OPEN HOUSE 2015

What a beautiful evening it was.

There must have been close to 500 people who strolled thru the art room that night.

The biggest joy for me was seeing old faces from the past,

our retired band/music teacher Jan Olson, 

our current Cerritos Mayor and my ex art student Mark Pulido with his wife Gloria Perlas,

 another art alumni.

I was also really happy to see many of my colleagues stop by for a look see. 

I'm so very thankful to our staff for supporting the arts by buying the numerous student art pieces that were for sale.

Our students love when you hang their work in your classroom.

And they are especially thrilled and flattered when you take the time and money to frame it as well.

Just step into Mr. Z's science lab/classroom to see his display of our student's works.

He collects mostly figurative pieces,

 but this year he made an exception when he was just had to have senior Kaili Hamada's woven Saori piece.

Go Kaili!!!

We displayed over a thousand pieces of student art this year,

That's probably more then we ever have in the 35 years I've been teaching here.

I want to take the time to acknowledge my 2nd period boys;

Elias Rodriquez, Michael Cantu, Jovani Garcia, Nathan Chong & Jonathan Hsu for helping to hang a panel each.

And to Laarnie Barcelon, Kaili Hamada, Daphne Chiang and Bianca Tolentino for noticing that I needed more help to get all the pieces hung and stepping up to the plate to help,

and earning some extra credit to boot.

Not that they needed it, 

these are all A+ kids in their own right.

And of course to my faithful assistants,

alum Alyssa Olea & Joshua Berger for hanging the most difficult of the panels.

It was such a combined group effort to make this happen.

And then the day of Open House a very special thanks Elias, Hazel Cruz and Risha Bhakta for helping me for over an hour after school move a couple hundred works of clay 

onto the student desks for display.

Also a shout out to Laarnie, Alyssa and Reis Misaka for coming back that evening to help with sales.

I haven't forgotten the Jamba Juice gift cards I promised  :)  

It truly takes a village to bring something of this scope together.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

There is no way this could have happened without you.