NOVEMBER 7, 2015—JULY 24, 2016 

Billy Jones and the Wildcat Railroad: Making Tracks from the South Bay To Disneyland

Billy Jones, creator of the Wildcat Railroad, built a lasting legacy to honor his two sons who were killed during World War II. His railroad inspired not only his community, but studio and theme park mogul Walt Disney. The exhibit will explore this relationship and its ties to Los Gatos. 

The history of Los Gatos from its year of incorporation, seen through the lens of commerce, agriculture, family life and local heroes, and illustrated with objects from NUMU's permanent collection.

An economy built on agricultural ventures and logging advanced Los Gatos from a small railroad town to what it is today. With the first commercial business at Forbes Mill, the founding residents turned Los Gatos into an important town in the bay area. It earned attention from across the country, as people began to set their sights on Los Gatos for its temperate climate, which is perfect for fruit cultivation. 

By 1887, Los Gatos had a population of 1,500 and jumped to incorporate itself as a town. One hundred residents signed the petition, and the election to incorporate passed at 126 - 44 with Palmer Perkins elected as mayor. Residents of Los Gatos purchased luxury goods and clothing, as well as decorated their houses in the styles popular in the time period. Stories of their economic and commercial successes were passed on through the generations.

What do a cowboy, a candy cane and a dinosaur have in common? They are all symbols of magical theme parks from a bygone era in the South Bay. For those who grew up in the area, each park holds special meaning and memories. 

While the country was booming from post World War II prosperity, Walt Disney showed children that there was a place you could visit that supported your imagination and let adults know that you’re never too old to be a kid. Building on the success of Disneyland, theme parks began to dot the landscape, and the South Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountains was no exception. 

In 1961, Frontier Village opened its saloon doors off Monterey Highway and celebrated the country’s fascination with the Wild West. Kids spent endless days watching gunfighters fall from the balconies of the old Saloon, navigated through the park on a train, or took a spin on one of the many rides. 

Just off Highway 17 at the summit, Santa’s Village became the first franchised theme park, providing a Christmas wonderland for thousands of visitors year round. 

Up the road from Santa’s Village, in the forest of Scott’s Valley, children in the back of station wagons marveled at the life-sized dinosaurs towering over the side of the highway and the botanical wonders of the magic tree forest of Lost World.

The parks were more than just a place to spend the day. They were connections to an era and a time when childhood was defined less by technology and more by activity, imagination and play. This exhibit will transport the viewer back in time to explore these local places of enduring legacy and memory. 

It takes a village to build a village. As a non-profit 501c3, community support of this project is crucial for its success. Please consider a personal or business sponsorship to help make this an amazing exhibit for all generations to enjoy. 

Thank you to our Sponsors

Maria West, Castellano Family Foundation

In Kind Sponsors

Ace Hardware, Los Gatos Blvd
Burdick Painting
Goodwill Industries, San Jose
Jay's Art and Sign Scotts Valley
John A. Saunders, Economy Lumber, Campbell

Sustaining Sponsor

Town of Los Gatos

Exhibition News... People are talking see what they have to say:

Los Gatos Weekly Times: A chance to visit some forgotten theme parks

By Judy Peterson July 24, 2015

Celestial Vistas brings together the work of professor and computer scientist Robert Kooima and artist Vanessa Marsh. Kooima's Total Perspective Vortex, is an Electro application capable of rendering a database of 1,533,774 stars in real time 3D. Using gaming controls, museum viewers will navigate within a volume 1,000 light-years in extent. Mars is an Electro application that invites exploration of the surface of the planet Mars using a demand-paged terrain renderer. Oakland artist Vanessa Marsh explores the intersections of man made, natural and cosmological power through a mixed media process based in photography. Her work brings to form imagined landscapes and intensely starlit skies, highlighting both a personal as well as a collective experience of the world. 

Curated by Marianne K. McGrath

Supporting NUMU’s vision of being a curatorial laboratory for collaboration, Stephen Beal: WARP AND WEFT Selected Grid Paintings 2005-2015 is guest curated by San Francisco gallerist George Lawson. The exhibit explores ten years of Beal’s Grid paintings and is the most comprehensive exhibition of Beal’s work to date.

Stephen Beal paints with oil, acrylic and gouache on linen canvases and wooden panels in monochromes or closely toned hues. His paint marks are organized within a penciled grid structure, recalling the grid’s well established history in modernism, from Mondrian to Agnes Martin. The power of Beal’s paintings to generate fresh imagery belies both the intimacy of their scale and the established tradition from which they are spawned.

On first viewing Beal’s work, one might be drawn to their tuned rhythms and the quiet resonance of their color, or perhaps by the authority with which these modestly sized works command the gallery walls around them.  Beal’s real accomplishment, however, is how the paintings manage to move past a repetitive staccato into structured imagery, crafting an immaterial and incalculable radiance.

Stephen Beal was Provost at California College of the Arts from 1997 to 2008. In May 2008, Beal 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.  

Beal attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, California, and earned his M.F.A. from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  His work has been exhibited in the Bay Area and throughout the Midwest.

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, where our culture focuses on creating the smallest, most sophisticated devices, we take this opportunity to look back at a time when bigger was better.  

In the early 20th Century airships became both a promising technology and an exclusive mode of luxury travel, but this lasted just one generation. During this golden age of air discovery, Moffett Field was home to the great airship USS Macon, beginning its legacy as a birthplace for scientific, technological research and development. The story of airships explores the quest for aeronautic innovation, its infusion into popular culture, and the rise and fall of a technology that continues to capture our imagination. San Francisco artists Jenny Robinson, Stacey Carter and California artist Michael Rosenfeld illustrate the scale and grandeur of these superstructures, and contributions from private collections of ephemera, photographs and objects will provide historical context.

Our multimedia, interactive exposition will include contemporary artwork, vintage photographs, artifacts, memorabilia and video. The education and programming components will include lectures and participatory elements. The exhibit will be on view for four months.  

This exhibition is made possible by the generous support of our partners, lenders and sponsors:

The Town of Los Gatos, Moffett Field Museum, Museum of Monterey, NASA Ames Research, Airship Ventures, Sierra Toy Soldier Company, Dan Edwards Framing, Jamis MacNiven and Buck’s Restaurant, Robert Flynn Johnson, Cheryl Ganz, The Society of Pioneers of Santa Clara Valley, the Artists and Donors to NUMU’s Annual Campaign.

For more information visit the exhibition page!

Curators: Lisa Coscino, Amy Long, Marianne K. McGrath

EYE FOR SOUND was born from the desire to create an immersive musical experience; the music is meant to be as tied to the artwork as the paint on the canvas. The free EYE FOR SOUND app provides a unique artistic platform for the synthesis of physical artwork and musical expression. By exploring the simultaneous connection between art and music, the visitor to See Music, Hear Art will experience a one of a kind stimulation of the senses. This fusion of art and music is accessed through your smartphone or tablet device. Using optical recognition, the physical artwork unlocks a virtual “treasure chest" of music and user interactive content. The artwork provides the portal by which users access this new form of artistic and musical interaction and exploration.

Participating artist/musicians include: Serj Tankian, System of a Down; Tom Morello and Scott Hepburn, Rage Against the Machine; CANTSTOPGOODBOY; Michael Dee; Daniel P. Carter; Joseph Arthur; Shannon Novak; and the Bay Area’s Colin Frangicetto, Circa Survive; and Leonardo Cuervo.

The exhibition is made possible with support from the following sponsors: The Town of Los Gatos, EYE FOR SOUND, Art Duet, Astro Gaming, Elizabeth Reigal and Donors to The NUMU Annual Campaign. 

For information on how to download the app before visiting the museum visit eyeforsound.com.

A Collaboration with Eye For Sound

For more information, visit the exhibition page!

The Gem of the Foothills | A Living History of Los Gatos

June 6, 2015 - July 26, 2015

Located at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Los Gatos has inspired innovators and leaders since the mid 1800s. At the heart of its identity are generations of families and individuals who helped to define and create this town with their unique multi-cultural experiences and personal achievements. 

Through living stories of the present, this exhibit will invite the community to compose their own story as a contributing piece of our collective history. With an installation of selected objects that symbolize the town’s triumphs and tragedies, visitors will be able to relate and write their own personal history. These unique stories will be added to the overall exhibit , creating a vibrant, living history of the town.

This exhibit seeks to unite the past with the present and to develop significant ways of learning about larger events by relating our own lives to those of the past. It will tell the story of how the people, places and things of Los Gatos, not only set it apart as a community, but created decades of growth and inspiration that continues today. 

For more information, visit the exhibition page!