"Pyramids, cathedrals and rockets exist not because of geometry, theories of structures or thermodynamics, but because they were first a picture - literally a vision - in the minds of those who built them."
- Historian Eugene Ferguson

"…the wholeness of the human problem … permits nobody to separate the intellectual and the artistic from the political and social …"
- Author Thomas Mann

When you think about making Silicon Valley a better place, think about art. Artists, with their different ways of seeing and thinking, should be involved at every step of enhancing the quality of life in this region. They help ensure that the Valley will have human scale and embody human values. They encourage diversity and tolerance, calm and excite by turns, and offer a wide variety of shape, motion, color and sound in our streets. No less than our parks, artists create a better environment for the people of the Valley.

Artists concern themselves with pictures and vision, the creative thoughts and acts which preceded them, and the personal expression resulting from them. An art museum exists to celebrate and to preserve the products of such vision and creativity. The particular mission of our community's own San Jose Museum of Art is to foster the awareness, appreciation, and understanding of twentieth- and twenty-first-century art in the diverse audiences of the Bay Area.

In its brief 35-year history, SJMA has made impressive strides in achieving its mission and has become an irreplaceable community asset which greatly enhances our region's quality of life. This accomplishment is directly attributable to the will and resources of interested and committed members of the community. Consider what has been accomplished to date:

• SJMA serves 200,000 people each year (50,000 of whom are schoolchildren).
• SJMA's ambitious exhibition program is known for being engaging, adventurous, historically significant and culturally equitable, reflective of a community rich with ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity.
• SJMA has become an integral part of the educational fabric of our community, most notably as the largest provider of arts education to local public schools.
• SJMA is known for its accessible environment, welcoming visitors of all ages, income levels, cultural backgrounds, and levels of art knowledge.
• SJMA has been nationally recognized by the media and press ("The News Hour with Jim Lehrer", New York Times, Atlantic Monthly magazine); the National Endowment for the Arts; and the American Association of Museums, which also awarded accreditation status.
• SJMA's precedent-setting collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art has become a national model for similar collection-sharing partnerships across the country.
• SJMA is fiscally stable, having balanced its budget for the past eight years.

The Museum's vision for its own future is ambitious: to serve more public schoolchildren, to build its audience, to increase the number of major exhibitions mounted and scholarly documents published, to develop a distinctive and nationally-recognized permanent collection, and to secure its financial base with a permanent endowment.

You are invited to invest in this institution and to help build this wonderful place -- a place for the quiet contemplation of the creative endeavors of our artists, of new ways of viewing ourselves and our world, of the novelty and grace which surrounds us. You can have an impact here.