Glass Art Creations - What's The Buzz? - cafeteria at Hickory Ridge Middle School - Brief Article

Instructor, Nov-Dec, 2001 by Lucille Renwick

Few people would imagine a school cafeteria as an artexhibit hall, but the cafeteria at Hickory Ridge Middle School in Memphis, Tennessee, is precisely where dozens of colorful modern glass art panels hang for all to admire. The glass panels are the work of 20 seventh- and eighth-grade students led by California-based artist Gordon Huether.

Huether won a $130,000 public art award from the Memphis Arts Council to work with the students. In just two days, he taught the middle schoolers the finer points of modern art and abstract design, and supervised mockup collages of colored paper and magazine photos that were transformed into glowing translucent panels of glass (with the help of Huether's artisan friends back in California). The multi-colored glass panels were installed on a side wall of the school's cafeteria.