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Welcome to our latest newsletter from the Lucas Artists Program (LAP)! In this edition, we highlight the compelling and varied activities of our Fellows and Guest Artists, from their time spent in the studio and around the table seeding and developing ideas and building new collaborative partnerships to the presentation of critical new works drawing on the fields of performance, visual arts, sound, and intermedia that have sparked important conversations around issues that matter to us all.
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We are delighted to share with you the many ways that the LAP continues to provide a generative space for artists and the opportunities it provides local communities and beyond to engage with their work and one another.
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Between this June and September, the Lucas Artists Residency Program hosted 43 artists from eleven countries—which translates into 31,000 hours of artists working, eating, dreaming, and collaborating in the remarkable incubation environment of the LAP. Throughout the energetic summer at Montalvo, the eleven studios built into the hillside setting across the creek from the villa are host to both focused inquiry and dynamic cross-pollination. Visit the This Week in My Studio section of the LAP’s online magazine to read some of these artists’ descriptions of their days here. 
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A few highlights: 
  • Syrian-American novelist Jennifer Zeynab (Zeyn) Joukhadar has just come off a national book tour for a first novel released in May, The Map of Salt and Stars, which is now being translated into 15 languages. 

  • Writer ZZ Packer was here at work on her historical novel about the Buffalo Soldiers that was excerpted in The New Yorker. 

  • New York playwright Alva Rogers workshopped a new play in collaboration with dramaturg Laura Lowry and young actors at West Valley College—testing new scenes with the actors by day and rewriting the scenes late at night in her LAP studio.


  • This week, Italian visual artist Matteo Rubbi left the LAP to travel to Sardinia, where LAP Fellow and multimedia curator and writer Ibrahim Nehme will join him from Beirut to present the project they created together in Nairobi—an example of the kinds of transnational collaborations that take root at the Lucas Artists Residency Program.
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  • We hosted a number of composers and musicians, including composer and multimedia artist Matthew Petty; classically trained musician, composer, and installation artist Miya Masaoka; eclectic composer and musician Hans Tammen and electronic composer and musician Michael Gamble. 

​See here for a list of bios of all the artists hosted by the LAP over these eventful four months >>
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​On July 20, 2018, Bay Area communities and poets, musicians, visual and sound artists from across the globe gathered to celebrate and affirm our shared humanity; make our voices heard on the issues that matter to us; and collectively consider: How can we expand our understanding of “we” to imagine new, more inclusive ways of being together? 
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The evening included performances, readings, and participatory activities by Lucas Artists Fellows and Guest Artists, including poets Cathy Linh Che, Willie Perdomo, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and Cintia Santana; musicians/composers/performers Byron Au Yong, Neil Leonard, Ramόn “Sandy” Garcia Perez, Aaron Jafferis, Jennifer Johns, and Hans Tammen; and visual artist Sergio de la Torre. 

​We are delighted to share with you a video capturing the spirit of the evening created by director, cinematographer, and educator ShakaJamal and cinematographer Sompong Viengvilai.
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​Highlights from the event included the presentation of two works developed—in part and in their entirety—at the Lucas Artists Residency Program. ​
In the lead-up to the event, we asked Lucas Artists Fellows and others to submit short videos exploring the question: Who is We to you?
​See here for examples of these videos and to learn how to add your voice to the conversation >>
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  In a busy summer of programming, we premiered several new projects on our grounds that were incubated at the Lucas Artists Residency Program.
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In August and September, Kaimera Productions, an international company focused on creating original performances and live experiences that blend theater, music, dance, multimedia, visual arts and more, returned to the Lucas Artists Program to continue working on their latest project, DATAPRINT. Led by co-artistic directors Simón Hanukai and Jonathan Camuzeaux, DATAPRINT is an immersive multimedia installation that invites us to examine the impact of our online fingerprint and question the ethics of data privacy. This project was beta-tested in Montalvo’s Project Space in August and subsequently simultaneously presented at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California and Cubbon Park Metro Station in Bangalore, India in September.

​Learn more about the challenges involved in mounting this ambitious new work in this interview with Hanukai by Dr. Rita Kompelmakher >>
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Our monthly series Fellows in the News—on our online magazine and digital archive—continues to highlight the varied accomplishments of Lucas Artists Program artists. In our September and October editions, we feature the presentation of new and existing works that artists have seeded and developed while in residence, including: 
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  • Lucas Artists Composer & Musician Fellow Neil Leonard’s Lavender Ruins, an ongoing artwork made in response to Fog x Ruins, Fujiko Nakaya’s site-specific fog sculpture, is on view through October at Franklin Park’s Overlook Shelter Ruins.
  • Lucas Artists Visual Arts Fellow Máximo González’s Flagman Trees (Manifesto), first premiered at Montalvo in 2016, was performed at Nuit Blanche Toronto, an annual city-wide celebration of contemporary art this fall.
  • Work by two Lucas Artists Visual Arts Fellows Carl Pope and Gregory Sale appeared in Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the American Justice System. Currently on view at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, this exhibition is the largest and most comprehensive museum presentation to investigate the criminal justice system in the United States, and is curated by Guest Curator Risa Puleo, who spent time in residence at the LAP as Sale’s collaborator developing the show. 
  • This summer, Carl Pope’s work was also featured in a limited edition print version of a book, The Appearance of Black Lives Matter, an intertextual conversation between Pope and writer Nicholas Mirzoeff on the issues surrounding Ferguson, Baltimore, and the activism of Black Lives Matter. 

See here to read more>>
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Coming up this fall, the Lucas Artists Program is proud to present a number of exciting public programs, exhibitions and new commissions!
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Bruce Munro in 
conversation with Kelly Sicat
Saturday, October 27 • 11am • $25 per person
In celebration of his West Coast premiere, join artist Bruce Munro and Kelly Sicat, Director of the Lucas Artists Program, as they discuss the inspiration behind Munro’s most ambitious exhibition to date: Bruce Munro at Montalvo: Stories in Light. 
Learn more >>
​OPENING SOON
Bruce Munro at Montalvo:
Stories in Light
Sunday, October 28
Featuring 10 light-based works ranging in scale from immersive to intimate, Bruce Munro at Montalvo: Stories in Light will utilize multi-hued waves, clusters, cascades, flocks, and seas of illumination, transforming Montalvo’s historic villa and its extensive public areas into a breathtaking spectacle of light. 
Learn more >>
​Cooks with Books
Saturday, November 10 • 2pm • $10 adults;
Free for students and Montalvo Members
Join Montalvo’s culinary artist Andrea Blum for the launch of her rustic Ciderhouse Cookbook, filled with comfort food and drink inspired by her family’s cider house in western Massachusetts. Enjoy a tasting and discussion about apple and cider products grounded in American history and flavor.
Learn more >>
​RADIOEE PRESENTS
AUTOPILOTO
Thursday, November 15 & Friday, November 16
What will our streets and cities look and sound like in a driverless future? The Lucas Artists Program presents AUTOPILOTO by artist collective RADIOEE, an online live-streaming 24-hour broadcast from a semi-autonomous vehicle traveling around the Bay Area, on November 15 and 16.
Learn more >>
THANK YOU TO OUR
LUCAS ARTISTS PROGRAM SPONSORS
Program Sponsors & Friends of the LAP
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Anonymous (3) • The Ariko Family Foundation • Joan Borinstein & Gary Gartsman • California Conservation Corps • Casto Travel • John & Maureen Chowning • Philip & Jennifer DiNapoli • Margaret Dorfman • Marianne & Dave Ellis • Terry & Ron Epstein • Factr’s Footprints Guild • Edward & Renee Fields • Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation • Goethe-Institut • Alexandra & Wolfgang Hausen • William and Flora Hewlett Foundation • Laura Jason & Bruce Henderson • Wanda Kownacki • Sally & Don Lucas • McKnight Foundation • George & Judy Marcus Family Foundation • Shauna Mika & Rick Callison • Ann Marie Mix • Caroline Taddei & Nicola Morini • David Nakamura, Sr. • National Endowment for the Arts • Glenn & Sherri Osaka • David and Lucile Packard Foundation • Mike & Sandi Patterson • Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation • T.M. Ravi & Francine Lejeune • Santa Clara County Parks • Sudnya Shroff & Nickhil Jakatdar • Thomas & Yuko Tiernan • Charmaine & Dan Warmenhoven • Gayla & Walt Wood • Mitchell & Kristen Yawitz

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Friends of the LAP are advocates, donors, and partners with the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo, who sustain the program as it presents the work of multidisciplinary artists at increasingly high levels and in increasingly ambitious ways. Friends of the LAP enjoy inside access to resident artists and their creative process. Interested in learning more? Contact Emma Moon, Director of Development, at 408-961-5841 or [email protected].    ​
​What is the Lucas Artists Program?
Based at Montalvo Arts Center, the Sally and Don Lucas Artists Program (LAP) is a creative incubator and cultural producer dedicated to investing in artists and nurturing their development and growth. We support artists from all creative disciplines and geographical locations to create and present new and experimental work and undertake critical investigations of contemporary issues. We provide artists with time, space and support to test out new ideas, take risks, forge new collaborative relationships, and cross-pollinate ideas through our international artists residency. We commission artists working in and across all disciplines to create new and innovative work. We also generate opportunities for audiences to engage with artists and their creative processes through varied program offerings. Find out more about the Lucas Artists Program at Montalvo Arts Center by visiting our online magazine and digital archive.   
Who we Are
Housed within Montalvo Arts Center, a 175 acre public park in the Santa Cruz foothills, and in the heart of the Silicon Valley, the Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program (LAP) is a creative incubator dedicated to supporting the creative process for artists from all creative disciplines and geographical locations. 
Contact
15400 Montalvo Road 
Saratoga, CA 95071
(408) 961-5800
​Contact us