Juried student work at Saddleback art gallery
Maryam Rouhi shows her oil paintings at the Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition at Saddleback College (Joseph Butkus)
Saddleback College is currently holding their annual juried student art exhibition in the college’s Art Gallery. The gallery is showcasing work from various students who attend the college and the artwork ranges from paintings to photography to handmade jewelry to sculptures.
“The gallery is meant to help students get their work out there and allow it to be seen by the masses,” said Bob Rickerson, the gallery curator, “I really enjoy working with all of these artists and seeing their work each semester.”
Rickerson will be retiring at the end of the semester marking his 16th year working at Saddleback.
This juried student art exhibition runs through Thursday, May 17, featuring works from Saddleback College’s studio art and photography classes. Works will be on display with a variety of media including drawing, painting, ceramics, printmaking, graphics, jewelry, sculpture, photography, and mixed media. (Joseph Butkus)
Among the artists featured was Violet Gutierrez, who created a clay-ceramic sculpture using a mason jar. She enjoyed having her art displayed at the gallery this year and she hopes to graduate from a university with an art-related degree.
“I like how they let students put their creations on display for everyone to see,” Gutierrez said. “The jar I made is just one example of the many other things that I use in my art pieces I’ve made at Saddleback. I definitely plan on making more with clay in the future and plan on having more of my artwork featured in bigger galleries in the future.”
Her artwork was created in the Ceramics-Handbuilding class taught by Laura Haight. Haight has been working with clay for over 20 years and teaching ceramics at various different colleges for the past 10 years.
“My teaching philosophy is very similar to my studio practice,” wrote Haight on her website. “Exploration and experimentation are of prime concern when first learning a new medium or technique. I work to incorporate many different elements into my classroom assignments as this gives my students a chance to develop skills in planning, time management, conceptual development, risk management and presentation. I use art making as a practical implementation of business strategy; through market research, time management, budgeting and marketing.”
Mary Hippensteel has a dinosaur cabochon that has sterling silver, bronze, and petrified dinosaur bone. (Joseph Butkus)
Mary Hippensteel created a dinosaur cabochon that uses sterling silver, bronze, and petrified dinosaur bone. She expressed her contentment with finishing it and using a chain to hook onto the end of the bone.
“It is a type of design where we pierce, saw, and solder anything we may want attached to a chain,” said Hippensteel as she presented her necklace, “I really enjoy the precision of it all and finding unique objects to pierce or saw into and attaching it to a chain or something that would stand out when wearing it.”
Ernest Welke, the professor in charge of overseeing the making of this jewelry, got a Bachelor’s degree at the University of Wisconsin and finished his Master’s at Northern Arizona University. He joined the Saddleback faculty in 1980 and is located in Fine Arts 210.
Maraym Rouhi created “L’attente & L’envie” which are two oil paintings featuring ballerinas. One of the ballerinas looks on in “L’envie” meaning envy in French and the other is “L’attente” which means to wait.
The painting depicts the emotion of two ballerinas looking at each other, both envying and waiting in different ways.
“My past works have been a lot darker. I wanted to use lighter colors to describe a darker tone of these two ballerinas quietly looking at each other,” Rouhi said pointing at her artwork, “This is a piece I have gradually worked on over the spring semester and I am very excited for the reception from other people’s perspectives on it.”
The artwork was done in Vito Scarola’s Painting II class. Scarola has been a full-time professor of Art in Drawing and Painting since 2000. He has been practicing his craft for over forty years holding a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at California State University Long Beach and a Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts from the State University of New York.
The art gallery will be featured until May 17 and is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 12 Noon to 4 p.m. and Tuesdays from Noon to 8 p.m.
The gallery is located in room FA 201. For more information, call Bob Rickerson at 949.582.4924 or email him at [email protected].
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