California Trip -PUC -Part Two

We had Thursday lunch with Myron Widmer at the PUC Dining Commons.  What a great menu and a very nice lunch.  It's been a while since we have had a two-hour lunch!  Myron is a professor in the Theology Department.

Myron encouraged me to go over to the Visual Arts Building and check things out... he said I would find a lot of things different.  When I was here over 40 years ago this building was shared by Industrial Arts, Auto Mechanics, Graphic Arts, Fine Art & Commercial Art.  Technology has changed it all.

Here is Myron checking out one of the many artistic pieces in the hallway on second floor.  Myron was the first student we knew who owned one of the now classic original Ford Mustangs... a Mach 1.

Being a builder, I was drawn to this wall sculpture done using various sizes and kinds of nails in wood. We had none of these attractive pieces on the walls when I was a student there.  What an inspiration!

Myron introduced me to Professor Tom Turner, (center) who built a photography facility in the old metal shop area on first floor.  Here he built a seamless white and black photo backdrop, large enough to drive in a car thru the old auto mechanics door!  Genius!

Tom then took us next door where there used to be woodworking and construction.  Now it is used for a variety of stain glass and fired glass projects.  Above is a project by Robert Pappus, one of the instructors.  His brother, Jim, was one of my classmates years ago. 

We met Professor Thomas Morphis, who was teaching a class this day in encaustic painting... using melted wax and various other media today on a 12-inch square wooden background.  

I would love to be student in this class where Professor Milbert Mariano is teaching computer graphic layout and design where each student is working on an Apple computer.

When I was a student here I did all my silkscreen printing in the living room of our rental apartment... complete with vacuum table and wooden printing racks, which Myron bought from me when we left the campus in 1969.  There was no screen printing on campus then except at the book bindery.  

I could not resist taking several shots of the screen printing inks.  There are many prints waiting to be made from all these colours.  It brings back many memories or my college days.  Days when I never let schoolwork interfere with my education.

It didn't seem like there were any classes today in film or video production... but at the end of the afternoon I did see these guys loading up their cart with lights and accessories to go and shoot a project  somewhere on campus.  I would love to take some film production classes and get involved in some projects again.

We did however find a few girls working on a project in an editing booth... and there were several booths where students could work on their assignments.

We were fortunate to be on campus when the professors had an exhibition of their own work in the Rasmussen Art Gallery.

Both Shirley and I went around the gallery twice and really enjoyed seeing the variety of work.

When I saw this car in the middle of the campus all smashed up I asked Myron about it.  He told us that this is test week, (Dead Week) and at chapel this morning the students were told they could all take out their frustrations on this old car... heavy hammers were provided... and as you can see, there was a lot of frustrations let out!   Life on a college campus is seldom boring!

We had just enough time to go thru Ellen Whites heritage home just below the Sanatarium called Elmshaven.  We had seen it once when we were students here and her grand daughter was still alive doing the tour guide duty.

We drove slowly down Zinfandel Lane looking for the old barn that I had painted when an art student here... but it was no longer standing.  It was old when were here and today most of the vineyards have changed hands... now boasting new mansions where their owners live.  I found this photo interesting, as you can see the old smudge pots between two of the rows.  For years after we returned from California we used one of these smudge pots as a vase to hold weeds in our living room.

And these were the same weeds that we brought back to Canada to adorn the old smudge pot!  How did we ever get such a weed across an international border?

We spent a delightful evening, going out for dinner in Napa, visiting with nephew Donald Jack Logan and family... Shelley and son Johnny, who now works with his father in their law practice.  When we were students here my sister lived in Sacramento and we spent many weekends together... it was like our home away from home.