CONVERSATION SERIES
Toni Vanwinkle: Erin, it’s been a few months since we last met. We know each other through my work at Adobe and as a board member at SVCREATES. It’s great to be with you today.
Erin Salazar: I was thinking that’s interesting too, that there’s two different worlds that we’re a part of. And we feel lucky that we are grantees of both the Adobe Foundation and SVCREATES. They’re both really meaningful cohorts and opportunities.
Toni: When visiting your Local Color site, I noticed a large text art piece emphasizing the importance of lived experiences. This observation prompts me to ask about your artistic practice and how it has influenced your purpose and personal mission.
Erin: I am originally from the Mojave Desert in Southern California. I’m from a really small town down there, and I moved to San José when I was 17 to learn more about art. I’m a first-generation college student, and my parents were not the kind of people that were like, You need to be a lawyer. They just said, “We’d never been to college before. So, do whatever you want to do and see how it shakes out.”
My personal artistic practice is rooted in the concept of women’s work. I focus a lot on the cultural value of traditionally undervalued crafts and arts. I’m a painter, a muralist, and a collage artist. In my exploration of women’s work, I try to elevate these undervalued crafts. This interest in elevating these overlooked contributions of women to cultural and visual identity aligns deeply with my mission to ensure that artists, especially those from underrepresented communities, are seen and heard and valued.
One of the big values of our organization is experimentation; experimentation as an artist and as an arts administrator really has been at the forefront of how we’ve gotten to this amazing place where I’m having a conversation with Toni Vanwinkle, the double power of SVCREATES and Adobe.
Toni: Whenever I see you, I’m reminded of how your personality and spirit uplift underrepresented voices in our community. Could you share how and when you founded Local Color?
Erin: I had full financial aid to attend college. I’d never been to a big city like San José before, and I thought it was so cosmopolitan and exciting. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts from San José State University. I was bartending after college, and my sister and I squatted in a 800-square-foot room, which was my art studio at the time, and we lived these sort of Bohemian couple years in the studio. I started to learn more about street art. During this time, both my parents passed away in the span of a year, and I was really heartbroken to have lost them. They were both 55, and I was in my early 20s, and so I thought, boy, this is my future, huh? And I thought that I could be more impactful working for other people than I could be just working for myself. I started to pick up mural painting jobs inside bars and restaurants. And I was like, oh, man, I have so many mural gigs. I started to delegate them to my friends who were also artists, trained academically and trained from the streets, so to speak. And they would say, I don’t know what an invoice is. I don’t know how much to charge. I’m not insured. They started to have these issues. So I said “Okay, give me a little bit of your budget, and I will help you navigate these systems.” I started doing project management. And the thought occurred to me, what if I could do this on the exteriors of buildings, because we would sit around and we would joke about the bland walls in San José. It’s “Vanilla-con Valley,” shades of beige. So I started the organization, really to help artists get mural jobs. Our goal was not initially to create an ecosystem of support. It was a single focus on doing murals in San José, which blossomed into where we are today 10 years later.
Toni: A T-shirt that says “San José: from 50 shades of beige to Local Color” could symbolize the city’s transformation.
I was born in Louisiana but moved here as a toddler and have witnessed the Valley’s development over the years. I observe that the area is becoming more vibrant, which is positive. I aim to see creativity fostered in this city, positively impacting everyone. Could you share your vision for our community and what you hope Local Color can achieve in our environment?
Erin: For me and with Local Color, our goal is a flourishing city where artists, specifically artists of color and artists who are local, see themselves, feel themselves, and their voices are embraced as part of the cultural landscape. I envision equitable access to resources, sustained support for artists of color, and a city where public art is not just beautiful, but reflective of those diverse stories and the identities of the residents here. Our mission is to build equitable pathways for artists and creatives to thrive. We do that by facilitating the commission of public art; providing artists with affordable studio spaces; providing artists with opportunities to facilitate workshops with corporate teams, youth groups, and community groups; and by providing fiscal sponsorship, which means that we leverage our nonprofit status to support and receive funding for grassroots entities who need access to these other critical resources. We’ve made ourselves a lightning rod for arts and creativity, which is exciting.
Toni: Public art can be seen as an inspiration for various fields, including technology. It can influence the environment positively and foster innovation. Can you provide more details about specific programs initiated to achieve this vision?
Erin: We worked with a consultant, and that consultant started out by doing a bunch of stakeholder interviews with artists, board members, and clients. In his report back to us, he said, “Erin, I hate to tell you this, but you’re not an arts organization — you are an ARTISTS organization.” And that little flip from being an arts organization to being an artist organization has exponentially impacted the way that we think and talk about our programs. To date, we have facilitated over 270 murals across Santa Clara County. We work with hundreds of artists per year; last year, we provided support to about 210 local artists. We have an artists-in-residence program, where we work with developers to reactivate buildings that are slated for demolition as affordable art studios. We have opened over 69,000 square feet of affordable studio spaces, and we have about 24,000 square feet currently operating today. Ultimately, one of our goals from our strategic plan is to land a permanent anchor space. And, of course, we have Local Commons, our fiscal sponsorship program that empowers grassroots initiatives and cultural projects by offering our administrative support and access to our nonprofit status for individual artists.
Toni: Can you share where you’ve seen the results of your work and how it’s impacting the organization?
Erin: I am a chronic optimist, and I feel like everything is a success, even the things that are not necessarily initially perceived as a success. A specific example where I witnessed a tremendous change in our organization was in 2019 when we did a project called 100 Block Mural, which engaged 100 independent artists across this community. One hundred artists — emerging artists, established artists — local to San José and the larger Bay Area, all came together, and now it’s actually in the building that houses our offices. At the opening for this big mural project, 100 artists brought their moms, co-workers, partners, and buddies to this opening, and it was viral for a while. You couldn’t open Instagram without seeing 10 artists working on the same project. One hundred artists created a balloon effect, an exponential growth of our organization, and community-wide more people saw what we were thinking about, and that was incredible.
Another example of the way the community has embraced these public art pieces as true representations of the culture of this region is the San Pedro Square mural that we did in partnership with the Adobe Foundation, the Downtown Association, and artist Jimmy Paints. We painted 16,000 square feet of floor space on San Pedro Street, transforming it from just a shut-down street to a space that has actual life and legs. We engaged over 1,300 volunteers across a week, which was insane to do at the time. We had 250 volunteers per day, with a little training session and then a couple hours of painting. And that is another thing that went bananas, nuts, viral.
Toni: There is a notable picture taken by Maria Yap, one of my peers, capturing volunteers from Adobe participating in painting a mural.
What are some actions that local residents, civic leaders, and art supporters in our community can take to contribute to building a supportive and sustainable environment for artists?
Erin: Participate. Come to the fun and cool stuff that is happening in the community. But they also have to stay plugged in too, right? They have to know what cool things are happening in order to go to the cool things that are happening. So my simple answer is that residents, civic leaders, supporters, and all those city government folks can support artists by attending events. That’s one awesome way of positioning the work and advocating for more public funding for the arts. When initiatives come up in city government for example, passing a condition that requires housing developers to allocate funding for specifically the arts, we need more people who are willing to just stand up in front of the city council and say, more arts, more funding to the arts. Artists care, and creative people are going to create anyway, but we just have to make sure that we’re creating environments where they can truly thrive. And that means participating, commissioning artists independently, commissioning Local Color to come out and do something fun, prioritizing affordable housing and workspace initiatives, and being open to weird ideas that creative people have that are alternative ways of solving the world’s many problems. So yeah, word of mouth, come to fun stuff. Stay plugged in. Participate!
Toni: The call-to-action is for everyone to engage with this initiative: attend events, commission artwork, visit locations, and share on social media. By doing so, we can help promote the valuable contributions of these artists in San José and beyond. Thank you for your time.
Erin: Thank you, Toni. I really appreciate it.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Erin Salazar is an experienced Founding Executive Director with a demonstrated history of working in the fine art industry. Strong entrepreneurship professional skilled in nonprofit organizations, event planning, event management, public speaking, and social media. Black is her favorite color.
Tony Vanwinkle is a technology executive, board member, and community advocate, who has a 25-year track record leading high-performing inclusive teams for startups, mid-sized, and Fortune 500 companies focused on innovation, organizational change management, and differentiating employee experiences. She was named the DWG Digital Workplace Leader of the Year in 2019, and her team won the CIO100 award for innovation and thought leadership in 2021.
In addition to her functional role, Toni always makes time for mentoring and community service. She founded Adobe’s Black Employee Network and served as the San Jose Council Leader, connecting Adobe employees to each other and our local community. Toni has served on the board of the American Leadership Forum and is currently on the non-profit boards of SVCreates and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
