A space where everyone has equitable access to resources, technology, and media distribution platforms.
A space to celebrate the stories and culture of San José through dialogue, storytelling, and engagement.
A space that is in-person as well as online, where people can come together to learn, inform, and connect.
Designed with flexibility in mind, spaces at Open San José are fully equipped with technology and can be customized to meet your unique needs. Whether you’re planning an in-person or a hybrid event, we’ve got you covered.
ISSUE 15.3
“Perform”
Summer 2023
Cultivator
Daniel Garcia
Producer
David E. Valdespino Jr.
Editors
Elizabeth Sullivan, Grace Olivieri
Katherine Hypes, Virginia Graham
Samantha Peth, Katie Shiver
Esther Young, David Ngo
Danae Stahlnecker
Writers
Michelle Rundowitz, Katie Shiver
Ethan Gregory Dodge, Brandon Roos
Esther Young , Nathan Zanon, Demone Carter, Chris Jalufka
Taran Escobar-Ausman, Priya Das
Alyssarhaye Graciano, Shelly Novo
Troy Ewers
Photographers
Stan Olszewski, Gl-o, Jay Aguilar
Avni Nijhawan, Alex Knowbody
Cyntia Apps, Arabela Espinoza
Stephanie Barajas, Leopoldo Macaya
Sannie Celeridad
Publisher SVCREATES
I am excited to present our Summer 2023 Issue, our 63rd print edition, Perform 15.3, because it is our annual issue highlighting the Content Emerging Artist Awards. It is a great honor, as SVCreates, to not only support South Bay artists with trainings and grant opportunities—but also to present this award focusing on emerging artists and funded by the County of Santa Clara to provide unrestricted resources to develop these emerging artists’ practices further. This year’s recipients are Actor/Rapper Davied Morales, Writer/Poet Keana Aguila Labra, and photographer/educator Dan Fenstermacher. Congratulations!
In addition, this annual “Perform” issue allows us to move beyond our beloved visual arts to the performing arts, with profiles of dancer Alyssa Aguilar and founder and artistic director of Simorgh Dance Collective, Farima Berenji. Also, as a football (soccer) fan, I am happy to highlight a creative player of the beautiful game, seventeen-year-old rising San Jose Earthquake, Niko Tsakiris. Whether we are aspiring actors, painters, dancers, or footballers, we all perform creative activities that express who we are. Meeting these creatives in this issue will inspire you to become their supporters and for you to go and create. And if you are reluctant to start, I am sure the program at West Valley College could be the place for you to learn and grow in your current field or to explore a new direction!
Thank you for reading and supporting the creative community with us.
Enjoy,
Daniel Garcia The CultivatorNiko Tsakiris | Leslie Lewis Sigler| FRVR Records | Carlos Pérez
To participate in CONTENT MAGAZINE: daniel@content-magazine.com
Membership & sponsorship information available by contacting david@content-magazine.com
PERFORM 15.3
Summer 2023
San Jose, California Est. 2012
ART & DESIGN
8 Cilker School of Art & Design
Chancellor Bradley Davis
14 Artist and Educator
Mitra Fabian
18 West Valley College Student Profiles, Iris Zimmerman
Nyr Acuavera
Onna Keller
24 Tattoo Artist, Sefa Samatua
28 Artist, Renée Hamilton-McNealy
32 Artist, “Mr. Fúchila,” Rubén Darío Villa
36 Designer, Carlos Pérez
42 Painter, Leslie Lewis Sigler
50 Content Emerging Artists 2023, Davied Morales, AKA Activepoet Dan Fenstermacher
Keana Aguila Labra
PERFORM
64 Dancer, Alyssa “Ms. Mambo” Aguilar
68 San Jose Earthquake, Niko Tsakiris
72 Scholar and Dance Ethnologist, Farima Berenji
76 ShaKa Brewing, Shawn & Rika Ellis
80 FRVR Records, Aldin Metovic, Brevin Rowand, & Vanessa Vindell
84 Singer/Rapper, Ervin Wilson
88 Punk Guitarist, Mike Huguenor
92 Album Picks, Needle to the Groove
94 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
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West Valley College leads the charge in bold innovation that reimagines the community college experience. The institution’s belief in developing dynamic and well-rounded students culminates in a first-of-its-kind Visual Arts Complex, part of Chancellor Bradley Davis’s vision for the future, designed by TLCD Architecture and Mark Savagnero Associates. The complex aims to reshape its location on campus into a vital hub for the arts.
The Visual Arts Complex, scheduled to open in the spring of 2023, will contain five art studios hosting specialized instruction in painting, digital media, sculpture, and ceramics, with facilities that include state-of-the-art computer labs, lecture halls, and drawing studios, in addition to metal, woodworking, and machine shops, a welding facility, and an outdoor bronze foundry.
The Cilker School of Art and Design offers a comprehensive curriculum of courses on various topics that accommodate students with diverse goals and experience levels. The faculty facilitates a supportive, creative learning environment where all students may explore their interests.
The following articles capture a cross-section of those responsible for making West Valley a world-class community college with an innovative art and design program. Read about three current students of the Cilker School of Art and Design, professor and art department chair Mitra Fabian’s career as an artist and educator, and Chancellor of the West Valley Community College District Bradley Davis’ vision to provide students with top-tier educational opportunities while enriching the culture of the region. C
westvalley.edu/schools/art-design
Instagram wvccilkersoad
Introduction by David E. Valdespino Jr.
“The arts are a vital part of a well-rounded education.”
-Bradley Davis
IN THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, West Valley College has introduced a variety of bold initiatives aimed at expanding the student and public experience with the popular community college in Saratoga. The school has opened new visual and performing arts centers, part of a focus on creating a world-class arts program—the first of its kind at the community college level—bringing in high-level educators and providing rehearsal rooms, a dance studio, a recording studio, space for ceramics, painting, printmaking, and sculpture, as well as a gallery for student and faculty exhibitions.
It’s all part of the vision of Bradley Davis, chancellor of the West Valley-Mission Community College District, who hopes to make West Valley not only a community college, but an important piece of an entire integrated experience that incorporates residents living in the surrounding cities and neighborhoods as well as local organizations, nonprofits, and businesses.
“The arts are a vital part of a well-rounded education,” Davis explains of the new art facilities. “They provide students with the opportunity to express themselves creatively, think critically, and develop important skills like teamwork and problem solving.” As such, he says, investing in the arts is essential to providing students with a high-quality education. “Providing our students with top-notch facilities is essential to their success, and it’s worth the investment.”
A new art building has been added to the Cilker School of Art and Design, which already features state-of-the-art facilities thanks to Davis’s push to grow the arts programs at the school. “The building just comes alive with the student work every day. Sometimes, when I’m having a bad day, I like to just stroll through and check out the latest iteration of student sculpture, student painting, or student digital music. It’s just really uplifting to me.”
Written by Nathan Zanon Photography by Daniel Garcia westvalley.edu Instagram westvalleycollegeHe also notes that the facilities are open to the community, providing a space for performances and exhibitions that will enrich the cultural life of the region. Already host to one of the largest farmers’ markets in the area, the school has also been working on creating a beautiful, inviting campus with walking paths and a park-like feel. “The facilities we’ve opened at West Valley College are not just for our students, they’re for the community as a whole. We encourage neighbors to come, walk their dogs, use our tennis and pickleball courts, and be part of the fabric of the
“The facilities we’ve opened at West Valley College are not just for our students, they’re for the community as a whole. We encourage neighbors to come, walk their dogs, use our tennis and pickleball courts, and be part of the fabric of the West Valley community.”
-Bradley Davis
West Valley community.” We believe that we can accomplish more by working together with our community partners,” he adds. “By collaborating with local businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies, we can provide our students with valuable experiences and help them succeed in the workforce.”
“Community colleges have doubled down on their efforts to increase equity,” he says, “to eliminate barriers that affect students from socioeconomically vulnerable groups, to be more thoughtful about DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility], and to really be meticulous in our desire to root out racism that can prevent students from succeeding in their educational dreams.” The hope is to continue to expand this access: a bill working through the state senate would give the district the ability to provide free tuition to every resident, regardless of age or economic status. “It’s about breaking down barriers and providing access to education.”
The new programs have already had a positive impact on the college, including an increase in enrollment in the arts programs. “Students are excited about the opportunities they have here, and they’re taking advantage of them,” Davis says, also noting that the state-of-the-art facilities have helped to attract and retain talented faculty.
The needs of the students have shifted quickly since the pandemic and the expansion of online learning, and West Valley has worked to adjust their offerings to match the modern demands of enrollees. “Students now have the advantage of choosing to take any class at any college in the Bay Area from the relative comfort of their living room,” Davis says. “That has taught us that we need to continue our reputation for excellent teaching by transitioning [to] an online format. It has also taught us that students will vote with their feet if you’re not offering classes at the right time and in the right modality. They will simply enroll online at the college down the street. So, we’ve taken extra care to be responsive, and our faculty have been exemplary in answering that call to retool coursework.”
This dedication to providing high-quality education with modern facilities while also meeting students where they are in their educational needs, the school’s emphasis on the arts in an increasingly STEM-focused world, and the recognition of the value of being an open resource for all local residents combine to put West Valley on the cutting edge of what a community college model can look like. But to Davis, all of these decisions make simple financial sense, too. “Investing in education is an investment in our future,” he says. “The more community members we have on campus, the more we think are likely to enroll in our courses and really experience the magic that goes on in the classroom.” C
Born in Iran and raised in Boston, Mitra Fabian’s passion for art began at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. It was there that she took a sculpture class, which she describes as a turning point in her life. “That’s when everything clicked, and I realized, ‘Oh! This is what I can’t live without doing!’ ” she recalls. That spark pushed her into the world of art for good. She graduated with an art degree and moved to Los Angeles to try to start a career. “I quickly realized how difficult it is to maintain a studio practice and get anywhere in the art world. That’s when I decided to go back to school,” Fabian explains. She went on to earn her MFA at California State University, Northridge, where she also discovered a love for teaching.
Today, Fabian’s career is dedicated to both passions. She has had success as a sculptor and installation artist, including shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose
and the Centre d’Art Marnay in France, has shown in galleries and museums across the country, and has been featured in several magazines. In 2021, she was commissioned to create five pieces for Google—large resistor “drawings” that now reside in one of their campus buildings.
“It was an incredibly challenging but exciting job,” she says of the Google project. “I felt it was a significant milestone because it required serious focus, dedication, and professionalism. It also felt great to earn that chunk of money.”
In addition to her art, Fabian is an experienced sculpture and ceramics teacher. She began her educational career at Sacramento City College before moving to the Bay Area to teach at West Valley College in Saratoga. Currently, she serves as the chair of the art department. “I think I got really lucky with my teaching career,” she says with earnest modesty. “A year out of grad school I got a
full-time, tenure-track position at Sacramento City College and was there for seven years. Then I got the position at West Valley and have been here ever since.”
Fabian’s teaching philosophy leans into the idea of artists as outsiders. She encourages them to embrace their creativity and find new ways to envision the world. “I really try to tap into their weird,” she says.
“I’m pretty strict about foundational things, but then I really encourage them to take chances and forge their own ways.”
Fabian believes that there are many opportunities for artists in unexpected places, particularly in the Bay Area, and that art plays a critical role in many different professions, from engineering to business and beyond. “Art makes people more dynamic thinkers and problem-solvers in whatever career field they choose,” she says.
“I believe the biggest opportunities might be in the arena of 3D printing and other digital tech -
nologies: we are already seeing how this technology is being put to incredible uses in the medical and architectural fields.”
The shift in learning styles and expectations post-COVID has been one of the biggest challenges of her educational career.
“My goal as chair has been [to ensure] good and fair communication with my colleagues, as well as looking out for the best interest of our department and students,” she says. “This was especially tough during COVID.
I think the greatest hurdles we face revolve around a postCOVID world in which many students are trying to regain a sense of normalcy. The ripple effects of mental and financial difficulties, as well as a gen -
eral decline in enrollment, are still reverberating, and for who knows how long?”
Despite the challenges, the college and her department have exciting opportunities ahead, including a new visual arts building for the Cilker School of Art and Design. “It’s been a project long in the making!” Fabian exclaims. “We will have new ceramics, sculpture, painting, digital, animation, and drawing classrooms, as well as a new gallery. The new building is a beautiful state-of-the art facility. Students will experience bright, clean rooms with new technology and equipment and great instructors. Our goal with this new facility is a private art school experience at an afford -
able community college.”
And while her role at West Valley is significant, she continues to find time to devote to her own art. Currently, she’s working on new pieces that will be featured at New Museum Los Gatos next fall. Staying creative herself mirrors the approach she takes to fostering artistic inspiration within the students in her classrooms. “In a world where we are constantly being asked to conform to certain standards and students are spoon-fed answers, I find that they discover genius when they can let go, get curious, fill their brains with wonderful stuff, experiment, make mistakes, and then make something good.” C
Iris Zimmerman
Iris Zimmerman is no stranger to adversity. Born in El Salvador, she watched her family struggle to immigrate to the US and start life in the Bay Area with literally nothing. Hard work allowed them to stay, and Iris became a wife, mother, and successful businesswoman in one of the most affluent areas of the world. Iris has always been drawn to the creative. She became a hairstylist and recently retired from an impressive 25-plus year career, learning, teaching, and creating modern looks. Now as a returning student, she is working on her psychology and studio arts degree. Her work with portraits complements her psychology major by teaching her to see all sides of a person and help them and the world see their true beauty. She hopes her work will teach people how vital it is to love themselves and how challenging it can be. Instagram: zimmersnaps
Nyr Acuavera
Nyr Acuavera, born on April 17, 2002, is a Filipino fashion student at West Valley College. Immigrating to the United States at a young age, Acuavera experienced social isolation from his peers as a result of his personal identity. To flee from the troubles of reality, he turned to escapism in the form of clothing, a theme woven into the breadth of his work.
“I’ve found relief in using fashion as my armor,” Nyr states, “impenetrable by judgment, and unchangeable by others. It’s the truest form of my inner self.” His work contains a broad scope of references, ranging from ancient Roman literature to early 2010s internet culture. Still early in his career, Nyr Acuavera will be part of West Valley’s graduating class of 2023, aiming to transfer into a menswear design program. He hopes to open a menswear label one day, showcasing Filipino talent on the world stage. Instagram: notnyr
Onna Keller
Onna Keller moved to California from Thailand after finishing her PhD in demography from Chulalongkorn University. Prior to this, she earned a master of public administration and a bachelor of education degrees. In fall of 2020, she enrolled in landscape architecture courses at West Valley College, which captivated her interest as a new pursuit. Her first classes were architecturally focused, though, and she fell in love with this fascinating field, deciding to double major in architecture and landscape architecture. This natural fusion is embodied in her holistic designs, which have rich connections between indoor and outdoor spaces and constructs while also fueling her passion for sustainable design. Onna has taken classes in other fields also and continues to do so, since she believes that inspiring ideas are all around us. She will be graduating this spring and plans to apply for internships and a master of architecture program. Instagram: onna.keller
Hypnotized by the dark shapes tattooed just above the knee of his grandfather, a fouror five year-old Sefa Samatua sat discreetly with a brown paper bag and crayon. He and his cousins had spent the day picking fruit in the orchards of the Valley of the Heart’s Delight. As they always did at the end of those days, they had just finished massaging Grandfather’s legs. It was the only time Samatua could clearly see the subject of his childhood obsession: his grandfather’s Pe’a. Consisting of small dots, dark lines, and stark geometric shapes, the Pe’a tattoo traditionally spans from the mid-back to the knees. Receiving a Pe’a is an ancient rite of passage in Samoan culture, and it typically remains hidden out of respect.
Samatua could hear the television droning in the background as his cousins played and grandfather rested. But play and rest were the last things on his mind, as the Pe’a sat audaciously exposed below the ruffled hem of Grandfather’s lavalava. Samatua slid the tip of the crayon across the paper bag and began to copy the mesmerizing figures.
Now, nearly 50 years later, Samatua puts a modern spin on those same shapes and has made a name for himself as a prolific tattooist in the process. “There’s maybe five patterns that you see that everyone has on their body that does tribal,” Samatua says. “I would see [those] patterns and then I would see the flames on these guys in the gym. I wanted to put our patterns into that,” he explains.
Following one of the key tenets of tribal tattooing, Samatua believes strongly in the importance of following his subject’s muscle structure. To achieve this, little to no design work is done before the client’s arrival. Samatua free hands every tattoo with a marker directly onto each client’s skin. He explains, “It’s like Tetris. You don’t know what’s coming until you see it. Well, I don’t know until you sit down and the block is right in front of me.”
Samatua differentiates his style by constructing his own “blocks” with unique twists on traditional tribal patterns. “You look at the spear,” he says, referring to the term for a triangular shape. He continues, “Zoom in on it, and ask ‘How do I change this in 10 different ways?’ ”
The result is what Samatua has coined as “Kava Flow,” or unique variations of traditional tribal shapes following the form of each client’s body. Samatua claims he cannot replicate his tattoo designs on paper. “I can’t draw it. It just comes naturally. It’s one line at a time for me and it’s got to have flow.”
When Samatua began elementary school, he barely spoke any English. A rambunctious and talkative kid, his teachers often disciplined him by telling him to sit in the corner. To Samatua’s delight, there were often paper and crayons in those corners. He recalls, “I thank the teachers that sent me there, which was probably every teacher that I had from first to fourth grade. I was drawing tribal the whole time.”
Fast forward about 30 years; Samatua is mar-
ried and a father. Humble Beginnings Tattoo, a tattoo shop on San Jose’s Alameda, began to make a name for itself in the world of tribal tattooing. Orly Locquiao, the shop’s owner, encouraged Samatua to pursue the craft he was passionate about.
“He gave me a machine. He gave me a few pointers. And I just went from there,” Samatua recalls. He began tattooing people where so many other artists get their start, in his garage. His clients would lay on cinder blocks with a pillow as he tattooed them with his daughter by his side. Soon, Samatua quit his nine-to-five and joined Locquiao at Humble Beginnings.
The root of Samatua’s inspiration traces back to that fateful summer examining his grandfather’s Pe’a. The first time his grandfather noticed Samatua eyeing the body art, he covered it to prevent Samatua from seeing it. But that didn’t stop Samatua.
“When he’d sleep, I would lift his shirt
up a little bit so I could see his stomach,” he shares. “Then he would turn sometimes on the side or on his stomach and I would see the back. The inside is the best part,” Samatua says, recalling the insides of Grandfather’s thighs. He continues, “It’s where the teeth are. It’s all black and all you see are these spikes. That’s what I love. That’s where I got all the elements, from his body.”
Eventually, Grandfather empathized with his grandson’s curiosity and began to deliberately pull up his lavalava and allow Samatua to draw. “It was like suffocating …and then finally, you could breathe,” Samatua explains. “That’s what it felt like. All this weight came off my shoulders trying to draw this,” he describes.
In 2016, the artist moved from Humble Beginnings to Japantown’s State of Grace. Fifteen years into his career, Samatua has never looked back. C
“I can’t draw it. It just comes naturally. It’s one line at a time for me and it’s got to have flow.”
-Sefa Samatua
A canvas cannot hold artist Renée HamiltonMcNealy’s story. She is ever growing and leaning into the twists and turns of her life. Like the lines she paints on the bodies of her models, she is graceful with the changes in direction, using both hands and tools to tell her story and stay true to her values.
Entering Renee Hamilton-McNealy’s studio is like entering her soul—each corner mindfully decorated to reflect her love for depth, dimension, and skill. One corner is covered in faux greenery from floor to ceiling. Hanging within the greens are marbled abstract paintings— black and white acrylic paint dripping from the wood panels, pops of yellow and orange bursting in between. A half-painted mural reading “The body is the canvas”—pencil outlining thick bubble letters—is positioned next to them. Another corner features framed photographs of feminine figures covered in fluorescent paint, glowing under UV blacklight. “Fine art body painting is my skill, it’s my thing.” She says. “My acrylic works are reflections of my soul, how I work on my inner self to honor that little girl that loved going to museums.”
Renée, a member of Visual Philosophy artist studios, created all of this artwork herself. Though originally from South Florida, Renée knows California, specifically, San Jose is where she is supposed to be: “There’s no other place that I want to live. San Jose is full of creative, authentic artists with great attitudes. I love being
surrounded by them and the mixture of cultures throughout the Bay Area.”
The daughter of Jamaican immigrants and one of eight children, Renée is shaped by her upbringing. She declares, “I’m driven by my values, my family values. My parents were entrepreneurs in their own ways but always took the time to care for us. My dad always reminds me to help those who you can.” Her winding path to art began when she picked up her father’s paintbrush at the age of seven; she knew she was going to be an artist. However, instead of pursuing art, Renée excelled in the ranks of military leadership, accruing 24 years in the Army Reserves, half of which were active duty. Her roles spanned from finance manager to budget analyst, and eventually she became a command sergeant major through the NCO Leadership Center of Excellence academy. Her time in the military provided structure and mentorship.
While she appreciated her time in the military as both a mentor and mentee, Renée knew it was only part of her journey, that she would make her way back to that initial dream of being an artist. A financial coach told Renée, “Not every good thing is a ‘God’ thing for your life, especially if it takes you away from your calling, your purpose, your passion.”
Throughout her professional life, she volunteered to help wounded warriors transition from active duty to civilian life and assisted homeless women veterans find homes. She has pursued
“I think we should all remember to give ourselves credit and grace for getting as far as we have, however we have and at the end of the day, just paint.”
-Renée Hamilton-McNealy
three degrees, including business administration, financial services, and most recently, museum studies through a Harvard Extension program. “I didn’t abandon myself; I came back to what my spirit was telling me,” she says. “I never lost sight of who I truly was at my core. I learned how to serve, while still honoring my values and my truth, making the time for my art along the way.”
One of Renée’s artistic pursuits began when she was living in Atlanta, Georgia, as a makeup artist working on weddings, photoshoots, and fashion shows. She eventually picked up the art of airbrushing despite being resistant at first. “My father was a painter, and he always pushed me to use my hands. He’d say, ‘You can’t always use manmade things; they break.’ I trained myself to be ambidextrous, to use my hands to their full capacity,” she explains. “With my fine art now, I choose the tool or technique that will help me tell the story in that moment.” Renée has continued her 11-year career as a licensed beauty esthetician through body painting. Her experience as a makeup artist provided Renée opportunities to paint the human body, assisting other makeup artists and developing her portfolio along the way. Even when Reneé went through personal struggles, she still showed up for jobs, creating some of her best work. “One of my personal values I’ve stayed rooted in is that I’m going to show up for what I commit myself to.”
“We have the permission to define who we are in our life and redefine our path. My name, Renée, means reborn. In order to be born again, parts of you die, but that doesn’t mean it is no longer a part of you. It’s about moving into your next chapter and honoring the last. It is never too late to start that next chapter.”
When she isn’t painting, Renée volunteers for her nonprofit sorority Delta Sigma Theta’s local alumnae chapter to serve communities around the world. She also enjoys helping local artists paint murals throughout San Jose. “I can honor my values of self-reflection and discipline while staying in my truth. Those values really helped to carry me to be able to do what I’m doing now. I think we should all remember to give ourselves credit and grace for getting as far as we have, however we have and at the end of the day, just paint.” C
The benefit of loving your hometown is that if you close your eyes, you can see it in any season. It imprints itself onto you. Artist Rubén Darío Villa can see his hometown of Gilroy clear as day. Through his art he speaks of his culture, his home, and the history he lives with. His art tells the story of growing up in the Bay Area as a first-generation Chicano.
Like a lot of designers, Villa reached the pinnacle of success early in his career. His first major job out of Santa Clara University was as a designer at Apple. Years later, he transitioned to a similar position at Google. After a decade-plus tenure in tech, Villa was let go during the pandemic. As a husband and father of two, Villa recounted, “It had, for me, a beautiful awakening of what I called my year of cleanse and curate. Let go of things. You begin to be very particular about what you bring back into your life. It started with the four of us, my family. What else could make this better? The beauty of the yin and yang of the pandemic.”
During his time at Google, Villa took on the volunteer role of global brand lead for Google’s Latinx employee resource group, HOLA. Inspired by his experience there, Villa curated the event Sin Miedo (fearless), Google’s first all-Latinx art exhibit. Villa scheduled the event to coincide with Hispanic Heritage Month, with the intent of highlighting the ocean of Latinx talent tucked away in the Googleplex.
Written by Chris Jalufka Photography by Daniel Garcia mrfuchila.com Instagram mr.fuchilaThis was in 2017, at the dawn of Trump’s presidency, when his harsh rhetoric towards Mexico was at its zenith. Talking heads across the media landscape were occupied with fact checking and proselytizing the then-president’s accusations that Mexico was sending criminals, rapists, and drugs into the country. Sin Miedo would let the Latinx community voice their truth and experience. To further the concept, Villa constructed an outdoor gallery of fences, explaining, “There’s a good neighbor fence and a bad neighbor fence. And the bad neighbor fence is the one where the other neighbor doesn’t want to pitch in to build a new fence between your properties. The
one that pays for the fence puts the wood planks on their side so it’s beautiful. You don’t see the post and then you leave the other side completely open. That’s the bad neighbor fence. If you help pay for it together, both sides look nice. We’re being a bad neighbor to Mexico right now.”
The exhibit also acted as the unveiling of Villa’s personal art piece, Frida 4587. The unveiling of the portrait—crafted from 4,587 pieces of candy-covered Chiclet gum—coincided with Frida Kahlo’s 110th birthday. The piece made the rounds across social media and was lauded by major outlets like HuffPost, Pop Sugar, and Yahoo! News.
Villa was a ceaseless voice for the Latinx community while ensconced in the tech world—but that is an industry he has no plans on returning to. “I learned all the lessons God needed me to learn,” Villa goes on to explain, “The culture at Apple had me thinking that there was something wrong with me. I thought that the way Apple did things was the norm. It was my first big job after college. I just thought, ‘This is how it has to be.’ What I realize now is that I’m a big picture person, and I just didn’t fit the secretive, need-to-know work environment. And although I found a better home at Google years later, I don’t think I would ever go back to tech.” Once free of the constraints inherent in multinational conglomerates, Villa went on to fully represent that community that means so much to him in his art and his line of Mexican-themed air fresheners, Fúchila Fresheners.
Fúchila, slang for “smelly” in Spanish, takes the novelty car air freshener and instills it with a collective history, the nostal -
gia found in the Latinx community. Villa opened shop on Fúchila Fresheners in 2015 with six original designs: Frida Kahlo, Pancho Villa, Blue Demon, Cantinflas, Selena Quintanilla, and a sugar skull. Over the years, there have been over 100 different designs, with Villa dipping further into the iconography and nostalgia of his youth. Villa named this pool of inspiration “Chicanostalgia,” the experience of Western pop culture as lived by the Chicano community.
In the background of all this, Villa was also a board member at youth services organization Digital NEST, an advisor on the San Jose Public Arts Advisory Council, and was recently elected commissioner on Gilroy’s Arts and Culture Commission. These roles are as vital as the design and branding work. In March of 2023, Villa opened the doors on his latest venture, Fúchilandia. Based out of the non-profit 6th Street Studios and Art Center in downtown Gilroy, Fúchilandia will not only be Villa’s home base for design work but will act as the final resting place of Fúchila Fresheners, which is slowly being phased out. “Fúchila Fresheners was never really about air fresheners. It was about feeling seen in even the smallest of products, about honing my craft, about inviting other artists to join me, and about activating the community in ways that amplify our humanity. The fact that the air freshener production has slowed is only an indicator of my cleanse and curate ethos,” he says.
As the final stock of Fúchila Fresheners runs out, Fúchilandia is just getting started. Joining Villa on his new project hangs Frida 4587 , his visual signpost looking to the future from the past. C
“The culture at Apple had me thinking that there was something wrong with me. I thought that the way Apple did things was the norm. It was my first big job after college. I just thought, ‘This is how it has to be.’ What I realize now is that I’m a big picture person, and I just didn’t fit the secretive, needto-know work environment. And although I found a better home at Google years later, I don’t think I would ever go back to tech.”
-Rubén Darío Villa
French curves. Oval templates. An epigraph pen. Mylar. These are a few of the tools that Carlos Pérez used to freehand the symbol that, fifty years later, is widely recognized today.
He drew three renderings based on the concept by his colleague, Rob Janoff. Playing on “byte,” the measure word for data storage units, they added a leaf that fit right into the bite taken out of the apple. The drawing followed the golden rule principle, in which all circles fit into one another. “That sold him,” Carlos laughs as he recalls Steve Job’s approval of the pun. Carlos then sized it up by hand so that the entrepreneur could use this new logo to present the world’s first personal computer.
literature that guided early Apple II users through its wide range of functions.
“When I walked in the door,” he says of his first days at Regis McKenna, “I felt intimidated. But I had earned being there.” Carlos stayed until 1980, the year he launched his own design company, Carlos Pérez Design Inc. (later changed to Art Origins). He was only in his twenties. “I had the energy; I loved what I was doing. Working at night or on the weekends was just extra money.” With the support of his mentor Frank Rodriguez, who had contacts in Palo Alto that Carlos pitched to, he built his own clientele.
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The world moved fast for Carlos Pérez, who had not even completed his college units when he was tapped by Regis McKenna, the agency managing Apple’s ad campaign. Carlos had recently moved from Stockton for SJSU’s fine arts and graphic design program. His portfolio won him a prestigious apprenticeship through the Western Arts Director’s Club, an honor reserved for the top three students. After his apprenticeship ended, Regis McKenna hired him as an art director.
From time to time, Steve Jobs strolled into their office as Carlos’s team followed the Apple II 1977 launch with the release of the first Apple magazine. Carlos designed the layout, setting a blueprint for the
While running his business in a downtown San Jose office, he continued taking classes at SJSU to further his technical skills. In 1985, he was commissioned to create the Premio Estrella de Oro, a trophy awarded to Mexican musicians such as José José. “This one was scheduled to go to Laura León, but she never picked it up,” he says of the bronze and marble sculpture that sits heavy in the hands.
This project opened more opportunities, including Cinequest’s Maverick Spirit and Visionary awards and the Norman Mineta Wall of Recognition for the San Jose airport. One can also trace the cultural history of San Jose through his graphic designs. His logos for the Chicanx theater company Teatro Visión, the Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Mexican Heritage Plaza all reflect
The world moved fast for a young artist who never stopped believing in himself.
his fondness for vivid colors and textures.
These projects echo the narrative Carlos has been spearheading since he arrived in San Jose: “The place that has the most creative talent is right here in Silicon Valley.” And this belief fuels him toward his next goal, which is to write a book that spotlights his own story among other creatives who contributed to the Valley’s success. From there, he hopes to land an agent that will draw multiple investors to his art so he can launch a traveling exhibition. “I would like that exhibition to go to Mexico City where I was born, to Guadalajara where I grew up, and then to the border, Tijuana.” The next stop would be San Diego, “because those were my stomping grounds before I came over to the US. The fence, at one time, was only just a stupid cyclone fence.”
As the world moved from electronic to digital and carved out new borders between its people, Carlos was fortunate to crest those waves. When he was a child in Mexico, his aunts poured into his artistic nur-
turement—they brought him to Tía Lola. “I knew who she was—the master teacher of the town, who also happened to be an artist.” Tía Lola taught him to paint, draw, and cut. “I got into it and just took off. I even ended up making a costume of a monkey that I fitted myself, and she was impressed,” he remembers.
When they moved to the US, his mother managed to obtain green cards for all three of them—herself, Carlos, and his older brother. Citizenship allowed the brothers to smoothly pursue their education. Today, his digitized artwork pays homage to the earthy, rugged textures from the Jalisco town he grew up in.
“I came at a time when I was like a pioneer myself,” he reflects. Even as a boy, he embraced the novel lure of technology. “When I arrived in downtown Stockton, it felt like Gotham City to me. And of course, I didn’t speak a word of English. Everybody sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown.” But, he could still be somebody heroic.
“Dick Tracy,” he says with a
OPPOSITE PAGE Top: Apple Logo circa 1977 Middle: City of San José, Office of Cultural Affairs Logo Bottom: Mexican Heritage Plaza Logo
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big grin. “I would have a hat, a little bow tie, and a little coat.” Under his coat he tucked a toy holster. And on his wrist, he strapped on the two-way radio. Through the plastic communicator, he spoke to imaginary squad cars as he strolled through the streets in his getup. “Carlitos!” the barber would greet him as he walked by. “Come in here, I’ll give you a haircut.” And when Carlitos took off his jacket, his barber would see the holster and announce, “Dick Tracy!”
More than 50 years later, childish delight twinkles in his eyes as he describes the memory that brought him back to this street. “I got a call from a gallery in Stockton. It was Nikki Smith…I couldn’t believe it.” The granddaughter of activist Dolores Huerta was inviting him to exhibit a solo show at the Mexican Heritage Center and Gallery of Stockton.
Of the plethora of certificates and recognitions that fill his home studio in Willow Glen, Carlos reminisces on this invitation with tenderness.
“Because, directly across the street from the gallery” stood the Clark Hotel. In 1960 when he arrived with his mom and older brother, they stayed in one of its rooms. In those days, “I used to go and work in the
fields to help my mother with putting clothes on my back.”
One day, his eighth-grade teacher, Mr. Schmitty, asked the class if anyone wanted to volunteer and learn to silk screen some posters. “I was the first one to raise my hand,” Carlos remembers. “So Saturday morning, we show up, seven o’clock…we walk in there and there’s a sea of tables...” Across the tables laid picket signs— ones that were later used in the United Farm Workers protests through the late 60s. “I got a chance to silk screen one of the original signs,” Carlos shares.
The early investment poured into him as a budding artist inspires his work today mentoring younger artists. He plans to exhibit his students’ work at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, where he is credited as a co-founder. Right beside the gallery, his mural Artistic Mestizaje is featured on the exterior wall. Directly across it, a tiled ceramic plaque—one of his designs—bears a poem penned by his son David Pérez (Santa Clara Poet Laureate 2014-2016).
This group exhibition, just one of many he curates, reflects his hope for the arts in Silicon Valley—that funding sources will continue to create pathways for the pioneers that chase their dreams in San Jose. C
Tony Moralez | Carman Gaines
Color) | Bertrand “Patron”
| Andy René Tran | Benjamin
Brandon Quintanilla|
Elizabeth Moreno | Keenan Jones
Leslie Lewis Sigler sees old things not as useless, but as beautiful and rich, with a deep history. On her shelves: a rotary phone circa the 1950s or 1960s, a genuine tintype maternity photo of Leslie pregnant with her first child, a 1949 penny candy machine restored by her husband’s uncle, a typewriter from an assemblage artist she traded one of her paintings for. She loves to admire the way her two sons, ages six and eight, and their friends interact with curiosity at such heavy, old things that are no longer commonly used today. She hopes her art inspires viewers to think differently about the things they already have.
Leslie’s portraits of silver antique tableware are informed by the silver’s function, form, and condition. Each piece was created for very specific-use cases: berry spoon, ice cream fork, jelly spoon, butter knife with an offset spatula side, tomato fork, macaroni spoon, fish fork, olive fork. A piece with filigree around the edge seems very fanciful and
proper to Leslie. A piece may be polished, have a patina, or be tarnished, which might suggest a rough or well-used life.
“As I’m painting these objects, I’m thinking about what kind of person they would be,” she says of her naming conventions. The Crush is her painting of a silver creamer where the position of the handle, to Leslie, suggests a hand on the hip. “Sometimes I’ll paint the same object over and over, with different reflections, and they take on different personalities,” she says. Her painting of the same creamer with darker reflections she named
The Skeptic
She started painting silver in 2011. During her off time as a graphic designer, she initially painted portraits of single tableware: forks, spoons, and serving utensils. In 2020, the isolation Leslie felt during the COVID lockdown was echoed in her paintings, so she began grouping objects together. Topiles of silver necks and odd couples leaning on each other affectionately, she added companionship and warm paint
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tones to balance the cold silver. Recently, she’s been painting copper pieces, which she sees as more whimsical, so in her paintings she plays with perspective, expanding the abstract element and making it harder to tell what the painting is of, such as zooming in on the bird’s eye view of a Jell-O mold so that it looks like a flower.
The use cases for copper were hyper-specific, often decorative or as a form for cake or Jell-O. To Leslie, the copper molds are a metaphor for what she is currently going through in her midlife: where before, she and her husband were growing up within their parents’ structures, now, they have become caretakers, or the “molds,” for their children as well as for their aging parents. In addition to the size (with the increasingly larger sizes, such as 40 x 40 and 60 x 60, being cumbersome to move and store on the heavy composite panel), the most daunting thing about the newest large copper pieces is the complexity, requiring her to mix the colors separately for the copper’s kalei-
doscope reflections. “Which,” she explains, “is exciting to me, but the actual execution is sometimes very hard. But I like a challenge.”
The first step in her process is sourcing. Initially, her subjects were gifted or inherited silver, like the mismatched forks from her husband’s eccentric godmother that Leslie wondered if she would ever use. Now she either browses Etsy, antique fairs, or stores locally and while traveling, and she borrows from friends and family. Followers of her work on Instagram send her pieces that she photographs and returns. Not all pieces—like the texture of an etched pie server or hammered silver—will translate into good paintings, which she has become adept at recognizing right away.
Leslie then photographs a chosen object at least fifty times in different lighting, with different backgrounds to get a good composition and a good reflection for a painting. “I’m painting these very traditional, old objects, but I’m painting them in a very contemporary way,” she explains of how the
ABOVE The Vessel, 2023
Oil on wood panel, 60x60 inches
OPPOSITE PAGE
The Woolgatherers, 2022
Oil on panel, 16x12 inches
The Peacemaker, 2023 Oil on panel, 40x40 inches
texture of composite panel; her crisp edges and light, simple backgrounds; simple shadows; and the reflections she emphasizes as “tiny, abstract moments” bring contrast and complement such true-to-life representational art. They are all true reflections—she doesn’t manufacture them in her paintings, but she does manipulate and create the reflection by what she’s wearing, or a colored object she’s holding up. “Some of it’s chance,” she says as she points to the greens in one painting as a reflection of the trees and leaves outside her kitchen window. The flesh-colored reflections are unintentional, distorted self-portraits present in all her work. “I can tell where I am in each one,” she explains.
After selecting her photograph(s), she draws, does a full underpainting of all one color, layers on the background, and finally paints the subject in color. Each color application requires at least an hour of mixing oil and paints. She gets more excited about a painting than she did in the beginning because the colors come out more vibrantly in oil; she comes to love the painting even more as she spends more time with it and it becomes a different object.
Leslie’s grandmother gave her a silver spoon as a birthday gift during college, as she did with all her kids and grandkids. A couple years later, a domed butter dish—a huge sphere on a pedestal with a tiny little place for butter inside. Always with a note about what the item was for and where and when her grandmother found it. Each time, Leslie was grateful, but, as could be expected, didn’t appreciate the gesture until she was older. As time went on, Leslie realized what an influence her late grandmother, someone who was always very supportive, was
for her. “I think as you age as a parent, too, you kind of realize how much of your parents and grandparents you are, or how much of them is in you,” she says. “So, it becomes more and more special to realize that the sweet little innocent gifts she gave me have become such a big part of my life and my career and my inspiration.” Before her grandmother died in 2018, she came to one of Leslie’s shows. Despite the fragility of being late in life, her grandmother always wanted to be there, and at the show her grandmother was her same fancy self, in a prim matching outfit.
Along with silver, her grandmother’s joy in hosting holiday dinners is another of Leslie’s heirlooms. Leslie has made a point to continue the tradition of getting out the silver for holiday meals—a tradition from her Texan family that she has brought to California. She admires these “things that literally passed through families over generations and generations,” she says, “because silver just sticks around. It’s so special, it’s associated with gathering families or gathering people.”
Leslie’s now on silver utensil portrait #250, despite offshoots into other material subjects like silver platters and copper. “Sometimes I think, ‘Am I ever going get bored with silver?’ But then I think about how exciting the subtle changes have been to me,” she muses—like the de-emphasis on shadows, how the colors have changed from moody to more contemporary backgrounds. Besides, could one ever get bored with a cherished memory? C
Emerging: newly created or noticed and growing in strength or popularity.
SV CREATES is thrilled to announce the recipients of the 2023 CONTENT Emerging Artist Award, which recognizes the vibrancy and impact of earlycareer artists working in all disciplines across visual, performing, and literary arts. This award continues
SV CREATES commitment to building the capacity and raising the voices of the artists and creatives in our local community. The 2023 CONTENT Emerging Artist Award has been granted to three artists working with diverse communities and a range of mediums, taking risks and embracing challenges. Each is committed to their practice, works intentionally to share their vision, and is rigorous in their approach to creation and production. We are honored that they call Santa Clara County home and contribute through their work to the rich and vibrant fabric of our region.
Written by David E. Valdespino Jr.Photography by Daniel
GarciaIn an unassuming suburban garage in South San Jose, a music studio is tucked in parallel to a parked car, storage totes, and hanging bicycles. Often, you can find a poet getting active in the studio, chipping away at refining his craft, hoping to carve Corinthian columns from a career in acting and music. This creative headquarters is home to Davied Morales, AKA Activepoet.
Davied Morales is a San Jose–born actor and rapper who has worked for numerous Bay Area theater companies, appeared in television shows, commercials, and various short films, and amassed tens of thousands of followers across social media. The COVID-19 pandemic allowed Davied to focus on the “why” behind his work. He explains, “I was able to learn more about the business and understand why I want to do this work. I want to inspire people who look like me, and let people know that they can do it too.”
Raised by a single mother after his father’s untimely passing, Davied had to grow up quickly at a young age. He notes, “I know what a bad day looks like. I always try to be extra positive because I know life’s hard.” His work’s light-hearted joy and humor can be traced back to the shows he watched as a kid. He observes, “Shows like Kenan and Kel were huge for me. They represented a space for being goofy on TV. I loved it because there wasn’t as much violence or the huge political problems you see in our community. We’re always getting killed on TV. We can be anything we want, so why can’t people of color just have friends and tell cool stories about what we can do?”
Along with manifesting positivity through his craft, Davied also works as an improv facilitator for San Jose’s Red Ladder Theatre Company, a social justice company with whom he leads
“Everyone deserves to be creative. Creativity is a fundamental truth for all of us. We say in our work that fish swim, birds fly, and human beings create. That’s what we do.”
– Davied Morales
workshops for men and women experiencing incarceration. When talking about his work in California prisons, Davied adds, “Everyone deserves to be creative. Creativity is a fundamental truth for all of us. We say in our work that fish swim, birds fly, and human beings create. That’s what we do. The best feedback we’ve received was from an attendee who said that for two hours, it felt like they weren’t in prison. I want our participants to know they’re still in touch with their childhood selves. There are bright spots in this world, and I want them to see that.” Moving forward, Davied is developing a catalog of music and content focused on sustainable production and consistency that fans of his work can rely on. The work he puts in now is meant to create an infrastructure that will support more extensive projects in the future. You can follow Activepoet on all platforms for valuable information, a behind-the-scenes look at the industry, and something to make you laugh. Davied Morales continues to prioritize art in his life and wants to make art a priority in the Bay Area. C
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Awheat pasted poster on a San Francisco sidewalk may be commonplace for 99 percent of passersby. For photographer Dan Fenstermacher, the details caught his eye from across the street: an ambiguous lower body clothed in shorts and walking shoes—leg tattoos exposed—standing on a trail with marketing copy that read “on the path to zero impact.” Dan also noticed a burly, shirtless man thirty feet away walking towards the poster; he had patchy body hair on his chest that shared an uncanny resemblance to a smiley face. Dan hurried across the street to catch the convergence of the two. The photo he captured juxtaposes a hipster on a hike with a shirtless man on a city street—both of whom are uniquely getting in touch with nature—and puts a humorous spin on the sustainability marketing technique of showing people experiencing the outdoors. The composition plays with body level, placing the lower body on the poster in line with the man’s upper half. While any similarity between those two figures could be viewed as an abstract coincidence, Dan sees potential in layering and capturing dissimilar details with eye-catching composition to create something new, authentic, and often funny.
Dan Fenstermacher is a burgeoning photographer with internationally recognized work. He’s also a professor and chair of the West Valley College photography program, a contributor to The San Francisco Standard, and a volunteer photographer for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Dan’s projects blend street photography and photojournalism with clever juxtaposition; his photos are most known for their vibrant colors, use of flash, and humorous composition.
Originally from Seattle, Washington, Dan obtained a bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Idaho before
moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in marketing. While there, he realized that advertising has less to do with creative ad concepts and more with market research, data analysis, and spreadsheets. Dan recalls, “I hated it. I started taking photography classes at night through a local community college while doing those advertising jobs. I had a roommate at the time who went off to Korea to teach English, so I figured I could do the same thing.” Dan went on to use his community college photo credits to teach fine art in China, aided by student translators. Later, he enrolled in a graduate photography program at San Jose State University.
Dan’s photography is rooted in detail and captures reality at the core of often misunderstood situations. “I have always been an observer,” he says. “I tend to notice things that most people wouldn’t consider. I like to combine street photography with journalistic documentary themes.” Each of Dan’s projects captures a range of topics and manages to juxtapose conception with reality. His project documenting seniors in Costa Rica contrasts American society’s fear of aging with the joy and experience seen on the faces of the elderly. His “Streets to the Dirt” project documents Black cowboys in Richmond, California, and shows that cowboys are not just White men in movies. Dan continues to broaden his photo expeditions, explaining that “traveling makes me feel alive. When you experience a new culture, it’s like getting to experience life again for the first time.” Dan’s career as a photography professor allows him to embrace his passion while surrounded by inspiring up-and-coming student artists. Dan aligns his trips with his school schedule and plans to travel to Guadalajara, Mexico, to document mariachi culture. His next goal is to produce his first self-published photo book. C
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“Traveling makes me feel alive. When you experience a new culture, it’s like getting to experience life again for the first time.”
– Dan Fenstermacher
Ashoulder-hung tote swings in the mid-morning air as Keana Aguila Labra approaches a sanctuary of creative inspiration. Depending on the day, that sanctuary may be a cafe, a public garden, or a library. Wrapped in the canvas tote are tools for building historical foundations and deconstructing generational curses. Along with writing instruments to translate pain and promise into poetry and prose, you may find books written by authors such as Victoria Chang, Therese Estacion, or Janice Lobo Sapigao—literary figures outside the canon of white literature sharing stories with which Keana can relate.
Keana wears many hats and explains, “I see myself mostly as a poet, writer, editor, and creative. I am also co-director of the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate program and co-founder of Sampaguita Press, an independent publishing house.” Keana’s work focuses on sharing cultural, historical, or personal knowledge to foster representation and safe spaces for readers and creatives unseen in society’s cultural hierarchy.
Keana is a Cebuana Tagalog Fil-Am poet, and writer in diaspora. Her parents, who immigrated from the Philippines, wanted a better life for their children in the form of Americanization and careers in science. Interested in creativity and ancestral roots, familial friction fueled Keana’s interest in developing forms of self-expression. “My mother can be my biggest role model and enemy at the same time. I hope she sees I am breaking generational curses,” she shares. “I empathize with my mother a lot. The trauma of immigrating alone when she was 15 is her gen-
erational curse. Poetry is a vessel to work through the things I couldn’t articulate to my mom, not because I couldn’t share what I felt with her, but because I knew she was carrying her own weight. Our parents aren’t just parents; they’re people too.”
Keana’s poetic process is captured in a quote from William Wordsworth: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Keana’s poetry typically begins with a thought or emotion that crystallizes in a moment and is jotted down as a note for later interrogation. “I try to sit with myself in a kind of meditation, write down snippets, and continue coming back to them. I think of them as my children,” she explains. “I don’t rush a piece if it is about very intimate emotions. I like to keep the original snippets to see how I refined them over time, thinking about craft, intention, negative space, and the flow of line.” Keana, a self-described poet-historian, writes poetry in both English and the Bisayan language of Cebuano, a regional language in the Philippines and her grandparents’ native tongue.
Keana hopes to expand Marías at Sampaguitas Magazine from a digital to print publication, pursue an MFA in creative writing, and obtain a teaching credential while writing a book and screenplay. Keana concludes, “I hope that I can share the knowledge that I have obtained and disseminate it freely to folks who might not have access to the education I have had. Education is power.” C
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“I hope that I can share the knowledge that I have obtained and disseminate it freely to folks who might not have access to the education I have had. Education is power.”
– Keana Aguila Labra
Today I cleaned piss off the floor, yellow unspooling faster than my tissue closing my eyes and reaching for another on instinct. Tomorrow I return, at least to an expected rhythm: the leaves will be green, the oranges orange and my lolo as sour as my lola’s lemons. That was the thing: there was gratitude thank yous said generously, but it was the action preceding: thank you, after a change of clothes thank you, after keeping coil in cup thank you, after placing each pill accordingly based on time, blood pressure, and heart rate. Doing as I’m thinking of my lover’s lips, his texts consistent since September of 2014, amazing what power these tender anchors hold.
Last night, I gave my lolo a second pill of Benadryl so I could sleep.
My hands moved before anything else within me could say no. The night wind shaking the walls, the computer in my aunt’s old room humming as if to say you’re not alone
And here, inside San Jose, the lights are so beautiful. The holiday twinkling, as if taking turns, as if we were woven together an extended family.
Then, there is the worn granddaughter hauling her laptop to the table. The grandmother always Moving,
If there aren’t leaves to be swept, then there are flowers to water,
clothes to be washed, insulin to be administered,
and the grandmother’s back curls in response, as if to beg for rest. But, where there is Selfish there are the Selfless and she returns to the kitchen and emerges with a sandwich.
IV Love--beyond family, obligation utang na loob and duty,
I take you in with each bite.
Alyssa Aguilar is a threetime world collegiate salsa champion and 2019 World Latin Dance Cup semifinalist, but she didn’t start dancing until she was 19.
She took up dancing on a whim, taking a kinesiology class she needed to complete her BA in animation and illustration at SJSU. Alyssa is warm and bubbly, so it’s hard to imagine the shy, freshman art student she describes herself as: “I had really bad social anxiety, to the point where I would barely talk to anyone.”
she says. With movement, social interaction, and physical touch, “it’s literally hitting all the things your brain wants at once.”
“I did salsa as much as I did schoolwork…It kept me balanced, and it kept me going through harder times. Because no matter what, I would go out dancing and be with my community and my friends…Salsa just makes you really happy.”
Written by Shelly Novo valleflora.com InstagramBut dance pulled her out of her comfort zone and into a community more valuable than she could ever imagine.
Alyssa struggles with ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Salsa helped her develop consistency, community, and confidence. “I can talk about the benefits of salsa forever,”
Once she started dancing, the momentum didn’t stop. She was making lifelong friendships, expressing herself, and excelling quickly. Alyssa even found that her prior experience teaching movement as a swim coach transferred neatly into teaching dance, and her coaching ability quickly exceeded her skill as a dancer.
In time, Alyssa desired to be a positive influence in the dance community. Although
she had been welcomed into it, she noticed some negative elements—exclusivity and cliquishness, machismo attitudes, and criticism towards girls for turning down dances if they were uncomfortable. She knew transformation could occur from the top down, but she needed respect and better technical skills to have a greater influence. So she sought guidance from the director of Montuno Dance Company, Isidro Corona. “I ran into him at a salsa club when I was 21,” she says, “and I went straight right up to him and said, ‘Hey, I want to have my own dance team. How do I do that?’ ”
Corona helped her develop a five-year plan, and Alyssa decided to go to New York for professional training. She recalls,
“I just moved...without a job in the middle of December. I didn’t even have a winter coat.” She studied at Yamuleé Dance Company, a prestigious salsa school. “It’s basically where you go if you want to get your ass kicked,” she says. “I was taking two private lessons a week and spending all my free time dancing. I was working two jobs, and all my money went to dance.”
Although Yamuleé had more resources to develop her skills, its culture was unhealthy and often chauvinistic. After six months, the mental tax became too much. Alyssa finished training with Isabel Freiberger and developing her solo performance—a major accomplishment to end the year with—and came home.
“Dance confidence translates into everything you do. Salsa is so expressive that you have no choice but to be yourself when you’re on the dance floor.”
-Alyssa Aguilar
Alyssa’s goal was always to come back. She says, “I’d rather reinvest myself into my home…New York has hundreds of teachers.…San Jose is a really special place to me and…I want it to have all the goodness…about salsa and minimize all those negative things that I had to deal with.” She wants to revitalize salsa culture in San Jose—a former salsa hub—by raising empowered, self-advocating dancers who can make the scene inclusive and welcoming, recognizing that the social dance floor is not a place for ego. “I want to be the person I needed when I was growing up in dance,” she says.
After returning from New York, Alyssa founded Valle Flora Social Club while teaching salsa at The Get Down in San Jose. When the pandemic struck, Alyssa’s main source of income came to a halt. “I went into a huge depression spiral because everything I used to keep me going was taken
away,” she says. It took her two months to start dancing again.
Although classes were canceled, she began creating videos with her dance partner Takeshi Young. She utilized her degree in animation, flexed her creativity, and continued dance training. They filmed in empty downtowns and beautiful natural landscapes to produce more than 20 dance videos gaining six million views. Eventually, outdoor classes opened and studio classes resumed. Today she has a thriving club and is teaching 24 students this season.
Alyssa is a testament to how salsa can transform you. Whether you need community, a confidence boost, or a way to meet fitness goals, salsa is a tool to change your life. “Dance confidence translates into everything you do. Salsa is so expressive that you have no choice but to be yourself when you’re on the dance floor.” C
DISPLAYING A MATURITY BEYOND HIS YEARS WITH THE BALL AT HIS FEET, TEEN NIKO TSAKIRIS IS ONE MORE REASON TO BE EXCITED FOR THE SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES’ BRIGHT, YOUNG FUTURE.
LATE LAST SEPTEMBER , when a wildfire-postponed Cali Clasico between the San Jose Earthquakes and Los Angeles Galaxy took place in front of nearly 50,000 fans inside Stanford Stadium, there was a new face in the starting lineup. Seventeen-year-old Niko Tsakiris was getting his first start in arguably the most meaningful game of the season for the Quakes. “Getting the roster [that Friday and] seeing my name up there, it was different for me. But then to walk out on the field—I still get chills thinking about it now,” recalls Niko of that moment. “It was something really special.”
Many would’ve folded when thrown into the fire on such a large stage. Niko instead seized the moment. Post-game, Head Coach Alex Covelo called him “a player that will be the future for the San Jose Earthquakes, MLS, and even Europe.” Writing for MLSsoccer.com, Charles Boehm noted, “The technical center mid showcased range, vision, and the sort of natural comfort on the ball that remains rare among US-reared players.” Despite a disappointing 3-2 scoreline, Niko left many fans hopeful about the team’s future.
The teenager has become a leading face in the Quakes’ strong pipeline of youth talent, making him a club poster boy alongside fellow Northern Californians Cade Cowell, Emi Ochoa, and Cruz Medina. Though an abductor injury has sidelined him so far this season, he’s eager to get back to work and turn more heads once he returns to the field.
Growing up in Saratoga, California, Niko recalls that two things were always close to him: his family and a soccer ball. His father Shaun, a former pro, has charted a fruitful career as one of the most notable youth soccer coaches in the country. Alongside his younger siblings, Mateo and Kai, Niko’s had a front row seat to see what it takes to cultivate elite athletes.
The Tsakiris family moved to Florida in 2015 when Shaun took a job as an assistant coach for the United States U-17 men’s national team. Niko, 10 at the time, began playing soccer at the prestigious IMG Academy. It was a gigantic opportunity and a big
“It helped me realize you’re not going to be in the same spot your whole life.”
-Niko Tsakiris
change, but Niko is grateful he had family nearby to navigate those moments together. “It was a great part of my childhood—different environment, a change,” he says, adding that his family often returns to Florida during spring break to see friends. “It helped me realize you’re not going to be in the same spot your whole life.”
In 2017, when Niko returned to the South Bay, he joined the Quakes Academy. While he primarily competed up an age level, he admits it wasn’t until he was 15 that he started to believe a pro career might be possible. One might think having a former pro for a father would add pressure to that decision, but Niko says any helpful insights have always come from him asking. “With what he’s done as a coach and a player, having someone like that [near you] doesn’t hurt. He’s always been super supportive, and he’s never really pushed me,” he says. “It was ingrained pretty early in all our minds that you have to pick something and put the most time and effort into it. The biggest piece for me is working hard and believing that good things come to those that work, whether it’s soccer or not.”
In late 2021, the Quakes began contract talks to officially sign Niko to the senior roster. In January 2022, he became the club’s tenth homegrown signing. “It was pretty surreal. There were a lot of talks with [General Manager Chris Leitch] and my parents about the potential of it,” he notes. “I wanted to keep college as an option as long as I could. But I think the more we talked, the more it made sense to pull the trigger on it. Taking that first step into my professional career is a moment I’ll never forget.”
Niko has also been a steady presence for the United States men’s youth sides. He represented his country at the 2022 U-20 CONCACAF championship, where he scored three goals in five appearances en route to the title, securing America’s spot at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in summer 2023.
“My number one [goal] right now is getting that first goal within the league,” he shares of his hopes for the season, once he’s finally cleared to return. “Once I’m back, if the minutes come, great. If not, I’m still here for the team and will give my best.”
With the Quakes acquiring a new head coach in the off-season, one respected for his youth development, Niko may be entering the ideal situation to power a breakout 2023. C
“‘YOU ARE NOT NORMAL ,’ my mother said,” laughs Farima Berenji, founder and artistic director of Simorgh Dance Collective, anthropologist, archaeologist, member of the International Dance Council CID, UNESCO. Her mother had walked into a room where Farima at less than 10 years of age, sat amidst the ruins of a recent gift, a toy train. She was horrified that an expensive gift had been destroyed. “But I needed to know what made the train make that sound! That was what I had answered back with,” she remembers.
It is this insatiable desire to understand what lies at the root of things that drives Farima to this day, an uncommon attitude in an artist. A third generation master cultural artist, she grew up in the light of her dancer mother and grandmother, literally dancing even as she learnt to walk. What puzzled her even then was how the matriarchs just seemed to accept the age-old traditions, and in turn, expected her to move to the melody without being able to explain why. “Why do you want me to move left? Or in a circle? I really was that annoying kid who would not settle…after a while, my grandmother would have to admonish me to just shut up and move,” she shares.
Determined to find answers, Farima would then turn to the sacred practitioners, the mystics, who were part of her learning eco-system. They suggested that perhaps dance movements mimic those of the planets, which quietened her restless mind…well, at
least about that specific question of circular movements (there were many more that were asked and answered for years.) Her journey as a Master artist has been paved with her continued love for the sacred and folk in equal parts. And it began early. When she was little, her mother wanted to consult the doctor when she encountered her daughter spinning, swirling at a breakneck speed. Her grandmother intervened and cautioned her to leave her daughter be, sensing perhaps that she was channeling a powerful energy.
This energy, that would not submit to rigidity of any kind, led to her discontinuing her ballet lessons. The family had moved to the US when she was about three years old, and her ballet lessons had started right away. However, her schooling in dance continued at home with her mother and traversed the traditional and sacred/mystic via summers and vacations in Iran. The free spirit being carefully nourished by these
influences would not allow her to continue her studies at the ballet conservatory. “I could not understand why they had to measure the width of our smiles with a tape measure!” says Farima. She surrendered instead to her instinct, which had her asking the villagers in Iran why they wore certain colors and how their traditional attire had come to be. “Authenticity is a big deal for me,” Farima explains. She remembers an incident when she was 12, when she was already teaching littler children. They were learning a village dance which was meant to be then performed. Enthusiastic mothers took the initiative and got costumes for their kids. When the preteen Farima came upon her costumed class students, she announced “I am not going to have my dancers in these cheap costumes!” Her mom then contacted an aunt in Iran who then got authentic replicas made of the traditional garments. That urge to dig deep, seek the truth, understand the Why had her pursue a degree in archeology in the US which is when the universe affirmed her choice. She was at a dig in Iran when she found a 10,000-year-old tablet showing a carving of a woman seemingly dressed up and holding something in her hand. A village elder said “You have just woken up a dancing priestess …she was sleeping and you woke her up. This is a message to mean that Iranian art is not dead, it is just hidden.” Farima wears the mantle of being a cultural ambassador with pride, aware of the enormous work ahead, committed to always stay in learning mode, adding, “The ancients said that when one
stops learning, that is the end to life…Only 30 percent of history in Persia has been excavated, 70 percent remains to be found. There is so much ignorance in the world… when I chose to study dance ethnology, the faculty were surprised, nobody had chosen that in years. I was the first to make them aware also, about Iran and its spirituality. They would ask me why did I want to study it?”
For Farima, there is no other way to be. Her favorite poem is by Rumi, which urges to “Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.” She was dancing even in the midst of the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. She remembers her grandmother reaching for the daf (Persian handheld drum) the first thing when they hit the bunkers, and Farima would dance to keep the darkness at bay for everybody.
And yet, there are moments of doubt. There is a lack of recognition among the community. Modern society is a harsh mistress as well. The youth today aren’t interested in traditional dances, many times the reason is the seemingly unfashionable costumes. “Doing something you love is not easy, all artists hit a point of anger…there are times when I think that maybe I could have been a pop dance and at least made more money,” she reveals.
However, Farima is sought after. Simorgh is a world community of expert and emerging artists devoted to cross-cultural dialog and artistic collaboration in traditional, classical, and sacred dance styles of Persia and the Silk Road. Thus, her dance vocabulary includes repertoire from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan as well. Her travels to Iran and connecting with the traditions there keep her centered. The audience keeps her motivated—her unique relationship with them is one of fantasy, since Farima wills the audience to join her in a fairytale and travel to an imaginary world they cannot see in reality. C
“I really was that annoying kid who would not settle.”
Rika Ellis
You don’t have to look far to find a bar or a restaurant that serves a range of beers in the Bay Area. But there is one type of establishment you may not realize is in short supply until you stop to look—the classic brewery. ShaKa Brewing, located in central Sunnyvale, is filling this gap by serving up a range of beers to craft brew enthusiasts and novices alike, welcoming all guests from families to dogs.
Shawn Ellis and Karl Townsend each started their own home brewing journeys in the 1980s. Years later, while working their day jobs, they met for the first time and realized they had a shared passion. They started brewing together in 2012. Before long, they were hosting “Speakeasy Friday” events at their homes to share their creations with others.
Written by Michelle Rundowitz Photography by Stan Olszewski shakabrewing.com Instagram shakabrewing“We got people to vote with a guitar pick in a box, which one they liked the best,” said Shawn. “Then we would count guitar picks at the end, just to get a little bit of market research going.”
After seeing the interest from their friends and family, they decided to turn their hobby into a business, and they wanted to start in Sunnyvale: “We knew that it was an underserved
community for breweries because there just aren’t any breweries around here to speak of,” said Shawn. It was important to them to begin the business mindfully, to ensure there was enough demand in the market to support a brewery. “We wanted to do it in a way that was small to start and something we could kind of grow organically if the community did like it,” said Shawn. Then in early 2020, COVID hit before they had opened their doors. But unlike so many other businesses, ShaKa didn’t have to contend with losing an established customer base. “We weren’t scrambling—‘Oh, my God. How do we replace one hundred people coming through the door every Friday night?’ ” said Shawn. They started selling four packs of canned beer online with curbside pickup and saw an immediate positive response from locals looking for interesting brews during the COVID shutdown. By word of mouth alone, they formed a strong base of customers who told others of the new brewery. At the same time, Rika Ellis, Shawn’s wife and head of ShaKa’s sales and marketing, formed relationships with local restaurants who were looking for suppliers of canned beer to use in
“We’re constantly thinking…how do we become more of the center of gravity for culture, for music, for art, for creation?”
–Shawn Ellis
their takeout orders. Between the two revenue streams, ShaKa was able to establish itself as a local name, even in the midst of the pandemic.
Three years after their scrappy start, ShaKa has started to put down roots—with picnic tables, couches, and dog treats made of the spent grain from brewing. It’s become a destination to enjoy delicious and approachable craft beers. There are usually five to six beers on tap at any given time. There’s always a range of styles: a sample menu may include a red ale, a stout, a pale lager, an IPA, and a summer ale, so everyone can find something they enjoy. “We go for approachability,” said Shawn of their brewing philosophy. “We like to do beers that don’t make you go to them. We want the beers to go to you.” With balanced flavors and clean finishes, ShaKa’s brews keep both beer geeks and beginners coming back for more.
Shawn and Karl had a goal from the start to create a comfortable spot that people would want to come back to time and time again, and that vision is now coming to life: “It’s a place for friends and community and family to come together and have a third place. Not their home,
not their office, it’s a third place,” said Shawn. “We’ve even gotten feedback from mothers going, ‘Oh my god, it’s so awesome that I could bring my baby here.’ ” Rika has been instrumental in curating the vibe of ShaKa, with carefully selected design elements, from a beautiful wall of paper cranes to elegant floral arrangements. These delicate touches are juxtaposed with the gleaming stainless steel brewing equipment, creating a space that feels both inviting and functional.
ShaKa is looking to expand beyond just brewing by bringing in new artistic elements to the brewery space. They plan to host live music and are looking to turn a huge blank wall into a gallery to feature the work of local artists. “We’re constantly thinking…how do we become more of the center of gravity for culture, for music, for art, for creation?” said Shawn. With an established customer base, they are ready to explore new concepts and ideas to find what people most enjoy and make ShaKa into even more of a destination for locals and visitors alike. C
In today’s fast paced era of content creation, everywhere you look there’s another person trying to get your attention. Music especially feels over-saturated, after SoundCloud made it easier than ever to upload one’s music. When an artist attempts to not only make great art, but to get your attention in a creative way, it’s refreshing and reminds consumers why they love what they’re consuming, making them fans. Having intent is what attracted fans before social media, and Brevin Rowand, Aldin Metovic, and Vanessa Vindell of FRVR Records are reminiscent of a time when intention put you over the top. FRVR Records was founded in San Jose by producer, singer, songwriter, and engineer Brevin Rowand, when his longtime friend and collaborator, rapper, and songwriter Aldin Metovic started working with singer and songwriter Vanessa Vindell. It sounds simple, but this group has not only created phenomenal music, FRVR Records is also a blueprint for moving with intention rather than attention.
“I went to high school with Vanessa, and I knew she was talented. Me and Brev had been friends and making stuff together for like 10 years; and after Vanessa got booked for a couple shows in LA, it was like we were a group already, people thought we were family,” Aldin says.
While in Los Angeles during BET awards weekend with their friend/road manager Blair Ewers, Vanessa had four shows. Brevin and Aldin were at each show across the city to help her out, and on a couple shows, Brevin had to step in and make up for some of the live sound not being up to par. “Each show I knew I was improving and everyone was seeing it in real time,” Vanessa says. “It’s like hitting the gym.”
When the trio got back to San Jose, the energy leftover from LA was at an all-time high. They went into the studio and created an EP, Summer’s Not Over; a five-track project which sounds like riding down Sunset Boulevard or through Santa Monica, but you can also hear the chemistry these three possess. Witnessing
the process firsthand is a master class on creating with intent. A song can start and end with Brevin, producing a beat and writing the song almost simultaneously. Then Aldin and Vanessa write and perform their parts, Brevin mixes the song, and they come up with video ideas and ways to promote the song. This in-house operation is efficient, and they are able to make a lot of records and curate a project out of these records that always sounds like a snapshot of where they are in their lives and careers.
“While working on Aldin and Vanessa’s projects, I still put out two projects. We work at a rapid pace, but it’s calculated. From the cover art to the promo videos to even the outfits, it’s authentic, but all methodical,” Brevin says. This process when you see it firsthand is motivating—it could be a big time recording studio or a closet of a downtown Los Angeles apartment, and the process wouldn’t change; and the reason it wouldn’t change is because the intention is always first—making the best music and art possible.
As these three continue to grow as not just entertainers, but as people, they find themselves taking their time on what’s coming next. “Time Tells isn’t just a name of my project, it’s how we really feel about what’s next,” Aldin says. Aldin’s latest EP, Almost Time, was released December 22, 2022, and he’s hinting at the album this year, Time Tells 2. Vanessa released the song “1942” alongside a performance video of the song, and there’s word of an album coming this year. As for Brevin, he’s always making enough songs to make an R&B album or reggaeton album and still work on other things, but he intends to also grow the FRVR brand, adding more artists to the roster like Flam Shawty or Danny V, and even expanding outside of the Bay Area.
No matter what they do business-wise, one thing is for sure, if you listen to their music, you’ll be feeling the vibe of a chill Saturday night. Whether it’s vibing with your friends at a kickback or on a late-night drive with a significant other, FRVR records is the soundtrack for that moment. Brevin’s tone and soundscape, Aldin’s storytelling and voice, and Vanessa’s overall presence on their music will capture your attention. C
“We work at a rapid pace, but it’s still calculated. From the cover art to the promo videos to even the outfits, it’s authentic, but all methodical.”
-Brevin Rowand
Walk into the room like the presence of God when they see me. Walking through life with a committed purpose, 23-year-old, San Jose–raised singer and rapper Ervin Wilson displays the self-confidence and conviction of someone much older. He sums up this purpose with the motto, “The Authentic Speaks,” which represents all facets of his life, from his music to his spiritual conviction, to the way he walks into a room. It also connects him to his name, meaning “friend to many,” which drives his outlook on daily life. As he explains, “I try to live my life emulating my name’s meanings and try to represent God the best ways I can.” Ervin presents his best possible self to others through his interactions, his relationships, and most importantly, through his music. He relates, “I’ve committed to spark emotion and connection through music. Whenever I walk into the room, I’m taller and vibrant. I want to convey hype [and] fun, but with honest lyrics from my life experience in an attempt to relate to the people that hear it.”
Ervin’s life has been centered around and driven by the Church, but his musical trajectory wasn’t immediate. Ervin actually pushed back when asked to sing by his worship team, instead opting to play drums. Finally, he gave in. His first time singing on stage in 2019 made him feel like he was home. He never went back to the drums and has since hustled to release over twenty singles.
It’s not religion, I am telling you it’s relational. While he admits his church upbringing made him sheltered musically, it provided him with a strong foundation of support and inspiration from his family, mentors, and his relationship with Christ. This carries him as he traverses new musical territory and slowly lets in secular influences such as YONAS, Travis Scott, and Post Malone, in addition to Christian hip-hop artists Aaron Cole and nobigdyl. Ervin even had the chance to release “Rings (Remix)” with Cole in 2022. While it may be easy to simply apply the label “Christian hip-hop” to his music, Ervin’s lyrical prowess puts him just outside that box. As he puts it, “I am not the typical ‘Christian hip-hop artist.’ I am a rapper/singer who has a relationship with Jesus.” At first listen, you wouldn’t know he was considered a Christian hip-hop artist until you listened very intently and also knew his personal approach to music making.
I am a teacher and doctor, every day I be testing their patience.
Ervin’s lyrics put his relationship with God in perspective, as he experiences the vicissitudes of life. He strives to be real with his words without compromising his morals, which means being able to rap about the hard things in life, even if it may make him sound more secular to his Christian listening fans. “I don’t want to be boxed into the Christian hip-hop box, where I can’t really say what’s on my mind,” he says. His song “My World” explains to those questioning his faith and intention that it is his world the listener is stepping into. Even when he addresses his naysayers, however, he still displays humility and the acceptance that he is still learning.
He raps:
“Never traded all the truth for a lie
Ask the day of, I’ll meet you there tonight
Always ask The Lord to tell me which way
Knowing damn well I’m never doing right”
“I’m here to real people going through real situations, people that to be real themselves.”
“I’m here to real people going through real situations, people that to be real themselves.”
Ervin puts a great emphasis on his experiences in life and connecting with those around him. He says, “I’m here to relate to real people going through real situations, people that want to be real with themselves.” You could say that people are what keep him going and inspire him to do what he does. If he can lift up others around him with his presence and his music, then they in turn can lift him up. For Ervin, however, the beauty of life is appreciating the present that God has given him and having faith that, as he says, “It will all make sense soon.”
With only roughly five years of music making under his belt, Ervin has managed to independently release a healthy catalog, showing off his range, lyrical artistry, and musical growth. He straddles both R&B and hip-hop, giving us singles like “Dream” and “Out of Luck” on the melodic side and then coming in hard with infectious, unbroken flows on tracks like “My World” and “The City Don’t Care.”
What is striking about Ervin as an artist is how much his music and approach to life are one and the same. He lives for moments of inspiration in his everyday life, which means he is content releasing singles as he is inspired. He has faith in God’s timing, releasing music when the timing and resources come together. “I lean on God’s promises, and I trust that He’s going to lead me and work everything out in His timing. I don’t know what my future holds at this point in time, honestly, but I know that everything will work out if I just keep strengthening my relationship with God and focus on serving others.”
There is no doubt that Ervin’s talent and fortitude in his beliefs will bring some great accomplishments in the future. For Ervin, however, the beauty of life is appreciating the present that God has given him and having faith that “it will all make sense soon.” C
themselves.”
themselves.”
“...I would pick up one of my dad’s guitars at home and download tabs from the Internet and try to teach myself Green Day songs.”
– Mike HuguenorWritten by Ethan Gregory Dodge Photography by Leopoldo Macaya mikehuguenor.bandcamp.com Instagram mikehuguenor
Raised on San Jose’s South Side by two social workers, local punk guitarist Mike Huguenor’s upbringing was culturally eclectic. His parents actively encouraged the consumption of all genres of literature, film, and music. If he wanted a particular book, they would purchase it for him. Musically, he was raised listening to the likes of Van Halen and other ’80s “fun rock” groups with his mom, jazz and opera with his dad, and Huey Lewis with both his parents. His dad routinely made mixtapes for him and his brother to listen to. When it came time to choose an instrument for middle school music classes, Huguenor settled on the alto saxophone, an instrument he remembers his father playing. But his excitement for it was no match for his obsession with punk rock. “I was playing sax in the school band, but then I would pick up one of my dad’s guitars at home and download tabs from the internet and try to teach myself Green Day songs.”
Huguenor had discovered the genre through San Jose’s now defunct rock station KOME. It was where he first heard acts like the Offspring and the Bay Area’s own Green Day. Shortly thereafter, a relative of Huguenor introduced him to the Berkeley-based underground band Operation Ivy. “When I heard them, it just opened up everything for me. They were my first real favorite band,” Huguenor says. About 11 years old at the time, he thought it was the best music he
ever heard and still thinks their sole, self-titled album is “one of the best punk records ever.”
Huguenor is not alone in that sentiment. Despite the band’s short, three-year tenure, Operation Ivy’s influence on modern punk music—especially the ska subgenre—is difficult to overstate. Dozens of bands, including Goldfinger, Green Day, and Rancid, have released covers of Operation Ivy songs. Most recently, Machine Gun Kelly licensed the hook lyric from their song “Knowledge” for his song “all I know.”
Huguenor was given a starter electric guitar by his ever-supportive parents for his thirteenth birthday. “That’s when I started thinking about it intentionally and started writing hypothetical songs for bands that didn’t really exist.” Huguenor soon formed his first band and took his songwriting from hypothetical to actual. “Let’s just do it,” he recalls saying to a friend. “All these bands are all just people doing it. Let’s start a band.”
That sentiment gave birth to the short-lived punk group, Shooting Blanks. From there, Huguenor experimented with several punk acts throughout high school, but it wasn’t until shortly after graduating in 2002 that he formed his “real, I-actually-want-to-make-a-band, band,” Shinobu. “At the time, I thought it was going to be my not-punk band,” he says. “But in spirit it ended up being so, and that was the community that accepted us.”
How a local punk guitarist has inspired a wave of fellow
After releasing several albums and touring occasionally over the course of six years, Huguenor soon found himself the lone member of Shinobu remaining in California. Another South Bay act, Pteradon, was in a similar situation, having lost their guitarist to the tech industry. Huguenor joined them and formed Hard Girls in 2008. Hard Girls’ songwriting process consisted of simply jamming a riff over and over together until it became a song, as opposed to Huguenor being the primary in Shinobu’s process. Huguenor found the new approach “very freeing.” It got him thinking about music differently, he said. “I was trying to write guitar parts that were interesting and were non-chordal. I was trying to fill out a song with just one guitar and have it sound huge and have it not just be strumming chords.”
Huguenor quickly found that composition wasn’t the only major difference between the two acts. “Shinobu would play San Jose shows and there would be 20 people there. Then Hard Girls would play shows and there would be 150 people there. It seemed like the scene had changed a lot.” Shortly after the formation of Hard Girls, Huguenor received a life-changing phone call. He was told that Jesse Michaels, frontman of aforementioned Operation Ivy, was starting a new musical project and wanted Hard Girls to be a part of it. Michaels had been in the South Bay recording some demos for the new project with Asian Man Records, the same label who had released Hard Girls’ first album. While recording, it was obvious the tracks needed a full band behind them. Mike Park, founder of Asian Man, suggested Hard Girls. The quartet became Classics of Love. “I was just completely blown away at the thought of it and could not believe it,” Huguenor says. “It was a dream situation.”
Hard Girls continued writing and touring at the same time as Classics of Love. Despite consisting mostly of the same members, the type of music differed significantly. “Hard Girls was writing more indie rock music,” Huguenor said. “Jesse was writing straight up ’80s hardcore
punk songs. So we were playing way faster, in a totally different harmonic register.”
Over four years, Classics of Love released an EP and a full-length album that spawned tours in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Michaels then relocated to Los Angeles and continues releasing music under the Classics of Love name. Huguenor looks back at the time fondly, having had the opportunity to work so closely with one of his musical heroes. “I don’t really feel a lot of ownership of it. I am just happy to have been a part of it.”
Since then, Huguenor has gone on to record and perform with other acts, both local—such as the Bruce Lee Band and Teens in Trouble— and beyond—such as Dan Andriano in the Emergency Room and Jeff Rosenstock. He currently writes, records, and performs regularly with Rosenstock. In 2020, he also released a solo album of instrumental music in which he plays all the parts on the guitar.
Huguenor’s path has become iconic for many San Jose punk rockers. Ask any musician or fan in the local punk or punk-adjacent music scenes, and they’ll instantly recognize his name. While his stint working with a punk legend may have accelerated that image, Huguenor has now blazed his own reputation that easily stands on its own. “Every year I meet more people who have Shinobu tattoos and who say we inspired them. I really appreciate all their love for the band. It makes me really happy to know that we did connect with people.”
He hopes he can leverage his experiences to help those struggling to find their break. He also wants to see the local music scene grow and thrive. “The punk community has never been able to get a foothold here, and I feel like it needs that. It needs to be allowed to have a permanent space. I need to be involved in some way locally because I need to advocate for the people who are currently teenagers, who have nowhere to play because there’s no room that accommodates major touring bands in San Jose.” C
Curated by Needle to the Groove Instagram: needletothegrooverecords
Release date: December 21, 2022
Written by Demone CarterI am not ashamed to admit that sometimes I’m a slow learner. The best new rap records don’t always catch my ear immediately. Such was the case with Michael Jordan Bonema, better known to rap fans as MIKE! Despite the critical acclaim of releases like Weight of the World and Disco! I had filed MIKE! away with a glut of rappers working in the shadows of Earl Sweatshirt’s genius. I am somewhat ashamed to admit it was a Tommy Hilfiger advertisement that changed my mind. The fashion brand commissioned a four-song mixtape which features MIKE! spitting alongside the New Jersey sidewinder Wiki on tracks produced by the Alchemist.
Perhaps Alchemist production brings out the best in everyone, but all of sudden I was locked in on MIKE! and his unorthodox approach. His style is both drunken and precise. He doesn’t flow so much as sway, entrancing the listener with a pendulum-like cadence. As a recent MIKE! convert, I went into his latest album, Beware of the Monkey, with somewhat high expectations. And this record delivers.
The thing about MIKE! that jumps off the track, is his tone of voice—low and penetrating. There is a sadness in his voice, but it also seems like he is rapping with a smile. The production is handled by DJ Blackpower, whose beats seem to form and disintegrate at will. MIKE weaves in and out of each track with melancholic ease. Songs like “nuthin I can do is wrng” and “Light” (rivers of love) showcase MIKE’s talent for evoking nuanced emotions that exist between joy and sadness. Subjects like grief, sibling bonds, or fear of failure are dealt with in a way that feels heartfelt and authentic without being overly sentimental. The standout track is the song “Wake Up,” which is a collaboration with reggae legend Sister Nancy whose 1982 rendition of the song “What A Bam Bam” continues to echo through pop culture. Beyond the sticker shock of the Sister Nancy feature, the song “Wake Up” really works as MIKE! is somehow perfect for this ’80s-inflected reggae tune. Overall it’s a great album and hopefully a harbinger of great things for one of my new favorites.
Favorite Track: “Wake Up”
STORE.10K.GLOBAL
Louie (XL Recordings)
Release date: August 31, 2022
Written by Brandon Roos
Since 2018, Kenny Beats has proven himself a relentless creative and pliable producer with a list of collaborators that includes rappers Rico Nasty, Vince Staples, and Freddie Gibbs as well as rock groups Trash Talk and IDLES. Despite keeping busy behind the boards, he had yet to officially craft a solo project.
Kenny contends that he had nothing to say. That changed when he discovered in late 2021 that his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Louie is his creative response to a trying time.
The beats begin in earnest with “Parenthesis,” where crisp snare hits merge with soulful, pitched vocals. Understated horn stabs, string section samples, and quick weaving synth leads add lushness without weighing down the composition. “Hold My Head” is a clear standout, dealing in the currency of current rap sonics while utilizing a rhythmic framework indebted to golden era greats.
Knowing the inspiration behind this album, the sampled lyrics on “Eternal,” taken from Shira Small’s “Eternal Life,” feel poignant: “Eternal life is the intersection of the line of time and the plane of now. We live forever.” Coupled with contemplative keys, the song feels like a meditation on existence and mortality.
“Still” may just be the most soulful beat of the bunch. Kenny sends the song into the stratosphere by adding moody supporting vocals atop simple, punchy drum programming, all in service to a tasteful flip of Linda Kemp’s gospel tune “I Can’t Stop.” JPEGMAFIA’s energetic, amended verse somehow adds another emotive ingredient to the musical stew, an obvious instance of Kenny’s magic touch in action.
There’s no established style or sonic touch point that reigns supreme. Instead, what shines through is Kenny’s keen ability to stitch together the old and new, the sampled and supplemented, the humorous and heartfelt, in thoughtful, organic ways. Though Louie never feels like it’s drawing too much attention to itself, when the notes finally die down at the end of the slow burn intensity of “Hot Hand,” it becomes quite clear why Kenny is so in demand.
Favorite Track: “Still”
KENNYBEATS.BANDCAMP.COM/ALBUM/LOUIE
Release date: January 6, 2023
Written by Demone CarterHomeboy Sandman is one of underground rap’s true eccentrics. A master craftsman with words, he has released a deluge of albums over the past decade. What separates Homeboy Sandman from his contemporaries is his uncompromising weirdness. A contrarian’s contrarian, the New York rapper has made a point of going against the grain in a way that feels true to himself.
Case in point is the title of his latest album, 12 Days of Christmas and Dia De Los Reyes. Released on January 6, 2023, via Dirty Looks Records, the album name references the “Twelve Days of Christmas” carol and the Dia De Los Reyes (Day of the three kings) which is observed in much of Latin America and Spain on January sixth. Given the album’s release date, the title kind of makes sense. But also making an album named after Christmas, weeks after the holidays, and having nothing to do with Christmas or Dia De Los Reyes content-wise is just the type of head scratcher one would expect from Homeboy Sandman.
Each track is named after a different day of Christmas (and of course Dia De Los Reyes) but the track titles are merely place holders for the Sandman’s handy work. Each beat feels like an experiment in rhythmic cadence, the boy Sand (as he often refers to himself) proving his mettle on different tempos and syncopated samples. Seemingly mundane everyday observations are mixed in with motivational self-help themes and of course emcee braggadocio. One of the standout tracks is “Third Day of Christmas” where Homeboy Sandman makes the following observations: “Made it to the farmers market / From the days of the farting armpit.”
The production duties are handled by a collection of beat makers, including Peanut Butter Wolf, Illingsworth, and Mono En Stereo (to name a few). The beat palette is sufficiently quirky. The song “Dia De Los Reyes,” in particular, demonstrates how Homeboy Sandman bars really sound great over almost anything, including an up-tempo Salsa sample.
The only thing this album leaves me wanting for is cohesion. Despite the title and theme/non-theme, there isn’t much to make this feel like an album as opposed to a collection of tracks. All that said, the album is enjoyable, and the song titles may allow me to put it on some Christmas playlists next year. Maybe that was Homeboy Sandman’s plan all along.
Favorite Track: “Third Day of Christmas” HOMEBOYSANDMAN.BANDCAMP.COM
In These Times
(International Anthem Records)
Release date: September 23, 2022
Written by Taran Escobar-AusmanIn a way, drummer Makaya McCraven’s new LP, In These Times, completes a cycle. Always a bedroom beatmaker, McCraven started taking recordings of live performances of his band in Chicago, chopping them up, stitching different snippets together, and adding some magical post-production flourishes to create a new sound that he calls “organic beat music.” This resulted in his first aptly-titled release, 2016’s In the Moment With his second LP, Universal Beings, he played live studio sessions with various collections of musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, similarly rearranged the recordings with his own brand of hip-hop production, but took it a step further by going on tour to play the new rearranged versions live. In These Times is his first release with deliberate compositions, which are now, however, infused with the techniques, slightly off-beat time signatures, and head-nodding complexity developed from those past live shows.
The magic of finding new rhythmic patterns within the sea of improvised music changed McCraven’s drumming style as he now seamlessly and subtly shifts between off-kilter hip-hop beats and polyrhythmic jazz flourishes. He straddles so many musical worlds that it would almost be sacrilege to simply call his music “jazz,” a term which he states is “offensive at worst and insufficient at best.” Instead, his organic beat music lives in its own musical multiverse, pulling from different genres and eras without garnering any trite labels such as “hybrid” or “fusion.”
“Dream Another’’ sounds like a lost track from Donald Byrd’s Street Lady. A flute, harp, and baby sitar flutter in and out of the melody over a soul-inspired bass line and hypnotic 7/4 hip-hop–like beat. Somehow the track “This Place That Place” simultaneously plays as a funk-jazz piece and hip-hop influenced chamber music. A personal favorite, “So Ubuji,” lulls you in with a gentle, meandering harp and marimba before breaking way for a rare 4/4 head-nodder. You’ll undoubtedly be making your best stank face. The highlight of “The Knew Untitled” is Matt Gold’s guitar work that pulls from the Bill Frisell school of tonality and angular phrasing.
As McCraven develops and refines his approach to making music he has become an alchemist and enchanter of sorts. There will always be magic to be found in his creations.
Favorite Track: “So Ubuji” MAKAYAMCCRAVEN.COM
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EDITORIAL FASHION COLLECTIVE (EFC)
Gl-o (L) and Mya (R) run a Bay Area fashion collective that aim to support creatives in the 2SLGBTQIA+ BIPOC communities.
Instagram: peter_salcido & myamode
SHELLY NOVO
Shelly is passionate about building community through multimedia storytelling. Born and raised in San Jose, she loves learning about and telling the stories of her neighbors.
Instagram: eviltender_
DAVID NGO
David is a San Jose native writer currently based in LA. While he believes inspiration can come from anywhere, he remains a strong advocate for lying in the grass and doing nothing.
Instagram: dang_void
DANAE STAHLNECKER
Danae is a writer, editor, and theater practitioner invested in creative storytelling and intentional community. She has a fondness for niche, macabre, and experimental art.
Instagram: danaexgloria
TROY EWERS
Troy is a writer and creator with a unique voice and passion for storytelling. Raised in the Southside of San Jose, Troy has worked in music, sports, and fashion for almost a decade now and wants to promote more originality and creativity in art.
Instagram: trizzyebaby
SANNIE CELERIDAD
Sannie is a photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is inspired by building relationships and finds purpose using photography as a voice to highlight, document everyday life and share the stories of others.
Instagram: sannieceleridad
MICHELLE RUNDOWITZ
Michelle divides her time between tech work, freelance writing, and spending time with her family and pets. Now living in San Jose, Michelle enjoys vegan cooking, biking, and listening to audio books.
Instagram: michrun13
STEPHANIE BARAJAS
Stephanie is a Mexican actor, photographer, and arts administrator. She is passionate about art, fashion, fat justice, and storytelling as a catalyst for change.
Instagram: stephroars
