A non-profit art studio along the US-Mexico border delivers on  mission to further develop children’s imaginations. 

By MARÍA MEDINA
EL NUEVO SOL

Gretchen Baer was at crossroads in 2016. As an artist with a passion for inciting change, her creativity was divided between two politically inspired projects: beautifying a section of the US-Mexico border wall and campaigning around the States in her hand-painted, Hillary Clinton inspired car.

Baer’s idea to decorate the border started on the U.S. side of the wall in her hometown of Bisbee, AZ. in 2012. She later turned her attention to a mile-long stretch along Naco, Sonora in Mexico, which gradually caught the attention of the border town’s children. The young volunteers helped Baer complete the section of the wall in Naco, but after Trump’s election, she witnessed the vibrant wall be torn down and replaced by the steel, double-barred fence many are familiar with today.

“I put my heart and soul into that. I was at a point where I was like, I could give up, or I can start a kid’s art center.” Baer said.

Inspired by the creativity from the children of Naco, Sonora, she opened the non-profit art center, Studio Mariposa, in early 2017 with the help from border activist and friend, Tom Carlson.

“I literally opened it up the day Donald Trump was inaugurated, on January 20th,” Baer said. “I know it’s helped tons of kids, of course, but it’s also helped me.”

Pre-pandemic, Baer would host roughly 100 residents a day, from ages 2 to 80, for weekly art activities and projects at the studio, teaching them with art supplies donated by the community and online donors. From music classes to mural paintings, volunteers and students at Studio Mariposa thrived artistically, until COVID-19 shutdown in-person and indoor gatherings.

“When the pandemic came, we couldn’t do that anymore. The big change came because of the pandemic,” Baer said.

This change shifted curriculum from the art studio to home environments. Community donations helped Baer and her dedicated volunteers prepare “art bags,” individually equipped with tools, supplies, and crafts for both children and adults to pass time during mandatory lockdowns.

Unexpectedly, Studio Mariposa welcomed even more community members after the change in instruction. The art center went from serving 100 residents a week in studio, most being kids, to supplying 400 art bags to children, their parents, and families.

“Because they weren’t in school, they were creating their own home studios. I think it helped them get through school,” Baer said. “Their art just blows me away, it’s incredible and they just keep growing.”

Visual artists and professor of art education at California State University, Northridge, Dr. Kristin Taylor, described the importance of introducing art to children at a young age.

“It is really about exploration and experimentation. We’re in such a visually saturated culture these days, with media, social media, television. Kids really need to learn how to process that information and make meaning of it,” she said

Motor skills, cognitive skills and social skills are just some that children may adopt when learning about art, which Dr. Taylor believes to be “transferable to other areas.”

“Our 21^st century skills are critical thinking and problem solving, [which] are two of the biggest things and we need to think creatively about how we’re doing that. We’re also teaching…different skills in thinking expressively as a form of visual literacy, teaching kids to communicate.”

Francisco, a 15-year-old artist who has been attending Studio Mariposa for over a year and a half, says that the art center is more than just an art space, but a “fun and overall, very cool” place where he can destress from academics.

“Studio Mariposa is a studio of relaxation, aside from [teaching me] fun activities. I want to learn to paint like Gretchen,” Francisco said in an interview conducted over Facebook Messenger in Spanish.

The teen artist recently finished painting a mural on one of the outside walls of the art center, with encouragement and support from Baer, who was proud to learn that Francisco‘s talent was noticed by a local barbershop who hired him to paint a mural.

“The next week he was doing a mural for a barbershop, and he was getting paid. He made that into a job before I could even blink an eye. I love seeing that kind of thing,” Baer said.

Dr. Taylor believes that having consistent encouragement from facilitators and peers, plus a constant practice of the arts has potential to truly impact person’s development, beyond the stages of childhood.

“You’re talking about having this really open-ended thinking as a child and then not having any of that for several years. I firmly believe that we need to keep that consistent, that kids need to have it embedded, even if they don’t get to take individual art courses. I think it’s really evident in their work later in life that they’re able to think that way,” she said.

“I hope that by our consistency and longevity that we’re bringing kids into adulthood as real artists,” Baer said.

Still, the colorfully painted outside walls of the art center serve as a symbol of optimism in a place where cross-border politics and criminal activity overshadow the achievements of the community’s artists.

As a common point of entry along the Arizona border into Mexico, Naco has been a hotspot for drug smuggling and human trafficking related crimes. A drug bust in 2012 revealed a drug trafficking ring that seized thousands of pounds of marijuana and cocaine which were stashed in various homes in the small Arizona town, according to a piece published by Reuters.

“These operations breed violence in both Arizona and Mexico,” said Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne in a statement, according to the article.

In 2017, the Washington Post retold the events of a drug operation caught on the US side of Naco, after a 54-year-old woman, a member of a drug cartel, was busted with a kidnapped man in her trunk whose life she was willing to end in exchange for 30 pounds of marijuana. A 2019 article published by azcentral also detailed a “shootout” between two rival drug cartels that ended in several fatalities in Agua Prieta and Naco, two neighboring border towns on the Mexico side of the border.

Despite the challenges in the small border town, Baer’s art studio serves as a haven for children and adults on both sides of the fence to avoid getting involved in troublesome situations, which can often seem like the only option.

As for the future of Studio Mariposa, Baer hopes to arrange visiting artists to teach lessons, a project that includes painting a boardwalk on the Mexico side of the border, and hand-painting another car. Her definitive goal is to inspire a brighter future for Naco, and the young artists who inhabit the region.

“I do have a long-term goal that Naco, Sonora becomes a very vibrant art community, a kind of destination place for art,” Baer continued. “It’s already happening, but these kids have to grow up enough to start opening galleries. I believe in it.”

Tags:  Art education border children CSUN Gretchen Baer Kristin Taylor María Medina Naco Studio Mariposa