fun-size bar

The San Jose Tech Museum is looking for yucky leftover Halloween candy. It can be traded for a yummy NESTLÉ CRUNCH fun-size bar, and 10% off admission through November 8.
The collected candy is being transformed into a rocket ship sculpture. What fun!

Whats new at The Tech

The 2009 World Fantasy Convention celebrates Edgar Allen Poe's bicentennial.

The 2009 World Fantasy Convention kicked off today at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose.

This isn’t the kind of fantasy convention where you can dress up like a hobbit or chase your friends around with a styrofoam pole-axe. It’s more a gathering of industry insiders, like authors, artists, and publishers, getting together to talk shop. In fact, if you haven’t already bought a (pricey) membership in the convention, you won’t even get in the door.

For those insiders, though, the convention holds 3 and a half days of panel discussions, presentations, and readings about the craft of making fantasy, as well as an art show and a dealer’s room. On Sunday afternoon, they’ll award the World Fantasy Awards for the best novel, best artist, and so on, in the field of fantastic literature (a list of nominees is found here).

Public events associated with the convention are few, but there will be over a dozen authors will be available for signings at Borderland Books in SF on Monday, November 2, at 6:30 pm.

Sharyn Chan Namnath and Andrea Johnston painted this chalk mural, sponsored by the 13th Street Cats rescue group.

Today the Luna Park Business Association hosted the second annual Luna Park Chalk Art Festival in Backesto Park. At least a couple of dozen artists got together to paint sidewalk murals with chalk and pastels. The artists ranged from chalk art festival circuit riders Wayne and Cheryl Renshaw and well-known local muralist Paul J. Gonzalez, to enthusiastic high school and elementary school artists.

Meanwhile, accordionist Mike Zampiceni and dancers from Movimiento Cosmic Aztec provided entertainment, and North 13th Street restaurants served refreshments. The event drew plenty of visitors, and there was always a crowd admiring each of the artworks.

The Renshaw’s work was particularly fascinating as they used computer image manipulation to create an image with proportions adjusted to look natural when foreshortened by viewing from an angle. Viewed from most directions the image is distorted and surreal, but viewed from directly below their soccer playing figures become surprisingly lifelike and almost seem to stand out from the sidewalk.

Soccer player mural by Wayne and Cheryl Renshaw

Each year San Jose’s Tapestry Arts Festival brings us some of the most interesting art around. Whether it’s *really* unique jackets (they are there every year!), gorgeous scenic photography, detailed illustrations, or handmade pieces using everyday household objects – the festival never disappoints.

My friends and I have gone each year for awhile now, walking up and down the isles making sure to stop by almost every booth. Every year I toy around with the idea of buying an illustration, miniature sculpture, or some wild piece of jewelry. What I enjoy the most is taking photos – my kind of art – of how I see the festival.

That and enjoying some warm, fresh made kettle corn. Nom, nom, nom.. mmm.

But arts and crafts are not the only things there. Music plays a big role at the festival, sometimes ranging from jazz to rock, to blues. With several stages throughout the festival there are simply too may acts to list here. Check out the festival’s lineup so you can be sure to catch your favorites.

But if you’re thinking it doesn’t sound any different from last year – then you’re wrong. This year there is an added event. Tapestry Arts presents the first annual Trash Art Fashion Show and Contest. “Think of it as Project Runway goes a little trashy.” So if you’re a fan of PR, a show where designers are given challenges to design clothing from sometimes unique materials, you may find this event fun to watch! The age group for the designers is 9 to 18 and they’ll be using trash and recycled materials to create wearable (they will be the models as well) art.

If you attend the festival please be sure to stop by our Flickr group and add any photos you may take of the event!

Details:
Tapestry Arts Festival
Downtown San Jose

Saturday 10 am – 6 pm
Sunday 10 am – 6 pm
Monday 10 am – 5 pm
All proceeds fund arts education programs in schools and arts outreach to the community

Trash Art Fashion Show and Contest
Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park
Sunday, September 6, at 12:45 pm

If you’ve got a camera, and you’ve got the time, and you want to hang out with a gaggle of other photographers capturing images from the heart of the heart of Silicon Valley, then you have to participate in the Worldwide Photo Walk in San Jose. I know I’m posting a little bit early for an event scheduled for July 18, but space is running out and you need to sign up soon to participate. And what a better way to go all image-geek than to start and end your walk at Adobe HQ in downtown San Jose.

It’s free to participate, but walks close after 50 members join. See the FAQ more info.

Oh yeah, and there are some very nice prizes involved, too.

Scott Kelby is the digital photography guru that launched the event that now has 912 locations around the world participating. This is the second annual event, and last year’s best-of photos were crazy good:

Suhaimi Abdullah, Singapore

Can you do better?

The second annual SubZERO Festival is landing in downtown San Jose and running straight through to midnight. According to their website, it’s a “DIY, artistically bent, hi/lo-techno-mashup where street meets geek.” Expect lots of live entertainment, music, 100 artists, street performers and all sorts of right-brained revelry. Check out the artists’ descriptions and see for yourself: it’s like a smaller scale, tragically hip version of Maker Faire. 

The event coincides with SoFA district’s regular South First Fridays, which has free admission for several little art galleries on the first Friday of every month. Ride the rickshaws from gallery to gallery and practice your art snob grimace just in case someone catches you actually enjoying yourself.

These are the things I’m looking forward to specifically:

• 24-hour Open Mic at MACLA, from 6 p.m. Friday to 6 p.m. Saturday. Local artists will be at the gallery, and international artists will perform via Skype.
• The Metro’s new photo exhibit/experiment. Every month a theme will appear in the Metro paper, and photographers of all skill levels are invited to submit their work. They’ll be shown during the First Fridays art walk, and the public can then vote on which ones get inside the publication.
• Live opera at the newish Caffe Trieste. Just checked this coffee shop out a few weeks ago and fell in love. I’m also a classical music geek deep down, so I can’t wait for Opera San Jose soloists to give a performance for significantly less than $50 a ticket.
• SLG Publishing’s ROBOTS! – Featuring robotic sculptures made from common household objects. (I’ve been a fan of SLG Comics for years. Hooray JTHM!)
• All these fellow SJSU students participating.

Rain Forecast
Evelyn Delgado

The downtown neighborhood of Naglee Park hosts its first artists’ open studios event on Sunday, June 7. Artists’ open studios are events where working artists in a specific area invite the public to visit their studios and see their work. Of course the artists will also sell their work. The Naglee Park Open Studios event is also meant to encourage a sense of community and promote the artist-friendly Naglee Park neighborhood, according to the event website.

More than a dozen artists in the Naglee Park neighborhood are participating. The artists work in media ranging from oil paints to felt, and there’s sure to be something interesting, no matter what your taste in art.

When: Sunday, June 7. 11:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Where: Various locations around Naglee Park. Pick up maps at House of Bagels or The Garage, both at 505 E San Carlos St., or download.

Cost: Free.

Dreaming
Alexandra Cunningham

Basket #1
Ted Fullwood

Amateur to professional artists young and not so young will be assigned areas of sidewalk to create their own chalk drawings for free; same-day registration at the event booths located along North Shattuck Avenue. Artist’s chalk is available for a fee. There will be a contest for the best drawing with a first prize of $250, judged after 4:00 pm.

Now, on to the real reason we are here, chocolate!

Select merchants (flying festival balloons) along North Shattuck Avenue, Vine Street, and Walnut Street will serve up classic chocolate treats like truffles (various types), dark chocolate sorbet, and ice cream to some very interesting items including chocolate chicken tikka kabob, Caribbean black bean chocolate soup, chocolate pizza w/ricotta, chocolate jalapeño gelato, and other joys. Check the chocolate to-go menu for items, locations, and times. Tickets are $10 for 10 tickets available at any of the registration sites; chocolate items are from 1 to 5 tickets each. Strolling around looking at the artwork, listening to music, and enjoying the day is free.

Vendors with chocolate-related items and hand made arts & crafts fill the Farmer’s Market area along with entertainment at various locations throughout the day.

This Business Directory Map has locations of area merchants, very handy.

Take BART to the Downtown Berkeley BART Station and walk north six blocks.

13th Annual Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival
Sidewalks along North Shattuck Ave., Berkeley

Saturday, May 30, 2009
10:00 am – 5:00 pm

510.548.5335

During this free event, you will view diverse one-of-a-kind works of art, including painting, mixed media, photography, sculpture, jewelry, calligraphy, ceramics, fiber arts, pottery, mosaics, metal work, glass, drawing, printmaking, watercolor, woodworking and more.

Silicon Valley artists open their studios to the public on select weekends in May by location. Please visit the artists/locations only on the appropriate weekend between 11:00 am and 5:00 pm.

Weekend One, May 2 – 3

East Palo Alto, Ladera, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Loyola, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara Sunnyvale

Weekend Two, May 9 – 10

Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Gatos, Milpitas, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, San Jose, Saratoga

Weekend Three, May 16 – 17

Atherton, Belmont, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, Woodside

The free Artist Directory and Map Guide have fabulous pullout maps that you can take with you. Locations to pick up a free copy here.

Silicon Valley Open Studios
Saturday and Sunday, the first three weekends in May
Please visit the artists/locations only on the appropriate weekend listed above.
11:00 am – 5:00 pm

A list of all artists with icons depicting their specialty here.

A crude search of artist and locations here.