Well, our national parks certainly don't need any beautifying, but a little extra inspiration and creativity only adds to the experience.

Since 2014, art students at Hart County High School have created dozens of works to display at a nearby national park.

Those works are now in a retrospective exhibit at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center, or Sky pack.

Laura Rogers has more in our Arts and culture segment we call tapestry.

So using like dark browns, I love creating art.

It gives me a way to express my personality.

High school senior Ashley Barnett is a talented artist.

It's something that's deep rooted in my heart.

She's among dozens of Hart County students who've, since 2014, created art to be displayed at Mammoth Cave National Park that began as the Dream Rocket Project.

The original concept of the Dream Rocket was.

All of these two foot by two foot fabric pieces would be sewn together to drape over the Saturn five rocket down there at the space center.

The International Fiber Collaborative eventually moved to collecting student artwork for national parks.

It was a no brainer that I had to do it because we had Mammoth Cave right here.

Doing something that cool just seemed like a perfect fit.

The students live mere miles from Mammoth Cave National Park, comprising 52,000 acres, some of which extend into Hart County.

The cave itself is a beautiful cave.

Personally, I actually live right on top of one of the entrances to the cave.

It is nice doing a project that's right here in your backyard.

Much like taking in the natural beauty of Mammoth Cave.

Ava Vann says creating art as a self-soothing hobby.

So a way to show who I am, but also at the same time, it's a way of just calming down, relaxing, or maybe going to it whenever something is bothering me and it helps me just mellow out a little bit.

You know, your.

Art style can say a lot about you, what you make and how you make.

It.

It can also, of course, tell a story about the subject, in this case Floyd Collins.

The famous cave explorer who became trapped and died, and what would become Mammoth Cave National Park.

I feel like everyone kind of knows this story, but they don't know like him.

They know him.

I was like a guy trapped in a cave, but, you know, he was a person too.

I really wanted to emphasize the danger and the fear that could have gone into explaining such a place that he was in.

The young artist tasked with telling Collins story were also given a special behind the scenes.

Tour, and they got to go to Floyd Collins house in the back country of Mammoth Cave and actually got to to go to the cave on the property.

There.

Students explored other cave themes as well, including wildlife science and geography.

It was a three layer.

It was like we had the underground cave part and then the middle layer, and they had fossils and stuff in it, and then we had the top layer with like other trees and nature.

It is hands on education and textiles and.

We would draw on those, paint on those.

You'll see examples of fish prints called Taku.

In the prints, you'll see relief prints where the students drew into styrofoam plates and printed them on fabric.

Also cyanotype, which is some printing.

We did some of that one year.

Drawing, painting, whether it be pencil sketching, whether it be pottery.

She's always looking for those opportunities.

The latest, an exhibit of these works in the wedge Gallery at the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center.

That artistic ability, that talent that they have.

We want them to be able to shine and show what they can do.

That's also evident here at school, with the student artwork on prominent display in the hallways.

The whole theme around it was graduating high school, doing art and getting good grades.

Producing art from the heart that's providing inspiration for their classmates and beyond.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Laura Rogers.

The International Fiber Collaborative has partnered with more than 40 national park sites on over 130 of these temporary exhibits.

All of the art is made by youth from all over the country.

Jennifer Sims says she has some elementary students who participated who are now in college.