San José Museum of Art

See what you think.

Community Day: Maker Day

11 AM–5 PM
Free admission all day!

#MAKERDAYSJMA

Our innovative neighbors and community partners make Silicon Valley thrive. SJMA celebrates San Jose’s vibrant maker community with a day of live performance, gallery tours, and art-making activities. Highlights include a blacksmithing demonstration from the School of Visual Philosophy and an original piece by comedian and storyteller Dhaya Lakshminarayanan. Inspired by the exhibition Your Mind, This Moment, Lakshminarayanan’s performance is based on her “monkey-mind adventures” at a silent meditation retreat in Marin County. That’s right: a comedian who must remain quiet.

To skip the line, register and print your tickets in advance.

Advanced registration will end 24 hours prior to event date, but tickets will be available at the door!

Order Tickets

Schedule of Events

11 AM – 4:30 PM: Hands-on artmaking for all ages

  • Doodle-Bot Activity: Create an art-making robot using a simple motor and plastic cup. Experiment with and decorate your robot then play with the spiral patterns it can design as part of a collaborative, visitor made installation.

  • Shrink Art Pin-Making Activity: Explore the fun process of shrink art and create a personalized, wearable pin.

  • Suncatcher Activity: Design a suncatcher using geometric shapes to create a unique pattern. Experiment with transparent and opaque materials to achieve various light-catching colors.

11 AM – 1 PM: Blacksmithing Demonstration by the School of Visual Philosophy
Watch a live demonstration involving multiple blacksmithing techniques with School of Visual Philosophy founder, Yori Seeger.

12 – 4 PM: Public Drop-In Tours

1:30 – 2 PM: Performance by Dhaya Lakshminarayanan
Inspired by the exhibition Your Mind, This Moment, Lakshminarayanan’s performance is based on her “monkey-mind adventures” at a silent meditation retreat in Marin County.


Sponsored by Bank of America

 

Related Programming

Your Mind, This Moment: art and the practice of attention

–

This exhibition is an experiment. Your Mind, This Moment: art and the practice of attention presents works of art as objects of meditation. With input from an advisory group of artists who are also meditators, the gallery will be designed as an intimate space that encourages quietude. Short guided audio meditations, created for this occasion by Bay Area mindfulness teachers, will be available for visitors. Related public programs will offer an array of opportunities to explore the intersection between the practice of looking and the increasingly widespread practice of mindfulness meditation.

Fragile Waters: Photographs by Ansel Adams, Ernest H. Brooks II, and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly

–

Water is very much on the minds of Californians after six years of drought. Fragile Waters celebrates this precious, essential resource and encourages dialogue about water conservation. One hundred and seventeen black-and-white photographs by three artists whose works span a century create a powerful collective statement. The exhibition will feature thirty-seven works by Adams— including rarely seen historic images from his family’s private collection—along with photographs by Ernest H. Brooks II and Dorothy Kerper Monnelly.

The Darkened Mirror: Global Perspectives on Water

–

Our simultaneously abusive and dependent relationship with water has made it an international battleground not only of environmental issues, but also of humanitarian concerns. The Darkened Mirror complements the pristine waterscapes on view in the exhibition Fragile Waters by presenting recent work by international artists who address our conflicted relationship with water today. From their twenty-first-century points of view, they reveal an essential resource that is no longer merely threatened, but actively besieged: it is a troubling reflection of the contemporary moment.

   

Beta Space: Victor Cartagena

–

As consumers, we are often oblivious to the humans who perform the hard, physical work that brings food to our tables. One champion of this labor force, the United Farm Workers (UFW), has fought for the rights of migrant farm labor since 1962. San Jose was home to the UFW’s founder, the well-known activist Cesar Chavez. In the fifth installment of SJMA’s exhibition series “Beta Space,” artist Victor Cartagena will collaborate with the Salinas chapter of the United Farm Workers Foundation to create new work that will spotlight the lives and stories of the people who help feed populations across the United States.

Diana Al-Hadid: Liquid City

–

Diana Al-Hadid is fascinated by boundaries, where something begins and ends. How do we define a space—be it architectural, sculptural, or experiential? Drawing on a panoply of art-historical and scientific references, she explores the space between two-dimensional mark-making and three-dimensional sculpture, the imagined and the real, interior and exterior, belonging and alienation, the ruin and the yet-to-be-completed.