Why Artists and Educators Should Love the Memphis Airport

Posted by Alex Sharp Jun 28, 2009

As I wrote earlier, through my stops in so many airports over the recent spring months I was delighted to discover the student art on display at the Memphis International Airport. The reasoning behind the exhibit makes it worth being a teacher, especially a teacher who pushes artists to create, produce, and show work. For every teacher, like me, who has bought art supplies out of her own money, come early, gave up lunch, and stayed late to supervise artists, and who has driven kids hours to the state fair to see their pictures on walls...just read why the Memphis-Shelby Airport Authority and Memphis City and Shelby County Public Schools partnered together for this great display of truly lovely art:

"In light of the much too frequent negative press about American high school students ... [MSAA and the districts] sponsored an art contest to show the traveling public ...a glimpse of our students in the Midsouth area that learn, excel and express themselves trough their talent in the visual arts."

What more could teachers, students, and artists want? The contest will apparently become an annual event, and Memphis Airport took charge of getting the supplies and having the art displayed professionally. The theme was related to music, so all of the art fit that theme, and the 40 or so paintings brought so much light to a day of heavy travels. Young kids were enjoying looking at the paintings, rushed business people slowed down to look, and being a huge art fan, I stopped to read the little displays. That is when I discovered the artists were high school students; there is nothing in the quality of the art that indicated these are artists at the beginning of their careers.

Enjoy the pictures, including the full text of the empowering statement.