WILDCAT CREEK (CA)
Slideshow above: photographs by Gretchen E. Henderson from WaterMarks Activation (December 2023).
In Progress
Above the Santa Clara Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California, Montalvo Arts Center lives on 175-acres where public and private lands meet. Waterways of creeks and runoffs carve canyons through forested slopes, flowing through redwoods, oaks, eucalyptus, mixed old-growth and more recently planted habitats. On traditional Ohlone lands, the Montalvo estate of villa and arboretum was built as the former residence of Senator James Phelan (1861-1930), a nativist politician at the turn of the 20th century who left a complicated legacy on the landscape, which is actively being reimagined by artists, educators, interpreters, land managers, visitors, curators, and other caretakers. Waters flow downstream to meet larger bodies of water including San Francisco Bay.
What is now called Wildcat Creek joins other creeks in the Santa Clara's West Valley and neighboring watersheds. In the past century, diverted waterways and climate change with increasing drought have affected flows of water. With increased threats of wildfires, the creek needs attention to support restorative efforts underway across the Valley.
Through listening with water and considering restorying methods here and elsewhere, Dear Body of Water is working to support intersectional and renewable initiatives of stewardship of the Santa Clara Valley and interrelated watersheds. With thanks to the Lucas Artist Program, Gretchen Ernster Henderson returned to Montalvo as an artist-in-residence (2023-2024) to listen and meet WATER as a fellow writer, artist, and collaborative agent. She has been studying how water writes, inscribes, and (de)composes landscapes into living, evolving stories that sustain human and more-than-human lives, upstream and downstream and across ecosystems.
Listening with Water @ Montalvo Arts Center
Listening with Water is a site-based, acoustic water-harvest. Sourced from varied replenishing sites for Dear Body of Water, each water sampler interlinks nine recorded voices of water (1 minute each) into a 9-minute audio stream to invite contemplative listening, sounding and re-sounding. Even while sitting still at a distance, you can travel across time and place: here, to Wildcat Creek flowing through Montalvo Arts Center (sourced December 2023). Remember that the human body is mostly water, both a body of water and an acoustic chamber, resonating with your pulsing heartbeat and humming nervous system, in or out of sync with the surrounding world. Close listening enhances aural literacy and sensory grounding, attuning and retuning. As a number, nine suggests gestation, so a question: What grows inside your imagination through listening? As you attune, what do you hear within this shifting interstitial space?
To listen more with water at Montalvo a year later, wade into some WaterSamples (brief videos):
FIELD NOTES :: WATER SAMPLES
Video field notes/water samples include voices of water who are writing their stories around Montalvo's landscape. The last sample offers an exercise in slowed attention: as a salmon returns to nearby Los Gatos Creek (November 2024).
More Coming ~ Stay Attuned!
Learn more about Gretchen's repertoire of arts activations through her evolving BLUE ATLAS (parts of her WaterMarks activation decks from Montalvo appear in the Dear Body of Water film by Fallingwater in Pennsylvania and will be on exhibit in 2025-2026 at Appalachian State University in North Carolina). In addition to her LAP residencies in 2023-2024, some Dear Body of Water events at Montalvo to date have included the 2024 Earth Day ArtSplash! and Lowrider Art Showcase, with more stewardship initiatives and collaborations in-the-works.
INTERSECTIONAL RESOURCES
A Path Forward: Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit
Montalvo Arts Center launched A Path Forward: Honoring Ohlone Land & Spirit in 2024 "to honor Ohlone lands through shared ancestral wisdom, elevating local Ohlone voices and Indigenous knowledge while enlightening visitors about forest stewardship, land management, and environmental kinship in the natural ecosystems of Santa Clara County." More details here.
Land Acknowledgment from Montalvo: "Today and every day, we give thanks to the descendants of the many Ohlone villages both past and present, for the privilege to steward this beautiful public park, that remains open, and provides a platform for artists and thinkers to gather and engage in critical reflection of our contemporary culture within this traditional homeland. We specifically thank the Confederation of Ohlone People for guiding Montalvo to a deeper understanding of the origins of these lands, and helping us create and shape a new vision for our future."
Watershed Maps of the Santa Clara Valley
- A StoryMap: Watching Our Watersheds (WOW) through Historic Santa Clara Valley (Valley Water)
- West Valley Watershed Fast Facts (Valley Water)
- Watershed Maps (City of San Jose) includes this video:
- Local Waterbodies (Watershed Protection Division of Santa Clara County) includes this video:
WATERSHED
Wildcat Creek—Saratoga Creek—San Tomas Aquino Creek—Guadalupe River—San Francisco Bay—Pacific Ocean