Students’ art on display

Mt. Hood will be displaying artwork produced by MHCC students in the Visual Arts Gallery in a juried exhibit that began Monday  and will continue through June 5.

The exhibit features work done throughout the year.

Art major Walter Clinton has a digital piece that displays a transformation. “We took a picture of ourselves and went through different editing software to get effects to show ourselves turning from one thing into another,” he said.

The project was open-ended, so students had the opportunity to decide what they could turn into. Walter decided to transform into a dragon. “I like dragons – they’re my favorite mythical creatures,” he said. “It’s just the power and the mystery behind them, and all the folk tales that you hear about them.”

Clinton has been interested in art since his middle school days. “In high school I took a graphic design class just about every year,” he said. His interest in digital art stems from the independence it offers.

“I like the freedom of digital media in art because most of the time, there’s not one set thing (saying) ‘You have to do this, you have to do that,’ ” he said. “The most you get (are) guidelines on how employers might want it, but you have the freedom to create how you want it, and then as long as it looks how they think that they want it, it’ll be great.”

As for what viewers might get from his displayed piece, Clinton said, “I was hoping they’d see the simplicity of how my work is actually done, and I just hope they appreciate the pictures.

The exhibit is not limited to digital media. Three-dimensional work is a prominent presence in the gallery.

Art major Isaiah Mason will display some sculpting work in the show. His most eye-catching piece is a cast bronze sculpture.

“This is the first piece that I am very proud of,” said Mason about his statue. “That’s kind of why I named it ‘The Christening.’ I thought that this was the first piece that I was like, ‘You know what? This is something that I’d like to show to people.’ I feel like it was the beginning of a new adventure.”

“The Christening” is a sculpture of a humanoid warrior.

“It was supposed to initially be an angel, it was gonna have wings, I wanted it to be like an angel warrior,” said Mason. “But, the sculpture started kind of taking its own path. It sounds kind of weird, but they (art pieces) end up doing that.”

Sculpting often starts with an idea, but changes completely. “You start — set out with this idea — this basic form; then it starts to do its own things here and there,” he said.

Mason said he feels a close relationship with his work. “You start to feel attached to a piece and all the different steps that you have to take,” he said. “There’s an emotional connection that you get with your pieces.”

As for sculpting, Mason said he “started out with the basic forms — just abstract forms,” but now takes joy in crafting a real piece.

“Being able to learn the different steps and creating a mold and being able to then cast something… it’s a longer process than one might imagine. Now that I have a finished product (and) it’s something that’s gonna last forever, I find myself feeling a bit emotional,” he said.

Mason hopes to pursue a career in sculpting. When he started college, he initially wanted to be a physician’s assistant, but changed his mind when he took ceramics classes to fulfill his humanities requirements.

After some ceramics classes, he decided to check out sculpting.

“I knew that they worked with clay in the sculpting department,” he said. “I got there, and basically discovered that anything that has three dimensions to it, I could fathom it in my brain that I could probably make it, and that was a pretty big eye-opener to me — enough to where it has me switching why I’m going to school.”