Local artist Allison Sasser of Ceres and Hickman cartoonist Patrick Barr were celebrated at a reception held at the Ceres Community Center on Thursday evening.

In its quest to promote art in the community, the city of Ceres routinely hosts artist receptions.

Allison, a junior at Ceres High School, displayed some of her works of charcoal drawings and colored pencil drawings along with hand crocheted dolls which she sells on Itsy.

Allison started pursuing her art in the seventh grade after taking an art class.

“I just gained this great passionate for it,” said Allison. “I needed money to support my drawings so I started crocheting.”

Allison said she spends about six hours crocheting one doll which sell for $5 to $20.

One of her Prismacolor colored drawings on display last week depicted a young woman as seen through a broken mirror. While it’s not a self-portrait, Allison confessed that the image reflected her own feelings of brokenness. 

Barr, who teaches cartooning classes at the Ceres Community Center, offered some of his hand-drawn greeting cards with such characters as Baby Yoda. He formerly was part of the Traveling Artist in the Classroom program and worked 15 years as a graphic designer for Valley Printing in Ceres.