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Bakersfield College students and alumni were among artists expressing their chalk drawings Sept. 10-11 at the 17th annual Via Arte show at The Marketplace.

Art major Samantha Stevens, 18, displayed her drawing of a colorful design. Her inspiration for the drawing was her love for every color of the rainbow, used especially for chalk drawings. This year was her second year attending, but she considered last year to be her favorite so far.

“Last year was probably my best experience,” she said. “I got third place in People’s Choice, and I loved the piece that I did, too. It was super colorful just like this one.”

The experience for each artist is different, and the inspirations can come from a deep meaning or just a love for what interests them. BC alumni Betty Ruiz, 21, explained that she’s been involved in Via Arte for five years.

To her it seems to be more fun every year, but one thing that was better for her was when she was able to move from the high school side to the professional side. Her drawing inspirations also come from colors and shapes.

“I really like geometric shapes, and I like bright colors,” she said. “I used to be an architecture major, too, so I love using straight edges and rulers. I just thought how fun would it be to mix in all the things that I love into one piece.”

Most artists enter the show solo, but for these students they decided they wanted the team up. Jose Navarro, Christopher Bell, who both attend BC, and Marissa Leon, who attends CSUB, teamed up to make a chalk drawing of one of the presidents.

“It was a group collaboration. We just wanted to represent one of the great presidents of America. We just wanted to represent something patriotic.”

For Navarro, it’s his fifth year attending Via Arte and to him the best part about this show is getting dirty and drawing art. It’s Bell’s and Leon’s second year, and they enjoy admiring all the other artwork and being able to see what other artist can do.

This festival gave young artists a chance to express their creative artwork to the community. In order to be a part of this show, you have to send in your portfolio and registration to Bakersfield Museum of Art by a deadline. Then if a sponsor suggests a certain artist, they receive that square. If not, the BMOA assigns an artist a square that was sponsored.

The squares are the certain areas that artists are able to draw on. If you’re attending the show and decide you want to be a part of it too. There were also squares that were available to be purchased depending on how many they were interested in purchasing.