Cerritos College Woodworking, where I teach, recently held its fourth annual Woodworking Celebration Event on May 22.  The event brought together students, their families and friends, and other community members.  Over 100 student projects were on display.

Gallery shows off student work

Students displayed their projects in one of eight different categories: Accessories, Cabinetry, Seating, Solid Wood Casegoods, Tables, Intro to Woodworking, Intro to Cabinets, or Intro to Woodturning.  The last three categories were limited to new students.  In addition, a People’s Choice award was given.  Winners received ribbons and cash prizes.  Students were able to sell their work if they wanted, although most students (or their significant others) are too attached to their work to sell it.  Tony Fortner and Mike Jones, our two other full-time instructors, do a great job of organizing and setting up the gallery.  The three judges were Jennifer Anderson, Jim Ipekjian, and Tim Peters.

The gallery was set up in our woodshop, which allows us to show off the woodworking as well as our 20,000 square foot facility.  It’s really great for everyone, as none of us get to see all of our students’ work.  It’s very inspiring to see all of the completed projects. 

 

Most of the projects are furniture and turnings. 

 

We encourage students in the cabinetmaking classes to participate, but many of those projects are not very portable.

Program, announcements, and prizes

The event coordinating committee included Marci Crestani (Cerritos Student Association of Woodworkers president), Jennifer Williamson (Program Facilitator), and Luis Rodriguez (Lead Maintenance Technician), and our three full-time instructors.

We served lunch during the event and afterwards we held a short program to recognize the winners and give out prizes.  Local woodworking suppliers donated prizes for the event.  The gallery winners were awarded their ribbons and cash, recent graduates of the program were recognized, and our infamous “Golden Snowman” awards were presented.

The Golden Snowman is a turned pine snowman figure (one of the projects in our Intro to Turning class), painted gold.  Six carefully selected students each received one.  The award can be serious or tongue-in-cheek.  Students are honored for everything from taking on too big a project to volunteering lots of time to the program.

After the awards and recognition, a raffle and an auction were held.  Prizes ranged from a router table, a set of clamps, a woodworking goody bag, and a router, to a day trip on a student’s sailboat.  The range of prizes was our best ever.

Good time had by all

It takes a lot of effort to put on the event, with weeks of planning and many volunteers helping out.  In the end, it was a fun and entertaining day, with good food, good company, and good woodworking.  It doesn’t get better than that!

Launch Gallery