A delve into the work by Chinati artist John Wesley leads to comic-making for students. Collage, pen and ink and block print techniques are taught, and students are urged to blend media and juxtapose words and images. Wesley sourced imagery from cartoons, magazine, ads and photographs and used tracing paper and grids to make his distinctive paintings. Marfa students used similar methods to produce and publish cartoons in which fantastical things happen: rhinos chat with otters; parents run away from their children; planets collide. The rawness of experimentation allows freedom and absurdism to surface in their work, which is wildly creative, sometimes obscure and often funny.

Teachers from Marfa High School and Chinati partner each year to explore the power of poetry with ninth graders. First up is a visit to Carl Andre’s poetry in Chinati’s collection, 270 typed and handwritten works that each pack a graphic punch. Using typewriters, India ink and collaged photos, the students begin the process of writing their own poems, carefully considering word choice and the way their words and letters look on the page. Chinati educators likewise lead sessions that focus on lines (draw an angry line!) and words (draw the word secret!) and local poets and artists visit the class to talk about their practices.

Seeing Poetry culminates in a public reading of their poems and the publication of a 100-page volume full of humor, insight and a charming, homemade visual sense.

To personalize and contextualize their individual and cultural place in current events, Marfa students studied a number of artist manifestos and created their own by employing stencils, spray paint and poster board. By guiding high school students through this long process of realization and questioning, we hope that they’ll gain a better understanding of the complexities of expression and, eventually, learn the power of their own voices.

Students learned to capture depth on a flat surface in this exploration of perspective drawing. Led by Marfa teacher Mary Mois and Chinati educators, students began by thinking about the fundamentals of this technique. They drew high school hallways, the exterior of the school, street scenes. They visited the Robert Irwin space at Chinati and drew that. Toward the end of the semester, 20 kids piled into a bus for a day in El Paso, considering how perspective is also a personal point of view. At the University of Texas El Paso’s Rubin Gallery, students experienced the frenetic, political installation by Mexico City artist Luis Safa and muralist Zeke Pena. In the city’s historic Segundo Barrio neighborhood, they met with muralist Jesus “Cimi” Alvarado, who shared how his murals depicted the culture and history of his hometown.

Back in Marfa, the students were given digital cameras and asked: What is your Marfa? What story of Marfa do you want to tell? With that, they recorded their own hometown. Fully one third of all Marfa High School’s student body participated and certain themes came up repeatedly: friends, family, pets, dream cars, football. A number of photos represented friends who’d passed. Working in teams of three or four, the students combined and collaged their photos. These were enlarged and projected onto large canvases, which the students then filled in with black, white and gray.

The result was 13 canvases which tell stories of Marfa that are authentic, real and personal to the artists who created them. It’s an accurate portrayal of how these teenagers perceive their town, their school, their families and their place within the community – an extraordinary glimpse into their world.

How did Marfa get its name? What are the Marfa mystery lights? Why are there so many hippies here? Young people are full of questions about the places where they live. In Marfa Myths, we addressed these questions head-on with middle and high school students through mythology, shadow-puppets and GIF-animation. Though cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this hybrid project interwove storytelling, identity and place, dramatic performance, and color and light in art.

A visit to Dan Flavin’s untitled installation of fluorescent lights served as a catalyst for this project. Flavin’s use of scale, architecture, and natural and artificial light allow students to view the art, and physically be within it, at the same time. We challenged students to question concepts of what constitutes an artwork, delving into color theory, the importance of place, and the dialogue between light sources. We likewise traveled with them to El Paso, to experience Leo Villareal’s show at the El Paso Museum of Art and his permanently installed commission at the Federal Courthouse. The different approaches of Flavin and Villarreal expanded the student’s understanding of light as an art media.

Back in the classroom, students discussed Marfa’s mysteries. Working together in small groups, they imagined the origin of these enigmas through myth-writing. Next, they developed their myths into puppet shows, and constructed characters out of paper, brads, sticks and glue. Soon the classroom bustled with paper aliens and hippies, flashing theater lights, the scratching of X-acto knives, and the scent of hot glue. A translucent screen, lit by colored lights the students adjusted, served as the stage for their shadow puppet theater and a tablet captured the action in a GIF format. The scenes were edited, stitched together and formatted into a final short video.

Six out of 15 projects were complete when Chinati closed for Covid-19 precautions in mid-March. Originally, the videos were slated to be screened with a live score during the museum’s annual Community Day celebration. Though we’re unable to share them in the festive atmosphere they deserve, here’s a selection of three you may enjoy in the links above.