Maximino Garcia-Marin is among dozens of Minneapolis art students who created projects for Viva City, an annual citywide competition that continues at the Central Library through March 16th. But he's among an elite few whose artwork carries painful undertones.

Still it's hard to imagine a better person to create art around one of this year's themes -- home -- than someone who went so graciously for so long without one. Throughout middle school and much of high school, where he now is a senior in the Patrick Henry International Baccalaureate (IB) Program, Garcia-Marin lived with his parents and three younger siblings at Mary's Place, a Minneapolis shelter.

"I tried to hide it sometimes," said Garcia-Marin, 18, who speaks so softly one must lean in to hear each word, something you quickly realize you want to do.

"I was trying to get past that and look at the positives of living there. We were saving up money. We had food." His parents carved out small jobs there, as did he.

During his five years at Mary's Place, he became a documentarian of sorts, filling sketch books with pages of stories told in words and pencil.

10/3/09: A mother slapped her son three times. He helped to pull them apart "in the hopes that I would prevent the young man from hitting his mother." Then he got to drawing. The boy in his pencil sketch was a baby cradled lovingly in his mother's arms.

"I saw images of a little boy growing up with his mother. I saw happy images, and I felt tears start to build up in my eyes. It is wrong for people to hurt each other," he wrote, "but it is worst when it is family that hurts each other."

He knows about that, too. He's candid about the pressures of homelessness and poverty that caused turmoil between his parents.

"We're very stable now," said Garcia-Marin, whose family has lived in an apartment in Minneapolis for more than a year.

On any given day, more than 1,500 Minneapolis public school students are homeless and highly mobile; last week that number spiked to 1,650, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Hinz. Throughout the school year, about 6 percent of students are homeless, she said.

In St. Paul, more than 1,000 homeless students were identified in the second half of 2009, said St. Paul public schools spokeswoman Becky Hicks. That's a 29 percent increase over 2008.

As part of this year's Viva City, on display at the downtown library's Cargill Gallery, the Family Housing Fund gave a special award for students' vision of "home." Allison Orjala, a senior at Southwest High School, created a tarp-wrapped sleeping bag. Sheng Fang, of North High School, drew many hands reaching for one small house.

Karina Gonzalez, 13, of Sanford Middle School, who has lived in a homeless shelter, drew a mother with two children, begging for money.

Living at Mary's Place inspired Garcia-Marin to create his entry, which he calls his "best piece ever, so far." He met a family whose father, a reggae musician, taught him a lot about the African-American experience. For two weeks, under the guidance of IB art teacher Andrea Rose, Garcia-Marin created a family tree from clay, copper sheets and wire.

The green, then blue trunk is thick, sprinkled with the faces of African ancestors. But the trunk also suffers a gaping wedge representing "the lost, or disconnection of roots," he said. Copper leaves jut out in all directions, symbolizing "those people of lost roots."

Rose said Garcia-Marin, born in Mexico, has long been interested in different cultural groups and their struggles to hang onto their identity, despite abject poverty, war or immigration struggles. She loves his tree, but more than that, she admires her gifted student whose "maturity level is so unusual. He is open-hearted and so intense, but not in an overwhelming way. He's destined for great things."

Garcia-Marin started drawing in first grade, crafting an eagle flying over a landscape. In fourth grade, a friend offered to buy one of his pencil sketches. "Why would I do that?" he asked. He regrets the decision now.

Carrying six IB or high-level classes with a 3.7 grade point average, he often is called upon by classmates to draw illustrations for their projects. "It's cool when they pick me," he said.

Garcia-Marin hopes to study art next year at Augsburg College or at the highly competitive Cooper Union Art School in New York. He dreams big, but remains grounded and grateful.

"We're still a family," he said. "We've always been a family. There are families without fathers, without mothers; families who have lost a child because of drugs or violence. I can't say that I have the worst life," Garcia-Marin said. "There is way worse."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350 • gail.rosenblum@startribune.com