High School Artists See Their Best at Golden West

Darsi Wolsleger, 18, has never met the man whose weathered hands, wrapped in rags and scraped at the knuckles, helped her win the top prize in the third annual Golden West College High School Art Competition.

Worn rough by time and labor, each loosely grasping the other in fatigue, they are the central focus in “Hands,” a large colored-pencil drawing by Wolsleger, a senior at Garden Grove’s Rancho Alamitos High School. Like many of her fellow exhibitors at the Golden West show, Wolsleger based her work on a magazine photograph during a class project on photo realism, re-creating the image with painstaking attention to detail.

The show, which features 66 paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures by Orange County high school students, is on exhibit through Friday at the Golden West College art gallery. Coordinated for the last two years by gallery director Paul Donaldson, the competition lets students “see their work in a professional setting and allows them to compare their techniques and concepts with their peers.”

In addition to Wolsleger’s $500 scholarship, prizes were awarded to Rancho Alamitos students Jenee Foss ($100 Faculty Award), Jody Anderson ($50 Juror’s Award), and Rosalie Damicog ($50 President’s Award); Belinda Young of Los Alamitos High School ($50 Director’s Award) and Kimberly Kollenda of Huntington Beach High School ($50 Patron’s Award).

But to most exhibitors, the value of this kind of open competition isn’t measured in dollars.

“(Competing) can help get you into the college you want,” said Anderson, who entered a larger-than-life watercolor of a toothless old man nursing a soggy cigar. “Even if the awards aren’t cash, you can put them in your portfolio when you start looking for schools.” A nonsmoker, Anderson said he also based his work on a magazine photograph. He chose the theme because “it had good composition for watercolor, lots of lights and darks.”

“Besides,” he added with a laugh, “it shows what smoking does to you . . . (it) makes all your teeth fall out.”

In “Conceptions,” Rancho Alamitos student Thi Pham offers one view of the creation of life in bold shades of red and black; Daniel Lee, also of Rancho Alamitos, examines new life from another angle in “Liberty,” which pays tribute to America’s immigrants.

The mood of the show swings from light-hearted--as in Belinda Young’s acrylic, “Amusement Park,” in which a blissful blonde frolics in the Happiest Place on Earth, to uneasy, as in “Shattered Dream,” a jarring combination of images and patterns by Rancho Alamitos student Greta Weatherby. Calm is restored with Rosalie Damicog’s tempera of a contemplative, olive-skinned girl veiled in rich reds and oranges.

In choosing the winners, Donaldson said he looked not only for technical expertise, but for a certain “abstract quality . . . an awareness of something beyond the mirror surface.”

In addition to providing exposure for students’ work, the high school art competition serves as a recruitment vehicle for the college’s art programs, Donaldson said.

“We’ve found some of our best art students through these shows,” he said. “It brings the young artistic community together and reassures them that there is an art world available out here . . . and it allows our students to make contact with the high school kids on an individual basis.

“We usually say to students that the pursuit of art, even if it’s not their professional goal, gives continuous rewards . . . even if they simply become a better audience for other artists.”

The Golden West College High School Art exhibit continues through Friday at the college art gallery, 15744 Golden West St., Huntington Beach. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Admission is free. Information: (714) 895-8358.