Students Create Giant Sneaker and Portrait With Water Bottles, Caps

For a recent school project, students at Adams Middle School on N. Boulevard in Tampa recently created two objects using unlikely tools: water bottles and caps.

The first object was a 15-foot shoe made of 3,000 water bottles, said Mary Addair, an art instruction teacher for grades 6-8. Addair said the seventh graders did most of the shoe building, but eighth graders helped with installation, which took about eight weeks.

The eighth graders also created a second object - a portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. - using bottle caps.

The purpose of the project?

"Students learn about installation art and what it means to place purpose behind their work," Addair said. "For this lesson, students wanted to make a piece using recyclable goods that would represent their age group."

Middle schoolers, Addair said, place much emphasis on shoes, so they chose the iconic image of a Converse Chuck Taylor sneaker - and super-sized it.

The students also discussed alternative uses for bottles, Addair said. The bottle cap portrait was to help students learn more about color theory and pixelation, she said.

Students at Adams create projects annually, Addair said. The subject and medium is chosen by students, she said.

"We do make a large installation piece each year," she said. "Last year, we created a tape casting of an entire volleyball team."