Fair art coordinator a colorful personality

Summerville Elementary School art teacher and Mother Lode Fair art coordinator Mary Lou Gerber lives a color-filled life.

From her students’ paintings of spring flowers that adorn campus walls, to the fair handbook cover she created — with a man driving his green tractor with a pig, dog, horse, chicken and bunny in tow — to her personality, which is as spunky as her spiked hair, Gerber is notoriously vibrant.
 

“We really love her ... she’s really quirky,” fair manager Jan Haydn-Myer said. 

For the past four years, Gerber has organized the fair’s art and photography contests, set up the displays, tallied the judges’ critiques and whatever else is asked of her. That’s included creating two covers for the fair’s exhibitor’s handbook.

“It takes four days — I kid you not,” she said of organizing the art and setting up the displays.

“We fill up that entire building,” she added of the fairgrounds’ Manzanita Building, where the art contests take place.

The result is appreciated.

“It just looks great,” Haydn-Myer said. “She does it in such a joyful manner. She’s a passionate fair junky.”

Gerber, a mother of four, grew up in Washington, went to college in Oregon and taught school in Santa Cruz. In 1976, she took a trip to Tuolumne City, fell in love with its dusty ambiance, and moved to the foothills shortly after.

Besides the local art on display, Gerber said the best thing about the art show is the building’s air conditioning, which gives fairgoers a reprieve from the usually punishing summer heat.

“It’s a nice place to hang out,” she said.

In her four years, a few pieces of art have stood out, including a pastel drawing an elderly lady did of her late black Labrador.

“You could just tell how much she loved that dog,” she said.

Gerber’s passion not only benefits the art show but also budding artists at Summerville Elementary School, who might not have an art teacher at all if it wasn’t for Gerber’s infectious enthusiasm.

“I’ve had to fight for my job,” Gerber said, adding that many schools don’t have an art teacher these days.

“Everybody appreciates her,” said Leigh Shampain, the school district’s superintendent and Summerville’s principal. “She’s in every classroom throughout the week and offers a full range of visual arts to the students.”

One of the recent projects she instructed was a basket weaving class for the school’s American Indian education. 

The student baskets were so appreciated at a California American Indian conference that some of the elders decided to steal them, Shampain said.

“They were honored that the elders took them,” he said.

Gerber is obviously appreciated, and also appreciates those around her. She loves her job and her duties at the fair.

“It was out of my comfort zone at first,” she said of her fair gig. “But the people who work there are so accommodating. I never felt afraid to ask the stupid question.”