SAVE THE DATE: August 11 - "Here & There" - Sam Rodriguez Mural Unveiling and Art Exhibit

Sam Rodriguez.jpg

Likening the murals to journalism, Artist Sam Rodriquez says, “When I think of murals, I think of outdoor books. This recent wall marks the first of many that I plan to do, which would depict the cultural landscape of San Jose through observations and interviews of its residents. This will result in pieces that could only be found in San Jose.” 

Rodriquez was assisted in the execution of the wall by community volunteers, which freed up Rodriquez to focus on the portraits and more technical aspects of the mural. “A lot of the people who helped out cared as much, if not more, about the painting than I did,” the artist says. “They held up the standards as I would for my own paintings.” Some of the youth involved in an intervention program (Teaching Adolescents Skills in the Community), who worked on the mural, came back after the mural was finished and proudly showed family members their work.

Friday, August 11 from 7:00-10:00pm, come celebrate the City of San Jose with the unveiling of its latest mural! Additionally, we will be featuring a solo exhibit of Sam's work within our gallery space!

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:
7:00 – 7:30pm: Mural viewing and artist talk at the wall located on Kiem Laundromat (8th & Empire Street, one block from E7S)

7:30-10:00pm Celebration and Art Exhibit at Empire Seven Studios, 525 N 7th Street, San Jose, CA

Blvd Bombs - Lowriders
Music by Akro1 & Ambitious Outsider
El Taco Loco food truck
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NOTE FROM E7S: 
Our original moving date was delayed and we are still actively pushing our Go Fund Me campaign as we will have to move this fall. Significant funds are still needed to maintain the E7S mission and secure a permanent artists’ space. Please help spread the word https://www.gofundme.com/save-empire-seven

 

Jtown Artwalk kicks off this Friday!

Stop by any of the listed participating spaces to pick up your walking map brochure!

A special thank you to:

NGNF for granting us funds to create this map for the Artwalk!
Rasteroids for working on the design and logistic elements!
Genevieve Santos for the cute characters she created!

New exhibit by Sam Rodriguez in SF's Mission District

So many San Jose locals went up to show their support last Saturday evening for "Typefaces: Caras de la Mision. A Visual Salute to La Mision" new works by Sam Rodriguez @samrodriguezartat the Juan R. Fuentes Gallery in SF's Mission District.

Phenomenal new work based on the portraits of the people, places and flavors of La Mision. Exhibit runs until July 28.

Afterwards, we walked around to see places/some murals of the Mission and eat delicious foods!

#SamRodriguez #Typefaces

New mural in Northside neighborhood of San Jose

.New Mural by @ohhpeeskee 15th st. & St. John, San Jose California, in collaboration with #EmpireSevenStudios @svcreates A total of 10 days to complete the mural. Four out of the 10 days, we worked with the youth to help teach them the process of making zines, the business of art and working together as a team to help us on this project.

"The idea of this mural is to tie in significant elements of San Jose’s innovative and rich history in agriculture and technology.

Working in the grocery industry, I’ve tooken a keen liking towards manufacturing labels, logos, fonts and characters. Through these likings I’ve chosen specific designs that intertwine the agriculture offerings most harvested in the San Jose region and the often overlooked art of produce packaging. With inspirations including typography and vibrant color ways I’ve incorporated American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, a historic icon to not only our community but to the farming industry all together.

The canvas of this mural holds a great deal in history itself. Temple Laundry was the original business before its vicinity became occupied by IBM , International Business Machines, most notable for its contributions to science, NASA, the U.S. government and the early rise of the tech industry.

All things considered, I hope this mural will serve as a positive memorial to the sacrifes made by leaders in the nations farming industry and innovators of the technological uprising. Iconic forces of opposite spectrums whose accomplishments from hard work and dedication still echo in our everyday lives." -Op

Photo by @keptabsorbed

D3 Decides! Cast in your votes! Deadline is May 31!

Participatory Budget will impact the community you live in. Ideas can stretch as far as building a bench in an area that needs it to even acquiring a community center for your location. The idea needs to be a permanent placement where it doesn’t need funding throughout the years. Need a stop sign? No problem! Need speed bumps to fight against fast drivers? You got it! This is the time where anyone mentioned in the requirements can vote. Your fellow neighbors have submitted what they believe is needed within the community. Now it is the time to take matters into your own hands and see what the possibilities can be.

You may ask yourself: “Why bother?, my vote doesn’t count?”, when in reality it certainly does! You have the option of picking 6 different ideas. Even though ideas were already submitted, it is within the power of the community as a whole that makes the final decisions of what is being implemented.

Vote now! http://d3decides.com/vote-2/

Murals along the Napa Valley Wine Train.....

We made a visit to Napa, CA this past weekend to check out the new murals curated by Thinkspace Gallery out of Culver City, CA.  Along the Napa Valley Wine Train, there’s a paved trail where these walls are located. It was really cool seeing joggers and cyclists gaze at the wall!

In order below:

Natalia Rak and Bezt @bezt_etam @nataliarakart

Cinta Vidal @cinta_vidal

Felipe Pantone @felipepantone

Curated by @thinkspace_art in collaboration with @radnapa

Joe Miller receives the SV Creates Laureate recognition!

Congrats to Joe Miller @joecompany for being selected as one of this year's, SVLaureates. This program through SVCreates, recognizes exceptional achievement in the arts and contribution to the cultural life of Silicon Valley. . Joe Miller was my typography professor at SJSU back in the 90's. Since then we've become friends and I couldn't be more proud of his many accomplishments as an phenomenal artist! . Photo from left to right: Mark Henderson co-founder of Art Party, Carlos Araujo of E7S and Joe Miller!

Eastridge Mall mural by Aaron De La Cruz

Here is a blog post Aaron De La Cruz recently posted about his experience painting his massive mural in San Jose's Eastridge Mall:
 

"I hope everyone is doing well. I’d like to update you all on what’s going on with my current and recent projects. Rather than sending one long newsletter, I’ll be sending two or three within the next two months. If all goes as planned, I will have a nice surprise ready for the last one.

With that being said, I will start off with my most recent project, completed this past March. It is my largest mural to date and is located at the Eastridge Mall on the southside of San Jose, CA. When this project first came to my attention, I initially had some hesitation as I wondered what the purpose would be for me to do a mural on a location where most people go to shop, and not to look at art.

But I remembered taking trips with my Grandmother to the Fulton Mall (located in Downtown Fresno, CA) back in the mid 1980’s. The exterior of the mall had a water feature that ran through the walkway, connecting all the stores. There were many large scale sculptures and water fountains throughout. At the time, I didn’t pay attention to the artwork I was being exposed to, but it did capture my attention.

What I’m trying to get at is, I recently found out that one of those sculptures was created by artist Pierre Auguste Renoir and is the only one in the world that the public can actually touch. Click here to see the sculpture. I liked the idea that this work of art that some would consider inaccessible, was placed where some people could care less about it. I then started to think about all of the large public art pieces I was exposed to as a youth and how I remember thinking, “How could a person create something of that scale with their hands?”.

I happily accepted the offer, and here is the result."

Eastridge Mall new murals

A couple weeks ago, 4 new murals were completed for the Eastridge Mall mural project. We went to visit the in progress of all the murals and had time to catch up with our friend, Aaron De La Cruz. Aaron, one of the participating artists created a massive mural on the AMC parking lot. On the last day of his mural, we helped him promote a scavenger hunt to find 3 prints he was giving away. We gave clues out within Eastridge Mall and people had to come and find the hidden print. It was fun and got people to visit the mall!

Brendan Monroe, Cyrcle and Lila Gemellos were the other amazing artists who created large scale murals throughout the mall exterior.

#eastridgemallmurals #sanjosemurals

Successful Community Bike Mural ride....

Sorry for the late post but wanted to share the success in the Community Mural Bike ride from a few weekends ago.

The 13+ mile ride visited and shared the history and significance of 15+ murals throughout San Jose’s Downtown, Japantown, Mayfair, East Side, and Gardner communities, sparking conversations about community building, art, and activism. We rode at a comfortable pace, taking advantage of calm streets to each location.

This independently-organized ride was inspired by Silicon Valley De-Bug’s “Debugging 100 Days,” a proactive response from San Jose and the South Bay to the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency in order to demonstrate unity against his hateful agenda.

We had a little over 200 people come support on this beautiful day! The Mercury News came along for the ride, took some photos and wrote a nice article about the event. Here is the link: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/04/san-jose-bike-riders-get-tour-of-city-murals-and-culture/

A special thank you to:

Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, the area's bike advocacy organization, who provided volunteers to assist with bike repair along the route.

Silicon Valley De-Bug, a media, organizing, and entrepreneurial collective that works with the community to carry out initiatives and campaigns that would help make San Jose a better place. Thank you for hosting this event!

Carlos Velazquez, is a proud San Jose native and one of the lead organizers of the ride. Carlos is the Outreach Manager for Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and alum of the Multicultural Artists Leadership Institute (MALI) in San José.  Thank you for taking the lead on making this a phenomenal event!

Los Angeles weekend....

This past weekend we flew to Long Beach thanks to the amazing direct cheap flights with JetBlue! We went to the LA Art Book Fair, checked out a couple art shows and enjoyed the great weather!

The had the pleasure to purchase some books and have the artists sign them! Persue, Ed Templeton, and Jeffrey Cheung...

There was an amazing Teen Angel exhibit that showcased a retrospective ofworks by David Holland...pretty epic!

Visited some galleries we've been meaning to check out: Greg Escalante Gallery, Slow Culture and the Artists Republic.

Got to spend some catching up time with Andrew Schoultz and hear of all his exciting 2017 projects!

Our good friend Opski, was a great host and took us to many great places to eat. His last recommendation was to check out the Long Beach Japanese Gardens (located at the Long Beach University)....it was beautiful and very inspirational!

"Justice for All?" at the Euphrat Museum of Art

Justice for All? features works that look at our collective history and the unconscious bias that impacts our systems and lives. The artists face injustice and its consequences and call for empathy to guide our actions and institutions.

Artists include the ASARO Collective, Beta, Joseph Delappe, Adrian Discipulo, Rodney Ewing, Tatyana Fazlalideh, Yolanda Guerra, Taro Hattori, Jamil Hellu, David Izu, Emiko Omori, Oree Originol, Samuel Rodriguez, Kirstina Sangsahachart, and Judy Shintani. Special projects with Marco Marquez's graphic design students and Jen Myhre's sociology students.

For more information, please visit https://www.deanza.edu/euphrat/inthemuseum.html

 

Powerful artist talk and panel at Guerrero Gallery

This past weekend, we visited Guerrero Gallery to see the new works for Dread Scott and hear his artist talk. Within the same evening, there was a artist panel interrogating the intersections of art, aesthetics and politics. This panel consisted of Matt Gonzalez, Patrick Martinez, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Dread Scott and Michele Pred. Moderated by Nicole Archer.

There is so much going on in this planet and if we can each make a difference within our lifetime, we will then have left a mark in this universe. We as artists have the ability to speak to people through our art and as gallery owners the ability to communicate/engage this to the public.

For more info, please visit http://guerrerogallery.com/

Four new art openings over the weekend in San Jose.....

Last weekend was full of new openings in San Jose, CA.

SpaceB SJ had it's large group show focused on the Valentine's theme. Regardless of the rain, they had many people come out to support their opening.

Friday night was the opening of 2 great shows. Abraham Menor "Agency" at Seeing Things Gallery and Dave Roseblade "It's Just a Phase" at The Arsenal.

The Arsenal made it's grand re-opening at their new location in Japantown.

Saturday evening Roan Victor had the opening of "Sanctuary" at Orange Moon Salon.

If you missed any of these openings, you have the month to still go check them out! Don't miss out...everything from photography, collages, paintings and more

LA to Tijuana to Long Beach......

It's been awhile since I did a blog entry but better late than never. A few weeks ago, we took a very short trip down south.

First we headed to LA to check out the LA Art Fair. Saw some familiar faces and work of many talented artists. It was interesting to see what types of works were being showcased from paintings, photography, sculpture, and performance art.

We walked to cross the border into Tijuana to visit a long time friend and artist who has been living there for about 4 years now. Many people have a perception of Tijuana but it's not like it used to be. This is a place where there is a growth in the art and culinary worlds. We were able to try some of the delicious foods from creative chefs out there. We spent time with Neto Soza talking about building and creating something artistically. Stay tuned!

Last stop was Long Beach, CA. We visited another friend/artist as he drove us around Long Beach and made a few stops into Compton and Watts. What people don't know is these neighborhoods have some good mom and pop shops as well as some artistic public art to enjoy!

Until next time! :)