A N I M A L S
Downtown San Jose's own made-up-museum for pandemic kids presents ANIMALS, its 4th exhibit. The show runs July 15th until July 29th. Residents of the building may see the hallway show in-person, and all others may view the artwork virtually on Instagram and here. We have printable activities, a puppet tutorial, and we encourage you to take a photo of what you make or write and send it in!
ANIMALS in Art & Poetry showcases the other beings living on this big planet. From underground earthworms to a pegasus flying in the clouds, children and adults have sent in the products of their imagination. The show also features three Guest Artists: Harumo Sato, Yolanda Guerra, and Paris Butler.
Guest Artists
Harumosato
Animal Power: Imagine the world where you live, where animals live, and where plants live. We all share this precious earth and enjoy our lives on it. Even you don't see them often, they are there to explode the joy of life. How do we keep this earth for not only us, but also them? That's our question we need to answer.
Harumo Sato is a Japanese visual artist and has lived in Mountain View, CA.
After traveling and living in Japan, France, Morocco, Tunisia, Spain, she earned a BA from University in Buffalo, NY 2015. Through experiencing sudden sickness and severe natural disasters in her early life, her work aims to seek coexistence with nature and to create peace in viewers’ minds by combining psychology and the spirit of prehistoric to medieval artifacts.
Her works are in public and private collection and have been exhibited in diverse shows in the US. She received emerging awards from Leigh Weimer’s award and SVCreate.
Parisbutler
Paris Butler is an artist born and raised in the Bay Area now working and living in San Jose. This is the first large scale piece he has completed in San Jose in partnership with Local Color. This piece, like many others currently up right now, was a rallying cry against systems of oppression. The tiger has been symbolic of willpower, courage, and personal strength for thousands of years. It is used in this piece to show community solidarity and to encourage us to use our power as individuals to strengthen our community. As a single painting it may not be very special, but when seen next to over 30 other temporary murals throughout downtown it gives the viewer a sense of duty and a call to action.
yolandaguerra
"Christian Cooper", birder, 2020
Yolanda Guerra is a visual artist from San Jose, California. Her most recent work has been with textiles and woodblock prints.
Christian Cooper, painted here surrounded by a variety of birds, was in the news this year. He is a comic book writer and birding enthusiast. While birdwatching in Central Park in New York City, a white woman threatened him by calling the police, only because he asked her to leash her dog. Black Lives Matter every where and anywhere, even bird watching.
ACTIVITIES
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
on doris
Andrew Middleton
When I started my Shelter in Place, I felt really isolated and lonely. It was when I was bored and looking out the window, however, that I realized I wasn't alone. I named this spider Doris and she lived on my windowsill. I saw her every day for over a month and I imagined what it would be like to talk to my tiny roommate. I imagined what she might say.
"I wonder if I'll always be known for being a mimic of venomous mutillid wasps in the order hymenoptera and if that's the only reason people respect me. It's exhausting spending all day trying to be someone she isn't but if it means being left alone, well, it's definitely been great for my career. But will anyone see me for the gentle yet strong, solitary ambush predator that I am?"
"In 2012, NASA sent a red-backed jumping spider into space. Meanwhile I've never left this window sill. I only live 1-2 years tops. Have I squandered my potential by not moving out? Sometimes it feels that way. But I like it here. Is it so bad I've never left the neighborhood I was born in? Where I ate my siblings? Where I ate my last boyfriend? I've had some good times here. It may not be glamorous but I'm proud of the web I've built here and the community that I've eaten."
When I found out that she had died, I wrote this obituary:
On the morning of May 1, 2020, Doris the spider was found deceased apparently of natural causes. I tried to inform the family but there.... there are many.
Jumping spiders only live for a couple of years and in the last months of that short time that she was given, Doris and I became good friends and we shared a special connection. I'd be working on my laptop and I'd look over and there she'd be waiting for her next prey on the windowsill. She was quiet and kept to herself being something of a home body. She had no discernible hobbies or close friends. Perhaps there was only me to admire her tiny twinkling eyes and silent patience.
She is survived by several hundred named and unnamed offspring who at this time, like all times, ask that you preserve their privacy and just leave them to do spider stuff. In accordance with what I believe her last wishes were, the body was returned to the garden flower bed that she often looked upon from her windowsill.
She will be weaving tiny webbed burrows filled with discarded insect exoskeletons forever in our hearts.
Rest in Peace Doris .
I think Doris helped me feel less alone and it was fun to imagine what her life was like. I hope that someday one of her children moves into my windowsill and that we can become friends too. I still miss her.
BROKEN SUN HOLIDAY
Naomi and Julia
The foal's name was Salem. Is that a name for a horse? The foal lived in California and spoke the words that they speak in California. The foal's house was very close to the beach.
The first morning the foal went to the boat store was Tuesday. The month was February and this Tuesday was its birthday. The foal was turning four months old.
The boat store had cake that morning. That boat store sold boats and also boxes of water animals. The animals were frogs and alligators and turtles and a piglet taking a bath. The foal swam with the piglet and then bought five boxes of animals and took them home to its mother. The mother got the animals out of the boxes and then the foal tried to catch them. Then it went on its bed and jumped on it. After that the foal caught the animals and gave them to its mother. She stored them in the bathtub. The alligator went down the drain. (This is an impossible story.)
On a different Tuesday the foal accidentally went back to the boat store without its mother's permission. It was out of school for a holiday. It just walked across the bridge and looked out and saw animals and kept walking on the bridge and jumped onto another flat bridge and jumped onto another flat bridge and then it jumped to the boat store. The boat store was empty and there was no coronavirus so the foal could go inside. The foal had a purse with paper money and coins. It touched the boats and decided which boat to get. The cloud boat was very soft and the foal thought, “Good, let's bring it home.” The foal paid for the boat with one dollar and one coin and took the boat straight to the water instead of taking it home.
The foal was riding in the boat and found two parts of a bracelet and two parts of a bracelet that made four parts of a bracelet. It made them into one big bracelet. It crossed the bracelet parts and made an ampersand and put its knee through the ampersand. The ampersand was nice and soft like the cloud boat.
This is when the sun broke. The sun was one hundred years old and shaped like a raccoon. It stopped working because it got old. People who were outside were scared and went into their houses. It didn't explode so the foal was not scared, but part of it stopped burning. The sunlight got dim. The foal thought it should take a rest to feel calm, so it put itself onto its belly and rested comfortably. When it opened its eyes it saw chirping birds and the water's waves so it went back to sleep. It slept for a very long time, like one hundred minutes. The boat went up and flew into the clouds. The wind blew the clouds so the boat moved. It felt so nice.
The foal looked at the broken sun and decided it should probably go back home. I don't know how the boat got back. Maybe it came down slow with the rain. Maybe it came down fast and the foal screamed for its mother. The boat was in shallow water. The foal drug the boat onto the beach and went back into its house.
Later, people decided to get another sun. They tried to attach the new sun to the old sun but it didn't work, so they threw the sun far into outer space and it went into the trash full of broken suns.
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To Know
To know
The bird's sky, you must
First speak with the wind
To know
The leopard's paths, you must
First walk under the trees
To know
The whale's song, you must
First listen to the sea
Anonymoose, 17