Montalvo, Author at Montalvo Arts Center • Page 2 of 13

A Path Forward

A Path Forward: Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit is a living monument and permanent pathway within Montalvo's 175-acre park, featuring an augmented reality (AR) experience created to honor Ohlone lands through shared ancestral wisdom, elevating local Ohlone voices and Indigenous knowledge while enlightening visitors about forest stewardship, land management, and environmental kinship in the natural ecosystems of Santa Clara County. A Path Forward is a partnership of the Santa Clara County Parks, the Confederation of Ohlone People, and Montalvo Arts Center. This work was made possible through a National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Award and the California Arts Council…

Inclusion: Points of Departure

By Lori Wood Around the table with theater maker Simón Adinia Hanukai on December 7th, we spoke about inclusion. Where can we even begin? We started with questions: How do we undo whiteness? How do we share blame? How do we find acceptance? How can humans protect one another’s human rights? How do we have the courage to take responsibility for our role in creating an open and accepting society? How do you circumvent/short-circuit the audience’s defenses in order to get them to be honest about their complicity? Artists and other participants around the table wrote their opening questions on…

Works by Inez Storer

Inez Storer is a storyteller. Her mixed media paintings allow viewers to enter her work as one might enter a story. Pulling from current events and her own personal history, she creates magical narratives that ultimately bend time. Her work draws from her expansive collection of treasured material for collage as she weaves fact with fiction. A self-described “scavenger,” Storer tucks away relics and clippings that catch her attention. She is always searching for unusual images depicting subjects ranging from the familiar to the political to add to her collection of objects. Her studio is idiosyncratically organized and contains storage…

Calling for Justice and Responding with Beauty

By Lori Wood On a cold day in December, composer Byron Au Yong welcomed our guests to a special dinner in the Lucas Artists Program (LAP) dining room as a conductor would orchestrate a choir—hand in the air, commanding. The guests fell silent, surprised. Then Au Yong started with a sound, one long tone that rose in volume as he handed it off to us, and we took it up and carried it as Au Yong introduced new musical lines, layer over layer, and conducted our untrained voices in an extemporaneous composition. For many of us, it was the first…

Floating Kīpuka

“To play is to be in the world. It is to be open to surprise, contingency, and improvisation—a critical skill for our combined future.“ - Christina Agapakis The Floating Kīpuka play kit aims to blend knowledge across time and cultures to create playful spaces for more voices in the discussion of just biofutures. It invites people to imagine new types of playful spaces of trust for collaboratively dreaming with biology with a focus on agricultural futures. The custom assembly pieces blend lab tools, organisms at scales, cultural legends, rituals of gratitude, and agricultural labor stories to bring culture and ethics…

Natsu Matsuri AR

Step into the enchanting world of Natsu Matsuri AR at the Plaza of Montalvo Arts Center—an immersive AR art project that pays homage to the vibrant Japanese summer festival season. Drawing inspiration from the rich traditions and joyous celebrations, this installation combines physical objects, evocative soundscapes, and augmented reality to offer visitors a multisensory experience that captures the essence of Natsu Matsuri (夏祭り). As visitors arrive at the plaza, they will be greeted by an Engawa bench—a traditional Japanese porch-like structure that beckons them to immerse themselves in the festivities. Accompanied by the gentle melodies of wind chimes, the interactive…

A Taste of Place: Golden Chanterelles

By Andrea Blum ( @myamericanpantry ), LAP Culinary Arts Fellow Photos: (left, middle) Wild golden chanterelle found on the Montalvo grounds; (right) Wood-oven roasted chanterelles No better ingredient represents the taste of place, or terroir, as the golden chanterelle that pops up near the Montalvo grounds. Some years, chanterelles are plentiful and some years nil. This year is somewhere in between, as the rains have been paltry and the weather warm compared to last winter's deluge. This wild, uncultivated fungi is found under oaks and bay trees, bursting through the duff of the forest floor. It also seems to…

ON THE MENU: Lamb Leg Brochettes

(Clockwise, back to front): Kalisolaite 'Uhila, Henry Threadgill, David Benoit, Andrea Blum, Dario Robleto, Danez Smith, Monica Sok CONVERSATIONS ON... Learning about musi c with Henry Threadgill Usui Khmer voices Monica The ethics of translation: Mohamed Choukri’s For Bread Alone Lori Cooking on mesquite Andrea Maggie Nelson’s Bl u e ts Lori Memorialized: Cambodia's Killing Fields Monica Wasting time well Ite Colonial thinking Dario What an artist can do with an endoscope Kio Mandarin oranges Andrea COOKED By Andrea Blum , Culinary Artist Tonight I used fire to cook the meal. I wanted a vegetable - centric meal.…

Montalvo Announces New Lucas Artist Fellows, 2023

Montalvo Arts Center’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program (LAP) is proud to announce the fellowships awarded from its California open call held earlier this year, the first open call held by the LAP in over ten years. Of 370 applicants, 65 artists—spanning careers from emerging to established—were awarded Lucas Artists Fellowships: 30 in the field of visual arts, 19 in literary arts, and 16 in music/composition and performing arts. Fellows will receive three months of residency time which can be used at their discretion over a three-year period, beginning in October of this year and extending through 2026. Since its…

ON THE MENU: Artists Eat Crab

CONVERSATIONS ON... The poetry of Shuntaro Tanikawa Kio Eating crab All For hours, conducting the ocean Ite Shall we visit Usui in Japan? Howard Orange trees dropping fruit in Montalvo’s Italianate garden Monica The film Jiro Dreams of Sushi Monica The sound of a beatless, mechanical heart Dario Humans often take over without sharing space with other living creatures Ite Renaming the Temple of Love: The Temple of Greed & Lust? Howard Cracking crab legs, everyone head down in crab All Adam and Eve are missing toes in the garden Monica Does love survive the death of cells? Dario Eating…

Author: Montalvo