The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: local art

  • The Humboldt Hustle: Students and their small businesses

    The Humboldt Hustle: Students and their small businesses

    by Zack Mink

    The life of a student is jam-packed with endless homework assignments and quickly approaching deadlines, all while trying to stay afloat financially. Some students work on campus, some work multiple jobs and others have turned their skills into profitable businesses.

    Brianna Juarez, a queer, Mexican-American, first-generation student is a senior majoring in philosophy with a minor in comparative ethnic studies. Aside from her hectic schedule, she creates maximalist polymer clay jewelry as The Crafty Bee Co, @thecraftybee.co on Instagram, and sells her art as a vendor at local events all over Humboldt County. 

    Photo courtesy of Will Suiter of Humboldt Made | Brianna Juarez at the Friday Night Market in August

    Juarez officially started her business in January of 2021 after finding a place where she, as a queer person of color, felt comfortable taking up space. That along with managing her chaotic school schedule and finding a balance between school, work, and self-care are the biggest struggles she faces as a small business owner. 

    “As a small business owner, you play all of the roles. You’re your own boss, and I think being a student is also in some aspect being your own boss,” Juarez said.

    Being a student and a business owner work together well, according to Juarez.

    “Being a student has helped me be a better business owner,” said Juarez, “and being a business owner has helped me be a better student.” 

    Photo by Zack Mink | Tonin Olsen at the Festival of Dreams, Aug. 26

    Tonin Olsen, owner of Orange Skies, @orange.skies._ on Instagram, is a senior majoring in studio art. Olsen creates charm earrings and necklaces, as well as hand-designing stickers that bring a new level of confidence to other students, locals, and even themself. 

    “I just wanted to create something that I could wear and feel better in my own body,” Olsen said.

    Their business began almost two years ago and constantly expands into new ventures with the support and resources they have in the studio art department. Despite feeling support from their peers, Olsen hopes for more support from the institution itself. Some ideas they would like to see come to fruition would be more events on campus, and free transportation to off-campus events to help create a larger, more supportive community for students with small businesses.

    Jesse Beacham Grijalva Prieto, an Indigenous, Latinx, Black, genderqueer/non-conforming student in their fourth year as a psychology major, is the owner of Mariposa Magic, @mariposa.magic on Instagram. Beacham creates all kinds of handmade art inspired by their diverse ethnic background and their queer identity. Wearing all of the hats as a business owner, balancing two other jobs, and being a full-time student are Beacham’s biggest challenges. Despite their full schedule, Mariposa Magic is still a priority.

    Although it can be hard to balance the life of being a business owner and student, people in this community make an effort to get everything done and still come out on top. To them, it is a matter of personal success, both mentally and in the physical form.

    “My business is so much more than a business,” Beacham said. “It’s part of my emotional healing.”

  • Reese Bullen Gallery features Cal Poly Humboldt student artists

    Reese Bullen Gallery features Cal Poly Humboldt student artists

    by Nina Hufman

    The Arts Graduate Exhibition for the class of 2022 is now open at the Reese Bullen Art Gallery at Cal Poly Humboldt.

    Kylie Maxfield, a senior whose work is featured in the exhibit says that having one’s work in a gallery is an integral part of being an artist.

    “Being a student artist myself, I think it’s really important to be able to showcase my work,” Maxfield said. “To feel validated for what I’ve been working on. It inspires me to continue my education in art.”

    Photo by Angel Barker | Reflective Perspective, made of bronze and glass by Lisa Heikka Huber

    The exhibition showcases the work of graduating students in the Art Department. It features work from a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, illustration, drawing, printmaking, photography, ceramics, and jewelry.

    “There’s a lot more diversity than I would expect,” said student Duncan McDougall.

    Another student, Justin Henderson, also appreciated how diverse the selection of art is within the gallery.

    “Each one is pretty unique,” Henderson said. “I like that there’s a lot of creativity going on.”

    McDougall and Henderson were excited to be able to attend an exhibition of their peers’ art. Student exhibitions allow for their work to be seen by those outside the art department.

    “Otherwise, I wouldn’t see any of their art,” said Henderson. “I don’t have any art classes, so I’m never over here.”

    “There’s a lot of student creativity,” McDougall said. “You don’t really see a lot of these student galleries.”

    Displaying their work also gives student artists new opportunities.

    Photo by Angel Barker | “Present” by Kaitlyn Ladines. This paining invites students to be apart of the exhibit by sitting in the chair. This piece won 2nd place for the Glenn Berry Painting Award.

    “Having this graduate exhibition also gives students the chance to be awarded for what they’ve been working on,” Maxfield said. “I think that if students didn’t have the opportunity to do something like this that feels real, then they probably wouldn’t make as much or be inspired to.”

    One of the opportunities that Cal Poly Humboldt art students have is the opportunity to win the Permanent Collection Purchase Prize award. The honor is given to one student from each graduating class. The work is then added to Cal Poly Humboldt’s permanent collection of student artwork.

    Maxfield says that selecting the correct piece for an exhibition is a challenging task.

    “I think critiques really narrow down, like what are people interested in and what is catching people’s attention,” Maxfield said. “Getting a lot of opinions on what strikes people as an interesting photograph.”

    Maxfield also discussed challenges with her chosen medium, photography.

    “I think that sometimes it’s hard to get through with people,” Maxfield said. “Like a lot of people kind of think ‘oh, well they just press a button.’ With paintings or drawings it’s a lot more evident the amount of work that goes into it, but with photography, not as much.”

    Photo by Angel Barker | “Human Flower” by Emily Newark. Made from low-fire white clay. This ceramic sculpture won the Phoenix Ceramic Award.

    There were many interesting pieces featured in the gallery. One sculpture entitled The Human Flower was the topic of discussion among students.

    “I think The Human Flower rules,” McDougall said. “If I had a million dollars, I’d buy it right now.”

    Another opinion on the piece was offered.

    “I appreciate that a lot of work went into that, but it just freaks me out,” Henderson said.

    The exhibition will run through Saturday, May 14 with a reception to follow the College of Arts Humanities & Social Sciences commencement ceremony.

  • Cal Poly Humboldt Directors in the spotlight

    by Carlos Pedraza

    In the Van Druzer theater on Thursday, March 3 for the first time since the start of the pandemic student films were shown to a live audience. Around 40 people came to the showing of Cal Poly student films. Several of the films were made in the fall of 2020 there showing being delayed by the COVID pandemic.

    The short films ranged from psychedelic, documentary, serious, and funny; some of the films were a combination. The audience made sounds of laughter, shock and sadness reacting to each film with emotion equal to the film itself.

    A film director who was in the audience was Kylie Holub, a senior film major. Holub directed and wrote the film “Abstraction” in the fall of 2020. They film . During the pandemic Houlb said “ just keeping our crew really lean and realing thinking about how to tell stories with minimum actors.”

    The narrative film “Abstraction” is the story of a beach treasure hunter finding an alien artifact and the fallout of her discovery. The unknown and aliens being major inspiration for the film.

    Holub said “ you see a lot of people with metal detectors, we know very little about the ocean and aliens are fun to play around with.”

    Another director was alumnus Valerie Rose Campbell created the experimental film “Recipe for Young Mothers.”. Campbell goes through the recipe of banana bread while she narrates the experience of a young mother and her attempts to reclaim her life from an abusive relationship and societal expectations of a mother.

    The COVID pandemic heavily impacted the creation of the film Campbell said “ everything got done digitally and that was really hard.”

    The film is inspired by Campbell’s own experience in the local family system. “ How it felt so unjust for my kids and family.” said Campbell describing her own life experiences.

    There will be another film showcase in the fall of 2022 showing films created in the spring.

  • Glass art with John Gibbons

    Glass art with John Gibbons

    by Lex Valtenbergs

    Tucked away in a small alley behind Six Rivers Solar on Broadway in Eureka is John Gibbons Glass. At his glass art workshop, Gibbons can be found coaxing hot molten glass into stunning art pieces or after melting down raw glass in his homemade furnace.

    Photo by Lex Valtenbergs | John Gibbons (left) and Matthew Gagliardi (right) shaping a glass sphere at Gibbons’ glass art shop in Eureka on Feb. 1

    Gibbons was first introduced to glass art by his father at antique glass shows when he was five or six years old. He’s been hooked ever since. While studying glass art at college, he dreamed of it when he slept.

    “All I could think about was blowing glass,” Gibbons said. “I dreamed about it every night for a year.”

    The glass artist community in Humboldt County is small but tight-knit. Matthew Gagliardi, a glassblower with three decades of experience under his belt, has worked with Gibbons for the last five years. Gibbons and Gagliardi both use soft glass, a fluid type of glass that is ideal for sculpting.

    “We all kind of work with each other,” Gagliardi said. “There’s only so much of us in the county that work with soft glass.”

    Photo by Lex Valtenbergs | Michelle Coelho diverts heat from John Gibbons’ face with wooden heat shields while Gibbons shapes a glass sphere in his shop in Eureka on Feb. 1

    Michelle Coelho is another one of the few Humboldt-based glass artists who works with soft glass. She has been doing it for 20 years, about as long as Gibbons has. Gibbons, Gagliardi and Coelho all specialize in Venetian glassblowing, a technique that dates back to the 8th century AD. The type of tools that they use goes back to the 14th century AD.

    The trio worked in synchronized harmony on the morning of Feb. 1 to transform a glob of raw glass into a beautiful pendant light, a lime green sphere with a hypnotic spiral pattern rolled into the glass on a steel table – a marver – and inlaid with a mold.

    “It’s like a well-orchestrated dance,” Coelho said. “John’s body language tells us what to do next. It’s not so much verbal, it’s visual.”

    They were constantly in motion to prevent the glass from losing its temperature and shattering or drooping down towards the floor like viscous honey falling off a honeycomb, as Coelho put it. They have to be on sharp alert at all times. Not only is the glass is heated up to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the operating costs involved are expensive as well.

    “There’s a lot of trust, and also money,” Gibbons said. “You gotta trust them not to break your investment because there’s a lot of money that goes into it.”

    Photo by Lex Valtenbergs | A close-up shot of a hypnotic pendant light made by John Gibbons, Matthew Gagliardi and Michelle Coehlo at Gibbons’ glass art shop in Eureka on Feb. 1

    Gibbons hired a media assistant in April 2021 to vamp up his online presence. Makayla Sandifer worked in information technology before she found a niche in media production and picked up the job at Gibbons’ shop.

    As a Black woman in a white and male-dominated field, Sandifer enjoys the opportunity to work in such a dynamic space that fosters her creativity.

    “It’s honestly awesome,” Sandifer said. “It allows me to bring diversity to spaces that didn’t have it previously and to reflect that in my work. It’s super gratifying.”

    The product photos that Sandifer takes for Gibbons’ Etsy profile do justice to his vibrant glass art pieces. Whimsical starfish vases, turtles with bubbles of glass trapped inside their shells, and light fixtures adorned with alluring spiral patterns boggle the mind with their complexity, vibrant colors, and otherworldly beauty.

  • Artist Feature: Carolina Gonzalez

    Artist Feature: Carolina Gonzalez

    Life may seem black and white, but enter this creativity zone to be illuminated in fluorescent colors

    Carolina Gonzalez, a marketing major at Humboldt State University, is a self-taught artist who dabbles in painting, drawing and jewelry making.

    Gonzalez enjoys painting with acrylics and oils, drawing with paint pens and ink, as well as crafting unique earrings with charms and beads.

    Some of Carolina Gonzalez’s work in her room/studio. | Photo by Chelsea Wood

    She describes her art style as “daydream dripping” because many of her designs are colorfully psychedelic.

    Her Latinx culture and Mexican background strongly influence her artwork. Natural elements influence her creativity and she credits moving to Northern California for sparking even more inspiration.

    She’s always dreaming up new designs for earrings and paintings and often works up ideas for new artwork through sketches and graphic design.