MACLA, Montalvo Arts Center partner on new exhibition in San Jose – The Mercury News
Installing an art exhibition can be painstaking, precise work. But it is probably not as dirty as it was for co-curators Alyssarhaye Graciano and Olivia Esparza when they helped artist rafa esparza create an adobe floor for “From Their Hands to Ours,” a new exhibition at MACLA’s downtown San Jose gallery.
They made mud and incorporated straw and manure, and the artist ultimately left the shoes he was wearing embedded in the adobe. One of the surprising aspects of the piece is that visitors can walk around the hardened perimeter.
“From Their Hands to Ours,” which opened Dec. 5 and runs through March 8, is a collaboration between Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) and the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga. Graciano is MACLA’s visual arts curator and Olivia Esparza is Montalvo’s Marcus Curatorial Fellow. The other artists involved, in addition to rafa esparza, are Estefania Ajcip, Miguel Arzabe, Edra Soto and Arleene Correa Valencia.
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Artist Miguel Arzabe poses in front of his painted and woven piece that was inspired by Bolivian textile art, which is included in “From Their Hands to Ours,” a new exhibition at the MACLA gallery in downtown San Jose, on Dec. 4, 2025. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
