TWO BUCK Tuesday Today!

from Phantom Galleries by Cherri Lakey

TWO BUCK Tuesday is April 17th, 7-10pm!
Join us at KALEID Gallery for this upcoming Two Buck Tuesday! Come enjoy an inspired evening of art demos, performances, live painting, $2 art & quirky people get together!

Here's this evenings line up:

In conjunction with her current featured exhibit Selcouth, Shannon Amidon will have a curiosity jar making station. For a small fee you can make and take home your very own little curiosity bottle using, feathers, minerals, bones, or other oddities.


The San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles invites you to participate in Crazy Quilts a fun interactive crazy patchwork method of quilting!


Nathan will host Juxl Puzzle, A simple yet challenging strategy game you can play with just a piece of paper and a pencil. You start with 12 short lines that you connect with curves and ultimately build a protective maze around your character. Setup up fast! Start with conception, then build your ultimate Mind Maze by strategically navigating around every single line that you’ve already put down. The rules are simple but deceptively challenging!


The San Jose Yarnbombers will show you how to make a simple yarn flower with a loom. Supplies will be provided.


Michele Guieu invites you to experiment with negative/positive space. Join her to make a 8×5.5″ collage of your own! Colored paper, glue and scissors are provided.


David Mejia will paint your portrait on the spot for a small fee.


Live performance by the Lokahi Polynesian Dance Group
LOTS OF LIVE ART BY:
Nik Caesar
Leeonnista
Al Preciado (Live collaborative mural with anyone who wants to help! )
Kori Thompson
John Hageman
Michelle Waters
JoAnne Yada
Courtney Thiesen
Jean Davis
Live Ambient and Downtempo Electronic music by  Mark Camp


Tuesday, April 17th, 7-10pm
It's free and open to all ages!



88 South Fourth Street (@ San Fernando)
San Jose, CA
info@KALEIDGallery.com
408-947-1785
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, noon -7pm, free admission

SJMADE + SJeats @ San Pedro Square This Saturday!

This weekend is going to mark an epic milestone for San Pedro Square. Three events are going to be happening on the same day: SJMADE, SJ EATS, and the new Saturday Farmer's Market. The icing on the cake is two brand new eateries opening in the San Pedro Square Market, Treatbot Karaoke Ice Cream and Blush Raw Bar and Lounge. This brings the grand total number of places to eat in the market to 10.

For everyone waiting to see what retail Downtown could be like, this is it. SJMADE is bringing dozens of local vendors into two locations, the San Pedro Square Market and a pop up location on Santa Clara Street. If you want to support local entrepreneurs, designers, and craftsmen, this is going to be the event for you. The last few SJMADE events have been a tremendous success, yet I somehow think this is going to top them all.

SJ EATS (run by Moveable Feast's Ryan Sebastian) is bringing 6 food trucks to the event. These include the 1st place winner of the San Jose Taco Festival, KoJa Kitchen--I tried it, phenomenal--and the 2nd place winner, Soulnese. If you're wondering where Treatbot is on the list below, it now has a permanent "truck" inside of the Market.

I think after Saturday it will become very difficult to question the potential of the San Pedro Square Market. The inflection point was hit last week with the first Farmer's Market and this event is going to show thousands of people exactly where Downtown is headed. It's not even optimism anymore, it's a done deal... this place is officially awesome and it only gets better with events like this. Can't wait!

San Jose Made (SJMADE) is a vendor fair where local San Jose makers, labels, brands, small businesses, and artists showcase and sell current projects and goods.

For the Spring 2012 installation of SJMADE, we are hosted by San Pedro Square Market in Downtown San Jose. On April 21st, our SJMADE vendors are showcasing goods alongside various San Pedro Square Market merchants.

TWO San Pedro Square locations:
151 W. Santa Clara Street (previously Spiedo Ristorante)
87 N. San Pedro Street (San Pedro Square Market)
SEE OUR VENDOR LIST!

FARMERS MARKET (10a to 2p)
Introducing the NEW urban San Pedro Square Farmers Market on West St. John Street.

SJ EATS
San Jose's landmark food event, is back with surprises. Enjoy the day's festivities at the new San Pedro Square Market with eleven independent restaurants, a new urban Farmers Market and food trucks from Moveable Feast! Find SJEATS along W. St. John Street at San Pedro Square Market.

FOOD TRUCKS (5 pm to 8 pm)
Eat on Monday
KoJa Kitchen
Pollo Fritto
Project Cupcake
Soulnese
Tandoori Chicken USA
RESTAURANTS at San Pedro Square Market (11 am to late)
B2 Coffee
Blush Raw Bar & Lounge
Crepe-Paris
Little Chef Counter
On a Roll
Pizza Bocca Lupo
Robee's Falafel
San Pedro Square Market Bar
Treatbot
Veggie Box
Vino Vino

FREE ADMISSION • OPEN TO THE PUBLIC • RAIN OR SHINE

For more information about SJMADE, send us an email at: sanjosemade@gmail.com.

For more information about SJEATS, contact us at info@mvblfeast.com or visitwww.mvblfeast.com.

Troy Dean Sims at Ameriprise

from Phantom Galleries by Cherri Lakey

Please join us for an evening of Art and Wine. 


"The Flowering of Human Consciousness” by Troy Dean Sims

450,000 million years ago the first flower sprung fourth on earth. Hundreds of millions of years later man appeared. He discovered the beauty of these flowers, because he was drawn to them by there color and scent. At that time realizing that they had no other purpose to him than to be admired, his relationship with nature evolved into something he had not yet known! Hence the flowering of the plant and man’s innermost self became united.


Open house: Thursday, April 19th at 6 p.m.

Exhibition dates: April 6- June 22nd 2012

AMERIPRISE Financial
1 Almaden Blvd, Suite 800 / 8th floor
San Jose, CA 95113

Saturday Stats: San Jose is the #1 Best-Paying City for Women

The city with the highest salaries for women isn't New York, it isn't Chicago, and it's not even San Francisco. At an average wage of $67,052, San Jose has the highest salaries for female worker in the US (and I imagine the world). Another nice stat is that 43.7% of all the San Jose women in the workforce have a bachelor's degree or higher.

Here are the rankings for California cities on the list:

• 1.) San Jose - $67,052
• 2.) San Francisco - $65,526
• 8.) Oxnard - $54,800
• 16.) Sacramento - $50,794
• 17.) San Diego - $50,670
• 18.) Los Angeles - $50,593

Source: Forbes

Last Call for Veggielution's Avant Garden Event!

from Veggielution by julia

This unforgettable event is just around the corner, have you bought your tickets?

April 13th, 2012 7pm – 10pm

$10 + 1  free food ticket online, $12 at the door

The evening will unfold at The Armory

240 N 2nd St

San Jose, CA 95112

a·vant-garde

1. a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo
2. innovative and ahead of the majority
3. a group of people who invent or promote new techniques or concepts

Ignite your senses for a night of visualizing food and feasting upon art…

Devour a variety of farm fresh treats prepared by talented local chefs, and enjoy a silent art auction featuring farm-inspired art produced by visionary local artists. Avant Garden harnesses San Jose’s creative talent to support Veggielution’s growing Community Farm. We are pushing the boundaries of food justice by redefining our relationship with our land, our food, and each other.
Come experience a new way to think about food in our community, through the taste of our Spring harvest, and captivating visual artistry!
Kids ages 12 and under get in free! If you buy your ticket online we will add 1 free Food Ticket to get you started. Additional Food Tickets can be purchased for $3 each at the event. Event Tickets also available for $12 at the door.

Relectric Triples Size of San Jose HQ

Relectric supplies circuit breakers and electrical distribution and control equipment. They are are moving into a new North San Jose headquarters with triple the space (77,000 sqft) and are more than doubling their staff. The CEO of the company said that interest in "greener" products is what is helping fuel their growth.

Source: SJBJ

The Bay Area's Largest Food Truck Event Ever is This Saturday in San Jose!

This Saturday from 11am to 5pm at San Jose's History Park, an epic food truck event is going down. In fact, this is going to be the largest food truck event ever in the Bay Area. Over 20 trucks will be present, selling $2 tacos of every kind imaginable. In addition to the trucks, there will be live music, lucha libre wrestling, an air accordion championship, a street market, and most of the great museums in History Park should be accessible. This is definitely going to be worth checking out! To get tickets, just click here.

Food Trucks

The feast day will be filled with tastings, art, and performances with a standardized taco price of only $2 from over twenty-five of the best food trucks from San Jose to San Francisco. Short rib tacos, nacho tacos, Vietnamese shrimp tacos, and even ice cream tacos will be on the day’s menu. Tacos in the competition will be voted on by attendees. Finalists will be judged by a celebrity panel and prizes will be awarded based on quality and presentation. More trucks to be announced!

SOUTH BAY

Bigg Shrimp’n – Shrimp	House of Siam on Wheels – Thai	Louisiana Territory – Cajun
MoGo BBQ – Korean/Mexican	No Way Jose – Mexican	Soulnese – Chinese/Soul
Treatbot – Ice Cream	Wow Silog Truck – Filipino

EAST BAY

Grill Stars– BBQ

LOS ANGELES

Nom Nom Truck– Vietnamese

PENINSULA

Curry Up Now – Indian	MoBowl – Nori	Oaxacan Kitchen – Mexican
Tacos de Los Altos – Mexican	Whisk on Wheels – Local Organic

SAN FRANCISCO

Chairman— Baos	KoJa Kitchen – Korean/Japanese	Iz It – Hawaiianese
Sanguchon – Peruvian	Seoul on Wheels – Korean

Wednesday Wishlist: Learn From San Diego

Today's Wednesday Wishlist is actually from Mark at the Think Bigger San Jose Blog. I was just going to link to it, but I really think everyone here should read this. I've been to San Diego many times over the past couple years and agree entirely with Mark. Please also subscribe to his blog over here, and look out for Mark's first published article in the latest issue of Content Magazine!

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San Jose’s downtown should follow in San Diego’s footsteps: Urban, dense, and a variety of architecture

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Mark

After taking a trip earlier this month to San Diego, and seeing a downtown that is vibrant and active, I returned to San Jose with a renewed vision for potential of this city. Though on the outset SD and SJ do not appear to have any useful correlations, one obvious connection on the outset, is that both cities’ downtowns that are near large airports. Though SJ’s downtown is directly in the flight path, SD has also had to deal with height restrictions on many of its buildings. Be that as it may, SD has been able to build most of its highrises around 30 floors, which is taller than anything in SJ, but not too far off from The 88, which stands at 22 floors. Yet despite most of the buildings in SD being under 30 floors, why is there diverse look, not looking flat like SJ’s skyline? The main reason that downtown SD works even at a restricted height is that it is more dense, more urban, and has more variety of shapes and looks than SJ.

Downtown San Diego

According toSkyscraperpage.com, SJ is listed at 70th in the country for amount of buildings 9 floors or higher, making it the most populous city in the nation with least amount of tall buildings. The next closest city with a million or more people is Phoenix, and it sits at 44th with 91 buildings. SJ is listed with cities like Pompano Beach population 90,000 and Madison, population 220,000. SJ is 7th in the state between the cities of Pasadena and Irvine, both with populations under 200,000. SD on the other hand has 145 buildings, of which only 16 are above 30 floors and only 5 are above 40 floors. But a large catalyst to this growth was the construction of Petco Park, a downtown baseball stadium.

San Diego's diversity of building heights and styles

Since 2005, a year after Petco Park opened, 37 buildings 12 floors or higher were built and 2 more are currently under construction. In that same time frame in SJ, 10 buildings were constructed 9 floors or higher, including the recently finished Casino M8trix and the First Community property on N. 4th.

Part of the slow growth problem is a result of two things. One is that Barry Swenson Builders hold a majority of land slotted for development. Though BSB has done many projects in the past in SJ and knows how to navigate the system of permitting and building in SJ, BSB holds a monopoly. If BSB doesn’t have funding, nothing is being built. So if BSB isn’t building, no one is building. Second, the city seems to have a hand in making it difficult for developers to get the projects going and completed in an efficient and timely manner. This creates hesitancy for outside developers to want to come build in SJ. Recycling the BSB monopoly. Just this week Casino M8trix sued the city of SJ for slow processing of security permits which were applied for in March 2011. The process normally takes 180 days, yet a year later they have not been approved by the SJPD. This move could cost the casino and the city millions. If the city can’t figure out its own permitting process and timetable, then how are developers who have investors’ money on the line, going to plan and build their buildings in a cost effective manner? Also, the city’s permits are outrageously expensive which again is prohibitive to building. One merchant at the San Pedro Square Market was quoted at $1500 for three electrical sockets, an overhead light and a sink. The actually cost was over $4500 when the permitting process was said and done. If this is how the city is treating small businesses than how exorbitant are the fees for large scale building projects?

The answer to SJ’s downtown short comings is to follow SD. Everyone in the SJ development community is in favor of getting the A’s a ballpark downtown. But whether or not that effort succeeds, there are two solutions. First is a more devoted urban approach. For decades, downtown has been built and planned by mostly suburban dwellers. Most if not all lived outside downtown. Urban-ism through the view of a suburbanite doesn’t work. The results are what is standing in downtown.

An aerial view of downtown San Jose

But changes have occurred. Over last half decade, more focus and input has been applied to building a downtown that residents can actually live in. The best example is the 88 condo tower. It has a Safeway on the ground floor and it received a perfect walking score for the residents. It’s location is close to everything important: restaurants, bars, museums, theaters, art galleries, SJSU, and businesses. Another success story is the San Pedro Square Market. Though it is still filling the retail spaces, it has already shown that it will become a very important anchor to the San Pedro area and future housing developments planned around it.

A second solution, is more density and variety. Since SJ is limited on heights- though the height ceiling has not totally been explored- density is the other answer. Because the buildings are both short and spread out, the downtown feels empty and spacious, almost un-urban. Most buildings in SD completely fill the parcel right up to the sidewalk, something vary few buildings in SJ do. Also buildings in SD have modern architectural designs, something that can only be said about the Axis, and maybe the 360 Residences in SJ. The urban artistic community is one thing that SJ is doing really well, and maybe these are the people who should be involved in designing new buildings. As was talked about earlier, BSB holds a majority of the properties, and they have a “formula” for cost effective, quickly built designs. Unfortunately, that manifests in a lot of the buildings that look alike. A similarity of buildings in a city can look good, and helps define the city, but uniformity and repetition is not. Pick any modern building in SJ besides the two mentioned earlier (Axis, 360 Residences), and it can be found in any city in California. In fact many of the designs are so similar, one could argue that the same building does exists somewhere else in California.

The potential of downtown SJ is limitless. But in order to have a vibrant urban center, we need to look at other city’s successful developing stories and use experience from real urban planners. Though SD has a much larger population, SJ is gearing up for 1.25M people by 2040, so looking at how SD constructed the downtown could be a key to turning SJ’s downtown around. It will only be through passionate urban residents demanding a better downtown that change will occur. The focus must be on more density, more architectural variety, and better urban planning.