Renegade Rip

Issue date: 10/25/06 Section: Features

Media Credit: Jose M. Vega Robin Jones (right) and Melissa Alexander (Left) write down what they think of Adel Shafik's "Self Portrait Series 4 and 5."

"Back to the Source," Bakersfield College's celebration of recent art work by BC's art faculty, including new adjunct faculty, was thought by many interviewed attendees of the Oct. 12 reception at BC to be a prototype of uniqueness and originality and befitted the title of the show.
Margaret Nowling, director of the Wylie and May Louise Jones Gallery in the BC's Grace Van Dyke Bird Library, said the art showing was the first time that patrons were introduced to the works of the new BC art faculty.
"This is the first faculty show in two to three years," Nowling said.
Patron and BC student Brian Pelham, 45, and graphic arts major, said, "I like the bunnies." Pelham was referring to a work of embroidered bunnies on a girdle titled "Bunny Garb" by Rebecca Edwards, BC art instructor.
After looking at Edwards' work titled, "Support System," which consisted of wire and fur fashioned into a bra and stitched into a huge tea strainer, Pelham turned his attention to BC art professor David Koeth's photos of beads, stones, and rings in different degrees of lighting.
Speaking of Koeth's photos, Pelham remarked, "these are just (pictures of) objects. They leave a little to be desired," he said.
Edwards, speaking of her work, which included a graphite and acrylic depiction of an egg beater with a gnarled wad of hair at the top and an expended fire cracker or party favor at the bottom, titled "Circus," quipped, "hopefully, it's humorous."
"These are my reactions on women's experiences," Edwards said of her works.
Edwards cautions the spectator not to take her works, which include a blue-bonneted infant perched awkwardly upon a tall stool, titled, "Rapunzel is OK," too seriously.
As BC student Veronica Amador, 31, and a nursing major, stood observing BC art professor Brandon Sanderson's work on stone lithography, "Melancholia," she remarked, "I like this (drawing). It's the direction of the lines," she said of the drawing depicting canoodling birds wearing medieval armor and holding spears while rockets and alien spaceships fire off in the background. Sanderson teaches at Cerro Coso College.
Some of the attendees said they liked the more sedate, placid and simplistic works.

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