Santa Clara's Triton Museum is known for its innovative exhibits of talented California artists. And Santa Clara-based Mission College is renowned for its gifted art faculty. So the museum's current exhibit of the work of Mission College art faculty, Mission to the Triton, is a match made in heaven.

 

Triton Senior Curator George Rivera played an instrumental role in this first-of-its-kind show; in the process drawing on his own experience, first as a student and now as a painting instructor, in California's community college system.

 

"The role of community colleges in forming an artistic community is a well-kept secret," Rivera says. "That's how I got into art -- I went to a community college.

 

"Helayna Thickpenny [Mission College Art Department Chair] assembled this faculty through the years," he continues. "She's brought some of the top faculty and Mission College has gained a great reputation.  Most of our [art] instructors today are well-established exhibiting artists."

 

Certainly, the show was a bravura introduction to Mission's cornucopia of talent  – from Kristin Lindseth-Rivera's evocative bronze sculptures, to Cheryl Coon's "biological abstractions," to Mark Engel's multi-media abstract paintings.

 

Engel, a South Bay native and a Santa Clara resident, explains his style as an evolution from his attraction to "symbols – especially Hindu and Buddhist – and," he says with a smile, "birds."

 

Not only does the energetic Engel oversee Mission's Two-Dimensional Art program, he also teachers at two local pre-schools – Campbell's Rosemary Elementary School Family Learning Center in Campbell and Hellyer Head Start in San Jose. "The most difficult age," he says, "but the most progressive."

 

The Triton Museum of Art is at 1505 Warburton Avenue in Santa Clara, across from Santa Clara City Hall. Hours are 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, and Thursday until 9:00 p.m.  Admission and parking are always free.  For more information, visit www.tritonmuseum.org or call (408) 247-3754.

 

Carolyn Schuk can be reached at cschuk@earthlink.net.