Knowing No Bounds

It was an ordinary chain-link fence with no apparent purpose at the north end of the Cal State Northridge campus. Then Russell McMillin and his 200 art education students transformed it into some grand terra-cotta menagerie.

Huge, brown blowfish gape at spectators from the 100-foot-long fence. Furry, apelike heads sit atop its 10-foot-high posts. Skulls protrude from aluminum links. And strange, circular dwellings that look like wasp nests hang ominously from the barricade.

Halloween decorations? No. It’s McMillin’s attempt to show aspiring grade school teachers how to teach art to youngsters.

McMillin, 39, said he got the idea while walking past the open fence that divides CSUN’s art department from the rest of campus. A sculptor, he saw the fence as a potential armature, the metal skeleton of a sculpture.

“We were reading in the book that we use about installation art and public art,” McMillin said. “I thought, ‘Wow, we could really use this fence as a way of demonstrating that, and it has such high visibility.’ There’s also a lot of natural materials around here that can be used.”

McMillin came up with a complex proposal to have his students devise habitats for little creatures they make called “fetishes.” The part of the fence facing the art department is supposed to be the inside of the dwelling. The part facing the rest of the campus is the outside. The students, men and women of all ages, most of whom are working toward their teaching credentials, have free rein to design the habitats. Their materials are simple--recycled clay from the art department, a bundle of hemp and whatever they can scrounge from the ground or surrounding area.

About 15 students worked in the warm Valley sun on a recent Saturday morning, their hands and clothes colored brown by the wet clay as McMillin and another teacher supervised.

Tania Gauci, 23, of Granada Hills, worked on an egg-shaped nest decorated with pebbles and orange, white and pink flowers that she had connected to a larger habitat with several branches.

Gauci, a preschool teacher working on a liberal studies degree, hopes to teach second grade someday and said McMillin’s class has her thinking about how she might translate the lesson for younger students. “I think this idea’s really great,” she said. “Kids like to get dirty and messy, and with this, they have to use their imaginations. When I become a teacher, I want to get them to use their imaginations through art.”

Farther down the fence, Sheryl Samworth, 23, of Santa Clarita, was building a tall clay tower. First she wrapped clay and hemp around her arm to make a hollow structure, then she placed it atop a fence post.

“Mine’s kind of an escape,” she said. “It’s on top of everything and above it all. The outside is on display, but you have to work hard to see the inside.”

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One of the most impressive pieces came from Juliette Bardo, 46, who created a lifelike blowfish with clay, pine cones and strands of grass. Bardo, who commutes to CSUN from Panorama City, is four units from graduation.

“I’ll try to incorporate what I’ve learned here into the classroom,” she said. “Finances are very tight. You cannot buy everything you want for classes. This teaches you to use whatever you can.”

The fence at Plummer Street and Lindley Avenue on campus is proving to be a showstopper, attracting pedestrians and drivers to the constantly expanding art show. It is to be up indefinitely.

“It’s very original. A very clever idea,” said Claudio von Fresian, 59, a nearby resident who was pedaling by on his bike and paused to take a look. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”