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Photo by Adam Heyman / Daily Staff Digital media graduate student Mike Weisert watches the video portion of Stacy Dixon's "What Would it Matter?" project in gallery 2 of the Art building. The exhibit, which will be on display until Thursday, is part [Click to enlarge]

There are two galleries where the students will be displaying their work: gallery room 2 and 3, located on the first floor of the Art building.

The Image and Idea Biannual Photo Based Art Exhibition, as it is formally known, is the one project this class works on throughout the semester, said Lasser, an associate professor of art and design.

This exhibit has been taking place for approximately 10 years, Lasser said.

"This is one of the biggest shows of the semester," she said.

Lasser, who said she is usually the professor who teaches the course, said she gave the students a lot of leeway for this assignment in order to achieve an end result of many unique pieces of work.

Lasser said having access to the two galleries to display student's artwork helps the artists prepare themselves for other gallery shows.

Lasser, who is also a photographer, said she would not be displaying any of her art pieces in the galleries.

"There's no room. There are too many other fabulous artists," she said.

Hank Ketelsen, a senior art major with an emphasis in photography and one of the artists who has his work displayed in gallery three, said he wanted to do something involving sequences for his piece.

For his project, Ketelsen mounted two skateboards just above a small television on the wall of gallery 3. The skateboards were positioned one under the other on the wall with their undersides displayed.

Ketelsen used an adhesive to attach photos to the bottom of the board of a skateboarding sequence in which he meshed images of one male skateboarder and scanned the pictures together to form one photo.

While shooting the film for this project, he also shot live footage of the sequence of events and displayed it on the television, sitting just beneath the boards.

"(Ketelsen's piece) kind of reminds me of a video game," said Danny Sanchez, a senior photography major.

Aaron Siegel, a senior digital media major, said, "I like how he shows the overlapping depths and elements of time."

Lucy Martinez, who has her work displayed in gallery 2, said she thought the exhibit was a good way for students to display their art.

For her project, she took pictures of nine dogs in their cages at the pound and attached each of her photos to sheet metal. Underneath each of her pictures, she made paper cutouts of bones and messily wrote on each one an apology as if from each dog.

She said she made the writing a little messy to make it seem as if the dogs had written them.

Martinez said she came up with the idea for her project from her own experiences as a child.

"My dad would bring home a puppy and a couple of months later would get rid of it to the pound," she said.

"The apologies stem from the reasons why he did it," Martinez said.

Some of the problems that she had while working on this assignment were working with the sheet metal and having to re-shoot her pictures.

"I had to go back to the pound three times," she said.

Martinez said the idea behind her project was to make people more aware of the issue and maybe think twice before taking their pets to the pound.

In terms of the location of the galleries, Martinez said, "I think this is a good location because students can come by to check it out in between their classes."

Amy Keene, a senior art major with an emphasis in photography who is also displaying her work in gallery 3, said she took pictures of a local band from Fremont called Minus Vince.

For her project, she nailed a black shelf to the wall and arranged two small black speakers on either end of it along with a red, plastic compact disc holder displaying six compact discs of the bands newest work and a CD player with a Minus Vince CD in it for visitors to hear what the group sounded like.

Just above the shelf, she displayed a collage of photos and phrases in reference to the band on a cork bulletin board.

The dominant photo on the board was one that she took of the band. The way it was taken makes it seem as if the viewer is looking up at the members.

The board also flaunted phrases such as "Cute Band Alert" and "Minus Vince is hot."

"I wanted it to look like a teeniebopper's room," Keene said.

She said the reason why she decided on incorporating the band into her project was to show both sides of each of the member's personalities, such as their lives as members of the band and their lives outside the band.

Keene said she also took the front and back pictures on each CD case. The front picture is of each of the band members outside of band practice and on-stage, and the back picture is of each member performing.

She said she interviewed each band member in order to get a feel for their personalities outside of their band lives.

Keene said this was fairly easy to do because her boyfriend is the bass player for the band.

"I love doing performance photography," she said in reference to shooting pictures of performing artists.

Keene said during the semester, Lasser arranged for two critiques of each class's projects in their progressive states.

"We got to see everyone's work in progress," she said.

Sanchez was one of the proctors for gallery 3 on Monday.

Sanchez, who also had his work on display, said a lot of people have been passing through the galleries to view the student's artwork.

For his own work, Sanchez mounted four pictures framed in fluorescent pink in a vertical row. In each picture, he blended images of women from magazines with images he had taken of Barbie dolls.

"Originally my idea was a comment on the reality based plastic surgery shows," Sanchez said.

Sanchez took different, up-close shots of Barbie dolls such as those emphasizing a doll's stomach or her legs, making it seem as if the dolls were models posing for him.

"It felt like my dolls were trying to become real," he said.

Sanchez said he chose pink frames for his photos because the color is so closely linked to the Barbie label and package.

Gina Aveni, a junior interior design major who was passing through gallery 3, said she liked the way many of the photos incorporated photography and other mediums into their work.

"I think it adds more depth to the presentation," she said.

Aveni said she comes by the galleries every once in a while to check out the galleries and see the latest art on display.

Donna Daguman, a senior digital media major, said she heard about the gallery from one of her professors.

Daguman said she thought the location of the galleries was good because they are easily accessible to art students. She also thought that the location was good for the artists as well because she said she has been to other galleries where heavy pieces of work were on display, making the artwork difficult to maneuver when setting up.

Siegel, who is also a senior digital media major said, "It is one of the more diverse galleries I've seen."

In terms of the location, Siegel said, "If you don't walk through the Art building you aren't going to see it."

An official opening of the gallery will be held today from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in galleries 2 and 3. Friends and family members of the artists are welcome to come to the reception to view the artwork and have refreshments.

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