Wender·Vista
San Jose
shown on ceramic, 12-inch tileUnited States
south end of San Francisco Bay, the floor of Silicon Valley

San Jose

— — a valley that traded its orchards for the world's machines.

— Where it lives

Not only on a wall.

A small tile on the nightstand catching the morning. A larger one above the fire. Yours, wherever you spend the slow hours.
— On the nightstand, a 6-inch on a walnut stand
— Among the books, a 6-inch leaning into the spines
— Beside the kettle, a 12-inch propped
— Down a quiet hall, an 18-inch floating off the wall
— Above the fire, the 24-inch in a walnut surround
— a note from the studio

“San Jose was a fruit town. The Santa Clara Valley had the densest stretch of orchard in the world before the chips came: plum, apricot, cherry, walnut. The trees are mostly gone. The Guadalupe River still runs through the centre of the city, and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph still stands where the first parish was built in 1777. The valley grew different fruit now.

from the studio
San Jose
— bring it home

San Jose, on ceramic.

Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.

What kind of piece?
One tile — square or rectangle.
How big?
the popular one — counter, shelf, nightstand
6 × 6 in · 15 cm · 1.6 lb
Surface finish
A clear glossy finish — the artwork reads as if under resin. Ideal for show-pieces and framed wall art.
How it sits
A hidden cleat — sits ¼″ proud of the wall.
$58
Hand-finished and shipped from our studio at the foot of the Smokies. On your wall in about ten days.
— size
6 × 6 in
15 cm
— weighs
1.6 lb
solid in the hand
— surface
ceramic, hand-finished
art rests beneath a thin glossy finish
— from
Knoxville, TN
our family studio, at the foot of the Smokies
— start a Coaster Set

Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.

— about San Jose

The place, in three passes.

A little of what's known, in case you fall down the rabbit hole — or want to go see it yourself.
— the place

San Jose sits at the south end of San Francisco Bay, in California's Santa Clara Valley. The city was founded in 1777 as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, the first civilian Spanish settlement in Alta California, and was briefly the state capital from 1849 to 1851. The current population is just over one million, making it the third largest city in California and the tenth largest in the United States. It sits at the centre of the region the world calls Silicon Valley.

— informed by Wikipedia, City of San José
— the year

The valley's second life began in 1956, when Shockley Semiconductor opened in nearby Mountain View. Eight engineers left two years later to found Fairchild Semiconductor; their descendants became Intel, AMD, and most of the names that built the modern computing industry. By the 1980s the orchards had been bought out tree by tree. The journalist Don Hoefler coined the name Silicon Valley in a 1971 trade paper. San Jose is the only large city wholly inside that geography, and its downtown skyline now rises to meet the office parks that ring it.

— the visit

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, completed in 1885 on the foundations of the original 1803 adobe parish, stands at the centre of downtown. The Tech Interactive on Park Avenue runs hands-on science exhibits and an IMAX dome. Japantown on Jackson Street is one of three historic Japanese-American neighbourhoods left in the United States. The Winchester Mystery House, six miles west, preserves the 160-room Victorian Sarah Winchester built and rebuilt continuously from 1886 until her death in 1922. Admission is timed and books out on weekends.

— where
United States · Santa Clara County, California
— elevation
25 m · 82 ft
— position
37.3382° N · 121.8863° W
— the neighborhood

What's nearby.

A handful of named places within an hour's walk or short drive. Some we've already painted; some we will.
50 km W
Santa Cruz
Pacific coastal town
80 km N
San Francisco
major city
110 km S
Monterey
coastal city
N
San Jose
Santa Cruz
San Francisco
Monterey
— common questions

What people ask.

A few questions we get about San Jose — and about bringing the piece home.
— about the place

San Jose is at the south end of San Francisco Bay, in California's Santa Clara Valley. It sits about 50 miles south of San Francisco and is the largest city in the Bay Area by population.

San Jose is the only large city wholly inside Silicon Valley, the term coined in 1971 for the chip industry that grew up between San Mateo and the southern Santa Clara Valley.

The Peralta Adobe, built around 1797, is the oldest surviving structure in the city and the only remaining building from the original Spanish pueblo. It sits in San Pedro Square downtown.

San Jose was the first capital of the state of California, from 1849 to 1851. The legislature later moved to Vallejo, then Benicia, then Sacramento, where it has stayed since 1854.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph, the Tech Interactive science museum, Japantown, the Winchester Mystery House, and the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, with its Old Kingdom collection, are the main visitor anchors.

The city covers about 180 square miles and has a population over one million. It is the third largest in California after Los Angeles and San Diego, and the tenth largest in the country.

— about the piece in your home

It has been for many of our customers. The tile reads as the valley itself, not as a stock California postcard. A Small or Medium with a note from the studio carries warmly to a Bay Area native.

The warm earth tones and Pacific blues sit well in California-modern, Mid-century, and biophilic rooms. It carries oak, walnut, and brass and reads quiet against limewashed or plaster walls.

Yes. California-modern leans into natural materials, low-saturation palettes, and a regional sense of place. A piece tied to the actual valley grounds the look in a way generic coastal art does not.

A single Large reads across a room and balances most sofas. A 4-tile Mural carries a long console or wider wall. A 9-tile Mural becomes the wall itself.

Yes. Order the Dura Satin or Matte finish for any humid or splash-prone wall. Both resist scratching and read soft in raking light. The Glossy finish is for dry framed wall art.

A soft microfibre cloth and warm water. Nothing abrasive, no ammonia cleaners. The colour lives in the ceramic surface beneath the finish, so cleaning wear is not a real concern.

Yes. Every WenderVista piece is original to our studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. We do not licence outside artwork, and the visual language is the same eye across the whole atlas of places.

— if this one stayed with you

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