EdCC art show explores the many faces of its students

EDMONDS — Snohomish County’s community colleges are great places to see new or experimental art.

Admission is free, the exhibits are intended for viewing by the general public and most of the time they make you think.

The Russell Day Gallery at Everett Community College features work by community members, instructors and students. Exhibits this year have included mixed-media work by college instructor Linda Berkley and carvings by Tulalip artist James Madison.

In the art gallery at Edmonds Community College the current show is a collaboration involving a former student activist, a longtime member of the art faculty and a musician employed in the college’s media services department.

The show, “From the Edge of Understanding,” questions the stereotypes we cast on people because of their age, gender, race or economic standing.

Art instructor Melissa Tomlinson Newell, a teacher at EdCC since 1989, was scheduled for a showing of her work this fall quarter. She was painting faces — images of people she knew, well-known people and people she had never met.

Newell told EdCC alumna Feven Haile about her project. Haile, a young spoken-word artist, was inspired to write narratives about the people Newell painted.

Steven Oliver, a musician, added dimension to the project by making a video incorporating the narratives and the paintings.

During the past school year, the artists met to talk about the creative process as a way to learn about themselves, their art and about other people.

The artists’ statement says that “at the core of this exploration was the desire to look beyond surface, image and media, avoiding oppressive images and distancing narratives in order to find pathways to empathetic connection.”

The exhibit invites viewers to participate.

People have left poems, photos, drawings and entries in journals left on tables in the small gallery.

Edmonds Community College is a good place to think about the ways we put other people in boxes, Newell said.

“Our students range in age from 15 to 90. They are lifelong residents and they are immigrants, young people with dreams and older workers retraining for a new career,” Newell said. “The exhibit is like our student body.”

Newell said working with community college students, most who are not art majors, has been a thrill for her.

“I learn so much from my students,” she said. “What I try to give them in return is the opportunity to think like an artist, to access that part of themselves that allows them to create. Maybe not with a paintbrush, but by finding different ways to look at challenges.”

Community college provides access to the world for anyone who comes through the door, Newell said.

“It’s social justice,” she said. “Likewise, I hope our art show encourages connection, so that we don’t turn away from the trouble in the world, but toward it.”

Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.

If you go

“From the Edge of Understanding”: Edmonds Community College art gallery at its library features work from Feven Haile, Melissa Newell and Steven Oliver through Dec. 5. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, until 2 p.m. Fridays and 1 to 5 p.m. weekends on the third floor of Lynnwood Hall, 20000 68th Ave. W., Lynnwood. For information, go to www.edcc.edu/gallery. The collaborative installation showcases 100 images by Newell, accompanying character narratives written by Haile and a video created by Oliver.

“Mayhem: Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes of the Pacific Northwest”: Through Dec. 5, it’s more about nature. See geologic images and displays about four types of hazards — landslides, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis — in Everett Community College’s Russell Day Gallery, 2000 Tower St., through Dec. 5. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays, noon to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays; closed Saturdays and Sundays. Includes photos, physical displays and rock samples in a show created by EvCC geology instructor Steve Grupp and English instructor Gary Newlin. More at www.everettcc.edu. Opening reception begins at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 30.