What does it mean to “activate” a neighborhood? Ask the team members at Creekside Socials, who spend their time trying to do just that.
For instance, a week and a half ago, Creekside lured soccer fans to a celebration that started the clock on the one-year countdown to the FIFA World Cup.
And this week the team launches its Creekside Art Corridor, three separate public art projects around Barack Obama Boulevard and South Montgomery Street.
These activities are the direct result of Google’s Downtown West project, which was approved in May 2021 after three long years of tussling with the city and local activists. Google and the city hammered out the details of a community benefit plan that called for the tech company to invest $200 million in San Jose to prevent displacement of locals and to provide economic opportunities.
As envisioned back in 2019, Downtown West would encompass 80 acres near Diridon Station, 7.3 million square feet of office space, 4,000 housing units, 15 acres of parks, a community center, and 500,000 square feet for “retail, cultural, arts, education, hotel and more,” per the Downtown West Mixed-Use Plan. Google has a 30-year lease on the property.
Following the first demolition phase of the project in 2023, Google halted construction on its Downtown West campus, pushing back the timeline. City officials say that while Google is still committed to the overall project, there is no new timeline or start date for construction.
Despite the construction delays and uncertainties surrounding commercial real estate in downtown San Jose, Google has continued efforts to generate a sense of place in the area, engaging real estate firm Jamestown to manage a series of events under the name Creekside Socials.
The Creekside Art Corridor is part of that continuing work. And that’s been a benefit for the two Bay Area arts organizations and eight artists who created work for the corridor that celebrates the area’s culture, history and nature. The opening event takes place June 26 from 4:30 to 7pm.
Buzz and Beer
One of these locations is by Hapa Brewing Company’s new outdoor beer garden on Barack Obama Boulevard, which is opening June 27.
Orchestrated by concept artist Charmin Roundtree-Baaqee and her group Art Is Luv, The Buzz installation features playful cutouts made of birch plywood created by Bay Area artists Nicole Dixon, Carmen McNall, Rayos Mago and Ian Johnson—each bringing their own perspectives on human connection, cultural diversity and nature to their work.
Roundtree-Baaquee says, “We wanted to create the perfect invitation to a festive garden party, representing connectedness, growth and harmony, reflecting the diverse demographics of San Jose. The collaborative nature of the project, both in artistic contribution and the sustainable materials chosen, mirrors this spirit.”
The Art Corridor tour will hit The Buzz at around 6:25pm. It is located at 59 Barack Obama Blvd., San Jose.
Mentoring Artists
The other projects came into being under the direction of Art Builds Community, an organization that helps emerging talents become public artists.
Art Builds Community partners Amanda Rawson and Quynh-Mai Nguyen met ten years ago at Roy’s Coffee and Tea in Japantown, where Rawson was working as a barista. Nguyen had logged more than a decade of experience in the arts through her poetry and her work as a gallery curator.
After frequently bumping into one another by virtue of their common interests, the duo began working together. In 2019, they met Art Builds Community founder Barbara Goldstein, who would eventually ask the two to take over majority control of the business.
The women, who celebrated their two-year anniversary this month, were contracted by Creekside Social to manage the curation of two projects in the Creekside Art Corridor. After interviewing more than 20 artists, they chose three San Jose locals to create artwork that would be on display for the next five years.
Together, Nguyen, Rawson and Goldstein have worked in Nevada, Oregon and Maryland, helping cities create master plans for public art so that investments can go back into the community. Nguyen says that public art is more than just murals or statues. As long as it’s truly free and accessible to the public, it’s public art.
“We help mentor emerging artists to become public artists,” Nguyen says. “In a lot of cities, we work with a lot of people, but there really isn’t schooling that they can go through. What we do is help guide them and mentor them and teach them how to translate that into public artwork.”
Nguyen and Rawson meet many artists who want to become storytellers for the community. No one teaches emerging artists how to deal with fabricators or negotiate with funding organizations, and that’s where they can lend a hand. Art Builds Community has a new office in the SoFa District that will eventually be a space for artists to participate in workshops and panel discussions, or meet people who can help them in their careers.
For the Creekside Art Corridor projects, they selected Ricardo Cortez and Alyssarhaye Graciano and Francisco Graciano—all local artists who haven’t done work on this scale before.
A Walk Through History
Cortez, whose grandparents migrated to San Jose in the 1930s, welcomes the chance to have his work on display as not just a personal milestone but also a way to share his family’s unique perspective: seeing San Jose change from a landscape of orchards and canneries to Silicon Valley industrial parks.
A graduate of the private Bellarmine College Prep boys school with a bachelor’s degree in art from Santa Clara University and a master’s in digital media art from San Jose State University, Cortez says he had planned since he was a teenager to go into the arts. His project for Creekside, titled 408Innovates: Moments, Memories and Milestones, sits next to a lot that formerly housed Stephen’s Meat Products, a place Cortez says his family used to shop.
Cortez’s affinity for the creative arts came from his grandfather, who gave an 18-year-old Cortez one of his classic cars. Coming up with solutions to problems with the car sparked Cortez’s imagination—something that resonated as technology changed in the ’80s and ’90s and he watched analog and digital art merge.
The concept of using modern technology to bring back pieces of nostalgia is a common theme in Cortez’s work. Cortez uses tools like Adobe Illustrator to create artwork and then converts it into files to send to production teams. He is most proud of his work’s nostalgic feel, tied to the 1940s and 1950s.
“I think this is the biggest endeavor that I’ve taken from a public art perspective,” Cortez says. The project will be on view for five years, and he has been working on it since last October. Cortez’s sidewalk art history lesson begins in 1777, the year San Jose was California’s first civil settlement, and it displays 30 distinctive facets of San Jose’s history. For example, San Jose has the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on the West Coast, and it was the site of the introduction of honey bees to California.
Cortez also is close to the lowrider community which he says is part of the fabric of the city. He loves it all—cruising around, having meetups to show off the cars, the fashion, the music and the competitions, with cars that can jump up as high as eight feet.
Cortez sees value in honoring different cultures and he wants to spotlight as many communities as he can—and the vibrancy they bring to San Jose. “Art is a different and valid form of protest,” he says, and artists are in a place of privilege because they can be a voice for others.
408Innovates is at 105 S. Montgomery St., San Jose. It is the first stop on the Creekside Art Corridor tour at 5pm.
Family Affair
Across from Cortez’s project is Flora & Fauna, a collection of work created by a father-daughter artistic duo. Francisco Graciano was originally born in Los Angeles but has lived in San Jose for the last 45 years. Graciano’s passion for art started when he was in the second grade and would read his uncle’s comic books.
“That was the beginning of my journey into storytelling, as I read the same comic book over and over—which was also a part of how I read Spanish as well,” Graciano says. He eventually began drawing some of the characters himself. He was also inspired by his cousin DJ, who was a graffiti artist and breakdancer.
In his early 20s Graciano would begin riding the bus with his cousins, which led him to see different forms of art on the transit. “My early 20s was my first time being a paid artist, which was from me making sculptures out of wire hangers for a store I was working at, which then led me to work for a metal worker, where I learned how to weld, grind and cut metal.”
In Graciano’s younger years he delved into sculpting and painting, and eventually he played the congas in a band in the late ’90s called Firme. Daughter Alyssarhaye says she remembers watching her father play around San Jose in places like the Voodoo Lounge, The Blank and Tres Gringos. He has also done murals for Catholic Charities and created a piece of art on permanent display at Villa Montalvo that depicts a hummingbird.
Alyssarhaye was born in San Jose and spent most of her life here until she went to UC Riverside, where she studied language, literature and linguistics. “I was always exposed to some form of art, like after-school programs that my dad taught at, like the Children’s Discovery Museum, as well as Tapestry in Talent,” Alyssarhaye says.
Raised by a Mexican father and a Filipino mother, Alyssarhaye says she stopped speaking Spanish at a young age. Majoring in language was a way to reclaim her heritage. She eventually started a knitting business, Black Sheep Made, and she has been enlisted by companies such as Nike, Apple and Adidas to teach their employees how to knit during lunch hours.
Art Builds Community reached out to Alyssarhaye and Francisco in 2024 and asked them to each apply individually. “We thought about how the lot is next to the Guadalupe River, and wanted to pay homage to the nature, and how can we beautify the space that is already there,” Alyssarhaye says. “In our design, we have a river, similar to Ricardo Cortez’s, and we have the routes for the VTA line, as well as native flowers such as the California fuchsia, seep monkey flower, and the California aster.” They also depict birds, as a nod to migration and immigration. The birds lead people into the entrance of the lot.
Though they have worked together before, this is one of their biggest collaborations. Since the work is close to Caltrain, they like the idea that it will be seen by people riding the train. And they see the work as a way to reclaim the space and add beauty to the area. Working with Art Builds Community, they learned how public art works and shared their vision on a larger scale.
Flora & Fauna is located at 140 S. Montgomery St. The Art Corridor Grand Opening tour will swing by around 5:55pm on June 26.
