Editor’s Note: Updated with time of art show and corrections to several names.

The Bookcliffs Arts Center in Rifle is hosting students from Coal Ridge High School and Rifle High School for its latest art show, featuring pieces the students have created — some of which will be available for purchase.

All the participating students are seniors, each with different backgrounds and inspirations. But they share one thing in common: no matter what paths they choose after graduation, they all plan to continue creating art as an expression of their feelings and identities.

Coal Ridge High School is represented by four students from Nicole Larose’s pottery class: Lyneth Rascon, Samantha Sandoval, Bethzy Marioni and Kyra Jurmu. The four have worked with Larose throughout her four-year tenure as an art teacher at Coal Ridge, and their pottery highlights both their differences and similarities.

“I love music, especially Tyler, the Creator,” Rascon said. “My art is inspired by music albums, and this box is based on ‘Flower Boy.'”

The box mirrors the album’s orange tones, with bee stencils from a Cricut maker, clouds, flowers and the “Flower Boy” typography.

Much of Rascon’s art is created for others — one piece for herself, another featuring a dragon and a boy for her boyfriend, and a third honoring Día de los Muertos and Mexican culture.

“For all my art, I like to mix in all my favorite things,” Rascon said. “I started art in high school, and my strongest media is painting, but I loved ceramics.”

Sandoval presented two statues inspired by one of her favorite childhood movies.

“It’s from ‘Labyrinth,’ when she’s walking through the maze,” Sandoval said. “One of them tells her to turn back now. I started working in different mediums in high school, and being hands-on is my favorite thing.”

She also crafted pieces for family members, including a Bob-omb mug from the Super Mario universe for her brother, a Tinker Bell mug for her sister and a candle modeled after Squidward’s house from the “SpongeBob SquarePants” show.

Marioni incorporates butterflies into all her pieces, using them as personal symbols. One project features a purple mug decorated with butterflies molded from an iPod case. Another is a flat heart piece adorned with her family members’ birth flowers.

“This is for my family,” Marioni said. “I used each of my family’s birth flowers, and the butterfly represents me. I really started loving art when I made a little clay heart for my mom and dad in elementary school — and she still has it.”

Jurmu is meticulous with details, carving three tiles reminiscent of the sea, filled with coral and ocean creatures.

“I used to love drawing and took art throughout middle school,” Jurmu said. “I love mixed media more than just painting and drawing, and I love the ocean.”
Jurmu added, smiling, that she still loves the mountains more.

From Rifle High School, students from Caitlin Willard’s class — Grace Bjurstrom and Ian Perez — will also be featured.

Bjurstrom’s work leans into three-dimensional elements, often creating tactile reliefs with torn paper or reassembled broken records.

One notable piece is a relief of her hand, painted black with red-tipped fingers to symbolize her struggle to hold on to an important relationship. Her favorite piece, titled “The Wave,” uses torn paper and acrylics to depict emotional waves.

“I made it to show how your emotions come in waves,” Bjurstrom said. “You can be sad one day and fine the next. Waves don’t die — they come to shore calmly, then draw back and crash again. You’ll have high days and low days, but you have to remember it’s all part of the human experience.”

Perez’s work also reflects the human experience but through two-dimensional media featuring three-dimensional skeleton figures and clowns.

Skeletons in his work appear in all forms: waving outside corner shops, riding motorcycles, walking with a parent or comforting one another at a bar.

“I use the skeletons for social issues,” Perez said. “Without skin color, eye color or gender, it’s easier for people to connect — we all have a skeleton.”

Perez was born in the United States but moved to Mexico shortly after birth, living there until he was about 6 years old. His work often addresses both the positive and negative aspects of his upbringing, including his experience as a trans male.

“I was so young, being told about marriage and having children, how to cook, clean and be a good wife,” Perez said. “People would hide behind the Bible to justify it. In Mexico, talking about how you felt was seen as weakness. Since coming here, therapy helped me realize that wasn’t right.”

He uses clowns as stand-ins for himself in his art, reclaiming a nickname once used to mock him when he was younger.

After high school, Perez plans to pursue a career as an electrician or, if not, as a plumber. Bjurstrom hopes to enter radiology as a technician.

Rascon plans to major in business and pursue fashion modeling. Sandoval will attend Colorado Mountain College to study veterinary technology. Marioni, after a gap year, hopes to study interior design and eventually open a ceramics studio. Jurmu is considering speech therapy or real estate — two very different paths she’s equally excited about.

The art show will be held May 2-4 from at the Bookcliffs Arts Center, 1100 East 16th Road in Rifle and will continue to be up throughout May. The show will be open on May 2 from 6-8 p.m. Not every piece discussed or shown in photos will be on display or available for purchase.

For more information, call 970-625-1889, email info@bookcliffsartscenter.org or visit bookcliffs.org.