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Four students from the Art 75 class displayed their collections at the PCC Art Gallery in the first two weeks in July. The first show was “Clay and Copper”; the second “Young and Restless.”

Art 75 helps prepare students for the professional art world. The course teaches them how to write resumes, biographies, artist statements, announcements, and students also learn how to put on an art show.

The name says it all for “Clay and Copper,” which ran from July 5-9. Gina Brown (“Clay”) is a part-time student at PCC and CSU Los Angeles. She is a ceramist and sculptor, she said.

Brown’s work is influenced by nature and texture. Her sculptures come to life through her use of contrasting jagged and smooth. Her pieces are made with clay, porcelain, and copper glaze.

For Joelle DeBrest (“Copper”), this is her first exhibit in 16 years. She has exhibited at Robinson McNulty Gallery in Los Angeles and Tony Bill Studios in Venice. She obtains her materials through her brother, who is a plumber and gives her whatever scraps that are left over, she said. DeBrest describes her art as “fun, romantic, pieces that are also functional.”

She is a marketing major and wants to “brand and represent artists,” she said.

Both of the artists’ portfolios were created over several years, but some pieces were done in two weeks.

The other exhibit, “Young and Restless” displayed pieces by Jeremy Alvarez and Randy Bailey and ran the following week.

Alvarez is studying art and makes art because “it’s fun. I like to bring people in to experience art instead of just to look at it,” he said.  

Alvarez makes installation pieces, which are three-dimensional. Viewers can crawl through Alvarez’s art.

“I’ve never seen art leaning against the wall- just always hanging. It’s nice to interact,” said one exhibit attendee Daniel Carillo.

Bailey picked up the paintbrush because his “inner voice does not want to be trapped, and to make sense of the economic meltdown,” he said, after closing his 37-year-old construction business.

“There’s nothing inspiring about making money,” Bailey added.

His paintings are full of texture and color because, he said, “there’s nothing black and white about the world.” He is inspired by Picasso, Pollack, and Sezzane.

Other Art 75 student exhibits in PCC’s Art Gallery include an exhibit by Natasha Martinoff entitled “Panoptès,” that will run until Saturday and will be followed by another entitled “All I Care About Is Me…And So Should You.”

The latter exhibit will include pieces by Tedd Asbille and Kirby Israelson and will run from Thursday to Aug. 2.

“We are trying to create an exhibit completely different than what has come before us, hoping to shake things up on a grand scale,” said Israelson in an e-mail.

According to a press release, the show will “feature a body of work created with a multitude of mediums, all of which are the artists individual takes on the traditional idea of a self portrait, with a twist” and will include pieces on the exterior of the gallery as well as the interior.

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