Starting in February tape sculptures began appearing in Building 10. Students in Katherine Purcell’s sculpture class created and installed the sculptures in order to draw attention to student’s surroundings.

Purcell was inspired by tape projects she’d seen art teachers do in the past, including her old teacher mentor. She wanted her students to be able to create similar installation projects.

“[The project] makes art accessible. When people can interact with your art and see it out of the context of a museum or gallery, that can add some meaning and surprise” Purcell said.

Students were tasked with creating an interactive piece of art made out of tape that drew attention to an environment in the high school that went mostly overlooked. 

“The perimeters [of the assignment] were to think about how the work would be interacting with the space, where they were putting it, what they were drawing attention to and putting [the sculptures] in that space” Purcell said.

To create the sculptures students had to wrap tape around their bodies- with the sticky part outwards. Then students would wrap the tape back around with the sticky side down in order to create a mold of their bodies. 

“It was actually kind of a struggle. After we kept on doing it there were little human errors [the group] would make. Say we taped it wrong and then when we cut it off, we’d have to work around it” Senior Jaycee Clemmer said.

Students were allowed to choose their own groups, with each taking a unique approach to the assignment. Students Kayla Gaunt and Angel Hovis wanted their sculptures to be dynamic.

“Angel [Hovis] had an idea for falling or flying and I also had that idea. We kinda just sketched out a few things and then we chose from the ones we liked the best. We wanted [the sculptures] flying but we had to make it more realistic so Angel said ‘Hey we should give them wings so they aren’t just flowing in mid air” Gaunt said.

Other groups took inspiration from pop culture. 

“We wanted to work with other props and things so that’s why we decided on the Ghostbusters theme. And the new movie came out,” Clemmer said. 

Location was also an important factor in the creation of the sculptures. 

“Angel [Hovis] and I thought about the main stairwell right away because that’s where most people go because building 10 is the most populated. We chose the main stairwell because it was the deepest area we could choose and it would really highlight the depth” Gaunt said. 

Other groups decided to choose more secretive locations, due to the risk of vandals. 

“We wanted to bring attention to ours, but we didn’t want it to be touched. It’s in a hidden stairwell above the office right next to Mrs. Quall’s room,” Clemmer said. 

Other students ran into challenges with the structure of their sculptures.

“We actually had a problem with the actual figure of the tape sculpture standing on its own because it was bending at the knees really easily. So we took some wooden stand things and shoved it up between the legs and then taped it around the legs” Clemmer said.

Other groups had trouble with the installation of the sculptures.

“We mostly struggled trying to hang the angel because the string kept breaking and we couldn’t really hang it up in the center. Then Mrs. Purcell brought a pole and said ‘hey you can use this’ so we taped it to the pole and it finally worked.” Gaunt said. 

Despite the multiple setbacks, students looked back at the work they created with a sense of pride.

“Throughout doing the sculpture and everything we kept doubting ourselves, especially me. I was like ‘It’s not going to look good, this isn’t the vision that I wanted it to look like’ but after working through it and actually installing the sculpture it came out wonderful, almost better than I expected” Clemmer said.