By Tim Persyn
West Valley College and Villa Montalvo will host exhibits from the Olympiad of the Arts, a student art exhibition and competition featuring entrants from around Santa Clara County, including Saratoga.
The Olympiad includes creative writing, acting, choreography and dance, music, visual arts and photography. Each discipline in the event has a high school and college division except photography, which combines the two academic levels.
Public attractions include the high school arts competition, closed at the West Valley College campus center art gallery April 26; the combined high school and college photography exhibit, which will run at the Gallery of the Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts through May 12; and the college visual arts competition, which will be shown at the Triton Museum of Art in Santa Clara through May 26.
An awards ceremony will be held May 5 at 2 p.m. in the West Valley College Theatre. The ceremony is free to the public.
The Olympiad is directed by Shawn Stuart, an associate faculty member at West Valley College. "The audience can experience the work that student artists in our community are capable of producing," he said. "They will see works at a professional level."
The event is run by West Valley-Mission Community College faculty under the auspices of West Valley-Mission Colleges Foundation.
To recruit student artists, the Olympiad notifies all high schools and colleges in Santa Clara County. This year's competition will include participants from Saratoga High School and West Valley College.
West Valley student and sculptor Gene Impey is entering two pieces in this year's competition. One piece is based on Chinese mythology, the other is an abstract work called "The Spirit of the West." The Chinese piece took two years to complete.
Saratoga High student Annie Kluetmeier will enter a ceramics piece. "Art takes away the stress of school," Kluetmeier explained.
The Villa Montalvo exhibit is free. The Triton exhibit is free until May 3; thereafter, admission will be $5 and will include entrance to a nationally significant traveling exhibit visiting the Santa Clara museum.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, May 1, 1996.
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