Thursday, May 19 | 7 - 8pm | Free with admission

A piece of felt or straw, a cloud of steam and a wooden hat block are the essential ingredients for the making of a hand blocked hat. Take a peek inside the world of hat making craft.
Behind every elegant hat is the shaping tool known as a hat block. The hat block is a tool made for the millinery trade by a skilled woodcraft artisan. While the hat block has practical use in the studio, alone it is an amazing artistic achievement. The felt and straw is pulled or “blocked” over these wood forms while hot and damp with steam, giving the desired shape, then tied with cords to hold the materials in place. The hat then needs to dry before removal from the hat block. The hat blocks are infinite in variety and complexity. “The job of a contemporary milliner or hat maker is to utilize these vintage and contemporary hat blocks in innovative ways, not just using the obvious shape, but to combine the forms and tease out their hidden expression."

Wayne Wichern’s millinery design and teaching career evolved out of his experiences as a floral designer, classical ballet dancer and his interest in fashion and costume design. He has created hats for theater productions of the Belfry Theater in Victoria, BC, Art Club Theater, Vancouver, BC, San Francisco Ballet, Seattle Repertory Theater, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. His innovative hat designs are in collections of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, WA. 

Sunday, April 24 | 2 - 3pm | Free with Admission 

Born in Hollywood, Judy Dater studied drawing and painting at UCLA and received her MA in Photography from San Francisco State University in 1966. She began her career photographing the landscape, but felt the urge to incorporate the figure, feeling that the landscape was incomplete without a human presence. Ultimately her images focused on the human face and body, particularly female. She has photographed herself and other women clothed and unclothed in a variety of environments, including their homes, which pose questions about women’s roles, life choices and the media. 

Sunday, April 3 | 2 - 3pm | Free with Admission 

Kim Frohsin began exhibiting in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1990s, and in 1993 was included with Nathan Olivera, Manuel Neri and Stephen De Staebler in the exhibit Four Figures from the Bay. With Wayne Thiebaud as the juror, she won the California Society of Printmakers' Award in 1996, and the following year exhibited at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in Bay Area Art: The Morgan Flagg Collection.

Frohsin works in several media: painting, drawing, printmaking, and mixed media. Her subjects include the female figure, landscapes and cityscapes, as well as objects and series that attract her attention, and which are most often autobiographical in nature. Frohsin received her BFA from The Academy of Art College in San Francisco. She has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and her work can be found in both private and public collections including The Coca-Cola Corporation, Heritage Communications, Atlanta, GA; The Gap Inc., San Francisco, CA; The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; and The San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA.

Thursday, March 31 | 7 - 8pm | Free with Admission

Linda Christensen received her fine arts education at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 1985 and a Graduate Certificate the following year. Born in Berkeley, and currently residing and working in Santa Cruz, Christensen has always drawn inspiration and serenity from her natural surrounds, especially the coast. The horizon line has been present in the artist’s life since she was born and is featured in nearly all of her works. In her evocative paintings of ocean landscapes and domestic interiors this linear reference to her past and present is always there. While her work is deeply personal, Christensen ultimately pays homage to the universality of human emotion. More than merely observing the figure, the viewer is invited to sympathize with the subject.

Christensen states: “It is not enough to simply observe; we understand ourselves and others through feeling, through checking in emotionally. As a child I was always in tune with the subtle shifts in mood of those around me and this sensitive observation of strangers has continued to inspire my work as an artist. I catch people who are in a private place and are turned within. It is a brief moment, but something that we all do without being aware. There’s something magical in seeing the humanness in others as they turn inwards, reflectively, but uncritically.” 

Christensen has been represented by galleries in New York, Carmel, Laguna Beach, Dallas, and Ketchum, Idaho. Her work is prized in numerous collections across the United States, including the Crocker Art Museum of Fresno, the George Blair Collection, and Nordstrom.

March 24 | 7:00 - 8:00pm | Free with admission to the museum

In 1955, Walt Disney opened his now legendary Disneyland theme park. The success and sheer brilliance of creating a magical place that was clean, friendly and safe appealed to budding park enthusiasts who opened scaled down versions of various themes in their hometowns. During the mid-twentieth century, the Bay Area boasted thirty plus parks during their baby boomer era hey-day. Today, many of the parks have disappeared due to economics and city redevelopment, but still hold a powerful connection in the collective memories of those who went there. 

On March 24th, take a trip down memory lane as NUMU presents: “Lost Theme Parks of Northern California.” Join roller coaster and theme park enthusiast, Kris Rowberry along with filmmaker, Nicholas Laschkewitsch as they team up to present a lively discussion on the history and enduring memory of local Northern California theme parks of the past. Learn more about the parks in our current “It Takes a Village,” exhibit featuring: Frontier Village, Santa’s Village and Lost World. The duo will also share images and history from other lost Bay Area parks such as: Pacific City in San Mateo, Luna Park in San Jose, Manteca Waterslides, and the little known history of one of the most prolific amusement park ride developers, Arrow Development in Mountain View. 

In 2013, Rowberry and Laschkewitsch teamed up to produce the film series: Lost Parks of Northern California. Their work has been featured in Time Magazine, NBC, KGO, KLIV, The San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Examiner.

Nicholas Laschkewitsch is the Video Promotions Coordinator for the American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) along with being an Executive Producer and the Lead Editor for “Lost Parks of Northern California.” In addition to being the Regional Representative for the Northern California Region of ACE, Nicholas has a strong passion for history and preservation, both of which are part of ACE’s mission. He is currently studying Mechanical Engineering at San Jose State University with the ultimate goal of designing roller coasters soon after.

Kris Rowberry is the host of "Lost Parks of Northern California," in addition to being the weekday afternoon news anchor at 1590 KLIV-AM in San Jose. He fell in love with roller coasters and amusement parks after a ride on the legendary "Tidal Wave" at Great America in Santa Clara back in 1994. He's ridden nearly 200 different coasters ever since.

Saturday, March 19 | 2 - 3pm | Free with Admission

Self-examination and the body are important to Erin Feller's work, and self-portraiture has maintained a constant presence. Much of her work is autobiographical. She is concerned with the scope of living inside her mind and body (anatomy and physiology, transformation, disease, and consciousness, emotion and cognition). Feller says "her personal experiences, the life cycle, and nature are... main subjects. Collection and self-examination are two of themost important acts in [her] process, and are often visually exemplified through layers, translucency [and] juxtaposition." Feller uses her art practice to compute, transform, and transmit the discoveries she makes in everyday life. 

Feller received her BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2004. She has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums both nationaly and abroad, including the Cincinnati Art Museum and Hien Minh Art Gallery, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. 

Saturday, March 5 | 2 - 3pm | Free with admission 

“I paint a fusion of two genres: still life and portraiture. I call these paintings Portraits in Absentia. These paintings are memories of lives, real or imagined, of relationships, of spirits, of paths chosen or found.” 

Born and raised in Utah, Elizabeth Barlow studied painting in California and at the Art Students League of New York. She received her MA from University of Virginia. Barlow's work has been exhibited throughout California. Her unique combination of still life and portraiture suggests that objects, such as a pair of shoes, a dress, a shirt, will retain something of the essence of the person who wore them, and can illustrate life stories, choices made and moments passed.  For Barlow, an object can at be once specific to a certain person and also universal in its symbolic evocations, offering the viewer a relatable connection.

A Conversation with Stephen Beal and George Lawson

New Museum Los Gatos, 106 E Main St, Los Gatos CA

Thursday | November 12, 2015 | 7:00 pm

FREE with admission; FREE for members

In conjunction with the exhibit Stephen Beal: Warp and Weft Selected Grid Paintings 2005—2015 please join us in a lively conversation with exhibiting artist Stephen Beal and guest curator/gallerist George Lawson. 

Stephen Beal was Provost at California College of the Arts from 1997 to 2008. In May 2008, he was appointed president of CCA. In this position he has played a significant role in the expansion of the college's programs and facilities and the implementation of key academic initiatives, all of which contributed to an overall enrollment increase of more than 50 percent since Beal arrived at the college. Beal attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, and earned his M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He has been exhibited in the Bay Area and throughout the Midwest.