Roller girls clash and crash in Laguna gallery

But the marks they left aren't destruction – one OC artist is at work to turn the physical remains of their movements into art.

Cheryl Ekstrom of Laguna Beach was on hand at the roller derby art performance at the Laguna Art Museum Thursday.

MORE PHOTOS »

OsCene 2010, Laguna Art Museum hosted the Smashdown, a performance work by Long Beach-based Jocelyn Foye. Using clay to pad two walls of the museum's Steele Gallery, Foye will use the impressions the girls left as a mold to create a painted wall-piece.

"I like the spectacle," said Foye, who has also worked to capture the movements of sumo wrestlers and dancers. "I was always very interested in art where you were very close to a violence as well as a sensuality."

At the Smashdown, two girls at a time from each team skated around the room in a scaled-down match. As they approached the clay-covered walls, they launched themselves and each other onto the surface. Onlookers cheered for each fall and thump into the clay.

"You're willing to put yourself out there and entertain a little," said Rebeca Millam, known as Luz Panties with the OC Roller Girls. "You can be a totally empowered woman and also be sexy."

OC League president Heather Shelton aka Disco Dervish, whose own background includes art management, said she sees a lot of creative aspects in roller derby.

"You're putting on an event," she said, adding each woman on the team creates a new identity for herself through the sport. "Every game is a performance."

Featuring the two derby teams made sense to kick off the OsCene, which aims to show the diversity of local art, said curator Grace Kook-Anderson.

"There was this geographical battle between the two," she said.

Delving into the different local communities is part of what Foye enjoys about her artwork. Though she's lived in the area for more than eight years, she said her artwork takes her into new experiences with new people.

"I'm learning a lot about where I'm living," she said.

The event drew multiple generations, something attendee Cheryl Ekstrom enjoyed. Ekstrom, another OsCene artist whose work deals with changing traditions in a modern world, said she liked seeing the performance step away from the sometimes sterile traditional museum setting.

"It's about time people used that creativity," she said.

In the performance, she saw the fun and exuberant side of art.

"In a time when everyone is down about the recession and the economy, this is bringing people up," she said.