Alumni Art Show Works of sculp ture, paintings, graphic and ceramics are currently on display in the Clackamas Communi ty College Pauling Center Lobby until Jan. 21. Steve Sandstrom, J.D. Perkins, Sylvia Dobbes, Jerry Up church and Patrick Helean are among some of the artists showing work. MOON CHILD by Margret Short. THE GUARDMAN by Gary Berry. Staff photos by Joel Miller Captain Gizmo amongst displays at Pauling Center By J. Dana Haynes Of The Print The Pauling Science Center has attracted many in teresting visitors in its two year existence, including Governor Victor Atiyeh and its namesake, nobel laureate Dr. Linus Pauling. And now, Captain Gizmo. The Captain is the brain child (or rather, brainmouse) of artist Patrick Helean, and is one of the exhibits comprising the Alumni Art Show in the Pauling Center. Helean, who attended Clackamas Community Col lege in 1971-72, is the quintessential starving artist. He lives in Oregon City and makes his living sweeping floors. He hires himself out to companies in the area as a janitor. When asked, if he would like to make his living by selling his art, Helean shrugs and says, “It would be nice.” Captain Gizmo, the character in Helean’s exhibited works, is a space suit bedecked mouse; “A cross between Flash Gordon and Mighty Mouse,” the artist said. “Captain Gizmo is sort of my alter ego.” Helean’s work is decidedly surreal, and seems to find its in spiration in several sources. Helean is a fan of the burgeon ing underground and “pre-pro” comic book industry, which has produced such magazines as “Heavy Metal,” and presented such artists as Frank Frazetta and Richard Corben. Helean also likes the “CAPTAIN GIZMO IS sort of my alter ego,” remarked Patrick Helean. works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dali and Robert Nelson, whose work is on display in the Community Center Mall (You may have noticed his cats in flight jackets and cosmic frogs). “BURSHEIM AND JOHN helped me a great deal. I gained a lot of knowledge from them,” commented alumnus ar tist Patrick Helean. Staff photo by Brett Bigham Wednesday January 19, 1983 Nelson is a friend of Norm Bursheim, chairperson of the College’s art department. Bur sheim also had a heavy in fluence on Helean’s work, as did College art instructor Léland John. “I feel fortunate that I took my undergraduate work at the College,” Helean said. “Bur sheim and John helped me a great deal. I gained a lot of knowledge from them, and they’ve been very important to me.” . From Clackamas Com munity, Helean went on to the Museum Art School, now Pacific Northwest College of Art. He stayed with the school, which is an extension of the Portland Art Museum, for four years, but returned to the Col lege regularly to talk to and study with Bursheim and John. Helean’s Captain Gizmo work runs the gamut from crisp pen-and-ink to vibrant water color and acrylic. “Both styles have their good points,” he ex plained. “Pen-and-ink is a more simple medium. It’s not as time consuming as the other. But you can get richer results with color.” Helean does not ex aggerate when he refers to “time consuming.” He estimates that one watercolor Captain Gizmo piece took 250 hours of work. The good Captain is not the only strange character lurk ing in Helean’s mind. “I’m go ing to wrap up the Captain Giz mo stuff,” he said. “I have a character I’m working on called the Master Timekeeper. He’s a robot made of alarm clocks.” Helean explained that, shortly after the development of the atomic bomb, a group of scientists invented an im aginary doomsday clock upon which midnight represented the nuclear apocalypse. “In the piece I’m working on now, entitled ‘The Dooms day Clock,’ the Master Timekeeper is in charge of the clock, which reads four minutes until midnight.” Although Helean’s work seems science fiction oriented, and he is an admitted fan of that genre of literature, the ar tist prefers to think of his pieces as science fantasy. However, he does toy with the idea of replacing pen-and-ink with ink pen and writing some science fiction. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he said. Page 5