Bellevue’s River Plantation Mural

Bellevue Middle School art students will bring a little color and imagination to a railroad overpass in River Plantation. The students began working on the project last school year, planning to celebrate Bellevue’s history by creating a mural for the overpass on Sawyer Brown Road.

Muralist Michael Cooper, who has decorated Nashville for years with murals including those on Church Street and at the Arcade downtown, is working with the students and has been prepping the Bellevue site, ridding it of graffiti and adding a white base coat.

Exchange Club of Bellevue is supporting Cooper and the students. The Exchange Club received a small grant from the Metro Nashville Arts Commission to help fund the project, said Charlie Tygard, Metro councilman at large and the Exchange Club’s treasurer.

The Bellevue Exchange club received a $1,900 grant for 2010 and has been awarded $3,000 from the Metro Nashville Arts Commission in the commission’s 2011 grant process. “We have selected 14 to 16 pieces of art, and they’ll be mounted like in a gallery,” Cooper said. “They will be all over the bridge, the inside, the center posts, and it will all represent Bellevue.” – extracted from the Tennessean