Red Bank High School
Square desks lined up in rows. Cement block walls. Rectangular ceiling tiles. Square classrooms inside a box-shaped building.
That's the environment students encounter at school, Red Bank High School art teacher Michel Belknap said.
"And then teachers all day say, 'Think outside the box,'" she said.
That tension inspired a sculpture of school desks and chairs that Belknap's students created behind smoked glass in a vacant, first-floor commercial space at Seventh and Chestnut streets. It's one of 19 pieces in the River City Company's Open Spaces program to create art in empty storefronts downtown.
"They're all thrown together, and they look like a bomb hit them," Belknap said of the old desks and chairs that were being thrown away by Red Bank High.
"It's lit up from the inside - which is pretty much what teachers want from students," Belknap said.
Latrice Harrison, an 11th-grader in Belknap's class said, "It looks really cool at night."
The desks tell students' stories, too.
"On my desk, I made it really colorful on top and dark underneath," said Sarah Adamson, a senior in Belknap's class. "I show myself as really fun to people - but I'm really not."
About 50 parents and students installed the art work, which was funded with $2,000 from the Tennessee Arts Commission and $2,000 from the River City Company. Similar artwork is on display in front of the high school.
"It was a fun little project," said Malik Hubbard, an 11th-grade art student who's also a linebacker on the school's football team. "We really enjoyed smashing the desks with sledgehammers."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.