When the Cesar Chavez Student Center's art gallery curator, Daisy Colchie, was a teen-ager, she would escape to her bedroom when she needed time away from the "real world."
"My room was the only place where I had some privacy," she said. "My best art and creativity came from being alone."
Now, Colchie, along with the art gallery's staff, has taken the idea one step further with the gallery's latest exhibit, "Out of My Room! Young Adults Claim a Space," on display through May 2.
Cabbage Patch Kids, furniture painted in bright colors and journals filled with poetry are just some of the items donated by teen-agers from the School of the Arts (located behind SF State) and college freshman for the exhibit.
"Teen-agers spend a lot of time on their rooms for presentation to other people," said School of the Arts sophomore, Lily Chumley, 15, whose contributions to the exhibit included her bedroom door and part of a boldly painted window.
"(The exhibit) lets teen-agers say what they are and lets them choose what form they want to do it in," said Colchie.
Colchie, who is using the exhibit as her master's creative work project, said the Inter-Arts Center encouraged her to adopt a more radical attitude toward art and the creative process.
"Journals are not often found in art galleries, but they are forms of art," she said.
The exhibit focuses on five things that are commonly found in bedrooms. Music, poetry, books, furniture and "wall-mountable" objects each help to define and provide insight into a teen-ager's personality as well as his or her bedroom, she said.
A Hawaiian alter, clothes thrown on top of a television, a Penthouse magazine and a video montage created by students, represent and reflect a few of the diverse lifestyles of today's young people.
Colchie enticed teen-agers into taking part in the project with a questionnaire asking them to describe their bedrooms as if they were "giving a visual tour" to someone who had never seen them.
Participating students were instructed to not only contribute items from their bedrooms but to "further develop" them by altering or interpreting them in an artistic manner.
According to Chumley, viewing bedrooms as art helps to validate and show the character of the people who live in them.
Lorena Gutierrez, 18, a senior at the School of the Arts, contributed journals, paintings and photos from her bedroom to the exhibit.
"I see my room as calming, not like other people's rooms," she said.