Sergio Teran, instructor of printmaking, design and foundation of arts, was promoted to full-time instructor for the Arts Foundation at Cerritos College for the Fall semester. He got the position after working seven years as a part-time instructor.

The Arts Foundation is made up of full-time instructors in the Arts Department who teach their specific discipline, such as ceramics, painting, drawing, printmaking design and foundations of drawing

Terrn teaches printmaking as an art form of making multiple images, with each called a print. He added, “Printmaking most commonly known is silk screening, shirts, skateboards and posters.”

In class, Teran lays the foundation of printmaking for those who are unaware of the art form, “Giving them the history breakdown, simplifying it where you can see and relate to printmaking.”

He continued, “Then is technique, this is how they deliver the image, and then is exercise and get them to practice it and develop their own.”

Other than being an instructor, Teran has been an exhibiting artist as a painter and printmaker for 18 years. His artworks focus on storytelling, as he goes on to explain further, “They deal with the human condition and there is typically people immediate to my community who I see on the outside and use them as characters.”

Growing up in Los Angeles, he was inspired by the murals all over the city. “When you don’t see art ever, then you see this stuff on the wall, and that’s huge. And not all cities have that, and there is history to doing murals, and that is Los Angeles to me.”

The ability and diversity of the different backgrounds of the arts students at Cerritos College is what has intrigued Teran. He can relate to their stories.

“They are my people, people I relate to and so I could see myself and I went through that struggle to get where I am at. And think, at least as an example be someone there to show ‘Hey this guy could do it, and you could do it.’”

What Teran loves most about his job as an instructor is the interaction and communication with the students. “You are constantly learning, too. As a teacher, you are teaching something that you already know that is the foundation to get them (to) the next level, but at the same time, everybody comes with different experiences,” he said.

Sussanna Negrete, a studio assistant in the printmaking class, has known Teran for six years and talks about him as a person and teacher. “He comes from the community and you see how students really respond to that. They know how to interact with him and he knows how to interact back.”

Negrete goes on to explain how he has been able to help her the most, “Being able to see someone who is really passionate about what he does and dedicates the time necessary to do what he wants to do.”

Teran explains why arts are important to community college students and to a society, “Arts is a language to communicate without actually fouling up with Mathematics or English … and art bridges gaps for people and allows them get to places that they wouldn’t otherwise get.”