Art and politics meet in a California Community Colleges project aimed at raising awareness of students without access to community college education.

College of the Redwoods is one of 65 colleges whose students and art faculty are creating art pieces for the Missing Community College Student project. Hundreds of statues from around the state will be on display on March 15 in Sacramento, when students will march to urge legislative support for community colleges. After last year's budget cuts and fee increase from $11 to $18 per unit, CR reduced its number of class sections by 15 percent and saw its enrollment drop about 5 percent. Statewide, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office reports that fall semester enrollment was down 175,000 students.

An artist out of the area created the original sculptures, then made more from a mold. College of the Redwoods and other community colleges each received one male and one female sculpture to paint. CR Assistant Art Professor Rebecca Murtaugh completed the female sculpture and CR art student and teaching assistant Sage Matthews the male one.

Murtaugh said she wanted to depict ideas rather than paint the statue to look like a person, with hair and a face and clothing. Her sculpture features a target, which she said represents that, as an educator, the student is the goal and target of her attention.

Matthews' sculpture is painted in camouflage, which she said indicates that the student is invisible and "easily ignored." A name tag -- representing an effort to introduce himself -- lists only the number 25,000. Matthews said this represents the sculpture's lack of individual identity, and symbolizes that he is the 25,000th student shut out of an education.

Matthews said the issue is personal for her. After becoming a single mother at a young age and dropping out of high school, she's received an education at CR that has prepared her to transfer later this year to the California College of the Arts, one of the state's premier arts colleges.

"If I hadn't had the community college, there would be no college for me," she said.

CR's statues are on their way to the City College of San Francisco, where they'll be bolted to a float and driven to Sacramento, Murtaugh said.

"California Community Colleges seems to be the most invisible public school system in the state compared to the K-12, California State University and University of California systems," said CR Vice President of Academic Affairs Jeff Bobbitt. "This is a statewide effort to get the attention of legislators and the public about the tremendous role community colleges play in California's future."