The story of Bethel College’s Regier Art Gallery’s current exhibit, a collection of artist self-portraits, began in 2003 in Austin, Texas.
“Truth and the Self are One: Self-Portraits by Artists” is in the gallery in Luyken Fine Arts Center on campus through Nov. 20. It comprises 23 pieces from the collection of Jake (J.) Friesen of Camarillo, Calif.
Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday, 2-4 p.m. There is no admission charge.
Friesen grew up in Bluffton, Ohio, the middle child of Jacob T., a pastor, and Lisbeth Friesen. He graduated from Bethel in 1976 with a degree in vocal music, and Kansas State University with a Bachelors of Architecture-First professional degree.
Jacob T. Friesen and his second wife, Lola, eventually retired to North Newton. After they died, their children established two endowments in their memory: the biennial Senses & Aging Symposium, which took place this year, on Oct. 22, and Reading with Residents, which provides a stipend to college students to read to vision-impaired Kidron Bethel residents.
Jake Friesen’s career as an architect and acoustical consultant took him all over the United States. The iconic Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and later meeting his future husband, Armen Guzelimian, a concert pianist and opera coach, finally led Friesen to settle down in southern California.
In the early 1980s, while studying architecture, Friesen did his own self-portrait in a drawing class. “It turned out pretty well, so it was a good experience,” he recalls.
When ebay became a thing in the early 2000s, Friesen enjoyed spending time searching for paintings he liked. Then in November 2003, he was in Austin for lessons with a voice teacher and stopped by an artists’ fair downtown, near the end of the day.
He was drawn to the work of an artist named Darryl Freeman. “He was displaying mostly landscapes. I asked him if by chance he had a self-portrait. He said he did and ducked behind the pop-up canvas tent and returned with a 16×20 self-portrait.
“We agreed on a price, and I purchased the first self-portrait in the 16×20 format. That is how this collection began.
“As of today, 23 years later, there are 79 self-portraits in the collection. Each entered the collection on a specific day with its own unique story.”
Friesen says he has about 14 of the self-portraits hanging in his and Guzelimian’s home at any given time. “Truth and the Self are One” includes most of Friesen’s favorites, he says, including eight he commissioned.
He still spends time looking online. When he finds an artist whose work he likes, if there is no self-portrait, or the self-portraits offered aren’t in the 16×20 format, he might contact the artist to commission one.
“Expressionism is what I gravitate toward,” he says. “I look for phenomenal painting technique as well as other different types of proficiency. But the pieces I brought [for the exhibit] range from realistic to abstract, award-winning to not, and it’s all fascinating.”
As for how the exhibit made it onto this year’s Regier Art Gallery schedule – that came about through Friesen’s visits with former president Jon Gering during Gering’s annual trips to California.
In one conversation, the topic of the self-portrait collection came up, and Gering wondered about creating an exhibit. Eventually, gallery director Rachel Epp Buller, professor of visual arts and design, was able to schedule it to open soon after) Fall Fest 2026, which included the golden reunion for Friesen’s Class of 1976.
“In architecture school, I was introduced to The Power of Limits by György Doczi,” Friesen said. “One of the thoughts I gleaned from Doczi’s book is that by placing constraints or limitations on a specific situation, infinite creative possibilities can unfold and present themselves” – what happens when artists are “constrained” by the self-portrait form.
Bethel is a four-year liberal arts college founded in 1887 and is the oldest Mennonite college in North America. Bethel is ranked #25 in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Regional College Midwest for 2026. Bethel was the only Kansas college or university to be named a Truth, Community Healing and Transformation (TCHT) Campus Center, in 2021. For more information, see www.bethelks.edu
