During our 10-mile bike ride Bill and I decided to visit a new installation at the non-profit Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga which also includes a park, hiking trails and the historic Villa Montalvo, an Italian Mediterranean mansion nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
For me Villa Montalvo has high sentimental value. The now defunct Saratoga Community of Painters, a plein air watercolor group I belonged to used to paint on these magical, peaceful, and meditative grounds. We even showed our work there and I was lucky enough to have the director of the arts purchase one of my paintings of the mansion.
Just short of the mansion we saw a neon sculpture with boldly stitched words, TURTLE ISLAND, by artist Marie Watt. I would later find out it was meant to “catch people off guard and encourage deeper inquiry and understanding.”
According to Wikipedia Turtle Island is a name for Earth or North America, used by some American Indigenous people. It is based on a common creation story or myth.
We then spotted the Hummingbird statue by San Jose artist Francisco Graciano that also honors an indigenous tribe’s creation story—in this case the Ohlone tribe whose offspring still walk prominently among us.
Bill who also has an appreciation of art, and creates whimsical art forms such as sun dials, and wind chimes from bicycle parts, asked me to feed the hummingbird. Hence, I lifted my palms upward just under its beak, creating a real time interactive piece of art of a living or animate being (yours truly) with an inanimate being, (the hummingbird).
Postscript: When we approached the Amphitheater, Bill spotted some wild turkeys which added authenticity to the exhibit.
