Thirty local artists will throw open their studio doors in San Jose's Rose Garden neighborhood next month, inviting the public into a building that spent decades as a roller rink before it became one of the South Bay's most enduring creative hubs. Fall Open Studios, now in its 15th year, runs Nov. 14-15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at The Alameda ArtWorks, with free admission both days.
According to the East Bay Times, the event will feature 30 local artists welcoming visitors into their creative spaces across the historic building. The venue itself has a layered past: it was built in 1927 and originally served as a San Jose municipal auditorium hosting meetings, conferences, expositions, and theatrical and musical performances, according to The Alameda ArtWorks. Some longtime residents still remember the building by another name entirely — the Auditorium Roller Rink — where community assemblies, concerts and skating once filled the space, per the East Bay Times.
The transformation from public hall to working artist colony came in 1991, when Falko Forbrich purchased the building and converted it into individual studio spaces, the East Bay Times reports. Decades later, the same walls now provide workspace for dozens of artists working in a wide range of mediums, according to The Alameda ArtWorks' own account of its history.
A Mix of Mediums on Display
Visitors can expect to see sculpture, painting, and mixed-media work created with a variety of techniques, per the East Bay Times. Artist Stephanie Metz, who is participating in the event, has used wool felt for her pinkness studies, a body of work that frames softness, color and reflected light as active elements, the outlet notes. On her own site, Stephanie Metz invites visitors to get a behind-the-scenes look at her art practice at Fall Open Studios.
Watercolorist Gloria Huet plans to showcase a large selection of small-scale mixed watercolor works and will offer live demonstrations throughout the weekend, according to the East Bay Times. Sylvie Levesque, who works with raw coffee grounds, limestone, acrylic ink and patterned paper on wood, will use the event to preview The Weight of Silence, her solo exhibition set for Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos this December, the paper reports. Belinda Lima, who uses oil and cold wax in depictions of the female figure and abstract compositions, told the East Bay Times she enjoys the textures and vibrant colors the medium allows her to achieve.
Notably, Metz's own event listing describes a somewhat different scope for the weekend, telling visitors to come see her and 20 other artists spread across three buildings. The discrepancy between that count and the East Bay Times' figure of 30 artists has not been resolved by either source, but both agree on the core details: the studios are open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, admission is free, and all pieces on display will be available for purchase.
Music Joins the Mix This Year
This year's open house will include a new collaborator. The Alameda ArtWorks has invited the Cambrian Symphony, a local South Bay orchestra, to take part in the November event, according to a post on The Alameda ArtWorks' website. Additional musicians from the orchestra will work with the venue's planning team to present musical offerings throughout the two-day weekend, the post states, though specifics on timing or performers were not detailed.
Metz's listing also offers practical notes for would-be visitors: parking is available in the venue's lot or on nearby streets, and all studios are wheelchair accessible, she writes.
Part of a Growing Artist-Space Scene
The Alameda ArtWorks' open house arrives as San Jose's broader artist-space landscape keeps expanding. Local Color, a separate organization, is transforming the ground floor of the Davidson Building at 255 W. Julian St. into what it calls the Big Arts Building, a project done in partnership with developer Westbank, according to San José Spotlight. That space is expected to include roughly 12 to 14 individual office and art studios, along with below-market-rate rentals, public programming areas and a gallery dedicated to muralism, the outlet reports. Local Color reached out to roughly 700 artists about using the space, and more than 100 attended two preview events, per the same report.
The Alameda ArtWorks' open studios tradition, meanwhile, has run for well over a decade. Back in 2016, the Mercury News reported that that year's event, held Nov. 5-6, featured works by 34 artists and was similarly open to the public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days — a near-identical format to the one returning to the Rose Garden neighborhood next month.
