Artists, open space advocates celebrate Coyote Valley preservation

Artists and open space advocates are set to celebrate a recent agreement to keep 937 acres in San Jose’s Coyote Valley from being developed. To that end, they’ve planned a party to give the public a sense of what this preservation agreement means.

“Art & Nature: A New Year’s Gathering” is set for Jan. 4 at Forager Tasting Room and Eatery in downtown San Jose. The party is being thrown by Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which in November entered into an agreement with the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority and the city of San Jose to preserve a largely undeveloped area along the southern edge of San José city limits. According to POST, “this irreplaceable landscape features natural floodplains and wildlife habitat, mitigates wildfire impact and builds climate change resiliency for the citizens of the tenth-largest city in the nation.”

As the agreement was four years in the making, the stakeholders have reason to party. And they’ve invited artists and writers whose work focuses on the natural world to talk about the importance of open spaces.

Speakers include artist Jane Kim and writer Thayer Walker, who founded Ink Dwell studio in 2012 and have collaborated on large-scale murals depicting the habitats and migratory patterns of wildlife. The largest of these is a 2,500 square-foot work commissioned by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to celebrate its centennial. Titled “From So Simple a Beginning: Celebrating the Evolution and Diversity of Birds,” the mural depicts 270 species painted to scale and representing 375 million years of evolution.

Kim and Walker will have copies of the mural’s companion book, “The Wall of Birds,” available at the “Art & Nature” event.

East Bay native Obi Kaufmann will discuss “The State of Water,” his book arguing that environmental conservation and restoration efforts are necessary not only for ethical reasons but also as a matter of human survival. The text is interspersed with Kaufmann’s trail paintings of animals whose survival is threatened by current water infrastructure. Kaufmann’s book will also be for sale at Forager.

Earlier this year, Kaufmann worked with the Open Space Authority to create a series of five watercolor paintings featuring 20 plants and animals in different habitats in Coyote Valley. The artist said the preservation agreement will help promote sustainable habitats that support rare and endangered species, and pointed to the restoration of the Laguna Seca wetland as a success story.

“It’s still there for us to protect,” he said of Coyote Valley. “News often puts focus on all the ways we have ‘messed up’ native habitats… but here in Coyote Valley we still have a chance to save much of it.”

San Jose plein air artist Edward Rooks has also captured Coyote Valley on canvas, and has worked with the Open Space Authority to teach on-location outdoor painting workshops in local parks and open space preserves.

“I’ve always loved the Coyote Valley and have supported efforts to protect it from the very beginning,” Rooks said, adding that believes spaces adjacent to urban areas like Coyote Valley are important for preservation because they have a significant role in wildlife migration and allow city dwellers to get back to nature.

 

Rooks will be on hand at the Jan. 4 event, along with fellow San Jose artist Angie Chua, founder of Bobo Design Studio. Chua, who designs and creates wanderlust-inspired stationery and travel accessories, will be creating a large chalk mural at the event that guests can view and take selfies with. She will also be selling her Wanderlust Passport Travel Journal  and adventure-themed stickers that are inspired by the outdoors and desert plant life of California.

“Art & Nature” will have a musical component with performances by the bands Sunny State and Sweet HayaH.  Adults and kids will have a chance to make their own art, facilitated by the Open Space Authority and Grit Art Tech.

The party starts at 6 p.m. at Forager, 420 S. First St., San Jose. Admission is free; registration is requested to https://openspacetrust.org/event/artandnature.