In 2001 the Putnam County School Board proposed a Sells project for the Robert Byrd Capshaw Elementary School of Cookeville, TN. The old school was coming down, a new construction was under way, and many of the great, reaching trees that canopied the grounds were to be sacrificed. 

The project appealed to Sells, a Cookeville native—Capshaw was his childhood school; the very trees that once shaded his classmates at play would provide the raw timbers for this ambitious Capshaw Project.

Given a blueprint and the freedom to do whatever he wished, Sells needed to fill the school’s architectural hub, a wide, cascading stairway. He decided on five sculptures suspended from the lofted ceiling, each representing one of the school’s five grades, kindergarten through fourth grade.

In a nod to our physical and educational evolution, Sells modeled the sculptures on cellular biology. For example, the largest piece is a 13-foot long, 30” diameter double helix inspired by the recent mapping of the human genome. Four “orbitals” represent the four compounds that make up D.N.A.: Adenine, Thynine, Cytosine, and Guanine.

Inspired by children's plaster handprint molds sent home to parents for decades, randomly selected students dipped their hands in tempura paint, climbed a ladder and placed handprints on the scultures. These handprints, along with those of teachers, classmates and Sells’ former principal Jim Greason were then carved in double relief into the sculptures. 

Funded with a small grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission and matching funds from the Parent Teacher Organization, the sculpture represents the past, the present, and our future—generations of students and faculty in a community spirit. The exhibit was hung in the fall of 2003. 

Sells is regularly approached by students around town who recount with great pride the day they placed their tiny painted hands on those sculptures. In the fall of 2005 Sells’ oldest daughter started kindergarten at Capshaw; she recently told her grandmother that she felt “at home” there. Asked why, she claims it is due to her daddy's sculptures. There is, Sells will tell you, no greater reward than that.