We Are Moving!

It all started as a crazy idea. Two homeschool moms with college degrees who loved art and wanted to teach it in a radical way to the kids around us. We wanted to let the children decide what to make, while offering a wide variety of materials and tools for them to use, and while being guides and mentors. We wanted our students to form relationships with the art materials and techniques that weren’t based on adult expectations, but on trusting their own instincts. We didn’t want to see ten canvasses closely replicating ours, but ten different takes on the project, and ten sets of eyes alight with excitement for the possibilities!

Little did we know that this idea would take off! This method of teaching provides natural accommodations for all types of brains, and all ages. We don’t focus on final products, we don’t encourage “perfectionism”, and we absolutely don’t condone comparison with those around us. What we do encourage is encapsulated by a phrase I will never forget I heard Nancy say one of the first classes we ever held: when a child proudly showed her their creation, Nancy said “how did that make you feel while making it?”

This floored me. What would have happened had an adult in my life said the same thing when I was a child? Perhaps that would have had me checking in with my feelings more often, naming them, making connections with how I felt when I made certain choices. This was revolutionary for me!

So, Nancy and I have moved AdventureArt several times now. We started in a park, with two students (our incredible “Founding Members”!), struggling with tissue paper squares flying around in the wind. Then we found The Coalition Space down on 4th Ave. This space provided us with so much potential to grow! It was big, it was indoors, we had a private parking lot, and parents loved the opportunity to walk around downtown while their kids made art, played, and built confidence.

But within a year, we began to outgrow this wonderful space. For all that time, I was packing my car every morning and unpacking it every night—it was packed tightly with all of our art materials! The Coalition Space did not have any storage options. So before every class, I played Tetris with our art materials, we unloaded it and set up our art stations, then loaded it back up at the end of class, only to unload it when I got home. It was exhausting! Not to mention, we couldn’t fit everything in my car, so we often didn’t have that certain material that a student would request!

So Nancy began to search around again, and she found SubSpace. I will be honest: I was nervous. I wasn’t sure that we belonged in such a dedicated artists’ space. I felt intimidated by artists, and worried that our kids would annoy the artists working around us. I was so wrong! It was such a wonderful space to be at, and I had so many lovely interactions with the resident artists telling me that they loved what we were doing, and had wished they had something like AdventureArt when they were children! We were welcomed, and even encouraged to set up our own gallery showing of our kids’ art, and allowed to have a market celebrating our kids. It was such a perfect spot for where we were in our journey.

However… we began to outgrow it after just over a year of being there. We were able to store our art materials there, but we did have to set up and break down our classes every day. We often dreamed aloud of having a space of our own that we could leave set up. We could have our stations and tables and materials always in the same spot, and we could even have “work in progress” cubbies for our kids. And while we appreciate that moving tables back and forth was helping us build muscles, we also wished we could focus on the “making art” part of our business, as opposed to constant set up and take down.

And this is when we vocalized our desires to another creative friend. It so happened that we were all looking for something similar, and we thought: “why not lift the load together?” And from there, we were basically flying by the seat of our pants. Our friend, owner of Connecting Seams, began to seriously look for rental space. One day, she shared the listing for the Labor Temple. I had already been dreaming of a space there, but found that the spaces fill up quickly so I really didn’t allow myself to believe it could happen for us. Even today, we’re set to pick up our keys and I still can’t believe it’s happening! Nancy and I didn’t even allow ourselves to talk about it to anyone because we didn’t want to jinx it!

So this is where our story gets to present day. We will have a space where we can create a little cozy lounge for parents. We will have a space with vaulted ceilings, a giant skylight, and a little backyard area. We will have a space where our tables can stay set up, our materials can all be organized where they need to be, and our kids can make art and play freely. Most exciting of all, we will have a space where we can begin to add big things, like: monthly workshops, markets and events, and perhaps even music classes!

If you’re still reading: thank you. Thank you for following us on our journey. We are turning three this December, and it’s truly because of all of the people that believe in us. We have been lifted up by our community, but I like to believe that we have also lifted up our community. We are still growing, and searching for more folks—big and small!—to join us and make some art!

Susy, AdventureArt Co-Founder