CSUF Art Students Have Fun Afloat

Rubber band-powered boats featuring black vinyl sails and carrying coffins and dolls dressed in drag raced across the water Tuesday during the “Rocky Horror Picture Show Regatta” at Cal State Fullerton.

Some sped across the finish line with ease. Others swerved in the wrong direction, and one toppled over. But they all were decked out for the 11th annual event in which art students were charged with making boats powered by 28-inch rubber bands.

Art professor and event coordinator Al Ching said the race has a different theme each year and is aimed at teaching students how motion and working with a specific concept are elements of design. The event is also for fun, he said.

“It’s fun just to participate,” said student Scott Gillroy, 26, who wore pearls, a black leather bustier, fishnet stockings and 6-inch heels. “This type of thing is what college is all about.”

Gillroy and his Drag Boat, sporting fake leather sails, a couple of plastic bottles filled with nylon hosiery and a red fishnet flag, got the Best Dressed award.

Another student in drag, 20-year-old Victor Le, won the Dammit Janet award for his boat Sweet Transvestite. It featured Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a character in “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

The musical comedy stars Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite alien. Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick play the nerdish, clean-cut Janet Weiss and Brad Majors, who seek refuge in Dr. Frank’s castle after they experience car trouble on a rainy night, the eve of the annual convention of visitors from Dr. Frank’s planet of Transsexual. For two decades, devoted fans have flocked to Friday and Saturday midnight showings dressed as their favorite characters to interact and perform along with the film.

For Cal State Fullerton’s art students, the “Rocky Horror” theme enlivened the competition.

“This is great fun,” said Le, who spent about 48 hours working on his boat.

The fastest vessel, Yellow Greddy, belonged to Celestino Areola and his partner, Bygrett Bartollome, both 21.

“I made it so the propeller would spin straight,” Areola said. “That’s why we won.”

Art instructor Susan Boomhouwer said she turned the contest into a kinetic assignment for her 3-D art class. The students had to make a boat that wouldn’t sink and that could travel at least 36 inches across a courtyard pond.