There were smaller shows "Color in Printmaking" and the annual "Student Show," both in the art department gallery in the art building. Two exhibitions that year became unbelieveably controversial: The "Third Annual Purchase Award Show" installed in the foyer of the Student Union and Bill Copley's one man show "Paintings and Flags" in the gallery.

Dick Robinson and I were the jurors for the purchase award show and we had $600.00 from the Associated Student Body to buy one or more works for the permanent collection. Apparently, 300 local artists were invited to submit slides for the competition and out of 130 actual submissions by 90 artists, 30 were selected for the exhibit.

 

The jury unanimously selected for the $600.00 purchase award prize the painting ”Maddog's Last Gig," by Phil Kirkland, a professional painter and illustrator and graduate of the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles. When a black and white photograph of the painting, which represented a man and woman lying next to each other in bed mostly covered with a colorful bedspread with a steaming ship on a horizon line formed by the top of the bedspread and a night stand with a white pitcher and red heart, was published in the local newspaper the Chula Vista Star, Lowell Blankfort, Editor, the image looked like the woman was white and the man was “of color." It was simply a change in color value of the two figures. Miscegenation was suspected by many members of the community and the protests and criticism poured onto the campus in many forms, including a letter of protest to the college superintendent from the Chula Vista Art Guild, signed by 18 very indignant women artists. Another piece in the show by Dan Longueuiel titled "Oh Can You Say?" drew much heat from the local American Legion chapter for portraying the Statue of Liberty on a toilet seat with some sticks of dynamite placed on the statue's base next to a winking George Washington reading from the bible to Little Orphan Annie, all framed by a toilet seat decorated with the stars and stripes. The local chapter of the American Legion was outraged and Longueuiel received numerous crank calls threatening a tar and feathering and other abuses to his body. A letter did reach Governor Brown's office in Sacramento complaining about the piece and the art department. One American Legionnaire promised he would take the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the piece a "gross disrespect," and a resolution to that effect was referred for statewide action at its state convention in Sacramento June 18-24. Longueuiel was a Republican and voted for Barry Goldwater. I played bridge with him when we were both working as graphic designers at Convair Astronautics. He was very conservative for an artist.