Gregory Kondos is a decorated local artist, but his name is most associated with the campus gallery, the Kondos Gallery. Its bare white walls wait blank with anticipation of its newest exhibit.

“That’s What I Figure” is the latest showcase running until Feb. 22 in the Kondos Gallery. At the Jan. 31 reception at the gallery, guest curator and past director of UC Davis’ Nelson Gallery Renny Pritikin pulled together four Bay Area image-makers to create a compilation of figure pieces for a City College audience. Seyed Alavi, Elisheva Biernoff, Travis Collinson, and Ed Loftus work fill the formerly empty walls of the Kondos Gallery with life.

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There will be more that meets the eye on Jan. 31 at the Kondos Gallery’s new exhibit, “That’s What I Figure.”

Four Bay Area image-makers will have their exhibits displayed during the opening reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the campus art gallery.

Don’t miss your chance to see the work of Seyed Alavi, Elisheva Biernoff, Travis Collinson and Ed Loftus at the gallery.

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Being a starving artist is a rite of passage in the music industry. Having to struggle for your music gives it a soul.

Nothing could be truer for starving artist April Walker.

Walker has lived in Sacramento for 11 months and is in her second semester at City College. She is a self-proclaimed free spirit and born-again hippie. Walker, known by her stage name Space Walker, is an up-and-coming, singer-songwriter who believes that an education from City College can help further her career in music.

Confidence in herself and her music has not come easy for Walker. Being labeled a misfit, she says, plagued most of her childhood while growing up in Fairfield.

“I thought growing up that my dreams of being a musician were impractical,” says Walker. “I thought if I couldn’t succeed at it then I shouldn’t even try.”

These deeply planted seeds of doubt became uprooted during a trip she took to Costa Rica.

“The scenery and nature there is so beautiful,” Walker says. “I had a lot of time to contemplate the issues in my life. I came back to Fairfield and I knew I was going to do whatever it took to accomplish my goals.”

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Overlooking the sea of students among the tables and burgundy chairs, he sits with his newsboy cap lowered, chair turned backside toward the table, and his hands motioning in the air in front of him, as if they are that of a sculptor shaping his own pottery. When he speaks he is creating, inventing, and most importantly, imparting great knowledge to those he teaches.

As an instructional assistant in the LRC Writing Center since 2008, Dale Nelson, known to many as Crawdad, explores and teaches the writing process with students. Individual sessions, serve as both opportunities to teach and to be taught. The experience is an even exchange for both Nelson and his students.

Nelson, 54, interests number as many as the strands of gray hair underneath his cap. Spanning from literature to history to sociology and cooking, his curiosities do not end there. The man’s eyes see what ought to be seen by many, such as the inherent natural patterns of a bird feather or the distinctive formations of the uncorrupted, earthen farms.

Yes, his mind has traveled over many waters and touched many different lands, it can be said, as he sits in this red chair, hands explaining…» Read More

A 15-year-old boy in the southern part of Vietnam fell down his stairs and broke his knee. Needing surgery that would cost more than what his parents could afford, the family had to ask his grandparents and other people to help pay. It brought him and his family closer.

Four years later, and now a biology major at City College, Dat Tran hopes to one day become a pediatrician and help children with their own needs.

It has been more than two years since Tran and his family moved to the United States from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. He says that he likes it better here in the United States.

“There’s more freedom here,” Tran says. “More access to higher education. I don’t think I would have the opportunity to further my education if my family didn’t move here.”

Being from another country doesn’t seem to faze the 19 year old, as he is the head of his household. He is the translator for his Vietnamese-speaking parents and takes care of everything around the house. In fact, he considers it his greatest accomplishment so far.

“My parents don’t speak English,” says Tran, who also has a 12-year-old brother, “so…» Read More

A City College student and St. Francis High School visual arts teacher died Dec. 8 when she was hit by a Union Pacific train just before 3 p.m. while taking photographs near 65th Street and Elvas Avenue in Sacramento.

Kathryn Mary Carlisle, 52, was reportedly hit from behind by the train while she was on the tracks taking photos of an oncoming train, according to Sacramento police. Carlisle was a student in City College’s Multimedia Capture course and a faculty member at St. Francis since 2008. She taught art,

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City College English professor Tim Kahl has incorporated his life experiences, as well as his love for foreign writings, into his second published book of poetry “The Century of Travel.”

The poems featured in the book, Kahl explains, were written over a period of several years. His oldest poem, “Hierophany,” was written 15 years ago when he first arrived in Sacramento.

Hierophany is a term coined by Romanian anthropologist Mircea Eliade that refers to the act of making a place sacred.

“Mircea Eliade wanted to make a differentiation between places where Christ and God had appeared, and places that were considered just ‘sacred,’” says Kahl.

Kahl says that he chose to use Sacramento as the theme in his poems as a way to help him get over his ambivalence about living there.

After living in a series of other cities on the West Coast in his 20s and 30s, Kahl says that he was “resentful of being in Sacramento,” yet at the same time, acknowledged that he was probably going to be here for awhile, and soon began to develop a deeper, partiality towards the “City of Trees.”

“I had read an essay about how Icelanders were deemed the ‘happiest’…» Read More

The red boots called to her from the thrift store shelf. She wanted them, but she convinced herself she wouldn’t wear them. The boots taunted her—she couldn’t shake them. She bought the red boots, and they sat on the shelf in her closet for almost a year. It didn’t matter what outfit she tried, they never looked good enough.

Then one day, she decided she wanted to be the girl who wore the red boots. She wanted to be the girl who was proud of whom she is. She wanted to be bold and beautiful.

The red boots don’t stay on the shelf anymore.

A self-proclaimed woman in progress, Janna Marlies Maron is living the life she wants, with no apologies. Along with her husband, Jeremy, Maron runs ThinkHouse Collective, a co-workspace in downtown Sacramento. She also produces “Under the Gum Tree,” her own literary magazine, teaches English at City College, freelance edits, and still makes an effort to live boldly every day and tell her story without shame.

“I’m tall. I have long, curly hair. I don’t blend into the crowd, and I have a really loud laugh,” Maron says of herself. “That stands out.”

On a recent October…» Read More