In its five-plus decades of existence, the San Jose Museum of Art has amassed a collection of more than 2,700 works. But the public rarely gets a chance to fully realize the enormity and diversity of that collection — or the tapestry-like story it tells about art and our community.
That’s changing with the opening of “Tending and Dreaming: Stories from the Collection,” the museum’s first galleries dedicated to showcasing its own items. A large crowd of museum supporters — including co-founder Ann Marie Mix — joined outgoing Executive Director S. Sayre Batton to officially open the ground-floor galleries on Friday night.
“We are thrilled to take the next step in this journey by dedicating permanent gallery space to the stories within our collection,” Batton said. “By highlighting artists as storytellers, this installation invites visitors to see the museum not just as a repository of art, but as a dynamic, living space where culture is continually created, interpreted, and reimagined.”
The first installation will be on display for the next year, and it will include many pieces familiar to longtime museum patrons like Louise Nevelson’s “Sky Cathedral,” Hung Liu’s “Resident Alien,” Enrique Chagoya’s “Their Freedom of Expression. The Recovery of Their Economy,” and Patssi Valdez’s “The Imaginary Garden,” which is at the galleries’ entrance. In all, nearly 50 artists are represented in the adjacent galleries, which were curated by SJMA Chief Curator Lauren Schell Dickens (a recipient of many congratulations Friday night), along with Juan Omar Rodriguez and Nidhi Gandhi.
Usha Srinivasan, president of the multicultural arts organization Mosaic America, said “Tending and Dreaming” is a testament to the vision of taking our diverse society from just coexistence to true cohesion — with stories that engage in dialogue with each other and shape our sense of place.
“What you will see on the walls is more than a collection of artworks,” she said Friday night. “It’s an invitation to each of us to re-imagine a future that is more connected, one that honors every voice in our community.”
You can find out more about “Tending and Dreaming,” as well as museum hours and admission prices, at www.sjmusart.org.
FIND A TREASURE — OR FIX ONE: The maxim “one man’s trash is another’s treasure” has long been the spirit of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose’s big rummage sale, which returns March 13-15 at the Creekside Socials warehouse at 20 Barack Obama Blvd. near SAP Center. It’s a great place to find vintage clothes, furniture, art, books, vinyl records and some one-of-a-kind items (not to mention PAC-SJ’s popular enamel pins of classic San Jose signs).
But there’s a cool twist this year: PAC-SJ is partnering with Repair Cafe Silicon Valley and San Jose State’s FixIt Clinic for an event at the sale on Saturday, March 15. Volunteers will be on hand to help people make repairs on clothes, bikes, small appliances and electronics. Their goal is pretty much the same as the rummage sale by keeping old stuff that can still be used out of landfills.
The sale runs 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 14 and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 15, but you can get a jump on everything at an early bird sale March 13 from noon to 3 p.m. for a $5 entrance free (waived for PAC-SJ members). Get more information at www.preservation.org.
MYSTERY THEATER: This weekend, City Lights Theatre Company in San Jose will open Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap,” the whodunit writer’s famous murder mystery that holds the record as the world’s longest-running play (going steady in London since 1952). So it fits — or is at least an eerie coincidence — that with a slot open during the run on March 23, City Lights booked a touring production of a solo show about another woman with a connection to mystery: Sarah Winchester.
“Mrs. Winchester, or, A Gun in the First Act,” by playwright Joe Christiano, features actor Lisa Morse in the title role, providing the audience with a personal tour of her mysterious mansion in San Jose. For tickets and more information on the one-night-only production, go to www.cltc.org/winchester.