When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds; your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
— Patanjali (c. 1st to 3rd century BC)


OUR TEACHING PHILOSOPHY:
  
Process is key in learning about art.  Not only the process of making art, but that which is inherent in the classroom setting as new ideas are borne out of the instructor's teachings,  classmates and the student's own evolving concepts.  We are in constant growth which necessitates stimulation from not only seeing completed art work, but more importantly through active participation in the process of making art.  As such, 'finished' pieces are not a goal in our classes, especially at the beginning level.  Enabling a love affair with the arts is our goal.
 
We support dialogue and experimentation at every level of artistic learning.  Our primary goal as teachers is to encourage growing skills, foster the student's ability to SEE what is in front of them and to develop a language for the articulation of this exploration in seeing…enabling them to form a unique 'art' language of their own.

We believe each individual is unique, possessing special interests and needs.
We follow a non-competitive and individual approach in working with everyone. Our low enrollment enables us to tailor lessons to meet the needs of each participant.
We hope to enable others a space in which they can learn, have fun, be challenged, connect with others and themselves, develop new skills, and be supported throughout.

As  practicing artists we are interested in the intersection of personal exploration and cultural criticism that arises as a group of people committed to learning and creating share. 
We view the teacher-student dialogue as a mutual exchange that moves both individuals to productive awareness (kindergartners being quite stimulating to our own work!)
  
Our own art practice consists of actively exhibiting our paintings, drawings etc.. locally and internationally and working in our community as artists in various capacities.
We have both read widely about critical art theory which has directly fed our studio work giving us a cultural context in which to explore personal context (albeit sometimes pulling us both in quite different directions). We bring to our students the same excitement we ourselves experience each time we stand in front of a blank canvas.

We are thankful everyday for the opportunity to be able to experience life as artists.


                                                                                Claudia Olivos