The Sunnyvale Sun
News
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Past Lives: "The Way It Was, 2006," sculptures by Scott Donahue, adorn the corner of the new shopping center at Mathilda Avenue and W. El Camino Real.
Olson family cherry orchard evolves into a shopping mall
By Jason Goldman-Hall
While the southwest corner of El Camino Real and Mathilda Avenue no longer holds an Olson family cherry orchard, there is still a sense of history at the site.
On Nov. 9, Yvonne Olson Jacobson and her husband William Jacobson, along with and their family and friends, cut three red ribbons at the new Cherry Glen Plaza. The shopping center built on a little less than 11/2 acres where an Arco gas station once stood, is open after more than a year and a half of planning and negotiations.
On the corner, in clear view of the thousands of cars that pass by each day, are nine cement sculptures that tell the story of Sunnyvale's agricultural past before high technology, cement and commercial outlets came into prominence.
Emeryville-based artist Scott Donahue spent the past five months sculpting the pieces in clay, casting them in plaster and finally pouring cement to make the final products. In addition, each gray-green sculpture has several toy-sized brass-casted icons of the valley, including early-model trucks and grain silos.
The artwork was inspired by Olson Jacobson's book, Passing Farms, Enduring Values.
"I love content, and Yvonne's book is marvelous," Donahue said. "She took her own objective experience here and got wider and wider until she enveloped the whole valley."
In addition to the artwork, there are also trees and vines along both Mathilda Avenue and El Camino Real that echo the orchards and vineyards that once populated the South Bay.
"This will be a lasting legacy not only for the [Olson] family but for Sunnyvale," said Chamber of Commerce CEO and President Suzi Blackman.
And while the former orchard also holds a small housing development by Classic Communities, Jacobson said they avoided a multi-story retail area because they didn't want to overload the site, and wanted to keep things simple.
His wife said the new plaza is a fitting evolution for the site, which stopped producing cherries because winters in the Bay Area are no longer cold enough to cause the trees to produce fruit.
"I think it helps to have this space available to people to give them something to think about when they pass by," Olson Jacobson said.
She added she hopes future generations will bring children and school classes to the site to use the artwork as an aid when teaching about the valley's history.
