Dr. Letha Chi’en (art history professor, Sonoma State University, long-time Museum member):
The San José Museum of Art was personally very important to me and my long-term development. It provided a welcome refuge full of mind-changing art. Our lives very easily become a series of to-do list items. We are busy taking care of the mundane tasks of life—the grocery shopping, childcare, and we lose the part of ourself that can ideate on a much higher level and with art we gain that back and we make it a part of our lives and we can live as complete human beings. It's such a wonderful thing that the San José Museum of Art understands that access and critical excellence go hand-in-hand with engaging, high-quality, intense, intellectually challenging shows you actually engage a community.
Rory Padeken (SJMA curator):
That's why we're here as curators—to always be on the lookout for who are the artists that
are making the most interesting and relevant work today.
Lauren Schell Dickens (SJMA senior curator):
When visitors come to the Museum they're not necessarily versed in the histories of modernism. They're looking for art that touches them, that relates to their life as they live outside these walls and that's really something that I think the best contemporary artists are dealing with.
Dr. Letha Chi’en:
Contemporary art tells you that you are now. It tells you where you are in history. It is about our concerns, what we're thinking about, what we're trying to figure out.
Binh Danh (SJMA permanent collection artist, art professor, San José State University):
It's in a way almost for me like a mirror, it looks like when you wake up in the morning you look into the mirror and then you, you see yourself. When it show arts from its own community, it's basically showing what's happening here in San José.
Paulina Vu (SJMA manager of Museum experience):
It's really great to see when visitors are coming to a place, meeting with one another and spending time with each other.
Evelyn Neely (SJMA Trustee and docent):
It is doing a service to the community. We really made a concerted effort to be like a cultural hub for the City and community of San José.
Jessica Kwong (SJMA intern, Museum administration):
And since a lot of people in this area are somehow involved in the tech industry a lot of new art these days has to do with technology or like incorporate some sort of digital media.
Catherine Wagner (SJMA permanent collection artist, art professor, Mills College):
Because some of my work you know overlaps into the field of science in no way do I ever think that I'm trying to want emulate science nor am I trying to be a scientist. I feel like artists and scientists were climbing the same mountain albeit choosing different paths. And I think the exciting part now is that that cross referencing that those paths can kind of intertwine and have various switchbacks.
Greg Brown (SJMA science and engineering curriculum consultant):
For example asking questions or thinking critically about an idea and then expressing an opinion about it. Artists do that engineers as scientists think critically also.
Jeannine Flores (visual and performing arts coordinator, Santa Clara County office of education):
The fact that San José Museum of Art has taken this integrated approach with the kids and their gallery education is, is awesome. When students come here, they are responding to art and they get to connect to the art and make personal connections.
Rania Ahmed (SJMA art camp graduate and counselor, aspiring engineer):
There's all these different experiences you get to experience art when in an area that's such a big area of technology and engineering. I know that I wouldn't be here the way I am today without having that kind of creative input that the art museum gave me.
Maytal Gotesman (art instructor, Cupertino Middle school, former SJMA teaching artist):
And I know how rich of an experience it was as a kid and it's just evident and the fact that I'm continuing it in my life now, even now, teaching middle school at the school that I went to too. So it's just kind of bringing the art world back into my community and also having this Museum part of my life to.
Tony Misch (director of historical collections, Lick observatory, SJMA Let’s Look at Art docent):
By exposure to art kids will learn new ways of knowing and new ways of seeing that are going to benefit them in every aspect of their lives.
Greg Brown:
If we can do that and teach them some art techniques in the process, they'll be fantastic well-rounded individuals who could be ready for anything.
Dr. Letha Chi’en:
The San José Museum of Art means that we have a future in Silicon Valley that we will have a future that responds to the entire community and recognizes the full humanity of our lives.