Content Magazine

Episode #153 | Rubén Darío Villa, Mr. Fuchila

Before shifting to local organizing, Rubén Darío Villa built a national presence through Fuchila Fresheners, coining the term Chicanostalgia and turning childhood memories into hanging air fresheners. Today, Darío Villa serves as Chair of the Gilroy Arts and Culture Commission, operates his creative studio Fuchilandia, and founded La Ofrenda Festival in Downtown Gilroy. As an artist and organizer, his work connects everyday life and community action to uplift creative voices across South County.

In this conversation, Darío Villa discusses his tech background, his move into community leadership, and the creation of La Ofrenda Festival.

Website: laofrendafestival.com | mrfuchila.com

Instagram: la.ofrenda.festival | mr.fuchila

Episode #152 | Brooke Einbender, Mindbender StudioA neighbor's hot pink door in Santa Fe, New Mexico, studded with tin milagros, was one of the first thresholds that shaped Brooke Einbender’s path. Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin before moving across Santa Fe, North Carolina, and New York City, Einbender learned early on that changing environments can alter perspective. Working under the moniker Mindbender, her career spans oil painting, virtual reality, projection mapping, and public art installations—exploring physical and digital portals that invite viewers into multidimensional spaces.In this conversation, Einbender talks about expanding beyond the VR headset to projection-mapped mountainsides, transforming an Alaskan yurt into a creative sanctuary, and the logistics required to take six-foot interactive kaleidoscopes from her mind to the city streets.Website: mindbender-art.comInstagram: mindbender.art | mindbender.studio

Episode #151 | Carlos Velazquez - Drink & DrawSan Jose roots, vinyl records, third-wave ska, and Sharks hockey shaped Carlos Velazquez’s early years. Leaving the South Bay for San Diego and Chicago deepened his connection to Chicano culture and brought him back home. Since returning, he's built community through local nonprofits, municipal communications, his radio show, and by hosting Drink and Draw with his partner, Alca Usan.

Drink and Draw returned in 2026 following the 2025 closing of its former home at Art Boutiki.

In this conversation, Velazquez talks about growing up in West San Jose, what drew him out and back to his city, and the origins of Drink and Draw in San Jose.

Website: mhplaza.org/alleventsInstagram: mhplazasj | carlos_de_sj

Episode #150 | Kiana Jackson

Founded in 2018 by Chef Jacquelyn “Jackie” Jackson and her family, Jackie’s Place grew from a home dining table into a South Bay institution. Their authentic soul food and traditional barbecue began as a catering service and eventually led to the opening of their first storefront, Baby Jackie’s, in San Jose Japantown. As the enterprise scaled, Chef Jackie’s daughter, Kiana Jackson, and the entire family operated all-hands-on-deck—with roles spanning executive operations, kitchen leadership, mixology, and pitmaster duties.

In 2025, the family expanded downtown with a second location in the SoFA District on South First Street. Operating in the neighborhood brought Jackson into close alignment with neighboring Black-owned businesses, including Nirvana Soul, Ashy Aromas, and Sainte Claire Market. These neighborly connections laid the groundwork for Soul Street, a collective formed to highlight, centralize, and celebrate Black ownership and cultural presence in the SoFA District.

In this conversation, Jackson talks about transitioning from corporate event management to the family business, how her time in Atlanta shaped her vision for Black-owned corridors, and the collaborative work behind Soul Street and From Ivory to Onyx in downtown San Jose.

Soul Street presents From Ivory to Onyx, on Sunday, September 6, 5–10p on South First Street, featuring a collaborative five-course meal prepared by Chef Jackie, Jalen, Chephew, Ware, and Chef Leilani with pairings from The Continental, live painting by Tyler Gordon, Derrick Bell, and Akeem Raheem, and live music benefiting local scholarships.

Tickets and additional details are available at soulstreetsj.com.

Website: jackiesplacesj.com | soulstreetsj.com

Instagram: jackiesplacesj | soulstreetsj

Episode #149 | Arabela Espinoza

Arabela Espinoza got her start with a camera in an elementary school after-school program on the East Side of San Jose. After studying advertising at San Jose State University, contributing to Content Magazine, and co-founding the commercial creative agency Weekend Creative, Espinoza built a career around product photography and art direction. Following the closure of her agency, her work has turned inward, stepping away from commercial sets to focus on family memory, attachment, and loss through hand-stitched childhood archive photos.

In this conversation, Espinoza talks about moving from high school portraiture to editorial work, running a commercial creative agency, and shifting into personal, conceptual art.

Espinoza was featured as the artist in residence for the August 2026 edition of The Haberdasher Shows, presenting her mixed-media exhibition at Haberdasher in downtown San Jose as part of the official San José Jazz Summer Fest Pre-Party.

Website: arabelaespinoza.com | weekend-creative.com

Instagram: arabelaespinoza | weekendcreative

Episode #148 – Rayos MagosRayos Magos grew up on the west side of San Jose, utilizing art as a natural way to navigate the world. He initially studied journalism at SF State before pivoting to earn degrees in psychology and working on the front lines of community mental health. In April 2021, he left his counseling career to pursue art full-time—a psychological lens that remains foundational to his work. Today, his practice has expanded into complex, large-scale mixed-media textiles, canvas manipulation, and embroidery, drawing from family archives to examine identity, contemporary Chicano culture, and Mesoamerican mythology.In parallel with his studio practice, Magos teaches and leads workshops for “Home Is Where the Art Is,” a program developed by housing nonprofit HomeFirst. Working within transitional housing units, Magos uses expressive arts to help residents break through creative baggage. These workshops culminate in a formal gallery exhibition and art auction, with 100% of the proceeds returned directly to the resident creators to build financial autonomy and human connection.In this conversation, Magos traces his journey from childhood sketching and neighborhood graffiti to slinging prints in Mexico City and hustling as an artist, now working between Toronto, Canada, and San Jose.Rayos Magos:Website: rayos-magos.square.siteInstagram: @rayos_magosHomeFirst:Website: homefirstscc.orgInstagram: @homefirstservices_scc

Miguel Novelo | INFRAMUNDO

“It’s about all these little connection points that create the bigger picture... Maybe that’s what art can do.”

Born and raised in Yucatán, Mexico, Novelo utilizes interactive video and spatialized sound to explore human experience and our relationship with technology. Narrated by Novelo, this feature—paired with his feature in Summer 2026 Content Magazine Issue 18.3, "Perform"—documents the setup and concepts behind INFRAMUNDO, his 2026 solo exhibition at ICA San Jose, and installation designed to encourage audiences to imagine leaving their body behind.

Learn More & Connect:

Read Miguel's feature in Issue 18.3: bit.ly/183MiguelNovelo

ICA San José Exhibition: bit.ly/2026INFRAMUNDOArtist

Website: miguelnovelo.com

Instagram: @xmiguelnovelo

Video by Daniel Garcia, @thecultivator

Episode #147 - Jasmine Bridges

South Bay native Jasmine Bridges has been known to dive headfirst into creative outlets. Early on, she did theater in primary school, later picked up a camera, and even performed competitively in Bachata and Latin Dance during college. Seeking a change of scenery and a "nomadic lifestyle," she left the Bay Area after her time at West Valley College to continue studying communications at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona.

After graduating, Jasmine worked in higher education, coordinating operations at the university’s College of Natural Sciences. There, she fell in love with student mentorship, managing interns, and supporting faculty by anticipating the small, human details that keep a large operation running smoothly.

Despite building a deeply rooted community in the desert, a persistent pull toward home eventually brought her back to San Jose. Returning required an intentional effort to reconnect, leading her out to local creative hubs like the Goodtime Bar run club, local galleries, and regional photography meetups. Now as Production Manager for Content, Bridges brings her background in photography, communications, operations management, and community-building to help shape the magazine.

In this conversation, Bridges traces her journey from photography to event management and explains how her return to the South Bay inspired a renewed dedication to storytelling and uplifting local artists.

Website: jazziebphotography.mypixieset.com

Instagram: @jazziebphotography

Learn More: ⁠content-magazine.com⁠

Episode #146 | Shannon Mirabelli-Lopez

Shannon Mirabelli-Lopez grew up in the East Bay punk scene of the ’80s and ’90s. Starting off managing local bands, she handled distribution for Primus and worked on music videos for Green Day and INXS. That background, along with degrees in Anthropology and Visual Culture: Costume Studies, led her to two decades among elite New York City art institutions, where she moved from a junior role into a 12-year tenure at the Costume Institute at the Met, followed by leadership positions at Pratt and Parsons.

In this conversation, Shannon traces her journey from punk shows and music videos to the Met, shares her reasons for leaving the "rarefied" air of New York City and returning home to the Bay Area, and explains why schools like Cilker are crucial in changing the landscape of art and design.

As Dean of the Cilker School of Art and Design at West Valley College, Shannon is focused on democratizing arts education, from state-of-the-art makerspaces to tuition-free access. 2026 marks the 10th anniversary of the Cilker School’s founding and the 5th year of the Cilker Art + Design EXPO.

Learn More: westvalley.edu/schools/art-design/

Instagram: @wvccilkersoad | @contentmag

Episode #145 | Rose Sellery: Ripple Effect Art Festival

Rose Sellery is a Santa Cruz-based multidisciplinary artist whose work uses the language of fashion to explore themes related to women’s lives and societal expectations. She grew up in Venice, California, at her parents' ceramic studio, located across the alley from a brothel, where crayons, paper, and clay were her toys. As she got older, she managed the family’s ceramics factory in downtown Los Angeles, learning how creativity, labor, and scale intersect. A relationship eventually pulled her north to Santa Cruz just before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Rose spent years helping her husband with custom fine-art woodworking in Santa Cruz, but as his practice moved deeper into solitary carving, she felt the pull to rediscover her own path. She enrolled at Cabrillo College, studying welding and jewelry, and quickly fell in love with the meticulous work, but the stories she wanted to tell kept outgrowing that format. Free from the constraints of precious metals and gemstones, she began experimenting with whatever materials best served the story: wire, bone, plastics, pearls, seed pods, hair. 

Parallel to her studio work, she has become a key community builder, helping shape projects such as fashionART Santa Cruz, PiVot: The Art of Fashion, FashionTeens Santa Cruz, and her latest countywide project, Ripple Effect Arts Festival. Ripple Effect is an 11-day, multi-venue celebration that brings together more than a hundred performances, exhibitions, and hands-on arts experiences across Santa Cruz County, inviting the public not just to see art but to participate in it and feel its impact ripple through the community.

In this conversation, Rose shares how an unconventional childhood shaped her eye, how her work explores the quiet labor of being “seen,” and the origin and intent behind Ripple Effect Arts Festival.

rippleartsfestsantacruz.org

rosesellery.com 

Instagram: @rose_sellery

Instagram: @rippleartsfestsantacruz