Lauren Schell Dickens, chief curator 
You are invited into another way of thinking about the world around you, which is just critical for us as individuals and as humans for learning how to relate to each other and to belong together in community. 

Ranu Mukherjee, artist, SJMA board member, and dean of California College of the Arts Film/Video 
The San José Museum of Art has a vision of being a borderless museum, which means they want to bring people into the Museum, of course, but also to bring the Museum to people through lots of different kinds of programing. 

Daniel Jimenez, manager of museum experience 
We allow visitors to express themselves and to have a safe space to be seen and to see themselves reflected in our exhibitions. 

Lauren Schell Dickens 
One of my favorite parts about my job is working with artists. I'll work with artists for years, hearing them talk through ideas. Tell me their dreams. I love connecting people who have just wandered into an exhibition with the ideas of an artist that have been, you know, cooking in their mind for decades. 

Daniel Jimenez 
Museum experience reps or MERs for short. They are our frontline staff. I help to hire, train, and manage the frontline staff to increase visitor experience. So we socialize with visitors. We greet visitors at the front entrance. We talk to them about the artwork. We're here to answer any questions that they may have. 

Kelsey Rieger Olsen, manager of K–12 curriculum and instruction 
Our K–12 programs, which serve kindergarten through 12th grade, we believe wholeheartedly that everyone is an artist, and it's just a question of bringing opportunities and space for students to explore their artistic selves. Our Education Department, and specifically our K–12 programs are unique in that we work very hard to make them either free or otherwise affordable and accessible to our school and community partners. We prioritize working with Title one schools who would in many cases not be able to afford sustainable arts programing without the subsidies that we fundraise for. 

Lauren Schell Dickens 
I think SJMA is really a unique institution within the museum landscape. We are a smaller organization that is really deeply embedded in our community here. We hope that everyone can come and see their own stories reflected, their own histories reflected in some way in our programing and in our galleries, but also encounter stories of their neighbors that they might not otherwise have known. 

Ranu Mukherjee  
Museums have historically been on the exclusive side, so I think that those events really show people that they have a place here, that there is something for them to contribute. There's a space for social life and for people to find art for themselves at their fingertips. I think this is a museum that does a lot for the scale that it is. It is a small museum doing a lot of things that larger museums are often tasked with. And so I think the support of a larger community is really important. 

Daniel Jimenez 
I just want to express thanks to all of the donors because without them we wouldn't be able to run this museum and to share these experiences with visitors. And it's a blessing to have them contribute to the museum because without them we wouldn't be able to do this. 

Kelsey Rieger Olsen 
The San José Museum of Art, Where Art Meets Community. 

Lauren Schell Dickens 
Where Art Meets Community Where. 

Ranu Mukherjee  
Where Art Meets Community. 

Daniel Jimenez 
Where Art Meets Community.