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SAN MARCOS — When the Boehm Gallery opened its doors on Tuesday, April 21, it had taken on a transformed appearance. The usual displays and exhibitions had been replaced with tables upon tables covered in jewelry, prints, decorative pieces and more, all made by students within the art department.
Glass student Chase Lee’s table holds an assortment of projects he has been working on for the past two semesters. It specifically features glass ashtrays of varying sizes with faux paper cigarettes placed in them.
Student Nichol Pyle’s table displays ceramic charcuterie boards and noses to store eyeglasses on, which she initially made for her nine-year-old son.
“He was setting his glasses everywhere and I’m all ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna make you a little nose’ … And then it was so cool that I’m like, oh, I’m going to make a million of them,” Pyle said. “So then they have the sale and I’m like, thank you.”
Attendance at the event was strong, with a constant stream of people wandering through the displays and perusing the items. Most left the sale with their hands full.
According to Palomar glassblowing instructional assistant and sale coordinator Randall Reese, the event provides student artists with the valuable opportunity to experience selling their work without facing outside barriers.
“When you participate in a sale like this in the real world … You know, you have to have a business license, you have to have a table, you have to have a pop-up tent. You have to have just a whole list of things, and when you’re just getting started even sometimes getting one of those things seems daunting. So we remove all that stress,” Reese said.
The student sale has been taking place at Palomar for several decades, with its establishment dating back to the early 1970s. It has cemented itself as a beloved tradition, as evidenced by attendees like Palomar professor of speech communication Brandan Whearty, who has been a regular at the art sale for over two decades.
“I ran into it by accident in 2002, and I was so impressed by the handmade art that our students are making that I just had to spread this as widely as possible. So, I have now been coming here for 24 years … I come here to support the students, and I come here just to see what we’re up to in the art department,” Whearty said.
For many, a large part of the sale’s significance is its diversity and what that brings to the community.
“I think it’s great that it’s, like, young and old and all different levels of skill. And it’s so many different things, not just ceramics and glasses. There’s jewelry and I mean, I think it’s great,” Pyle said.
Reese echoed a similar sentiment, highlighting how students across several areas of study are brought into each other’s orbits.
“Everybody kind of sticks to their own area. But these artists are all now working together to operate the cash registers and assist the guests. There’s a lot of opportunity for crossover and people sharing new ideas,” Reese said. “And there’s even been more than a handful of people who end up collaborating in their work together after this, which is super great.”
“I’ve been here for, like, three years … Every year people leave and people come through. So I like to see the new artists and the artists that have been selling here for a while, just to see all their new stuff and how much they’ve improved,” Palomar student Kelsey Copples said.
The sale is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. through April 23 in the Boehm Gallery.