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Message From Director of Cultural Affairs
Kerry Adams Hapner
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Kerry Adams Hapner
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In San Jose, artists, arts-based businesses and the nonprofit arts sector comprise the fundamental back bones of cultural life. In addition to creating artistic vibrancy, they provide economic impact through their business and job creation. Creative industries also help build an authentic brand identity for San Jose.
Here in San Jose, we have a lot to be proud of:
- This year, ArtPlace America ranked downtown San Jose among the top art places in the US, in recognition of our creative placemaking work.
- San Jose is the most ethnically diverse city in the US, and our arts organizations celebrate that diversity.
- San Jose has 2,500 arts-related businesses and organizations employing nearly 8,000 people. For context, 2,000 employees work in the three downtown Adobe towers. San Jose's creative industries would fill up 12 Adobe towers.
- The total economic impact of San Jose's nonprofit arts organizations is $123 million. For comparison, the San Jose Sharks Hockey Team's annual economic impact is less at $113 million.
- Last year, San Jose's arts grantees reported that 2.7 million people experienced their programs.
Most importantly, art transforms lives. It inspires us and helps us learn, laugh, cry, create, connect, question and consider what it means to be human today. That is an incredibly powerful role.
The arts are one of the most positive parts of our community, and make San Jose unique and rich in many ways. Thank you for your support of the arts in San Jose.
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Irene Dalis Receives the
Inaugural Cornerstone of the Arts Award
 | | From left to right: Councilmember Sam Liccardo, Mayor Chuck Reed, Cornerstone of the Arts Honoree Irene Dalis, Arts Commission Chair Rick Holden, and Director of Cultural Affairs Kerry Adams Hapner |
On September 6th, the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the Arts Commission held the first Cornerstone of the Arts Event to recognize leadership in the arts, cultural arts grantees, and to bestow the inaugural Cornerstone of the Arts Award.
The purpose of the Cornerstone of the Arts Award is to recognize enduring and effective arts leadership that has led to the betterment of San Jose. The ideal recipient is recognized as a "cornerstone" of the artistic community.
The inaugural recipient of the Cornerstone of the Arts Award is Irene Dalis, Founder and Director of Opera San Jose. Irene Dalis has become synonymous for "capacity, tenacity, and vision." Before her retirement from the stage in 1977, Irene was a principal artist at New York's Metropolitan Opera for 20 consecutive seasons. By the end of her career, she had performed in every major opera house from Naples to San Francisco, and had 44 roles in her repertoire.
On retirement from her performing career, she returned to her native San José where she was appointed a Full Professor of Music by the President of San José State University. The university program produced such a large number of career entry-level performers that Miss Dalis established a professional company, Opera San José, in 1984. The company has mounted 124 productions on its main stage, and has become known for cultivating talented singers from the US.
Irene was instrumental in the $80 million renovation of the iconic California Theatre, which would not have been possible without the $25 million donation from the Packard Humanities Institute, a long-time Opera San Jose supporter.
Irene has announced that this Opera San Jose season, its 30th, will be her last before retirement. Thus, the timing is significant in her receiving this inaugural award. This is not the first time Irene has won an award. However, we are proud to say that it is our first. Congratulations, Irene!
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Idea Tree
Turning the Convention Center Inside Out
With the opening of the expanded and upgraded San Jose McEnery Convention Center we celebrate the newest addition to San Jose's public art collection. Artist Soo-in Yang's Idea Tree is located in the renovated entry plaza creating a large-scale interactive experience for visitors that references Silicon Valley's creative idea landscape that will be alive and active within the walls of the Convention Center.
Bill Sherry, the recently retired CEO of Team San Jose describes the role the artwork will play for the Convention Center: "This installation provides an iconic, artistic and technology-driven element to the main entrance of the Convention Center and provides a new sense of place for conference attendees, visitors and residents."
Adjacent to the Idea Tree canopy is a freestanding 'sound booth' where the public can leave short voice messages that are wirelessly transmitted to the central element of the canopy that the artist calls "the fruit." These messages are reassembled into a ambient soundscape audible from underneath the sculpture. At night the central "fruit" is crowned with a soothing pulse of LED light that signals the active mixing of sound.
"We live in a dynamic age, so public art cannot afford to remain as static objects of passive enjoyment," said artist and architect Soo-in Yang. "Through my work, public art becomes a domain for active public participation and discussion, which is the concept behind Idea Tree."
Soo-in Yang is an architect and artist based in San Francisco and Seoul, South Korea. His work ranges in breadth from architecture, participatory art, and design to marketing campaigns, and in scale from buildings to palm-sized devices. Yang's public artworks have been installed in the U.S., China and South Korea. He earned Bachelor of Architectural Engineering from Yonsei University, Korea, and Master of Architecture from Columbia University, where he is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and Founding Co-Director of the Living Architecture Lab. He directs Lifethings, a multi-disciplinary design office based in Seoul.
"The City of San Jose is thrilled to have Soo-in Yang's innovative Idea Tree as an interactive visual element that welcomes visitors and the community to San Jose's newly remodeled Convention Center," said Kim Walesh, director of Economic Development and chief strategist for San Jose. "The art piece reflects San Jose's leadership at the intersection of art and technology. It's a significant addition to our growing Illuminating Downtown Project."
A number of stakeholders from the Downtown, Convention Center, and arts community were instrumental in helping vision the project, select the artist, and guide his understanding of the community, region, and potential function of the new plaza. They were critical partners to the process.
On October 10th from 4:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Convention Center will host a Community Day open house. As the art piece will be undergoing beta testing through the official opening of the Convention Center in October, please stop by and leave a short voice message contributing to the whispers heard under the Idea Tree!
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National Innovation Summit For Arts + Culture 
EmcArts Inc. will host the National Innovation Summit for Arts + Culture, October 20 - 23. The Summit will take place in Denver, Colorado, with 250 pioneering arts leaders and funders from 14 communities, including San Jose. A Virtual Summit will be streamed online where you can experience all 27 Summit Talks via an Internet connection. While you watch the online talks, you may join the conversation using the Twitter hashtag #ArtsFwd. Your comments and questions will be actively integrated into the discussion following each group of Talks and shared with the on-site speakers.
To register at no cost for the Virtual Summit: http://artsfwd.org/summit/register-virtual-summit/
The themes and schedule of the summit are:
- Taking Collective Action (3:00 pm PST - Sun, Oct 20)
- Co-Creating with the Public (8:00 am PST - Mon, Oct 21)
- Artists as Agents of Change (10:00 am PST - Mon, Oct 21)
- Animating Neighborhoods (2:30 pm PST - Mon, Oct 21)
- Citizenship and the Arts (8:00 am PST - Tues, Oct 22)
- Transforming Organizational Structure (2:30 pm PST - Tues, Oct 22)
Local Forum on Arts Innovation in San Jose
Before the Summit, there will be a LOCAL FORUM in San Jose on ARTS INNOVATION IN SAN JOSE. Anyone interested in advancing innovation in our local arts sector is encouraged to attend this discussion.
Date: Tues, Oct 15
Time: 3-5pm
Location: Children's Discovery Museum, 180 Woz Way, San Jose
For more info and to RSVP: artsprogram@sanjoseca.gov
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Celebrate the 95th Year of Tradition in San Jose:
The Veterans Day Parade!
Since 1919, a public ceremony or parade has been held on Veterans Day in Downtown San Jose, California. Now sponsored by the United Veterans Council of Santa Clara County with support from the City of San Jose and County of Santa Clara, along with contributions from many individuals and organizations, this Veterans Day Parade, one of the largest in Northern California, honors all who served or are currently serving their country.
The opening ceremony for the parade begins on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month with a memorial ceremony at the intersection of Park Avenue and Market Street in honor of the 1918 Armistice of the "War to End All Wars." The Parade steps off at noon from Santa Clara and 87 (near the SAP Center) and travels east along Santa Clara to Market Street.
The featured Grand Marshal for the 2013 parade will be General S.P. Worden (USAF Ret.) and current Director of NASA Ames Research Center, and former Director of Development and Transformation, Space, and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Command. The parade proceeds south on Market, passing the reviewing stand at Park Avenue opposite Plaza de Cesar Chavez near the Tech Museum, and ends at San Carlos Street.
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Upcoming Outdoor Events
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Walk to End Alzheimer's - October 12.
Saturday, 8:30 am to 1 pm
Arena Green West & Downtown City Streets
Light the Night Walk - October 19. Saturday, 5 pm to 8:30 pm
Discovery Meadow & Downtown City Streets
Step Out Walk to Stop Diabetes - October 20.
Sunday, 7 am to 1 pm Arena Green East & Guadalupe River Trail
Making Strides Against Breast Cancer - October 26.
Saturday, 8 am to 10:30 am
Arena Green West & Downtown City Streets
Zombie Run - October 27.
Sunday, 10 am to 12 noon
Kelly Park, Phelan, Alma and Senter Roads
Purple Strides Silicon Valley - November 2.
Saturday, 9 am to 1 pm
Discovery Meadow, Arena Green & Guadalupe River Trail
Have a wonderful fall
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