Greenhill artists participated in the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest Fine Arts Festival, hosted this year by the St. Mark’s School of Texas.
Held from April 9-11, the festival brought together thousands of high school students for performances, exhibitions and hands-on workshops designed to celebrate creativity across various artistic disciplines.
Greenhill students in fine arts electives spent months preparing to present their work. Freshman Molly Wilkofsky, a student in Design of Immersive & Interactive Art, said her class dedicated nearly a full quarter to developing the piece they showcased at ISAS.
“It was a long process,” Wilkofsky said. “There was a lot of brainstorming, then going over budget, ordering materials, collaborating with other people in the class on their projects, and setting it all up.”
For other electives, preparation involved rehearsing performances and designing art pieces. Member of the Rock Band and Orchestra freshman Robert Booth shares his experience.
“We’ve been playing the same music for four months,” Booth said. “We did the concert, and then we just kept practicing until ISAS.”
Theater students faced a different challenge: condensing their one-act play to meet the festival’s strict 45‑minute time limit.
“We had to cut things down, remove parts that weren’t essential to the storyline, and then re-block everything for a totally different stage,” freshman Harper Spellicy said. “It was basically a whole new show specifically for ISAS.”
The festival is designed for students to independently explore the work of other artists. Students spent their days watching plays, listening to live music, participating in coffee houses and joining workshops for mini art projects.
“If you just sit around, you’re not going to get much out of [ISAS],” Booth said. “But if you walk around and actually see what other schools are doing, it’s definitely worth it.”
Students used an app called Guidebook to see the events schedule and build their own itineraries. Wilkofsky said many of the best moments at the festival were chosen without referencing the schedule.
“Many of the things I went to were just like, ‘Oh look, this is happening. Let’s go,’” Wilkofsky said.
For performers, the days looked a little different. Warmups, sound checks and call times were built into the schedule, often requiring early arrivals.
Despite the nerves that come with performing for unfamiliar audiences, Booth described the environment at ISAS as encouraging.
“It was scary at first,” Booth said. “In orchestra, we had like 30 kids and parents from schools I didn’t recognize watching us. Everyone there is just really supportive.”
The festival also offered a rare chance to socialize freely with students from other schools who shared similar passions.
“I feel like I got better at socializing,” Booth said. “At ISAS, everyone has common interests, band kids, theater kids, orchestra kids. It’s easy to talk to people.”
Wilkofsky says one of the most valuable parts of ISAS was seeing the amount of artistic work happening across Greenhill and other schools.
“You can’t be in all the art classes at Greenhill at the same time, so you really have no idea what’s going on in them,” Wilkofsky said. “It’s eye-opening. Everyone there is an artist in some way, and it’s inspiring to see what other schools are doing.”
