MARFA — The Marfa Studio of Arts classroom at Marfa Elementary School was a flurry of activity last Friday afternoon as pre-K students took sculpting tools, rolling pens, spray bottles and paint brushes dipped in colorful glazes to their newly-formed clay creations.
Many of the seven young artists — who constructed a bowl, an igloo and a “daddy penguin” — sat on their knees in metal chairs in order to reach the top of the wooden work table blanketed in stained canvas. Some took cue from the classical music playing on a nearby speaker and worked quietly while others shrieked with excitement.
The Studio in the Elementary School (SITES) program started in 2005 and is run by art teachers working for Marfa Studio of Arts (MSA), a local nonprofit celebrating its 25-year anniversary this month. In addition to providing arts education for Marfa Elementary students, the organization operates a store and gallery in a converted gas station where they showcase local artists as well as student work.
MSA will host a party commemorating the milestone this Saturday, May 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. The event will feature a raffle, birthday cake and new exhibition of paintings by Marfa resident Katie Inglis.
This week The Big Bend Sentinel sat down with MSA’s founder, Malinda Beeman, as Inglis hung her work in the gallery, to discuss how it all started back in 2000. Beeman said her initial idea was to start an arts organization in Marfa geared towards visiting artists and adult workshops — similar to the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado where she previously worked — but once she realized that Marfa ISD elementary students did not have access to art classes, the mission of the potential organization became clear.
“How can I possibly cater to a bunch of people from out of town, adults, and then the kids here not have art classes? That seemed wrong.” Beeman said. “That was the need.”
Classes were initially held on Saturdays in the then-basement of the Marfa Book Co., but Beeman said the program became more effective when MSA teachers — who are working artists in town — started visiting the school.
“The point was always to engage the new art community with the existing community through the children — which would be the most effective, because kids are usually very open to new things and new people,” Beeman said. “They would get to know the teachers as their neighbors and community members, rather than the artists who come here.”
Current instructors Sam Dwyer, Ariana Vega, Rhonda Manley and Suzanne McLeod guide pre-K through fifth-grade students through art lessons once a week. Dwyer said the fact that MSA takes artists from the community and involves them in the classroom is one of the things that makes the program so special.
“If you look at our team, you have Rhonda as a painter, Ariana as a photographer, Suzanne does mixed media stuff. I do a lot of sculpture and inventions,” Dwyer said. “So the kids really benefit from an exposure to a broad array of working, practicing artists.”
Dwyer works with the older students, often on projects involving sculpture and engineering, exposing them to processes of soldering wires and building electronics. He said “it’s pretty incredible to see how far the kids can come, even with just 45 minutes of instruction time a week” in regards to their artistic and mechanical skill development.
Vega, who works with younger kids, including the pre-K class, has introduced them to a variety of mediums this year including acrylic and watercolor paint, charcoal and clay. She said art classes prompt students to express their feelings, and the satisfaction they get from creating something original reminds her to be confident in her own art.
“What I’ve noticed about kids is that when they make art, they’re not trying to impress anyone, and they’re not putting on a performance,” Vega said. “They don’t really care if you don’t like their art. If they like it, it’s enough for them.”
Beeman said the fact that two former MSA students — Marfa ISD graduates Alex Luna and Aubrie Aguilar — currently work as front desk staff for the gallery speaks to the long-term success of the program. She said she is “especially proud” that the school has come to trust and rely on MSA over the past two decades.
“I think there’s been a recognition that the arts are supportive of the rest of the curriculum and their education, that it’s not just something extra,” Beeman said. “It is something that really does help them learn in many ways.”
MSA is primarily funded through grants from entities including the Mitchell Foundation, the Permian Basin Area Foundation, the Marfa Education Foundation, the Brown Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts and more. Beeman said the operation is pretty “bare bones,” its main expense being art teacher pay, with board members Janie DeGuerin, Carlos Morales, Susan Butler and Britney Bass volunteering their time for administrative tasks.
Looking forward to the next 25 years, Beeman said MSA will work to engage more community members and to grow its budget in order to pay for administrative staff so it can become more of a “stand alone” organization less reliant on volunteers.
For more information, visit marfastudioarts.org/ or follow @marfa_studio_arts on Instagram.