JOIN US for the next South FIRST FRIDAYS art walk on AUG 5th
with STREET MRKT & ArtCar Fest.
It all kicks off at 7pm! — ART WALK venues are free and open to the public

• South FIRST FRIDAYS presents STREET MRKT plus ArtCar Fest 15th Anniversary Showcase featuring 30 mobile, street legal sculptures from around the bay areaCome to the SoFA District from 7–11pm for an inspired evening of arts & culture.
  Free and open to all ages.
  www.southfirstfridays.com/street-mrkt

• Anno Domini // the second coming of Art & Design – 366 South First St. map

  
  

  Opening Reception: The Melting Kingdom by Dimitri Drjuchin

  Dimitri Drjuchin (NY) returns to Anno Domini for his second solo exhibition entitled The Melting Kingdom. The new works slip us into parallel space of bright pinks, blues, reds and yellows through Drjuchin’s pouring rain paint portals that harbor a metaphor for our country’s current socio-economic troubles. The problems, embodied in his monsters that ooze across cityscapes, are surrounded by super-humans who still manage to have the last laugh. In these epic, dripping landscapes stories of individual triumph melt down the canvas seducing us into a world where anything is possible, even happiness during crisis.

  Dimitri will also perform a live acoustic set out on the STREET MRKT stage as Corrupt Autopilot.

  On view in galleryONE: ART OF ZINES 2011

  Featuring hundreds of zines from basements, bedrooms and midnight copy shops throughout the US and abroad. On view through August 13th.

• Art Glass Center of San Jose – 465 South First St. map

   

  Listing unavailable at time of posting.

• Higher Fire Clayspace & Gallery – 499 South Market St. map

  
  

  Firing a wood kiln is exciting and labor intensive requiring constant stoking and tending for as long as 12 days. Local ceramic artist Shawn Felts brings his wood-fired works to Higher Fire this August — blistered bourbon bottles and flasks as well as more traditional “wabi sabi” teabowls and serving items.

• KALEID gallery – 88 South Fourth St. map

  
  Image by Jojo Perea

  Convergence by Jojo Perea

  Subatomic abstract realism: A worldwide acceleration where science and spirituality dances to the tune of the cosmos. The illusion of duality unveiled a new beginning.

  
  Image by Michelle Waters

  Musings from the Wasteland by Michelle Waters

  The paintings in this series are influenced by the nightmarish imagery of Hieronymus Bosch, Edward Abbey’s writings and my work as a wildlife rehabilitator and environmental activist. My art deconstructs the assumption of human superiority by showing what might transpire if animals took control over the fate of the planet. Animals demolishing the Glen Canyon Dam and wildlife laying waste to a bulldozer are some of the characters who populate my paintings.

• MACLA Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana – 510 South First St. map

  
  

  MACLA and Secos y Mojados Artist Collective is pleased to present A Body Parted: Shrapnel of Present Time Mural unveiling on MACLA’s William St Facade. In MACLA’s Gallery do not miss Navigations of the Fantastic featuring: Elizabeth Gómez, Betty Davis, José Arenas and Verónica Félix and stay for our music lounge featuring Cuban artist Marcos Pereda.

• Phantom Galleries – art exhibits in vacant storefronts and alternative spaces

  66 South First St: Defragmentation 66 
An installation by Michele Guieu

  

  Defragmentation 66 is an adaptation of the last installation I’ve made in San Diego: Defragmentation: Rearranging Bits and Pieces of Memory. It is an ongoing project and the occasion to reflect on bits and pieces of my memories, as I am recalling/documenting them. The project originated when I was about to leave San Diego after living there for 6 years. I thought about the different times I’ve left a place in my life. Defragmentation 66 is the first installation I am showing in San Jose since I’ve moved and it represents a link between the two towns – and beyond. The installation is on a smaller scale but uses some essential elements featured in the first version of the show: an ensemble of paintings, a painted background and videos. The videos in Defragmentation 66 are new memories and were taken here, in the bay area. The address number where the show is held, 66, is an interesting symbol in my life: the first time I came to the US, that’s the road I traveled on.

  386 South First St: Street Swag Photo Booth photos by Abe Menor at SubZERO Festival 2010

  

  95 South Market St: Roundels sculptures by Gianfranco Paolozzi

  

  I was looking in the recycle container full of paper from flexo printing presses.

  That’s when I felt the passion again: round surfaces screaming to be used. I looked at them changing on the floor of my studio. I had to use my marks, my moments on the surfaces as a sign of me being there.

  That’s when the roundels were born.

• San Jose Jazz at Eulipia Restaurant – 374 South First St. map

  
  

  Composer/cellist/trombonist Dana Leong blends jazz, classical and pop to create a signature sound. Dana’s pioneering collage of musical styles has garnered critical acclaim and wowed audiences around the world. He has collaborated with top jazz artists including Paquito D’Rivera, Christian McBride, Dafnis Prieto, and Henry Threadgill; and has worked with such diverse artists as Ray Charles, Barry White, Kanye West, Wynton Marsalis, Bjork, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yoko Ono and Lila Downs.

  In 2008 Dana’s quartet MILK & JADE toured all over Southeast Asia as part of Jazz at Lincoln Center and the U.S. State Department-sponsored tour, The Rhythm Road: American Music Abroad. Since then the group has been a smashing hit at numerous festivals in Europe, Asia and the US. In addition to touring, Dana is a prolific composer and arranger, having recently written and premiered IdEgo, a new work for an aerial dance company Project Bandaloop at the Orange County Performing Arts Center as well as an evening length work, Life After Dark, at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. He was a featured guest music director and performer in Fela! on Broadway in 2010 and is the first ever Composer-In-Residence for The Museum of Chinese in America in New York City.

  Dana grew up in San Francisco and studied classical cello and jazz trombone on double scholarships at Manhattan School of Music. Dana gives clinics and workshops around the globe as an official performing artist and clinician for YAMAHA and D’Addario Bowed Strings.

• San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles – 520 South First St. map

  
  English Garden by Arline Fisch, 2010. Photo by William Gullette

  View two exhibits: Primary Structures explores how innovative artists using simple linear elements in combination with unconventional materials can broaden our understanding of the familiar by transforming the stitch structures of knit and crochet into large scale and compelling art. Southwestern Banded Blankets: Three Cultures, One Horizon (Collection of Jean and Roger Moss) is a unique exhibit and the first of its type to focus exclusively on banded blankets. These utilitarian and simply striped blankets showcase the rich cultural tradition of the Pueblo, the Navajo, and the Spanish Colonial Rio Grande blankets of the “Four Corners” area of the American Southwest.

  Join us for the South First Friday Salon: Make a beautiful sculptural origami lotus out of yarn and paper, and check out our gigantic knitted yarn flowers that are currently being exhibited! And listen to solo classical guitarist, Michael Bautista, member of the South Bay Guitar Society.

• SLG Art Boutiki & Gallery – 577 South Market St. map

  
  

  The SLG Art Boutiki features the return of its popular show The Modern Primitives Cultural Research and Cocktail Society. Tikis and other Polynesian pop and cocktail themed art adorn the gallery walls. Live music and the stuff that dreams are made of.

• Works San Jose – 365 South Market St. map

  
  Image credit: Theresa Because, mixed media sculpture

  Primer paso (First Step): emancipation of a life (emancipación de una vida)

  Five artists from Oaxaca confront aspects of artistic, personal, and cultural emancipation:
  Julio Cesar, César Chávez, Mario Guzman, Eder Luna, Ylan Luna

• Caffé Frascati – 315 South First St. map

  

  Cheating Time: Constructing a Praxis of Juncture by Trina Merry

  Bodypaint is a temporary medium which changes into a different painting almost as soon as the artist has set it onto the skin and as the human canvas performs & models in it. Bodypainting in many ways is like another indigenous & tribal art form, the sand painting.

  “Quite a bit of effort and time is made to create the work and it is easily destroyed or becomes a new work, changed by factors I the artist have no control over. When I bodypaint I am not ruled by time, but external elements remind me that we are in a state of change & life is a process, not a product. So much of our culture is designed to produce & consume a product- we live by the clock, the stoplight & the retirement plan.

  Nature has much to teach us about seasons & living in process. Each day the sunsets a little sooner or a little later; the ocean & rivers teach us something about time that a clock cannot. We are in a constant state of change, no matter how much we resist it. “

  Through bodypaint, Merry has taken classical high art themes, such as the Four Seasons, and high art forms, such as ballet, to examine this concept of process, connection and living in season. Performance artists, such as dancers with fabric, are caught in the moment of leaps & turns frozen by photography. One of the featured bodypaintings of the exhibit based on Picasso’s “Guernica”, is set on a purposefully posed human canvas, yet full of imagery of an existential moment—the horror & anguish experienced by the victims of war.

  “I feel like Caffé Frascati (formerly Caffé Trieste) is the correct venue to explore these high art subjects as it has been a proud supporter of San Jose artists as a venue for music, poetry, and art exhibits.

  This exhibit explores two important photographer relationships I have with Martin Delfino & Rafael Hernandez. Both are immigrants with a wonderful love of avante garde art who have been instrumental in my growth as an artist.”

• Downtown Yoga Shala – 450 South First St. map

  
  

  Imagination Landscapes by Allegra Bick-Maurischat

  In her first solo show, Allegra Bick-Maurischat explores the fluidity of line and the intensity of color to break from literal, everyday forms. Her multimedia drawings and paintings are physically detailed, visual mappings of form and color that create “landscapes” meant to engage and challenge the imagination.

• Good Karma Vegan Café – 37 South First St. map

  

  Dreams by Valerie Runningwolf

  What are dreams? Where do they come from? Some believe they may come from a collective consciousness, others believe they are messages from the spirit world, or maybe self generated from our minds.

  A collection of dreams brought to life by mixed-media artist Valerie Runningwolf can be seen at Good Karma in August. Please join us during the First Friday art walk to share your dreams in a collaborative art piece.

• METRO Photo Exhibit – 550 South First St. map

  
  

  Know Trespassing by Jason Duffany

  “Last year I rode my bicycle across Canada, then down the East Coast to Florida, then west again to New Mexico, invading any empty buildings I came across, for photo sessions. This image (above) was taken at an abandoned gypsum factory in Philadelphia.”

• Pho69 – 321 South First St. map

  
  

  Collection of Light A new series by LAuruS Myth

  LAuruS Myth work is based on patterns found in nature that have lead to patterns used in modern technology. Not only do these symbols relate to each other visually, but they also function as patterns that guide flows of energy throughout machines and plant life. Connecting and converting this energy into the power that lies within human life and purpose, fuels her motives and creative inspiration. Her hope is to capture the essence of vibration through the repetition of organic and geometric shapes.

  “A plethora of environmental vibrations transform through colors to expose the core joy of my work as I attempt to bridge my own concepts of power. One source of power is sold as a commodity, and the other is simply generated within living organisms. Sources to support our human needs, such as solar, wind, biomass, and nuclear, are found externally in our environment, and I believe are also indistinguishable from our oneness and inner light. The balance between these two realms brings us closer to our collective achievements for energy. I believe that finding ways to converge the ideas of art and science, nature and technology, and “us” as the environment is the purpose of my current work. The interweaving of nature-spaces and microprocessor components in my paintings create a colorful kaleidoscope of this fusion of a world we live in.”

  Pho69 also features live contemporary music on First Fridays. Come check out local bands performing favorite covers and original music.

• Psycho Donuts – 288 South Second St. map

  
  

  Psycho Donuts in downtown San Jose is a quirky donut shop and art gallery. The gallery displays top local artists and has an ongoing exhibit featuring the work of John Renzel, Lacey Bryant, Nicolas Caesar, Murphy Adams, Christine Benjamin, Michael Foley, Michael Borja, Laura Callin Bennett, Michelle Waters, John Hageman and Valery Milovic.

• South First Billiards & Lounge – 420 South First St. map

  

  Reflejos de Nuestras Raíces (Reflections of Our Roots)

  As people continue to immigrate to the United States, those who come from the South are often automatically assumed to be Mexican. While people of Mexican heritage do have much in common with people from Central and South America, it is important to recognize the uniqueness of every culture and the differences between them, especially in a country as culturally diverse as the United States. In fact, there is a broad range of diversity even within each cultural group because, as with the general populations, every individual brings a very unique set of life experiences and perspectives.

  In Reflejos de Nuestras Raíces (Reflections of Our Roots), a group of San Francisco Bay Area artists of Mexican roots exhibit their artwork in representation of one of the many cultures that together define America’s diverse population. These artists, though sharing Mexican roots, are in fact a cross-section of their cultural group as they vary in socio-economic background, gender, age, life experience, language, nationality, and race.

  Artists’ reception includes Aztec dance, live music by The Blank Manuscript, and more!

  5-9pm ALL AGES. 9pm-close 21+ venue.

• TechShop San Jose – 300 South Second St. map

  
  

  Made At TechShop

  Join us for a night of art at San Jose’s South FIRST FRIDAYS art walk! We have turned the lobby of TechShop San Jose into a gallery space for the night to showcase artwork and projects that TechShop members have made! Come see what you can make here!

• Art Ark – 1035 South Sixth St. map

  
  Photo Credit: Michelle Budziak

  Welcome to Coyote Creek’

  City waterways provide residents, housed and un-housed, an escape to nature. Access of this resource is important, though local use can cause damage to the area. This exhibit explores Coyote Creek in San Jose, focusing on both positive and negative aspects of resident use of its trails and parks.