Monday, February 25, 2008

Spire Realty Group welcomes Arts Magnet students back to Downtown Dallas

By Pegasus News wire

Spire Realty Group will showcase a student sculpture exhibit entitled “Scrap Can Be Beautiful” at Bryan Tower to welcome students from Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (BTWHSPVA) back to the school’s original Arts District neighborhood. The sculptures will be on display from February 20 through April.

Students have been temporarily relocated to the Nolan Estes Plaza in the neighborhood of Oak Cliff while an extensive renovation and expansion of the downtown school takes place.

The “Scrap Can Be Beautiful” sculpture exhibit is the third in a series hosted by Spire Realty Group to raise more awareness among tenants and visitors about the variety and quality of the arts available downtown. As a building owner and downtown tenant, Spire Realty Group lends its support to help the Arts District continue thriving.

“We are pleased to welcome our neighbor, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, to its newly renovated downtown campus and to honor the talented students with this special sculpture exhibit,” said Caleb S. Smith, president and owner of Spire Realty Group, L.P. “Spire Realty Group looks forward to the students’ and faculty’s return to the Arts District.”

The “scrap” in the student artwork comes from Commercial Metals Company, headquartered in Irving, Texas. For the past 30 years Commercial Metals Company, a world-wide metals recycling, manufacturing and distribution company, has sponsored the metals sculpture class at BTWHSPVA. At the beginning of each school year, metal is selected from CMC’s scrap metal recycling plants located in Dallas at no cost to the students. These pieces of scrap metal are sculpted by students to form creative works of art. Each year over 50 pieces are selected for CMC’s annual “Scrap Can Be Beautiful” contest which coincides with the company’s annual meeting of stockholders. The selected pieces are juried by a panel of qualified judges and cash prizes are awarded to eight outstanding students at the conclusion of CMC’s annual meeting.

As the Visual Arts Instructor at BTWHSPVA, Patsy Eldridge coordinates the "Scrap Can Be Beautiful" exhibit and contest with Commercial Metals Co. every year. Because of this unique relationship between the school and CMC, many sculpture students have chosen to work with steel. Patsy has been the sculpture instructor at Booker T. Washington for the past 22 years. With her guidance, the students have won noteworthy awards and exhibited work at various high profile venues in the Dallas and Austin area. She is also an adjunct instructor at North Lake Community College where she teaches ceramics and sculpture.

Source: Spire Realty Group

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• Arts > Fine Arts > Art and Sculpture
• Dallas ISD > Dallas ISD High Schools > Booker T. Washington