A creative exhibit featuring the art work of 14 faculty members was on display Wednesday at 7p.m. in the faculty art gallery reception at Pierce College.
There were about 40 people present, mainly faculty, students and friends.
The faculty art show reception has happened for the past several years at Pierce College and is a night to recognize the works of teachers, not students. The gallery contained art from Gerry Vicich, Amy Blount Lay, Alex Carrillo, Brian Peshek, Melody Cooper, Klutch Stanaway, Bonese Collins Turner, Dean K. Fueroghne, Greg Gilbertson, Mark Flanders, Constance Kocs, Lori Koefoed, Larissa Bank and Camille Cornelius.
The forms of art ranged from watercolor, oil and acrylic on canvas to photography, ceramic, and woodwork.
An abstract masterpiece, Peshek’s ‘Kicker,’ was created out of a sponge saturated with clay attached to a piece of hybrid porcelain.
“My inspiration for this piece came from cut stones and geodes,” said Peshek. “I got the name because the back of the sponge had in writing the word kicker,” he said.
Perhaps just as unique was Cooper’s “Fajada Stein Stack” made out of high-fired clay.
“When I was growing up we had steins. They were very traditional. This stein is a metaphor for a container, like our body is a container,” said Cooper.
There were two works of photography in the exhibit. One was Flanders’ “Fallen Angel,” photograph of a young woman with a three-dimensional layer of tribal tattoos on her back. The other was Fueroghne’s “Heavy Metal,” which is a gelatin silver print of a nude girl with tattoos inside of a piece of heavy and large machinery.
“Bells,” by Vicich, is a watercolor of three bell peppers varying in shapes, colors and sizes.
“Veggies and fruits are sexy! I like to take small objects and celebrate their essence and make them monumental,” said Vicich. “I went into Ralphs and set up the peppers next to each other. I wanted an irregular one and I wanted to make sure that they all stood up,” he said. “Under every painting is a good drawing. The composition, how you organize the subject on a picture plane, is the most important part. Bad composition equals bad art,” said Vicich.
Paintings included Carrillo’s “Abstract Figure,” Turner’s “Ongoing Concerns,” Bank’s “untitled” (sea porthole) and Koefoed’s “Illustration for Falcom and the Charles St. “Witch.”
Carrillo teaches figure drawing and has taught at Pierce for 54 years. He has been painting for an impressive 70 years.
“I work on a number of paintings at a time. Sometimes you are unsure what you are going to do to one piece, so you work on something else. When something grabs you then you go with it. I have no idea what I am going to paint before I actually do it,” said Carrillo.
Woodworks included Stanaway’s “Space Station Annex” and Constance “untitled” oil on panel of wood shaped like a large square edged puzzle piece.
Blount Lay’s “Tourist Attraction/Ancient Sites # 3” is a model of an igloo made of foam-core, balsa wood and glitter.
Last but not least is Cornelius’ “Red Stripe” of oil and wax on board. The piece has three textured red stripes running along an off-white background that contains many imperfections, circles and scratches.
()
