Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Gallery (click any photo to view the gallery)

Art students collected 'junk' to fashion a 15-foot sculpture for the school foyer.

Art students at Bryan Station High School have a fresh understanding of the idiom “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

As part of a group project this year, they gathered up old shoes, broken toys, swim goggles, bottle tops and other discarded “junk” and transformed it all into a 15-foot-tall sculpture for the school’s foyer. The piece was on display in the gym for the inaugural Arts Aware fair, coordinated by the school’s fledgling Fine Arts Academy.

The academy invited its fine arts and humanities students to come and meet professionals from the area’s arts community May 18 and check out summer and career opportunities.

Among the guests were blues musician Mark “Big Poppa” Stampley, jewelry-making and printmaking experts, a string quartet from Eastern Kentucky University, Affrilachian poet Makalani Bandele and theatrical sword fighters from the University of Kentucky’s opera program. Other organizations such as the UK Art Museum, the Central Music Academy and the Living Arts & Science Center also set up resource tables for students to browse.

“It really does show you can make a living doing this stuff,” said senior Lanceri Seivwright. “Even if you’re not an artist, you can make a living if you stick with a trade.”

In the far left corner, local artist Robert Morgan welcomed teens intrigued by the towering sculpture, which was anchored in a mesh metal base, bound by a web of plastic-coated clothes line and topped with a child’s rocking horse.

Thanks to an eco-grant from the city, Morgan had worked weekly with a class of 20 – first asking them to research relevant topics like recycling, reincarnation and the history behind the word “vandalism.” Once the students delved into the hands-on part, they used everything from spray paint to power tools as they realized the infinite range of art supplies and possibilities.

“Our material is the castoff of society,” Morgan said, noting, “The kids learned to think differently and talk differently about junk.”

Lanceri helped fashion the sturdy sculpture.

“We brought in items we thought were interesting and related to our lives in high school,” she said. “This project helped us learn a lot more about texture and lighting and how things are supposed to fit together.”

In addition to the honors art class, she studies ballet and piano through Bryan Station’s Fine Arts Academy.

“I didn’t think I could go into music until I started choir here,” said Lanceri, who plans to attend Eastern Kentucky University and someday teach music overseas.  (She speaks fluent German.)

Whether through creative writing, fashion design or theater, she is confident that fine arts help develop students’ thinking skills and thus bear fruit in their academic classes, too.

As she explained, “It all ties in. It all connects.”

The back story

The Fine Arts Academy at Bryan Station High School was created through the school district’s Smaller Learning Communities program to provide a place and identity for students interested in the arts. Under the academy’s umbrella are such elective classes as guitar, ballet, jewelry-making, pottery, chorus and visual arts. Students also participate in special programs and academy events like Arts Aware, and seniors have an opportunity to work with professionals in the fine arts community. For more information, contact director Susan Lee.