Joint art exhibit
Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga and Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, or MACLA, in downtown San Jose are collaborating on a multimedia exhibit showcasing generational knowledge and stories.
“From Their Hands to Ours” asks visitors to reflect on tradition, trauma and resilience. Five Latino artists will use familiar materials in new ways and reimagine traditional crafts to tell their personal narratives, creating a dialogue between the past and present. Their works thematically range from how they navigate the world to their personal relationships to the broader immigration experience. Some artists will draw inspiration from their childhood environments, while others challenge or reinterpret inherited legacies.
Estefania Ajcipis is a Long Beach artist whose work draws from her Guatemalan upbringing and touches on her relationship with her father to trace a journey of longing, migration and resilience.
Miguel Arzabe is an Oakland artist who deconstructs paintings and puts them back together in a way that is reminiscent of Bolivian textile practice. His work reflects on ancestry and memory through time and space.
Rafa esparza from Los Angeles reflects on his Chicano heritage through adobe brick-making, a reference to his father, to explore themes of family, labor and home.
Edra Soto, a Chicago-based artist, examines diasporic identity and colonial histories that stem from her Puerto Rican migration and extend into her current Chicago community.
Arleene Correa Valencia, a Napa-based artist, takes her immigrant experience and turns it into visual explorations of belonging and identity.
The exhibit runs through March 8 at MACLA at 510 S. First St. in San Jose.
Honoring an organ donor
A young organ donor from Saratoga will be honored with a float during the Pasadena Rose Parade on New Year’s Day.
El Camino Health will honor Andrew Bedard, who died suddenly from a ruptured aneurysm days before his ninth birthday in 2004. His organs were donated and saved four people. A portrait of Bedard made out of flowers will be displayed on the 2026 Donate Life float at this year’s Rose Parade. According to a press release, Bedard’s parents met the recipient of their son’s liver, who had waited for over seven years searching for a rare match.
Bedard was known for his love of animals and the San Jose Earthquakes. The Earthquakes established the “Spirit of the Game Award” in 2008 in memory of Bedard. It is awarded annually to a player who embodies Bedard’s positive attitude.
The float is sponsored by the nonprofit Donor Network West and represents U.S. organ donors, living donors and transplant recipients to inspire Rose Parade viewers to become registered organ donors. More than 20,000 Californians are on the organ transplant waiting list.