ART CLUB WORKS HARD TO GET THEIR MEMBERS' WORK SEEN

BY MICHAEL MORGAN
EDITOR

Wallace Bastein, artist, student and president of the Art Club. ANNABELLE DAY / GUARDSMAN

City College art students seeking spaces to exhibit their work have found an avenue to do so with the Art Club. Led by Wallace Bastein, the group looks for available spots in and around San Francisco to showcase their members’ work.

After earning an art degree from San Jose State, Bastein wound up in real estate. He retired, and enrolled at City College five years ago to keep up his artistic skills.

“I’m a procrastinator and needed to find something. I started talking to one of the art teachers, Fred Kling, and discussed the idea of the art club,” Bastein said. “He became the club’s adviser.”

The club began two years ago and has been meeting every other week since. Currently there are ten regular members who attend the meetings and actively participate and about fifteen who are informed of openings and act as an extended network.

“I wanted to get my work out somewhere to be shown,” Bastein said. “Some others felt the same way.”

The meetings are a time to share new works and to have individual critiques outside of ones held in the classroom. People also share possible openings for spaces to show their art.

“I believe in having a full day and part of that means learning something new and stretching. City College is a good place for that,” Bastein said.

The group looks to help each other make an impact in the field. Currently students are showing their work at the Mayor’s Office of Housing on South Van Ness and Market streets, which has a six-month rotation schedule for the students’ work.

Art Waves Gallery on Judah Street at 44th Avenue is showing the work of club member Susan Black. She works in watercolors to create “watercolor quilts,” by combining small cut out shapes from her discarded paintings as a way to create something new from the old.

The gallery is a cooperative space where a group of artists work together to run it. The show will continue through Oct. 7. The works on display are for sale.

In San Jose, a student’s work is on display at Green Rice Gallery.

The club hopes to continue its success by finding more spaces to show art and gaining more members. With upcoming shows on and off campus, it looks to do just that.

e-mail: a_e@theguardsman.com

ENTERTAINMENT

STATE YOUR FASHION CITY COLLEGE

BY MICHAEL MORGAN
EDITOR

For Jason Lam, hip-hop and funk is a way of life. ANNABELLE DAY / GUARDSMAN

Art student Jenny Tang likes to keep her look styling by shopping cheap and supporting her local bookstore.

"Green Apple is my favorite bookstore in the city," said Jenny about her canvas bag bought from the Richmond District store.  Most of her wardrobe comes from Goodwill, but on the day The Guardsman met her, she was sporting clothes she got while in Hong Kong.   

Jenny's gray hoodie and simple, striped shirt with dark jeans and thin black boots worked well for this hip "muse," as her friend Alivia calls her.

To make sure his fellow classmates couldn't tell if he was reading or zoning out, Alex Happ wore some bright teal sunglasses to school.  While chilling on campus with his iPod plugged in and his notebook open, The Guardsman staff noticed his dark, grungy look.

Getting ready in the morning is an interesting process. “What's clean has to do with it a lot.  Weather factors in…(my) mood.  What I'm going to do that day," said Alex.

His simple hoodie, skinny jeans look is achieved by shopping at thrift outlets such as Clothes Contact on Valencia Street where his friends work.  He likes to keep it cheap by getting his pants for about $25. 

When asked what he would call his style, Alex responded "unicorn."  His style is definitely magical.  

ON THE MOVE by Michael Morgan

REVIEWS

Movie:

As HBO's new series “Flight of the Conchords”, New Zealand's quasi-answer to “The Monkees,” winds down its first season, we can prepare for a second season which has recently been contracted.

“New Zealand's fourth most popular parody duo,” Jermaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, along with their spectacularly mild manager Frank and gung-ho friend Dave, go through the doldrums of New York life while trying to make it as a rock band. Every episode is punctuated with well-constructed parody songs. And, when romance heats up, our deadpan kiwi folk rockers are on thin ice, but manage to skate away with a catchy tune.

“Flight of the Conchords” is already hailed as a cult classic. Watch a clip on YouTube.

- Alex Mullaney

Book:

Waugh’s classic 1937 satiric jab at journalism seems as fresh today as ever. In a case of mistaken identity, William Boot, a nature writer for London’s Beast newspaper, is assigned to cover a civil war in an East African nation. However, when he reports to the country, there is no war.

Boot enjoys living on the Beast’s unlimited expense account until his anxious editor cables him for “victory” reports. Boot seeks what little exotic news he can find and accidentally stumbles upon a revolution and a quick counter-revolution. Back at the Beast, Boot is a hero. A newly hired journalism graduate asks him if “it’s a good way of training oneself – inventing imaginary news?”

“None better,” Boot wryly replies in this riotously funny book.

- Jim Patterson

e-mail: a_e@theguardsman.com