Art on display right now at Cheekwood came straight from the minds of Antioch and Hillsboro High School students. They worked closely with professional and well-respected artists over a period of months to create pieces for display in one of the South's premiere art museums.

The Loop Project is a collaborative effort between Cheekwood, Antioch High School and Hillsboro High School. The program brought together eight art students from each school to work with Nashville-based artist Hans Schmitt Matzen and New York-based artist Gieves Anderson. Together they created collaborative pieces of work using a variety of media and methods.



When the students and artists met, they paired up to create collaborative pieces of art – sending the work back and forth to each other for several months, allowing each other to add to or build upon the work. The final pieces are on display at Cheekwood right now.

“It was a really great experience," said Antioch student Sarah W. "The Loop Project was interesting because we got to meet our project partners from Hillsboro High School. We would switch our artwork together so that they could do something to change or improve it, send it back and do that again. We would also communicate with each other to talk about our ideas. It was exciting in the end to see our final pieces hanging on the walls in the Great Hall at Cheekwood!”



A small reception was held at Cheekwood to celebrate the students who participated in The Loop Project and spotlight their work.



Here’s one from Tristan Higginbotham a student at Antioch High School “The Loop Project was an overall interesting experience," said Antioch student Tristan H. "It was kind of difficult to give my work to someone I had never met before, just because they may not understand why I made the choices I made and so on. Thankfully our styles didn't clash, and my partner and I were able to meet in the middle somewhat.



"It was really nerve-racking to try and meet the expectations that I imagined my partner had, but after awhile I just did my own thing and stopped being paranoid about it. I would definitely participate in this again, especially since I know more about it the whole process now. It was really awesome to have so much freedom and step away from the more technical work I had been working on. I feel really confident about the two pieces that came from this project.”



Thanks to Cheekwood’s Karen Kwarciak for the great information!

Students enrolled at Pearl-Cohn Entertainment Industry Magnet High School will be greeted with some new artwork when they return in the fall. Brianna Lockett and Mario Rosalas, rising juniors, and their teacher Warren Riker spent a week of their summer break drawing and painting a mural that spans the entire length of one hallway.