Two 'Hot' for Your Eyes

Spicoli's Secret, by Chris Reed

"I think of all the education that I missed. But then my homework was never quite like this. Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad, I'm hot for teacher." – Van Halen

"Hot for Teacher," the new show at Camp Fig, is a display of summer homework. One hundred artists were given a small chalkboard by curators Katie Friedman and Lee Brooks. Their assignment? Make it art.

The responses are varied. A supercute entry by Andrew Pommier plays off the children's book Where the Wild Things Are. A man with vampire teeth and a bat costume is set on the chalkboard's wood frame. On the board are cobwebs highlighted by white paint – it looks a bit like chalk. The childish fantasy is irresistible. A somewhat less fond look back on one's early years is Kiersten Essenpreis' black pen and acrylic board depicting three young girls in cute dresses standing in a classroom. The girls are up to their ankles in blue water that they are also vomiting. Spicoli's Secret, by Chris Reed, is a chalkboard love letter laid over a nicely painted portrait of Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Hearts decorate the corners of the frame, and the background is pink – a good contrast to the dull green chalkboard. Jordin Isip's Minimum Wage is dense with soft color changes on a collaged surface. A big-headed man stands before a plain landscape as three small birds fly by. The man's skin is raised up with chunks of paper. His long nose sticks out, but his features are stylized and skinny.

The overall whimsy of the show is winning, and the format is great for Camp Fig. They get work from artists such as Tim Kerr, Whitney Lee, Deth P. Sun, Grady Roper, Joey Marez, Maya Hayuk, and, of course, camp counselors Lee Brooks, Michael Sieben, Sterling Allen, Enoch Rios, Katie Friedman, and Allison Sands. The gallery is jam-packed with pen and ink drawings, collages, paintings, a few prints, and even a latch-hook piece. My homework was never quite like this.