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2024 Creative License Ambassadors

The 2024 Creative Ambassadors represent a range of artistic disciplines and share a deep commitment to San Jose's cultural community. The Office of Cultural Affairs is pleased to announce the selection of the following artists as 2024 Creative Ambassadors:

DEBORAH KENNEDY

Project Nexus, an interactive installation, gave the gallery visitor a chance to experience holistic thinking first-hand. It was inspired by a botanical illustration that applied systems thinking to analyzing a living botanical environment. A five-foot wide sculpture based on this illustration was the centerpiece of the show. The Ring of Life, part musical instrument, part teaching tool, helped participants experience the interconnectedness, interdependence and complexity at work in the living environments that sustain us. This installation also included other components, such as the burning bush (one of the few times a plant was represented as the divine in the Western tradition), and The Ring of Water, which was also a drum. Student composers created and performed musical works on the instruments.

Photo of a white woman with grey hair smiling with a painting behind her.An artist and author, Deborah Kennedy’s artwork includes paintings, drawings, and installations focusing on ecological and social themes. Her work has been presented and reviewed internationally. Kennedy's book, Nature Speaks: Art and Poetry for the Earth, combines her illustrations and poetry and was recognized with the Eric Hoffer and Silver Nautilus poetry book awards. Follow @deborahkennedyart.

The Broadside Art and Poetry Project will bring the excitement of creative expression to the lives and public spaces of Santa Clara County residents through an innovative use of broadsides. Broadsides are sheets of paper printed on one side with text and artwork and have been used to share information, from the first years of our country to the posters of today. Early on, they featured poetry, lyrics, and announcements, not unlike today’s social media sites. This project will update this vital tradition to give voice to the wide variety of creative people in our community. Fiscally sponsored by Local Color.

ALICE HUR


Portrait of an Asian woman in her late 20's - early 30's weearing gold hoop hearings. Her hands are under her chin with arms and elbow down in a v-shape.Alice Hur is a practitioner of a street dance style called waacking (originally named punking) and has been performing, competing, and teaching this art form for the past decade. She is the founder of the Bay Area event series, Waack, Crackle, Lock! In 2022, she created San Jose Waacking—a free and open outdoor training session highlighting this dance. Alice was awarded a California Arts Council Fellowship in 2023 and holds a Master of Public Policy from UC Berkeley. Follow @sj_waacking.

Alice’s Creative Expression project, Disco Connection, provides multiple engagement opportunities for San Jose’s diverse communities to come together and find their creative voice via waacking, a queer dance rooted in freedom and individual self-expression. This series will consist of the following: 1) dance workshops from San Jose artists and waacking pioneers; 2) waacking disco “takeover” nights in San Jose nightclubs; and 3) an outdoor event that will feature a waacking dance battle, participatory freestyle dance circles, and local vendors. Disco Connection, per its name, aims to build connections among the city’s residents through a shared love of music and dance. This project is fiscally sponsored by Local Color.

RAYOS MAGOS

Six image of white on black linocut block prints that celebrate culture, identity and symbology.

 

Portait of a latino male in his mid-30s with a beard ad mustache wearing a yellow hat in front of a painting.Rayos Magos is a Latinx/Chicano, mixed-media artist from San Jose, CA. His body of work focuses on symbolism, healing, spirituality, mental health, and social justice. Rayos explores personal narratives and universal themes via collage, printmaking, painting, textile, and sculpture. As an Latinx artist Rayos is inspired by culture, people, identity, and the roles we play in society. Follow @rayos_magos.

Rayos’ Creative Expression Project Symbolic Narratives, will explore a variety of printmaking techniques through community workshops. The project looks to encourage art making, self-expression, and personal narrative storytelling in order to encourage the preservation of cultural healing practices and rituals. Through use of symbols we are enabled to discuss more difficult topics via imagery and storytelling. The culmination of the project will be to create a book documenting the personal symbolic imagery created by participants. The hope would be to encourage and empower the community members to teach and be active in documenting their stories through art of symbolic printmaking. This project is fiscally sponsored by MACLA.

YOSIMAR REYES


Headshot of a Latino man with a thin mustache wearing a black shirt with roses on it.Yosimar Reyes is a nationally-acclaimed Poet and Public Speaker. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, and raised in Eastside San Jose, Reyes explores the themes of migration and sexuality in his work. The Advocate named Reyes one of "13 LGBT Latinos Changing the World" and Remezcla included Reyes on their list of "10 Up And Coming Latinx Poets You Need To Know." Follow @yosirey.

The creative expression project Abuelito Fest is a curated afternoon event that will highlight our beloved grandparents with interactive art activities and music. It's a family celebration bringing intergenerational audiences to be in community and pay our respects to the elderly. This project is fiscally sponsored by MACLA.


PANTEA KARIMI

A marble painting in reds, blue and yellows with yellow leaves outlined in black crawing up throughout the painting.

Photo of a middle-aged woman with dark hair and glasses wearing a grey scarf. She is in front of a botanical grey and white print. She is holding a botanical item in her right hand.Pantea Karimi is a multidisciplinary artist based in San Jose, CA. Her work explores the intersection of art, history, and science using installations, digital and hand-made prints, and paintings. Karimi’s work can be found in public collections at Stanford University, University of California, San Francisco, and University of California, Davis, and internationally, she has had her works exhibited in diverse venues.  She has been featured by KQED Arts and Culture in 2020 and 2022 and by the KQED forum in 2023. Follow @karimipantea.

Her Creative Expression project, Garden Impressions, celebrates San Jose Historic Rose Gardens, Guadalupe River Park, and Volunteers who maintain them. Garden Impressions engages communities of diverse age groups and fosters meaningful connections among them. Using collected botanical clippings during volunteering hours, participants make monoprints on paper and a website will be created to feature artworks and narratives; celebrating participating volunteers. The project has significant relevance to the City’s current project, Our City Forest, and pays homage to the past San Jose Historic Orchards industry and Garden scenes and community of farmers, and gardeners who lived here and cared for them. This project is fiscally sponsored by Local Color.

About the Creative License Ambassadors

The 2024 Creative Ambassadors were selected through a competitive panel review process that considers applicants' artistic track records and histories of community engagement work. Emphasis was also placed on artists that are deeply rooted within San Jose's diverse cultural communities. Practicing artists of all disciplines were invited to apply.

In addition to producing a creative project involving the community, the Ambassadors' scope of work includes promoting creative expression through social media, participating in interviews, and helping to promote and participate in the WeCreate408 campaign (wecreate408.org). WeCreate408 is the Office of Cultural Affairs' month-long creativity challenge, currently scheduled for April 2024. By working with the ambassadors to tailor the messaging around the power of creative expression to their networks, the goal is for San Jose residents to elevate their creativity and celebrate its role in their everyday lives. In doing so, residents will experience the arts as a vital means of connecting to themselves and others.

Support for the 2024 Creative Ambassadors is provided in part by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and from the Arts and David and Lucille Packard Foundation.