Email from Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield, student of Ray Rice

On June 24, 2022 Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield wrote:

I was a student in the Fine Arts Program from 1978 to 1981. The sculpture “Friends,” was done in 1979 under the instruction of Ray Rice. It was designed by me for use as a playground feature and is made of rebar, lath and cement. Other students in the fine arts program worked on it. There is a time capsule inside one of the figures. I have many articles on the project which I could send to you including photos of Ray Rice. Bob Avery was the director of the center at that time. There is a front page article in the May 31, 1979 Mendocino Beacon of the sculpture’s unveiling.

After I graduated from the fine arts program the Art Center hired me as an arts administrator. I was also studying for a fine arts/arts administration degree at Antioch University in San Francisco. Part of my program/studies included managing the ceramic program. I developed programs, purchased supplies and over saw an open studio. This would be in 1981 and on. The only person I remember hiring as a director was a young man named Tony. In the evenings I would work in the ceramics studio, learning from a couple of gay guys, about throwing on the wheel and mixing glazes.

I have just published a second book in my Babe in the Woods series. “Babe in the Woods: Self Portrait,” touches upon my time as a student at The Mendocino Art Center and mentions some of my instructors like Miriam and Ray Rice, Charles Stevenson, Dorr Bothwell, James Maxwell.

More on “Babe in the Woods” and Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield at https://www.yvonnepepinwakefield.com