The Contra Costa College Staff and Faculty Show in the Eddie Rhodes Gallery in the Art Building is now open for visitors and the last day to see the works of art is Friday.

“It speaks very well for the faculty, and these are the unpaid staff. A lot of things wouldn’t get done without them,” professor Dana Davis, who curates the gallery, said.

“We’re not going to have a formal opening — we may have a closing. I always like to have a closing,” Davis said.

“The problem is a lot of people don’t know where the gallery is, or even that we have one,” he said.

Psychology professor Anthony Gordon said, “The gallery is a great location (with fantastic lighting, but) in a perfect world the gallery would be more in the center of campus, more accessible to everyone.”

“It has a pretty good sampling of what our staff and volunteers can do,” Gordon said. “Everything from ceramics to sculpture, painting, photography and even design.”

Painter Sai Thongvaugh, one of the displayed artists, seems to have a particular talent for turning a bright splash of paint into a glowing taillight, or a gleaming bracelet.

Allen Perlof made a pottery bowl that looks like wood around the edges, so much that you doubt your own eyes in the places where the illusion breaks.

Perlof said it was a slightly older piece he had recently rediscovered, and brought out for the gallery. “I really like it, I hadn’t seen it in a long time,” he said. The piece is the result of a lengthy process involving a heat gun, stretching and multiple firings. The wooden appearance is actually the incidental result of the stretching, rather than design.

Davis’ own work is photography, and includes close-ups of limbs, and of Barbie dolls. The dolls are bought on the cheap, and presented as purchased. “I don’t need to make a statement, everyone does that for me,” he said.