “I could do the job with my eyes closed.” During the slower seasons, she explored blogs and put together looks for the stylist—“somewhat bitter that it wasn’t me,” she laughs, yet taking every opportunity to be on set.

When the pandemic hit, her company laid off some executives, and Kelly decided to take the severance package, which also offered a career coach. “Instead of letting life happen to me, I decided to design my life and my path.” In her meditations, she spoke out her wish to work on a high fashion editorial. And then, a friend she’d met on Instagram connected her to a New York stylist who was looking for an assistant. “I said, I’ve already done styling on my own, but to this day, I will absolutely still assist people because it’s an opportunity to learn.” So Kelly reached out and worked on her very first editorial for a software company.

Then, the same stylist invited her to co-style a shoot with her. At Kelly’s enthusiastic acceptance, the stylist began rapidly ordering pieces from brands, sending them to Kelly’s address in the Mission District. “I had 50 to 60 of the most amazing luxury designer brands send me things,” she marvels. “I had Gucci, Dior, Schiaparelli—which is one of my favorite designers. I love anything surreal.”

Then the stylist shared that she would work remotely: Kelly would have to lead this job. They were able to discuss the looks over FaceTime, but, for the first time, Kelly directed each outcome, including the most chaotic step: sending everything back. “Obviously the brand expects everything back relatively quickly, and now I’m responsible for shipping back seventy pieces!” she recounts.

Though she carried a pit in her stomach for days from the stress, baptism by fire gave her the confidence to not only say yes to the next opportunity, but to manifest it. By the time she met her future business partner in their personal styling business, the Front Row, Kelly knew exactly what she was about. “What makes me unique is I re-wear things, and I re-wear things in different ways,” Kelly explains. She teaches her clients how to serve themselves with this skill— how it begins with understanding who they are and who they want to be.

Kelly has known from the start that her expression is limitless. Like the divine timing she believes in, she looks for the beauty in the arrangement: “Perfection doesn’t exist, so let’s celebrate things that are wrong in a good way.” C

Written by Ethan Gregory Dodge

Photography by Daniel Garcia dannyfernandezart.com

Instagram dannyfernandezart

Danny Fernandez

Santa

Dozens of artists lined the sides of Pacific Avenue under the Santa Cruz sun. Some were actively painting in the salty air, others selling their art. Danny Fernandez’s heart leapt with excitement. When he moved from his childhood home in suburban Santa Clarita at the age of 19, he promised himself that he would “somehow build a career out of art.” There, in front of his eyes, he saw people accomplishing exactly that.

“I grew up in a place where there wasn’t a lot of interest in the arts in general,” he recalls. “It’s not a big artsy town.” That particular contrast between his hometown and the Northern California beach town astounded him. That culture would prove paramount to Fernandez keeping his promise to himself, now a locally renowned tattoo artist.

For as long as he can remember, it has been nearly impossible for Fernandez to contain his creativity. Artistic creations have flowed from his hands since he was a toddler. According to his mother, his doctor was shocked at the level of dexterity displayed in his Play-Doh sculptures and Lego buildings. He treated art as his own form of entertainment—allowing him to escape to his own imaginary worlds and miniature realms.

Once at a friend’s house, Fernandez found himself with some cardboard and scissors. “I created a miniature version of their house,” he recalls. “All the separate rooms, little sofas, the TVs, all out of cardboard, markers, and tape.” Only five years old at the time, he recalls the amazement of adults upon seeing the replica. “It was a pivotal moment that led to me realizing that something I’m doing is valuable to people.”

But, as he grew, the adults in his life began to see his artistry as a distraction. Fernandez found that confusing. Throughout junior high and high school, he drew incessantly with his generic ball point pen in his spiral-bound notebook. “I was really into patterns. [They were] simple, easy things to mindlessly let your mind flow,” he says, recognizing again that his art was an escape.”

While Fernandez took some classes that enabled his creativity—such as film making and graphic design—it wasn’t until his senior year that he took a traditional art class. The instructor was in awe at his ability with little formal training. She lamented that he hadn’t taken her classes sooner. She pulled a few strings and enrolled Fernandez in the advanced class. Its curriculum was typically reserved

How

Cruz helped one artist find his potential.

“I wouldn’t make the art that I make if I wasn’t living here.”

-Danny Fernandez

for students who had taken several prerequisites. Fernandez says her confidence in him was life changing. “She was one of the few people during that time period that showed any interest in what I was capable of,” he says. “She wanted me to learn what she was teaching her fourth year students. It was really phenomenal to hear that. I didn’t think I was good, and she was telling me I was good enough to be with these kids.”

Inspired by his teacher’s confidence, Fernandez entered community college determined to get an art degree. He soon found the academic structure “rigid and limiting,” even in his art classes. When he was on the cusp of finishing an associate’s degree, he dropped out and moved to Santa Cruz with a friend. It was a place familiar in name only, thanks to the ubiquity of the Santa Cruz Skateboards logo.

In Santa Cruz, Fernandez dabbled in freelance graphic design and mural work. He didn’t find any of those gigs particularly viable for the long-term. But the arts culture led him to explore other mediums. He decided he wanted to pursue body art and asked a friend to teach him how to tattoo. After buying a tattoo ma-

chine, he and his friend started tattooing each other. Half of the tattoos covering one of his arms were done by himself during this experimentation phase. “It’s trash,” he says. “It’s a garbage sleeve. But I love it. That was me.”

Three or four years later, he did “the right thing” and found an apprenticeship at Triton Tattoo under Jeff Noyce. After a decade of tattooing, Fernandez has made a name for himself for his illustrative etchings of animals and scenes on his clients’ bodies. Each piece seems mystical and fantastical in a way that hearkens back to the miniature realms of his childhood. Employing primarily black and gray ink and the thinnest of lines, he achieves intricate details that mesmerize the eye. Clients as far as Australia have traveled to get his art permanently imprinted on their skin.

Like his tattooing, Fernandez’s love for and familiarity with Santa Cruz has also matured. “There are a lot of creatives,” he says. “They inspire each other, and it keeps the fire stoked. The strong use of nature in my work is because I’m surrounded by redwoods and by the ocean. I wouldn’t make the art that I make if I wasn’t living here.” C

MANOS president Jimmy Castañeda

Jimmy Castañeda MANOS

Written by Chris Jalufka Photography by Cyntia Apps manosgilroy.org Instagram manosgilroy

In 1978 the community outreach program Tecolote gathered a group of farmworker youth to paint a mural in downtown Gilroy. It was a combined effort to aid each youth in earning their GED and impart discipline through the long process of creating the mural, La Piedra del Sol (The Sun Stone). Over forty years later, that mural still stands. This mural can be seen as the birth of MANOS (Mexican American Nurtured Opportunity Services).

Tecolote’s intent was to instill a sense of civic pride in the farmworker youth, and those kids from ’78 are now adults keeping that spirit alive.

After decades of being beaten by the weather, that mural in downtown Gilroy, La Piedra del Sol , has lost its luminous color. Jimmy Castañeda and the other original artists gathered to see what could be done to

restore it to its original glory. The group, in connection with a local nonprofit and through constant fundraising events, attempted to raise the money needed to bring the mural back to life. After some unfortunate events, Castañeda and the artists separated from the nonprofit and started to fundraise once again, this time on their own. Castañeda called everyone over to his porch and told them, “The only way we’re going to do the things that we want to do is if we do it ourselves. We can’t depend on other agencies and then have them not be right with the community. Our name is out there; our face is out there.” He concludes, “We all got together. We met every Friday on my porch, and that’s how MANOS became.”

Growing up in Gilroy, MANOS president Castañeda found himself working in the fields when he was just 10 years

A group of local artists combine their talents to create MANOS, an organization bent on assisting their community by any means necessary.

-Jimmy Castañeda

“I always say that even bad seeds will grow beautiful flowers, and we’re like a fine example of that, because everybody in MANOS, we all have some kind of past, but that’s why we want to help the youth.”

“El Calendario Azteca de Tecolote”

old. His parents were kind and patient, with an open-door policy for friends, family, and strangers alike. Those in need could find a place to sleep and a meal in their belly. “I’ll just add more water to the soup,” his mother would say. Castañeda shares this same instinct to help.

MANOS was formed from necessity—from a group of friends with a shared dream of helping the community that had given them so much. As Castañeda explains, “I tell everybody, if you know somebody who’s at risk or you know somebody who needs our help, let us know. We’ll go, whatever we have to do, but that’s just us, and that all came from us. There was no grant. That’s how we started.” Soon after those porch meetings, MANOS would take trucks to the food bank in San Francisco to load up and distribute food to the field-workers in Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy. The team found that the fieldworkers were apprehensive, unwilling to set foot off the

fields in fear of the reaction from their employers. These workers are a part of MANOS’s own community. This is where Castañeda came from. He wanted to offer help any way he could, yet the struggle to reach them was real. Over time, Castañeda and the MANOS crew won them over, and the kindness of MANOS became a welcomed gift.

Each member of MANOS is an artisan. Castañeda’s wife is a dancer who runs a dance group focused on Mexico’s folklorico tradition. Other members are painters and muralists. During the pandemic, Castañeda started doing pop-up events at his ranch. It was a way for people to make money. The first pop-up event had about a dozen people, but by Halloween he had fifty-plus vendors out on his property.

In early 2022, Gilroy’s 6th Street Studios & Art Center received a grant for their Youth Mentorship Program. Founder Emily McEwan-Upright explains, “The program pairs professional artists with at-

promise youth for a three-tosix week long program. The sessions teach the youth how to execute a creative project from start to finish, the ending resulting in some sort of exhibition, presentation, or unveiling to the public of their project.” MANOS is signed on to lead a group of young artists in creating a mural downtown.

The work does not stop there. Next on the plate for MANOS is to raise money for a much-needed youth center in Gilroy. “This is more a family than it is a nonprofit. We’ve all done bad in our lives. I always say that even bad seeds will grow beautiful flowers, and we’re like a fine example of that, because everybody in MANOS, we all have some kind of past, but that’s why we want to help the youth.” It’s this shared past of Castañeda and the artists behind La Piedra del Sol that inspired MANOS to dedicate their lives to the service of the next generation, to save them from the streets and the possibility of a darkened future. C

“Gigantes”

TRINH MAI

Tracing Roots: Trinh Mai Finds the Beauty in Life through Honoring Cultural Heritage

Heart first, Trinh Mai aims to bring people together through art. Finding comfort in color and peace in faith, her multidisciplinary works honor her Vietnamese cultural heritage and shine a light on larger stories of shared humanity.

Written by Michèle Jubilee

Photography by Arabela Espinoza trinhmai.com Instagram trinhmaistudios

“We have to draw strength from our community work, the people we love, art, and hope. We are drawing from a transcendent source. All beauty comes from that process of discovery.”

- Trinh Mai

Trinh Mai’s love of art is deep, rooted in family history, connecting past and present. As Trinh describes, she thinks in branches—uncovering stories—in search of healing, hope, and community. Her art is a prayer, a process of discovery, honoring her cultural heritage and family.

Shaped by her family’s experience escaping Vietnam during the War in 1975, Trinh uses art as a language to connect hearts to the stories of loved ones. Having passed through many countries, including the Philippines and Guam, on their journey to the United States, Trinh’s family arrived in Pennsylvania at one of four refugee camps in the US at the time. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Trinh moved to Southern California at a young age and lived with extended family while her parents moved to Silicon Valley during the ’80s tech boom to find work. Trinh attributes her creative energy to her parents, who were both very meticulous, creative, and clever. Her dad nurtured a green thumb and loved cultivating bonsai trees. Trinh’s love of nature and desire to connect to the land threads through her work in symbolism and materiality. Trinh co-creates her art with history, informed by the heirlooms and stories of her family and the deep feeling of responsibility to honor her culture and share that love with the wider community.

“One of the things that the elders and people in general fear is being forgotten. And not just that they are forgotten, but their history is forgotten, the history of [their] people, the ways that [they] arrived here, traditions, food, family lineages, and the sacrifices they made. What a shame it would be to forget about the sacrifices that were made for us to be here. My fear is that their fear will be realized. It’s both a blessing and a burden to carry this responsibility to share. But one of the things that has encouraged the elders through my art is not just that they see themselves and I’m honoring their lives, but also knowing that the younger generation cares and wants to carry on the history. When families see heritage being passed down and honored, it takes that fear away. And it’s not just descendants that are inheriting that culture, it’s also the wider community that we are sharing it with.”

Trinh’s favorite mediums are oil paint and charcoal, but oil on canvas is her first true love and how she found her voice. Trinh’s love of oil painting began at San Jose State University (SJSU), creating abstract paintings. Painting on large canvases felt like creating an all-encompassing environment that she could step into. During her studies at SJSU, Trinh encountered a Mark Rothko painting at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Initially skeptical of his work, seeing it in person was a very pivotal and transformational experience for her. It opened her eyes to how art could convey spiritual essence through color and form. Finding herself standing in front of the Rothko painting, Trinh was “consumed by the cadmium red.” Describing the experience as deeply real, it opened her heart to what she wanted her work to accomplish.

“I wanted to make paintings like that, so true to what they are that they speak for themselves. I would like for whatever spirit is living inside the painting to speak. I don’t need to be a part of that conversation, but I think maybe my role is to have an intimate relationship with the work, and then the work has its own relationship with the viewer.”

Trinh describes her relationship to art as “salvation to the fullest,” born out of a desperate need to find comfort through life’s hardships. Through abstract art, Trinh found her footing and fell in love with the comfort, light, and life that art brought about.

“As I started maturing in the art and really taking it seriously, I realized it’s teaching me to see, the art of observation. I realized that was the main lesson, and once I embraced that, I saw how free I could feel painting boxes and spheres.”

As a multidisciplinary artist, Trinh describes her use of various mediums as a beautiful and fulfilling symbiotic relationship, with each medium teaching her unique lessons. She appreciates the labor and lessons that each provides, allowing her to excavate ideas by digging deeply through experimentation. For example, stitching teaches her to slow down, be careful, and have patience. From painting portraits to writing poetry, Trinh creates her work from a place of deep intentionality. Art has opened doors for Trinh to speak to universal truths of unified humanity. “I started discovering things about my family history that are shared by so many other people, not just Vietnamese refugees, but people all over the world.” Motivated by a desire to serve the community, Trinh finds purpose in discovering the beauty of life that can arise despite tragedy. “I feel that my responsibility is to offer life to stories to give comfort to other people.” Art gives life back to objects and stories and sows seeds for future generations. Sharing these stories cultivates a shared cultural heritage.

Driven to discover what it means to have an intimate relationship with God, Trinh is deeply thankful for her faith and the peace and purpose that it brings her in daily life. For Trinh, it all comes back to an essential question: “In the midst of life’s trials, where do we turn for strength? We have to draw strength from our community work, the people we love, art, and hope. We are drawing from a transcendent source. All beauty comes from that process of discovery.” C

“As I started maturing in the art and really taking it seriously, I realized it’s teaching me to see, the art of observation.”

- Trinh Mai

Angela Johal

JOHAL ANGELA

Experiencing Angela Johal in person—hearing her talk, watching her paint—is like experiencing her work. She seems, as her work does, to conjure up and harness energies that have been waiting for just that moment. Order and intensity, color fill and negative space, control and free flow, all emanate from and embody her and her work.

“Restrictions give you freedom, organization empowers creativity…Negative spaces are important because they create an opening,” explained Johal. “There aren’t very many exits in my paintings,” she said of how she always aims for a continuum of color, line, and thought in each of her works, welcoming the viewer on an endless journey.

Johal’s relationship with color started early at the age of five, when her mother gave her Hailstones and Halibut Bones: Adventures in Color, by Mary O’Neill. Her penchant for hot pink and yellow is nostalgic, from a similarly colored bedspread. She also remembers pushing nasturtium seeds into the moist soil with her finger and watching them sprout, grow, and blossom into bright orange flowers with a light peppery smell. The color orange appears in many of her paintings.

The most unexpected of the several surprising aspects of Johal’s work is that she anticipates people will hear her paintings or experience sound. “Everything has sound, but you don’t always hear it…You don’t hear the refrigerator unless it’s broken,” she said. While many listen to music while creating, Johal works with it. When working on a series using dots, for example, she saw them each as having a specific size and sound. The artist statement for her work The Stars Collide No. 2, on exhibit at the de Young Museum in 2020, states that her “chromesthetic paintings may evoke a visual sound, where new and unpredictable colors emerge intuitively.”

Written by Priya Das Photography by Eva Schwank johalgeometrics.com Instagram johal_geometrics

The most immediate aspect of her work is the geometry, which is intended to be accessible. Johal has followers among women, men, and even children. Johal believes that geometric shapes are universal archetypes that communicate a visual language without referencing any one particular culture. She explained further, “Colors are loved by all. I see geometry and design in everything and how it impacts your life. I see how when people sit at a round table, they rarely have a good time, but when people sit around oval or rectangular, shallow tables, they feel

AscendingColourNo.3, acrylic polymer on canvas, 48” x 60”, 2022

“Fear is the artist’s worst enemy...I also have learned that the more mistakes you make, the better artist you become. This in turn makes you a master at problem solving.”

TOP: VibrationsonaTheme No.40, acrylic polymer on canvas, 60” x 48”, 2022

BOTTOM: Rhythm&ColourNo.23, acrylic polymer on canvas, 48” x 60”, 2022

ABOVE: VibrationsonaTheme No.36, acrylic polymer on canvas, 48” x 60”, 2022

OPPOSITE PAGE

TOP: EuphonicColour No.17, acrylic polymer on canvas, 60” x 60”, 2021

BACKGROUND: Rhythm&LineNo.14, acrylic polymer on canvas, 48” x 48”, 2022

closer, can hear, and often have a better time. How you move about spaces and the furniture and art has a profound effect on one’s well-being.”

She continued: “Color and shapes have a direct effect on your mood, and I have found that I am most satisfied when I see a whole rainbow of colors, but with the calming qualities of the black, white, and grays. I think that geometric and colorful art may have a similar effect on the brain as psychedelics.”

Johal is not kidding when she says she sees geometry everywhere—a word puzzle book was her inspiration for a time. Indeed, she always looks for lights and shadows first. And the same way a letter reveals more in a word puzzle, she believes that a single color has the power to change the entire work.

Johal’s purposeful approach has a backstory, starting from when she used to be a photorealist painter. However, those “illusions of reality” seemed false to her, while the geometric, flat color shapes felt more honest. For five years, as fascinating proof of how she inhabits the paradoxical realm of restraint and movement, she stopped painting but allowed herself to craft using only reclaimed, found materials. It was during this time that she found geometry and abstraction as her medium. Paint slowly started creeping into the collages and then she decided to go back to painting, using only flat planes of color to achieve three-dimensional effects. City Trees and Intersections were her first real geometric paintings with flat color planes, and she loved the way they gave an illusion of transparency.

When asked about her process and how she determines what her next work is going to be, Johal shared that it’s important for her to wait to see how the painting will emerge. She explained that when she creates art, she is actually spending time playing, like a child. “Fear is the artist’s worst enemy. Children are fearless when they create, where adults are always battling fear, which hinders the creative process. I also have learned that the more mistakes you make, the better artist you become. This in turn makes you a master at problem solving.”

Ultimately, Johal believes that “the artist actually becomes what they paint.” C

JOHN TODD Capturing Wins

From vast landscapes to intimate portraits, to runners mid-stride, John Todd is an expert at capturing the perfect moment on camera. A native of Palo Alto, Todd has been a professional photographer for over 25 years. He manages his own photography business, has been the team photographer for the San Jose Earthquakes since the team’s inception in 1996, and owns International Sports Images (ISI) along with his business partner and wife, Annette Shelby.

When did you first take an interest in photography? I took beginning photography in seventh grade and was hooked after taking my first image and learning how to print in a darkroom. I recently reunited with one of my classmates from that time, now 40 years ago, and he remembered me saying I wanted to be a professional photographer.

Were there any other art forms that interested you, or was photography always your focus? I never really gravitated toward any other forms of art—as I was a lousy painter—and had no drawing skills to speak of. The interaction

between the camera and real life always drew me in, and the ability to capture my personal interpretation of a scene is what really excites me. It’s fascinating to me how you can be at an event with multiple photographers, and each one comes away with a different view and different take on what they saw. I think this is a really important piece that can show us how we all perceive reality differently.

You take photos in a wide variety of styles. What was the first style you learned, and what inspired you to branch out in so many directions? My first love was landscape photography. My grandmother took me to Stanford to see Ansel Adams speak when I was in high school, and I was hooked. The grand views and scale of his images inspired me, and the graphic nature of his work has really influenced me. I branched out in college shooting sports, and then into photojournalism, working for a newspaper and freelancing for the Associated Press. I enjoy all forms of photography, and it keeps it fresh for me. Being able to jump from sports to landscape to portraits and commercial work is such a great blessing.

Written by Michelle Rundowitz

Photography by Alex Knowbody johntodd.com Instagram johntoddimages

“Ienjoyallformsofphotography, anditkeepsitfreshforme.”

-John Todd

You have a particular eye for sports photography, from the players themselves to capturing key moments in motion—what led you to develop this specialty? I’ve been an athlete all my life, playing football, soccer, wrestling, judo, swimming, surfing… and was a springboard diver in college. So, it was a natural progression into covering sports at my first newspaper job. Sports photography is a competitive business where you are competing against all the other photographers at the event. I think that creates a game-like atmosphere for yourself, which ties back into competing as an athlete.

What led you to decide to purchase ISI? I worked at the 2002 World Cup in Korea for J. Brett Whitesell, who owned ISI at the time, and he was looking to sell the company to my wife, Annette, and me to carry the torch forward. After covering the USA in a World Cup, I knew I wanted

to cover USA soccer, and we felt the time was right to give it a go. Annette was really the driving force behind buying ISI, and without her, it would not have happened. She’d gone to Stanford Business School and had a real entrepreneurial outlook. It was a stretch to purchase the agency, but we were able to piece things together and make the deal work.

Is there anything about the Bay Area that excites you as an artist? Growing up in the Bay Area, you see so many people chasing their dreams, and it definitely inspires you.

From Steve Jobs to the Grateful Dead, so many people have self-started, and I love that culture. Also, the population diversity of the area is incredible, which keeps it so vibrant and moving forward. The proximity to both Big Sur and Yosemite is amazing and the nearness to nature here is unparalleled—great for a landscape photographer.

What’s something you think most people would be surprised about regarding your profession? I think the thing that surprises people is how diverse your business needs to be. Even Ansel Adams was shooting commercial work and teaching classes to support his landscape work. Also, that taking the image is the easy part. The hard part is getting the images to market: processing, captioning, image management, client relations, and all the little things it takes to run a business.

Any projects coming up that you’re excited about? Yes. I’m excited to see what direction the Earthquakes take this next season with our new coach, Luchi Gonzalez. We also have the Women’s World Cup coming up with a bunch of preview shoots and games. I’m also back in the classroom teaching in person with a workshop in Yosemite in April. C

“Growing up in the Bay Area, you see so many people chasing their dreams, and it definitely inspires you.”

-John Todd

John Todd

Written by Katie Shiver

Photography by Avni Nijhawan Levy gatheringartisanscollective.com Instagram gatheringartisanscollective

Gathering Artisans Collective

Eating with Your Eyes

In 2020, COVID inspired the Green family, who were each working independently, to adapt and collaborate. James, a painter who’s been teaching art for over 20 years, got over his aversion to online teaching. Clarice, baking since she was a kid and selling cakes as an adult, tapped into her teaching skills from homeschooling their son, Jafar, to offer baking classes. Jafar’s musical talent gave way to teaching, and the three became the Gathering Artisans Collective (GAC). GAC offers recorded classes for self-paced learning, live virtual classes, and in-person classes for fine art, baking, and music.

James’s paintings decorate the walls of the Green home, including multiple Girl with a Pearl Earring–inspired works, for which Clarice was the subject. “She’s my pearl, I have a great prize,” he said about his wife. She laughed back at him, saying he would get an extra slice of her freshly baked blueberry grunt, her version of morning coffee cake.

It’s not hard to imagine that the two celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2022 and that they were high school sweethearts in the small town of Evansville, Indiana. They married at 19, after which James started working at an airline, which allowed them to travel around

the country. A few months after Jafar was born, the family moved to California for James’s job. Clarice worked days as a nurse, James worked swing shifts at the airline—alternating between work and staying home with Jafar. “Baking was always in there,” Clarice said of how she continued making cakes for her family and people at church.

Clarice quit nursing to homeschool Jafar. As Clarice taught Jafar, she learned how to teach. Additionally, she learned more about baking, reading books on the subject as she and Jafar spent hours at the library together. Then Clarice started making and selling cakes. At first, she focused on taste, until she realized, “It can’t just taste good, because people eat with their eyes. It’s got to look good.” James described how Clarice uses dark chocolate instead of flour to dust the pan for her milk chocolate pound cake. “So when you cut it open, you’ve got this light brown on the inside, but you’ve got this really dark edge on the outside. And for me as an artist, that contrast is just, ‘Wow.’ ” Clarice explained, “It just comes. That’s just the creativity that we all have…we just grow into it more and more.”

“Our son is a musician through and through,” Clarice said about Jafar. When he was about

seven or eight, he chose to go to a Stevie Wonder concert at Disneyland. Jafar took piano, guitar, and voice lessons growing up and excelled in plays. These days, Jafar is an avid vinyl collector, record buyer for a record store, co-host of the Def Perspective podcast, and guitar teacher.

James has drawn ever since he was a kid and started taking art classes at community college in 1990. He started teaching art part-time in 2002. His layoff in 2011 from the telecommunications company he was working at was the catalyst for him to pursue art full-time. After so many years of teaching across the Bay Area, James runs into former students, even across multiple generations, everywhere he goes. He teaches art from “conception to presentation,” meaning students learn how to frame their finished art. He most appreciates serious students because they push him. “I have to go take a class to learn something to come back and offer them something else.”

Clarice takes students from not knowing anything about baking to making their own cakes. She started baking as a little kid with her mom in the kitchen. To have enough Christmas cookies

for her and her four siblings and the rest of their family, they baked for two weeks straight, starting the day after Thanksgiving. Her mom wrapped the cookies nicely and hid the box from the kids, sometimes unsuccessfully. In her baking classes, Clarice starts with the basics, like what flour to use. Students choose what kind of cake and frosting they want to make. If she’s not familiar with something, she researches it and tries it out on lucky taste-testers James and Jafar. James said the Green family behind GAC are “lifetime students in a sense, learning but also learning people.” The more they learn, the more they can be creative resources for people.

“People don’t care how much you know, they want to know you care,” James said. He talked about vulnerability, being open to learning because everyone has something to teach. “I tell my students all the time, ‘I learned how to draw a perfect circle from a nine-year-old little girl’…and it works. It works for other nine-yearolds, it works for eighty-year-olds.”

Clarice eloquently summarized GAC with encouragement applicable to any creative: “there’s somebody that needs what you have.” C

Jafar Green

Clarice Green

James Green

CEO & Cofounder Kayla Dinh

The Gritty Backstory Behind San Jose’s

Girliest Café

KCafé KCafé KCafé

Some places have such big personalities that they almost seem alive. Take, for instance, stories such as Alice in Wonderland or Howl’s Moving Castle with settings so colorful that they become their own character. On rare occasions, you may find a location like those in real life. San Jose’s K-Café is absolutely one of them.

If K-Café Patisserie and Tea House were a person, it would be a hardcore girly girl—dressed to the nines with a fierce devotion to all things sparkly and pink. When a first-timer encounters it, there’s a noticeable doubletake. Almost reflexively, patrons’ phones pop out to document every last inch of the room’s blush pink furniture, glittery wall art, and, most importantly, the ceiling—a Sistine Chapel of ornamentation awash with silk flowers, gilded birdcages, golden branches, and no less than ten crystal chandeliers.

“When people walk in, they need to be wowed,” says owner Kayla Dinh, adding that the décor contrasts drastically with the aesthetic of the previous owners. “When we got this space, it was empty. Everything was gray colored so we painted the whole interior and exterior pink… I always wanted to have a really happy place.”

You might not guess it by looking at it, but despite the café’s charm and substantial female following, the shop was not an overnight success. K-Café has undergone significant obstacles in order to keep its doors open and become the thriving business you see today.

Written by Johanna Harlow | Photography by Eva Schwank kcafesj.com 923 South Bascom Avenue San Jose, California. 95128 Instagram kcafeteahouse

“When people walk in, they need to be wowed.”

-Kayla Dinh

The Shop’s Early Days

Seeking to bring a taste of Vietnam’s outdoor café culture to the Bay Area, Kayla opened K-Café’s doors back in December 2019. When the 2020 shelter-in-place mandate brought the world to a screeching halt just months after her café’s grand opening, Kayla found that her shop hadn’t been open long enough to qualify for government aid. After temporarily closing the café’s doors for six months, she reopened—only to close again when the smoke from the 2020 wildfires made Santa Clara County’s outdoor dining requirements unappealing to customers.

“We only had three people working here,” Kayla recalls. “All our employees left because they could see the business going down.” Fortuitously, K-Café’s owner has tenacity in spades (after all, she launched four successful businesses by the age of 30…and she did it without the support of her family, who thought she should find a more secure job). Determined to keep her new shop alive, she worked for free, eating tens of thousands of dollars in costs without any revenue potential.

On top of everything else, the storefront has been broken into on more than one occasion, with ransackers cutting the electricity and destroying equipment. “Not going to lie, we almost had to declare bankruptcy two years ago,” she says. “But we passed through. When we reopened at the beginning of 2021, people supported us.”

To make her comeback, Kayla worked tirelessly to expand the menu, doubling their list of offerings—from beverages like the brown sugar latte and honeydew milk tea, to fusion brunch items like the bacon benedict and almond amaretto cake.

She also introduced three-tiered trays, and guests jumped at the chance to layer them with petit desserts (alongside cherry blossom tea in delicate teapots). Complete high tea service is now available for private events.

Today’s Little Patch of Paradise

Today, Kayla watches over her patch of paradise with an air of satisfaction, savoring the lively atmosphere. Flocks of friends in floral dresses and lacey tank tops flow in and out. From time to time, their number is joined by a young couple, a dad with his little princess, or a cosplayer in a frilly Lolita costume.

In feast or famine, K-Café’s silk flowers keep this space effortlessly springtime. “It’s going to be happy all year,” Kayla says of her design choice, but adds that her arriving guests don’t necessarily have to be. “If you’re not happy, it doesn’t matter—you should come here too!” she invites.

Take her up on the offer. Come as you are and find a window seat underneath the floral canopy, or opt for a patio table out in the garden courtyard with the Greek statues. Because if San Jose’s girliest café could withstand its gritty underdog beginnings, all guests are more than welcome, no matter their season. C

Owner Andrew Saman

Written by David Valdespino Jr.

Photography by Stanley Olszewski

SamanAndrew

Keep in touch with Mama Kin

Under a red glow of curved neon, round club tables surround a platform stage framed by windows looking out into San Jose’s SoFA District. Music rises into the air, melding with savory smells of home cooking and revelry conjured by the serving of libations. The amalgam drifts out streetside, beckoning new and old patrons to come in and stay a while. A painting of American multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland-Kirk clings high on the wall near the second-floor mezzanine, looking over the rebirth of a locale once home to Cafe Stritch. The phoenix rising from the brick walls, copper-lined bar counter, and hearts of San Jose music lovers is Mama Kin, SoFA’s newest venue for live entertainment.

Mama Kin is the brainchild of owner Andrew Saman, whose values reflect hard work, family, and keeping music alive. The venue’s namesake is derived from a song entitled “Mama Kin” on Aerosmith’s 1972 self-titled album. When explaining the allusion in the venue’s name, Saman references an interview in which Steven Tyler describes the song’s hook, “keep in touch with Mama Kin,” as staying humble to the creative process that got you to where you are. Saman shares, “I think that concept creates a nurturing vibe here. I always hear from

customers how friendly the staff is. That’s not by accident.” During his career managing venues in the Bay Area—including Rockbar, the Continental Bar, Hawthorn, the Ritz, and Cafe Stritch—Saman has cultivated a team of friendly and hardworking individuals he views more like family than employees. He met his current business partner, Sam Becker, during his tenure at the Continental. Saman explains, “Sam was one of my first customers there. He saw how I worked, saw me get other venues up and running, and would say, ‘We should open a place someday.’ I had heard that kind of thing before, but this guy was serious.” After managing businesses for others with expected financial and visionary constraints, Saman now steers the ship at Mama Kin.

What separates Mama Kin from other venues is the variety of entertainment, Creole home-style cooking, and a menu of signature music-inspired drinks. Saman believes that “to be successful, you have to have the trifecta. You need food, drinks, and entertainment. If you have all three of those, people won’t have an excuse to leave; you can lock them in at the door, and they won’t be upset.”

When considering the location’s history as a jazz venue, Saman reflects, “There were many

people ready for this place to open. I made sure Thursdays were always dedicated to really good jazz. I am always trying to get the jazz heads to come here more regularly.” In addition to jazz, Saman takes inspiration from what notable venues in places like New York and Nashville have done before, mentioning, “I want to own a spot where people can come down knowing there will be cool music.”

He also hopes that Mama Kin can be a launching pad for local musicians. When describing the San Jose music scene, Saman observes, “There ain’t a lot like it. San Jose is flooded with outstanding artists. I always find new acts during the open mic on Tuesdays. I do a thing on Fridays and Saturdays called ‘play the break,’ where I have those acts perform during the headliners’ 30-minute break between sets.”

Saman’s love for music is deep. He spent his childhood on the move, from the Everglades outside of Miami to New Jersey, Orlando, London, and California, and recalls, “I was an only child, moved around a lot, and had a lot of quiet time as a kid, but I always had records. I remember reading the lyrics on record sleeves

-Andrew Saman

and feeling like they were saying things I didn’t know how to put into words.”

That love for music has driven his musical pursuits in bands such as Pushing the Sun and Royal Rebels, in his bachelor’s degree in applied science in sound, and now in creating a home for music in San Jose. Saman says, “Arts are our last grip on humanity. When people don’t know how to express themselves verbally, art becomes language, and having a house, home, or platform for that is vital. I have always wanted to run a music venue because it is about passion and love for music. I think that can be infectious, and I think that’s what people should expect when they come to Mama Kin. Get here early, grab a drink, and donate if you want, but support live music. I hope people understand that this is a tough industry and we are not some big corporation. We are a momand-pop operation trying to survive.” Saman credits his wife, Crystal, and children, Lyric and Winter, for motivating and inspiring his vision for Mama Kin and the future. C

“It is about passion and love for music. I think that can be infectious, and I think that’s what people should expect when they come to Mama Kin.”

SILICON VALLEY GAY MEN’S CHORUS

It was 1983, and the AIDS epidemic was still in its relatively early stages: hundreds of lives had been claimed in the US, those of gay men disproportionately so. Queer communities in cities around the world were filled with anxiety and fear around the virus and the lack of political action to take it on as their friends, families, and loved ones were suffering. With such pain and loss becoming an everyday reality, members of these communities began searching for outlets to offer hope. In this difficult climate,the

Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus was formed. (Originally called the Liedermann Gay Men’s Chorus of San Jose—the German word liedermann translates to “men of song.”) “Though the chorus was created with the purpose of gathering in song, it also became an important way for the queer community to come together and grieve, lift each other up, and overcome homophobia,” says Wilson Alexander Aguilar, a performing member and the organization’s current marketing director.

Founded as a nonprofit 10-person chorus, the group held its first performance in 1984 under the artistic direction of Robert Welton. They updated their name from the obscure German to its current incarnation the following year, and a South Bay institution was born. Through the years, the SVGMC has performed at San Jose Gay Pride celebrations, at Silicon Valley Pride flag-raisings, at sporting events, and more, while also showcasing seasonal performances at venues around the Bay.

Today, the group is helmed by Artistic Director Corey Liggans Miller, a longtime musician who grew up in Vacaville and studied music at CSU Fresno before getting a master of arts in music at San Jose State. He has performed in numerous musical theater productions, honing his performance chops and setting himself up for success with the chorus. He also works as the choir director at Raymond J. Fisher Middle School in Los Gatos, where he is able to pass along his passion for music to the next generation.

“I was looking for a musical outlet outside of work and found a new family in the chorus,” Miller recalls of his reason for joining. He began 2017 as a singer in the group’s performance of Oh the Places You’ll Go before taking on an assistant director role the following year and becoming artistic director in 2020.

Written by Nathan Zanon

Photography by Danielle Caryl svgmc.org Social Media svgmc

“Though the chorus was created with the purpose of gathering in song, it also became an important way for the queer community to come together and grieve, lift each other up, and overcome homophobia.”

–Wilson Alexander Aguilar Marketing Director

Miller’s story mirrors that of many members who bring a variety of musical backgrounds, having settled in the South Bay, working in many different industries, and whose desire to sing and perform brought them into the fold of the chorus. The organization has no full-time employees, only dedicated members with a passion for music and community. “I love the connection I have with my SVGMC family,” Miller says, “like in rehearsal or during a performance, when I experience the way in which a singer is moved beyond words and channels that emotion through singing, or when we have an opportunity to connect with the queer community at Silicon Valley Pride and with the greater South Bay Area community through our concerts.”

As part of their Rubyversary (40th Anniversary) Season, the group will host a drag show fundraiser in March; a spring concert, Bloom , in April that features music by some of Broadway’s LGBTQIA2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, asexual, two-spirit, and others) composers and lyricists; and conclude in June with Forty, a collection of favorite songs from over the years.

Last year saw a rebranding for the organization, with a new logo that is meant to open up the inclusiveness of the organization in several ways. “It’s fluid, by design, like our community and singers,” Aguilar explains. “Gone are the days of adhering to just the original colors of the rainbow pride flag. The letters in our logo meld into each other, weaving and sometimes morphing into the next. It visually represents how our organization and community are stronger together. The most significant design element is that the M in SVGMC’s logo is less whole. This purposeful hint is a nod at how SVGMC is no longer made up of just cisgender men. “[We are] proud to welcome anyone who can sing as a tenor, baritone, or bass, regardless of gender, sexuality, abledness, or ethnicity.”

With that thoughtful nod to the changing times and the promise of the future, the Silicon Valley Gay Men’s Chorus is continuing to do what the group has done for the past 40 years: uplift the community through joy, hope, and a sense that we’re all in this together—which we are, so why not sing some songs along the way? C

He’s Gotta Play Flute

Azeem Ward

“I started composing, and that really started to shift my mindset of music and being a creator in music, not just a person that plays what’s on the page.”

-Azeem Ward

Written by Nathan Zanon

azeemward.weebly.com Instagram azeemward

IN THE SPRING OF 2015, musician Azeem Ward opened up Facebook to learn he had quite unexpectedly gone viral. Ward, a music major in flute performance at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), discovered over a hundred-thousand people had RSVP’d to the senior recital event he had created on Facebook, transforming the small showcase for friends, family, and fellow musicians in the department into an international sensation—particularly in England.

“Someone decided to click ‘Attending’ in the UK, as a joke,” he recalls. “Then some of their friends thought that was funny and clicked ‘Attending’ too. Over the course of a week, there was a huge rush of people that clicked ‘Attending.’ ” The enormous numbers attached to his recital caught the attention of the internet, as well as the press—landing him a Buzzfeed article and a late-night TV interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Ward grew up in the East Bay and began playing music in fifth grade. He selected the flute for his music studies because, as he recalls, “It looked familiar; it looked easy…Lo and behold, it was not easy,” he sighs. So much so that as he progressed to middle school, he wanted to switch his musical focus to choir. But his dad had other ideas. “He said, ‘I bought the flute for you. So you’ve gotta play the flute.’ ”

It was the right decision, as Ward grew to love the instrument over the course of the next few years, enjoying being part of an ensemble and traveling places to perform. He expanded to

Photography by Peter Salcido

Azeem Ward

-Azeem Ward

“I’m called to be a teacher. Most of my time is nurturing these students. I’m like a gardener, planting seeds, investing in the future.”

more instruments, including clarinet and saxophone, then began taking courses and lessons in orchestral music in addition to band. Eventually, he decided that he wanted to study music and performance when he went to college.

But when he was accepted to the UCSB music program, he needed a better flute than the one his dad had bought him years prior. Music programs at this level require performance-quality instruments, but Ward simply didn’t have the money for a new one. “A professional flute can cost around $5,000 and up,” he explains. “In high school, I had played in the Oakland Youth Orchestra on scholarship, and the conductor vouched for me to the Oakland Symphony staff. So the staff fundraised over $6,000 at the symphony to get me a flute to go to college to play.”

In college, Ward’s musical growth continued. He won competitions and began exploring even deeper questions about what music could be for him. “I started composing, and that really started to shift my mindset of music and being a creator in music, not just a person that plays what’s on the page,” he shares.

When the fifteen minutes of fame surrounding his senior recital landed him an instant fan base across the pond, Ward decided to take advantage of the opportunity that had materialized for him. After his big recital, which was attended by far fewer than a hundred-thousand people, and graduation, he packed his bags to go on tour in the UK. “That caused a shift in my path to go to grad school,” he says. “I postponed for six months. But I was like, ‘Well, what am I gonna play? I’m not gonna play sonatas and concertos in the clubs.’ So, I teamed up with a [producer] named

DJ Underbelly, and we created a show that included hip-hop beats and R&B beats with flute to play at these various locations in the UK.”

This musical fusion has brought him to where he is today. He has continued his collaborations with DJ Underbelly, performing under the moniker Azeem X Underbelly; he has explored a performance style called flute beatbox, creating his own compositions and beats; he plays in the Oakland-based band Audiopharmacy; and he has also collaborated with a variety of other artists, both local and international, to create unique sounds. In 2021, he recorded an album, Definition of Love, under his own publishing company, S&B Music, and in 2023, he has another European tour planned with some of his collaborators.

In addition to performing and recording, Ward is a teacher at Milpitas Christian School in San Jose, where he is able to pass his love of music along to students in middle and elementary schools while also following his deeply held faith.

“It’s a lot,” he admits, speaking to his wide array of projects and pursuits. “I’m trying to hone in on what’s necessary. I know that I’m called to be a teacher. Most of my time is nurturing these students. I’m like a gardener, planting seeds, investing in the future.”

It has been quite a journey for Ward, but his easy manner and quiet sense of humor help him take it all in stride. He continues to explore musical styles, evolving as he goes and focusing on what he loves. Maybe, this hip-hop flautist will go viral again and the world will have another chance to discover the artist responsible for the world’s most famous senior flute recital. C

Raue

Written by Brandon Roos

Photography by Ngozi Harrison rauemusic.com

Instagram rauemusic

Paige Kalenian

Grounded in DIY savvy and true believers in music’s universal power to spread connection, teen duo Raue is proudly carrying the rock torch forward.

Jax Huckle

It’s become a popular post-set question for two-piece band Raue (pronounced roo-ay). How do they maintain such a full sound as a duo? Paige Kalenian lets me in on the band’s secret: both band members have triggers to play added parts on command. “You’ll still hear the bass, lead guitars, and piano parts when you see us live,” explains Kalenian, the group’s vocalist and guitarist. Kalenian credits fellow musical duo Twenty One Pilots as a key inspiration for maintaining their minimal lineup. “I enjoy that it catches people off guard a lot.”

Hailing from Santa Cruz, Raue is a teen-powered grunge band, featuring Kalenian, 18, and drummer Jax Huckle, 17. Raue, Kalenian’s middle name, translates to “rough” in German. It’s a fitting descriptor for the music they play: a re-imagining of various strands of the ’90s rock universe for a brand new generation. Expect dashes of punk rock ingenuity, grunge lyricism, and alternative rock crunch.

“When I see that you’re still nothing / I feel it in your lies / I’m waiting for you to come around,” sneers Kalenian on “Come Around,” from the group’s early 2022 EP, Erase and Rewind. Waves of distortion soften to muted chords only to return, emanating a continued journey of tension and release. “It was just me, Jax, my parents, and my uncle. We had three iPhones and a little fisheye attachment,” she recalls of the song’s video shoot. “That was my first time editing anything like that before. It gave me a really solid foundation for our social media, because I was able to do a lot more once I figured that out.”

Reading through the video’s YouTube comments, it’s clear their hard work is paying off. But there was a time when Raue almost cratered before even gaining steam.

In early November 2021, Kalenian had a falling out with a former band member two weeks before a showcase for their management. She needed someone to step in quickly because of the fifty-fifty split required to trigger all elements of their performance. Thankfully, after her mother put out a call at work (she works in pro audio), Kalenian met Huckle, a co-worker’s family friend. He quickly got to work and mastered the band’s live repertoire and mechanics. They’ve been a tight twosome ever since. “It was very obvious that he was the right fit for the band,” adds Kalenian. “He’s been playing drums for eight or nine years, but his passion for music has been there even longer.”

Kalenian thinks back to her own passionate musical history. She remembers struggling to play her father’s guitar when she was a child because her hands were too small to properly work the fretboard and vividly recalls when she first heard “Basket Case” by Green Day in middle school. She started writing the band’s lyrics all over her arms, wishing they were tattoos.

“They were the tipping point of my music career,” she says. She spoke with her parents about how she saw music as a career and not just a hobby; they took her words to heart and began homeschooling her. Huckle is homeschooled as well. It’s a dynamic that provides the band with the flexibility and focus to truly dive into charting their long-term musical path. With a practice schedule that includes six-hour sessions four days a week, their focus is clearly apparent.

Kalenian’s mother also helped Raue connect with Grammy Award–winning record producer Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Norah Jones, Modest Mouse), who manages the band and is executive producing their upcoming music. Their debut and follow-up EP were co-produced by Kalenian and Jack Shirley, best known for his acclaimed work with Deafheaven. In Shirley, Kalenian has found a producer who can ably translate her abstract thoughts into the proper sonic solution. King shares feedback on mixes but is always a resource more than a domineering voice. She maintains that she and Huckle control the band’s vision.

They’re preparing for a significant next step. Raue will help Volcom re-launch their entertainment division with a double single release in early 2023.

Rock may not be as potent as hip-hop with the masses stateside at the moment, but the sound is still very vibrant elsewhere. It’s an idea Kalenian knows all too well after developing friendships with fans from around the world. She remembers being stunned by their reach after she put out a message on social media for fans to join her on a call to wish Huckle a happy birthday. “I had to sit back and remember that none of these people know each other,” she recalls. “There’s people from Brazil, Italy, the United States, and Mexico. Everyone became friends, and that blew my mind. We’re super lucky to have such kind people as supporters and friends.” C

“I had to sit back and remember that none of these people know each other. There’s people from Brazil, Italy, the United States, and Mexico. Everyone became friends, and that blew my mind. We’re super lucky to have such kind people as supporters and friends.”-Paige Kalenian

PICKS ALBUM

Natalia Lafourcade

De Todas Las Flores

(Sony Music Mexico)

Release date: October 28, 2022

Written by Taran Escobar-Ausman

It has been seven years since Natalia Lafourcade’s last album of original material. During that time, she was nominated and won awards for various projects that explored and interpreted traditional songs from different regions in Mexico. The styles explored during that time heavily influenced her new album, De Todas Las Flores (Of All the Flowers), a gorgeous meditation on reconnecting with yourself after a deep and life-shifting romantic split.

Great albums always become greater than the sum of their parts and speak with their own grace and intention. Natalia has created such an album. The sequence and pacing unfold slowly like a flower blooming for the first time. Each song plays with the wonder of its own beauty, though with a melancholic understanding that all that lives must die. On the title track, a beautiful and subtle bolero, Natalia sings, “De todas las flores que sembramos / Sólo quedan unas encendidas (Of all the flowers we planted / Only a few are still in bloom).”

Mother nature is conjured and called upon to help reconstruct herself—to bring her back from the depths. She sings on “Llévame Viento,” a swirling, jazzy ballad with different movements, “Viento, llévame a donde . . . / . . .los pájaros canten y el agua me salve (Wind, carry me to where . . . / . . .the birds are singing and the water can save me).” Natalia becomes almost a shaman, manipulating the darkness so the listener can see the light. As she is reborn, she gives thanks to this darkness and the process of grieving. The poetic “Muerte” slowly burns with folkloric grace as she thanks Death for revealing her fortune and giving her life.

With everything recorded live on analog, the songs hum with an organic, intimate presence. You can hear every creak of the guitar body, fingers sliding up and down the strings, and the soft, felt hammer hitting the piano strings just before each note rings out. Once the needle hits the groove, you will experience something special and timeless.

Favorite track: “Pasan Los Dias” NATALIALAFOURCADE.COM.MX

The London Suede Autofiction (BMG UK)

Release date: September 16, 2022

Written by Taran Escobar-Ausman

After 30 years and eight albums, the London Suede continues to revitalize themselves by releasing one of their best albums since the iconic release of Dog Man Star in 1994. From the introductory sound of a guitar being plugged in, Autofiction hits you hard with an intensity and urgency that marks a turning point for a band considered beyond its prime.

The London Suede were born from a mash-up of glam rock, ’80s synth-pop, and a sprinkle of art rock. Autofiction harkens back to those early days by revisiting the raw, anguished majesty that defined their first three albums. Unlike their albums of old, however, the band has aimed for a more direct, live experience with Autofiction, as they recorded together as much as possible with few overdubs. Calling this their punk record, the London Suede appears to have left behind the theatrical grandeur of their last three albums. They approached this release with a fromthe-gut vivaciousness and honesty.

Lyrically, the album is ripe with nostalgia. In the opening track, “She Still Leads Me On,” lead vocalist, Brett Anderson, pays homage to his late mother, nearly yelling with pride, “But I loved her with my last breath / And I loved her with a love that was strong as death.” It is Anderson’s new vocal approach, with its unapologetic conviction, that gives their new sound a sense of youthfulness.

Always known for his soaring and blissful vocals, on this record, Anderson lets his voice crack and shred with wild abandon as he reaches for the lofty heights of choruses on various tracks. On the pulsating rocker “That Boy on the Stage,” Anderson switches between a sweet falsetto to a fierce snarl as he sings about how others have perceived his stage persona over the years.

After so many years in the business, the London Suede’s Autofiction comes as a bit of a surprise. Listeners will hear the sound of a band that makes them feel as if they have no choice but to start a garage band of their own.

Favorite track: “That Boy on the Stage” SUEDE.CO.UK

Curated by Needle to the Groove Instagram: needletothegrooverecords

Hayley Williams

Flowers for Vases/Descansos

(Atlantic Recording Corporation)

Release date: February 5, 2021

Written by Esther Young

Flowers for Vases/Descansos arrived when we still faced one another through masks, our expressions muted. Naturally, the artwork we invited into our homes reflected our changing moods. For those swimming in loss, songs borne of personal grief offered commiserative camaraderie.

Hayley Williams recorded this album alone in her Nashville home. This quieter set of songs belied the victorious tone of Petals for Armor, her solo debut. Where Petals built hooks and layered percussion, Flowers is sparse and spacious. There are no guitar solos, rhythmic breakdowns, or bridges. Instead, cleanly recorded strings and lower octaves of the piano support Hayley’s words, further spaced out by synthesizers.

All the instruments wrap around the integrity of the songwriter’s story. Though her solo debut exuded confident, believable strength, there was more to say and heal. In her own words, “You don’t just write a song and then you’re through with it.” For these bare-bones reflections, Williams settles her voice into a warm alto. It rests sonically in a small room, away from her signature crowd-pleasing belting range.

As the album concludes, lyrics fade to soundscape. The second-to-last track, “Descansos,” serves a moody palette via collage—introduced by the same instruments that began the story. Distant recordings of a past life meld into meandering hums—the flicker of a lighter, the sense of portraits burned away. Then, as the final piece in this twoalbum healing narrative, “Just a Lover,” builds through traditional rock elements reminiscent of Hayley’s career with Paramore: down-strummed guitars unroll the carpet for the toms and the last chorus as she sings, “No more music for the masses / One more hour / One more ugly, stillborn cry.”

Flowers for Vases/Descansos sets the scene for subtle contemplation to shine. After 16 years in the music business, Williams conveys her strength through deliberate simplicity. She sings in her fourth track, “It makes me feel like the pain had a purpose.” If Petals for Armor was the powerful breakup album to tour to, Flowers for Vases/Descansos unveiled the soggy soil from which that power bloomed—the kind from which honest art is made.

Favorite track: “Trigger”

STORE.HAYLEYWILLIAMS.COM

Roc Marciano

The Elephant Man’s Bones (ALC/Marci Enterprises)

Release date: August 26, 2022

Written by Demone Carter

The 2021 Super Bowl halftime show was a watershed moment for rap music, more specifically, the subgenre known as gangster rap. The West Coast titans of gangster rap, Dr. Dre, Snoop, and Kendrick Lamar, performed in what was to become a moment of grand synthesis. The music once known as an angry foil to mainstream America was situated at the center of pop culture. Amidst this modern era of corporate dog and pony shows, it can be difficult to remember that there was a time when gangster rap was edgier and more cutting-edge.

Of course, in the shadows of the mainstream, purveyors of the street arts have continued to innovate the form. Long Island–bred rapper and producer Roc Marciano has been perhaps the most innovative street poet of the last 10 years. His latest album, The Elephant Man’s Bones, a collaboration with Los Angeles-based super producer The Alchemist and released on ALC and Pimpire International Record labels, is both craft-forward and reminiscent of the early days when gangster rap had teeth.

The Elephant Man’s Bones is a dark, brooding album wherein Roc Marciano layers boasts, jabs, and doubleentendres with villainous ease. He has perfected a nonchalance that is on the livelier side of deadpan. “Your favorite rapper sends fan mail to me / your little LP ain’t worth 12 pennies,” begins Roc on the stellar track “Quantum Leap.”

Subject matter-wise, the album slides on a spectrum from emcee braggadocio to cold-hearted street narrative. The darkest moments come on the track “The Horns of Abraxas,” which features a stomach-churning story told by street rap pioneer Ice-T. Other gems from this album are “Daddy Kane” (featuring Action Bronson), “Bubble Bath,” and “Think Big.”

What makes The Elephant Man’s Bones a truly special record is the production from The Alchemist, who, it could be argued, is the most influential rap producer of the last 10 years. Like Dr. Dre at his peak, The Alchemist is not just providing beats but reshaping the sound of gangster rap as we know it. The Alchemist manages to create soundscapes that are rich and complex but, at the same time, spacious. In a year of great rap releases, The Elephant Man’s Bones stands apart.

Favorite track: “Quantum Leap” ROCMARCI.COM

CONTRIBUTORS

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Be a part of the CONTENT community.

Contact us at: Editor@content-magazine.com

CYNTIA

Cyntia is a commercial & food photographer from Panama, and based in Silicon Valley. She specializes in brand elevation services for businesses through compelling & visionary storytelling.

Instagram: cyntiaappsphotography

Jesse is a graphic design student at Sacramento State. He was born and raised in San Jose and has a passion for soccer and design.

Instagram: jessesgdesigns

Alex Knowbody is a Photographer + Creative Director from the East of San José. His goal is to bring authenticity through visuals to every project.

Instagram: alexknowbody

Eva is a beauty, fashion and advertising photographer/director based in San Jose. Eva is passionate about sustainability, diversity and radical inclusivity. She believes beauty is unique, diverse and imperfect.

Instagram: evaschwank

Priya is a writer, dancer, and co-founder of Mosaic America. Based in Silicon Valley, her work is informed by the innovative intersections between art, culture, and society.

Instagram: priyadasmosaic

COVER

This issue’s cover photography of Raue is by photographer Ngozi Harrison. See interview and more images on page 64.

Instagram: kingnegritude

KEVIN

Kevin is a freelance art director from the South Bay Area. He helps brands develop creative and impactful visual identities.

Instagram: kevin.peth

Danielle is a nationally recognized fashion, lifestyle and personal branding photographer. She specializes in portraits that showcase the character of her subject, with cinematic style, vibrant colors and authentic emotions.

daniellescamera.com/portfolio

APPS

JESSE GARCIA

EVA SCHWANK

PRIYA DAS

ALEX KNOWBODY

DANIELLE CARYL ROBINSON

PETH

artwork by Anastasiya Bachmanova

NEW GIN BAR @ AC MOFFETT PARK

150+ bottles of gin, sample gin cocktails through the ages, live music weekly. The AC Hotel Sunnyvale Moffett Park invites you to the new Gin Bar @ AC. You already knew you could stay-in-style, now you can connect to all things gin in your own backyard.

• BRAND NEW HOTEL

• OUTDOOR HEATED POOL

• TEN MINUTES FROM LEVI’S STADIUM

• EIGHT MILES FROM SJC

• ADJACENT TO TETRA HOTEL

Downtown Event Space with Stunning Rooftop Views

San José’s chic three-story venue offers breathtaking views for your next social event, photoshoot or business meeting

Blanco, an Urban Venue, is the Bay Area’s premier event space in historic downtown San José. This charming building was brilliantly transformed into a three-story, 8,000-square-foot venue by local real estate developer, Mike Messinger, and his wife, Interior Designer, Danielle Messinger. They cleverly maintained the allure of this historic building by refurbishing some of its original features, like its 150-year-old brick walls while adding modern elements with a stunning chandelier, rooftop fireplace and quaint bistro lighting.

The versatility of Blanco’s indoor and outdoor spaces work seamlessly for larger events, yet allow for smaller gatherings to feel cozy and connected. This blank canvas is a perfect venue for event planners looking to test the boundaries of experimental design, or change up the typical boardroom setting for business meetings. Blanco is conveniently located in the heart of the Silicon Valley near San José International Airport, hotels, restaurants and museums.

GET SOCIAL AT ONE OF DOWNTOWN SAN JOSÉ’S LARGEST

ENTERTAINMENT VENUES

SAN PEDRO SOCIAL CELEBRATES ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH A NEW COLLABORATION AND SLICE HOUSE

San Pedro Social has brought games, food, entertainment and fun to the heart of downtown San José since opening in March 2022. This two-story, 18,000-square-foot venue offers guests an experience with a four-lane bowling alley downstairs, full bar on each level, spacious outdoor patio, arcade games, karaoke and rotating DJs every weekend, making it the perfect place for your next party, corporate event or fun night out.

The venue kicks off its one-year anniversary with a new collaboration with Slice of Homage, a locally renowned pizzeria, to open a new Slice House offering lunch and late-night options, plus an exciting lineup of music and events in celebration.

Stay up to date with the latest events and announcements by following @sanpedrosocialsj on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok or visit sanpedrosocial.com .

REGENERATION

Explore ways to jumpstart new thinking about the path forward — for ourselves, our teams, and our communities — with author of The Art of Relevance and OF/BY/FOR ALL founder Nina Simon.

WHEN THURSDAY, APRIL 20

9:00AM - 2:00PM

WHERE

SCHOOL OF ARTS & CULTURE AT MEXICAN HERITAGE PLAZA

1700 ALUM ROCK AVE, SAN JOSE, CA