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Gallery of winners Photo by Bob Pennell "Whoopla," a painting by Cheryl Bishop of Grants Pass, is among the "Best of the Best," an exhibit of top Rogue Valley student artists at the Rogue Gallery in Medford. South Medford High artists Crystal Munoz and Hope Hicks, right, checked out the exhibit Wednesday. 'Best of the Best' features works of student artists By BILL VARBLE Crystal Munoz and Hope Hicks prowl the new art exhibit at The Rogue Gallery, taking it in, checking out the competition. "It's neat to look at other people's ideas," says Munoz, 17, a junior at South Medford High School. "Different ideas," says Hicks, also a 17-year-old junior. "Different teachers influencing students." Where to find it What: "Best of the Best" student art exhibit. When: Though April 21. Where: The Rogue Gallery and Art Center, 40 S. Bartlett St., Medford. Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays (to 6 p.m. Wednesdays) and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays. Call 772-8118. For the exhibit, "Best of the Best," the top student artworks from middle schools and high schools from around Southern Oregon were chosen by area art teachers. Those artworks were then brought to the Medford gallery, where they were submitted to a jury of professional artists. The exhibit that resulted from that process features the winners from among the winners -- literally the best of the best. The student art show has been around since the 1985-86 school year. The goal is to encourage artistically gifted kids. Hicks is taking her third semester of ceramics at South this term. A shallow bowl she's exhibiting here testifies to her experiments with new glazes, this one a violet over a red iron. "I wanted to try a new combination," she says. "You never know ahead of time exactly how they'll turn out." Munoz had the happy experience of having her very first watercolor juried into the show. She says the assignment was to do a still life with leaves. To the leaves she added deer tracks and a lithe, green lizard. She says the medium is a difficult one. "You have to build up layers," she says. "You can't just paint over it, like with acrylics." Munoz is also interested in photography. She says she thinks her art helps her photography, and vice versa. "I think anybody who takes pictures is artistic," she says. The Rogue Gallery's Judy Barnes says people have been impressed with the quality of the art on display. That strobe light that grabs your attention when you walk into the exhibit space is embedded in the belly of "Machina," a futuristic-looking sculpture by Joey Edwards of Hidden Valley High School. "Machina" is a black, hard-wired, bat-winged creation that looks like the hybrid offspring of a cyborg and a vampire. "It's really incredible," Munoz says, pausing in front of it. There's agitprop here, like Charnele Alexander's mixed media, "Fetus' Cry." There are portraits, and lots of ceramics. But if there's one theme that stands out in this year's exhibit, it's animals. Here is Romano Burns' whimsical ceramic wren sculpture, "Tree Teapot." Here is Bethany Andres-Beck's paper-mache sculpture of a giraffe, Rebecca Tipton's oil pastel of a leopard, Danielle Gahr's papier- mache elephant. Here are hawks, bobcats, horses, dogs, fish, birds. Here is Jon Reach's hand-built ceramic bust, "Rhino," the heft and hew of which seem to suggest the sheer massiveness of an unseen body. "Best of the Best" rotates yearly between the Rogue Gallery in Medford, the new Center for the Visual Arts at SOU in Ashland and the Grants Pass Museum of Art in Grants Pass. Activities centered around the exhibit include a seminar at Southern Oregon University for exhibiting artists and their teachers, and trips to local galleries. The project is sponsored by SOU and participating school districts. Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA