Westmont Magazine Museum Celebrates Reopening by Showcasing Faculty Artists

The Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art reopened to the public with an exhibition highlighting the college’s talented art professors. “Sight & Insight: Westmont College Studio Art Faculty Exhibition” featured the work of 11 artists during September and October.

“Our art faculty are all accomplished working artists in their own right, and this show displayed the wide range of ability and media that makes our department so creatively diverse,” says Judy L. Larson, Askew professor of art history and museum director.

The exhibition included everything from paintings to watercolors, sculptures to prints, ceramics to photography. Professors work in genres ranging from conceptualarttophotorealismtographic design.

Full-time faculty members Scott Anderson, Nathan Huff, Chris Rupp and Meagan Stirling as well as adjunct instructors James Daly, Brad Elliott, Ryan Ethington, Jenna Grotelueschen, Pecos Pryor and Katie King Rumford all contributed work to the exhibit.

Anderson, an acclaimed freelance illustrator, shared works from his Play series, including action figures, LEGOs and wind-up tin toys to blur the line between childish things and the passage into adulthood.

Huff, whose installations and exhibitions have appeared throughout the West Coast and internationally, used wood and paper to open vistas and explore ways we might reach across divides.

Rupp, who specializes in sculpture and ceramics, used his exhibition to examine the increase in surveillance activity in our day-to-day lives.

Stirling, whose artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, allowed control and chaos in her prints of children’s clothing to explore connections and relationships.

Daly, whose work follows traditional genres of landscape and still life, portrayed the sensations of becoming a part of the landscape while riding a bicycle in the Santa Barbara foothills.

Elliott, Westmont staff photographer for more than 37 years and owner of a thriving freelance business, explored the unpredict- ability of life using decades-old black and white negatives to make unique wet prints.

Ethington, an art educator, turned the meditative practice of drawing concentric circles into artwork that reflects the texture of tree rings, reminding us of the trauma and growth we’ve overcome.

Grotelueschen, a painter with interdis- ciplinary proclivities, blurred numerous boundaries in her painting, which resem- bles bedsheets or skin folded, cut, stitched and stretched.

Pryor, whose “Attention to Loss” will be in a solo show at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara in January 2022, used traffic cones and dark spaces to draw the viewer into the darkness and demand that something be given back.

Rumford, a creative director, design direc- tor and designer, shared the inspiration and process behind her successful Grow with Google illustration campaign.