In the classroom, art faculty members at Laredo Community College have a talent for helping students develop and cultivate their artistic and creative talents.
These educators also are professional artists with a gift for creating impressive works of arts.
“It’s a talent that sometimes is not recognized often,” Dale Short, chairperson of the LCC Art Department, said.
To showcase faculty talent, the LCC Art Department is hosting an exhibition featuring the work of the seven full-time art instructors at the college.
An opening reception to unveil the exhibit is set for Thursday, Nov. 17 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the LCC Art Teaching Gallery, P-24, located on the north side of the main campus. Admission is free and open to students and the public.
Short said that the college normally hosts an art faculty exhibit whenever a new art instructor is welcomed to its ranks.
“However, time has passed since Laredo Community College last welcomed its newest art faculty member,” Short said. “With that in mind, the college decided it would be appropriate to showcase recent works of all full-time art instructors.
“It will be a special opportunity for students, faculty, staff and the community to discover what the college’s art instructors have created as professional artists.”
Not wanting to brag, Short admits that the new show is perhaps one of the best exhibitions hosted by the college in recent years.
“After helping set up the exhibition, I was amazed at the quality of work that is produced by our instructors, who also seem to have a knack for keeping it well hidden from the public eye,” Short said lightheartedly.
The exhibit will include the art of Gary Brown, Martha Fenstermaker, Mark D. Johnson, Daniel McInnis, Ernie Sherow, Short and Maria Evangelina Soliz-Hernandez.
BROWN
Brown will present several digital photos and drawing, which he enhanced with a popular computer graphics program.
For his art piece “Callejones,” Brown had to travel to Guanajuato, Mexico to shoot this digital photo. The town is set like a bowl with hills all around, Brown said.
“The solitary quality of the image reminds me of Edward Hopper’s painting ‘Sunday Morning.’ I enhanced the color and contour lines of the digital photo with a graphics program,” Brown said.
FENSTERMAKER
Metal pieces, which are an investigation of form and are intended to complement the human body, will be presented by Fenstermaker.
The art pieces include an autumn necklace, round coat pins, swirl earrings and bracelets.
“These designs are a selection derived from five months of obsessive exploration using a limited number of predetermined metalsmithing techniques involving corrugation, cold connections, trapping and manual manipulation,” Fenstermaker said.
JOHNSON
Johnson’s art consists of photographs that capture his particular vision of a time and place that is part of an always changing landscape.
“I like my photographs to provoke a sense of wonder, to give the feeling of looking at a view that has not been seen before,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that he began his profession taking black and white photographs. After experimenting with digitally distorted and collaged images using Adobe Photoshop, he has returned to photographing traditional non-altered photographs.
“With the use of a digital camera, the technology has changed. But with the careful selection of light, angles and placement, I (photograph) common objects and landscapes in my unique perspective,” Johnson said.
MCINNIS
McInnis correlates his art work—consisting of stone and ceramic sculptures—to his passion for gardening, which he refers to as “abstractions of images that have been ingrained into my memory after many years of gardening.”
“I feel that as an artist my art is my personal endeavor of exploring and embracing all aspects of life in the garden. It is a celebration of my life’s experiences nurturing and tending to life itself.
“(My art) is a dance with the environment that romances its patrons and invites them to look inside of themselves to appreciate the world around them.”
SHEROW
Sherow’s art consists of powerful images inspired by dramatic stories that unveil character.
“I am influenced by my life experiences and feel obligated to face and reveal life’s reality regardless of the physical, psychological, moral or cultural deterioration of the human condition,” Sherow said.
Sherow said that her work is a form of communication which allows her to address issues of life with the eyes of compassion, using emotion, mood, light and the human figure as vehicles of expression.
SHORT
“Layers” are the best way to describe Short’s work.
“The layers of strata that form our earth, the many levels of society that make up humankind, the varied cultures that manage to co-exist here; these things I find interesting,” Short said.
In his two-dimensional work, the message is defused and layered much as the earth’s many layers of strata.
“With the watercolors, I reflect upon modern, popular culture and how I feel about our busy lifestyles,” Short said.
SOLIZ-HERNANDEZ
Soliz-Hernandez’s art work, consisting of oil on canvas, mixed media and more, reflects her interest in the human condition and the consciousness of being.
“My style and imagery often combine crude, elegant, humorously kitschy and serious elements. These opposing sensibilities attempt to define the complex fusion of duality in human identity,” Soliz-Hernandez said.
She added that her current work expresses the idea of merging people with games or toys in an attempt to understand human nature.
The LCC Art Faculty Exhibition will be on display through Dec. 9. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Admission is free to the public. For more information, contact the LCC Art Department at 721-5224.
“Faculty,” a digital image created by Mark Johnson, features Laredo Community College’s seven full-time art instructors whose work will be featured in an exhibition opening Thursday at the LCC Art Teaching Gallery.
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