A photographer whose portraits of Klu Klux Klan members haunt. A set designer whose work adds character to musicals and plays. A book printer who combines old-fashioned letterpress techniques with digital tools. A woman who works in words and wax.

There are five words that link Terri Garland, William “Skip” Epperson, Felicia Rice and Daniella Woolf to one another: Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship artists. Selected works by the 2008-09 fellows are on display through March 14 at the Museum of Art and History (MAH) at The McPherson Center in downtown Santa Cruz. The show will move to the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica this June.

“Each of these four artists has such a commitment to the medium they are working in,” said Susan Hillhouse, curator of exhibitions and collections at MAH. “They all have an obsessiveness about their work.”

The Rydell Visual Arts Fellowships are the legacy of Roy and Francis Rydell, longtime Santa Cruz arts patrons who created the fund to promote Santa Cruz County artists. Four Santa Cruz artists are selected to receive $20,000 on a biannual basis — two for each year — by the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. The third biannual fellowships, for 2010/2011, were recently announced: abstract painter Tim Craighead, ceramicist Andy Ruble, painter Andrea Borsuk and installation artist Victoria May

The money is an unrestricted grant, but it’s not one that can be applied for. “You have to be nominated by someone in the professional arena,” Hillhouse said. The list of nominators include museums, galleries and art organizations, including Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

Being nominated has a certain cache. “Sometimes, even when you know of an artist and you’ve seen some of that artist’s work, it makes you take a second look,” Hillhouse said.

The curator, who was familiar with three of the four artists in the exhibit, worked with each of fellows to select pieces for the show.

“It’s like a true community celebration. It encapsulates to me what Santa Cruz is,” Hillhouse said of the fellowships, exhibit and exhibit catalogue, which includes photos by noted local photographer r.r. jones.

The works mostly co-exist in slightly separated spaces in the Solari Gallery on the museum’s second floor. On one end, a cross from Cabrillo Stage’s production of Jesus Christ Superstar hangs above drawings and dioramas created by Epperson, who has taught theatrical design at Cabrillo College for the past 16 years. Photos of actual stage productions such as Guys and Dolls hang near sketches, as a video of performances plays in the background.

Lining the back wall, photos of the deep South are testament to Garland’s dedication in investigating that area’s social landscape. In a 2007 photo, “Klan Baby, Pulaski,” the Santa Cruz native captures a tender moment between a father and son — a universal moment of love made jarring by the Klan insignia on the child’s shirt. Images from New Orleans are also present, post-Katrina photos of mud-caked Bibles luminescent in their decay.

Books figure prominently in Rice’s selections. A colorful Lively Alphabet printed on cloth, the graphics-filled pages of the Codex Espangliensis and a selection of typesetting plates represent the creator of Moving Parts Press. A finalized set of book pages are displayed alongside an earlier draft, demonstrating Rice’s design skills in a comprehensible way.

Language becomes a forest of spine-like strips, begging visitors to walk through in Woolf’s display. The artist, who is known for her encaustics, has enlarged words from her diaries until they are illegible to create this piece, where one can walk through her innermost thoughts.

Woolf’s sewn mixed media piece, Yours, Mine and Ours, cascades down the stairwell, tying the fellowship recipients together in one art piece. Both Epperson and Garland contributed materials for the work.

“She thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to do a collaborative work with the other recipients,” said Hillhouse, who has been advocating more stairwell pieces for the museum. “I like that you see it in such different ways when you look at it from the bottom up or the top down or from the middle. It’s like a waterfall to me.”

The Rydell Visual Arts Fellowships exhibit will be on display through March 14 at the Museum of Art and History at The McPherson Center, 705 Front Street, Santa Cruz. Hours: Tue. – Sun. 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. $5/adult; $3/students (18+) and seniors (62+); $2/children (12-17); free/children under 12 and museum members . (831) 429-1964.