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Since its founding in 1986, Silicon Valley Open Studios has become larger and more ambitious, covering more ground geographically and including more artists, but its founding concept remains the same: Artists welcoming visitors to homes, studios and other spaces to see their works as part of a self-guided tour highlighting local art. As the event has grown over the years, so has the sense of community it fosters.
In inviting the public to come see art in personal spaces and giving artists a platform to discuss their work, SVOS builds connections between artists and the public, but also forges important bonds between artists.
The event is presented by Silicon Valley Visual Arts, a Bay Area-based nonprofit.
Over time, SVOS’ reach has spread, now stretching about 60 miles from southern San Jose to South San Francisco, and west to the coast as well. About 370 local artists will take part in the event, which unfolds over three consecutive weekends at spaces throughout the Peninsula, the South Bay and Coastside. Silicon Valley Open Studios kicked off last weekend and featured artists in the Northern Peninsula and Coastside areas. The event’s second weekend, May 9-10, focuses on Midpeninsula artists.
As the event marks its 40th anniversary, we spoke with some Midpeninsula artists who have taken part long-term.
Connecting artists and visitors
“The whole point of SVOS is you’re there to meet the artists. You’re there to talk to them about what inspires them, what motivates them, how they do what they do, why they do it, right? And it’s a different kind of connection. You’re talking to the person about the art, and you get to understand a little bit more,” said Palo Alto jewelry artist Carina Rossner, who has taken part in SVOS off and on for 20 years.
The chance to speak directly with artists about their work isn’t always possible at stores or galleries, she noted. SVOS offers a chance to make a personal connection, not only with the artworks, but get insight into how artists work.
Over the decade that he has taken part in SVOS, Palo Alto-based sculptor and photographer Dan Lythcott-Haims has found that some of those connections with visitors can endure well past a single weekend.
“I think my favorite part of open studios is the repeat visitors, the people who come back year after year. They look for you, they remember your work. They are excited to see what’s new. Whether or not they’re buying anything, they’re the people who are the audience. It’s a community so people get to know you and you get to know them and their stories,” he said.
The exchange of questions and ideas is something artists may also find enlightening, noted Redwood City-based painter Sylvie Levesque, who has participated in SVOS periodically over 20 years.
“What I like the most is to meet all the people and talk about my work. I love it. The process of my work is so complex, but I like to explain it briefly. I just like to talk about my painting, and it’s interesting to see how people react, how they look at my work. It’s very interesting to see the feedback of the viewer,” she said.
Menlo Park painter Elaine McCreight, who has been showing at SVOS for about nine years, remembered a visitor from one of her first years taking part in the event. A young man who came by on a bike and admired a small nude. Although it was modestly priced, he didn’t have the money to buy the piece, she recalled, but balked when she offered to sell it to him for what he could afford.
He said, ‘No, I want to pay for the whole thing. Keep the painting.’ He gave me some money to make sure I would keep the painting. He came back in a couple of weeks and gave me the rest of the money and happily took the painting,” McCreight said.
“It’s really one of the best parts. There’s the painting experience itself. But the other thing is people really responding to something that you both are connecting with. That’s pretty extraordinary. You never know if that’ll happen, and it’s magic.”
A gateway to art
“Talking to people about their journey is another cool thing to experience at open studios,” said Rossner, who noted that every artist taking part has followed a unique path in establishing their art careers. Some visitors may even discover inspiration to take up art themselves.
In fact, SVOS seems to have played a role in encouraging artists to launch their careers and start showing their work.
“At the time, because I was just painting, more like a hobby and I didn’t know which direction to go, and didn’t know if I wanted to be an artist. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this more professionally or just more personally, and so I started (with SVOS) to get a chance to see what it looks like. My thought was, ‘Okay, there’s no risk to try,’ because it was just a small amount at the time and then you get so much feedback, because all the visitors come to see your work,” Levesque said. “So I got a lot of positive feedback, so that gave me some motivation to continue what I was doing.”
As he was beginning his career, Lythcott-Haims was seeking a studio in part to find a community among artists, and participating in SVOS helped give him a taste of that.
“So it was a very natural thing to me. It was very exciting to do it for the first time, to be in a building full of other artists, to show my work, to have the public come in and see it all. It felt like that’s the way you do it,” he said.
“I visited open studios before I ever had a studio, and it was actually a great way for me as an emerging artist, to see the different kinds of artist studios that were available in the area. And in fact, I ended up getting on the waitlist for a handful of places, and that’s how I got my first studio in San Carlos. It is a great way for artists to get out and see other artists, see studios, in addition to art lovers who can come out and see the art,” he said.
Painter and Silicon Valley Visual Arts president Linda Nystrom, who started showing at SVOS after COVID, also wanted to get to know other people in her field.
“Well, it started off that I wanted to meet other artists, network and learn how to present myself. So it’s a great opportunity, especially now when we have multiple mixers throughout the year for artists to get to know each other, and it’s a very supportive group,” said Nystrom, who lives in Sunnyvale and will be showing this year at two locations, in Palo Alto and Los Altos.
In giving artists a way to connect, SVOS allows artists working in the same medium, for example, to compare notes on techniques, or give those newer to a medium a chance to ask questions of more experienced artists, she said.
SVOS serving as a gateway to the arts community for new artists has led Silicon Valley Visual Arts to offer some additional year-round programming. Although in the past, the group has offered mixers and workshops, in the past year, it has begun offering memberships to provide artists with more resources and find other ways to exhibit their works throughout the year.
“There are some artists who still want to learn; they’re not ready to sell or they’re just not available during those three weekends in May, but they still want to associate with other artists. They still want to get exposure by exhibiting in other locations, outside of Open Studios. So that’s why we did that. We wanted to support a greater number of artists in the valley, in the Peninsula, without making a total requirement that all you can do is open studios,” Nystrom said.
A community of artists
Visitors in the event’s early days were more likely to encounter individual artists showing in home studios, and within a smaller geographical area. As SVOS has grown, it has become common for multiple artists to show together, at homes, studios or sometimes at sites rented for the occasion.
Concentrating artists at some sites gives visitors a chance to browse longer and makes it more likely that there will be a little something for everyone at the site, Rossner said.
For the last three years, she has hosted about a dozen artists working in a variety of media, including glass, paintings and ceramics, at her downtown Palo Alto home. Each artist volunteers for different tasks, from putting up signs to arranging for snacks, to pull off the event. The group also offers door prizes and a raffle for visitors.
“I really try to make it a fun experience for people to come to my site,” she said, and that goes for the artists who show with her as well.
Rossner said that Silicon Valley Visual Arts offers a list of artists seeking group venues, and that is where she initially found some of her group.
An additional benefit to these group showings is that they can create lasting bonds between artists.
“There’s such a sense of community. And (SVOS) had encouraged people if they had room to include other artists. First I showed by myself, and then I started showing with other artists,” McCreight said.
“We’ve really become an art group, and we meet on a rather regular basis and share each other’s art throughout the year. We advertise a lot in my neighborhood, and we walk around and deliver lots of postcards, and lots and lots of neighbors come, and they seem to look forward to it,” McCreight said.
Even outside of open studios, McCreight’s group of artists socializes and lends each other support in their work..
“We critique. Most of all it’s a support group, so we give each other feedback, but much of it is genuinely honest,” she said.
Among the group of artists who have shown at her home, Rossner also made a connection that introduced her to a local co-op gallery where she now shows her pieces year-round.
But she also found some really important lasting friendships. Rossner said that one of the first years she hosted open studios at her house, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and the group of artists she planned to show with helped her with more than just pulling off the event.
“I was going through treatment, and I didn’t know if I could do it, and I almost had to cancel. And this group stepped up, and they did everything. Not only did they do everything for SVOS, but they brought meals, they gave me rides to treatment. It was amazing. They became my buddies. They became my friends,” Rossner recalled.
Silicon Valley Open Studios takes place May 9-10 and 16-17, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., each weekend at various venues through the Midpeninsula and South Bay. Admission is free. For more information, svos.org.
