Inspyr Arts

I really like the set-​up they use here. Everybody has their own station and materials. I also like how the fact that the owners have a plan of instruction for the media children will be using, rather than it just being random. They use a logical path. This is what public schools should be doing today but the over focus on teaching kids to pass high stakes exams has forced teachers to drop this vital learning experience. Cuts in arts spending is also to blame so now we pay more for it, directly out of our pockets. How dumb is that? Anyway…come here and your child will love you for it.

My Cub Scout Webelos took a class to earn their Art Badge, and the staff here was so gracious and helpful. Miss Marilyn is the nicest person, and she teaches with smiles and gentle urging, keeping the students focused and attentive. The boys loved the class. My son, one of the Scouts, is also a student there so I have had many chances to see the work she, and the other instructors, coax out of the kids they guide. I would recommend them to parents and those seeking to give Art a try! 5 Stars

This review has been a long time coming, but it has been a privilege for our 10^th grader to take art (and until recently, Sewing) classes with Inspyr Arts on 4^th Street in Long Beach. In the little over two years we’ve been with them, Inspyr Arts has been more than accommodating with our crazy schedule, and super-​encouraging when it comes to trying new media, as well as fresh approaches to methods more familiar. Since adding Inspyr Arts to our weekly schedule, we’ve seen our daughter’s work metamorphose in imagination and sophistication. It’s strange to see the word «sophistication» used in charcoal and pastel drawings and aprons and upcycled tee-​shirts, but there you have it.
To start with, the 4^th Street studio is professionally equipped with proper artist tables, paints, brushes and (when they had Sewing) sewing machines. We’ve signed up with other art schools before, but none of them provided individual work stations for each child. The fact that Inspyr Arts does is integral to instilling our child with a sense of personal ownership of her work the minute she enters the classroom. That is not to say that Inspyr Arts does not encourage group work. On the contrary, in the two years we’ve been with them, our daughter has participated in myriad community activities, from painting a table-​top for a local café to spending an afternoon at the Belmont Shore Art Walk event in Long Beach, to beautifying unsightly graffiti tagged on their wall (Note to tagger: you could benefit from lessons at Inspyr Arts) before cleaning it up per city regulations. What you do have that is obvious from the beginning is a sense of mission from the owner and staff of the school: Inspyr Arts seeks to not only make their students realise the visions they have in their minds, they seek to help each student do so in a thoughtful, creative and wondrous way, so that each piece of art produced is valuable, not just to the student artist and family, but to the community at large.
Which brings about two other important aspects of this fine art school: the teachers and the nature of the work produced by the kids. First, the teachers are very, very good. They are not only artists themselves and professionals in their field, they are also incredibly dedicated teachers. In addition to being extremely accommodating with our crazy schedule, they know how to work with the most stubborn of students, and part of their success lies in the fact that they actually *create* opportunities for students to be leaders. We’re really grateful for the fact that they offer summer internships. Unpaid, true, but nevertheless an incredible opportunity for students. This is a place where artists learn to be more than just observers of their community: they are given the chance to actually improve their community, and other than the ways already mentioned above, also in the form of field trips to draw and paint on-​site, both indoors and outdoors. We are also appreciative of the number of fun events they hold to encourage team-​building and a sense of ohana, like their recent Teen Night and summer picnic.
The second aspect to touch on is the nature of the work produced by the students. They are impressively mature and evocative of emotion (excuse my excesses!) in an unexpectedly short time. Rather than the kind of work you see in a typical classroom where the kids produce work that only doting parents and relatives would put up on the wall, Inspyr Arts students put out work that can be appreciated professionally. Many parents don’t treat art as something that can be learned or even something that should be considered as a career past middle school. Inspyr Arts conducts their classes with the mindset that every student is a hidden Van Gogh, Da Vinci, O’Keefe or Kahlo. It is this expectation of genius that the teachers have of the students that the students end up producing work that is way more complex than you would see in a more ordinary classroom.
To this end, the syllabus they have is comparable to college and university standards: the students are not just exposed to one medium when they sign up for classes. They are taught to draw not just what they think they should see, but also what they actually *see*. They are taught to express themselves on canvas, paper, wood, glass, cloth, mosiac, with pastels, chalk, water colour, graphite, thread, glue. They are taught not to be afraid: of sketching total strangers in a coffee shop, plein air painting by the Colorado Lagoon, book binding and animé drawing, fashion illustration, trying something different, something new. If you cut a piece of material differently from the pattern, it’s not «wrong», it’s putting on your personal touch. There is no freaking out, no restarting, no waste. It’s two Christmases now that our daughter has surprised us with her hand-​formed gifts, including a blouse she sewed for me — which has been uploaded to their Facebook page. We cannot wait for more!

So impressed with Inspyr Arts. They focus on where the child is with fine motor art skills and go forward. My son is quite a critic but is so proud of his work each time and so are we — so incredible. They teach technique that the kids can then bring home and back into their classrooms!
Thank you to the inspiring and compassionate staff!

I can’t believe I’ve waited so long to write this review! I’m a teacher. A few of my co-​workers/​friends attended an art night specifically for teachers. It was completely free and many of us received a class set of supplies, art notebooks, pastels, etc. just for attending. I won a free art lesson for my class (yippee!). I loathe teaching art so this was perfect for me and I used my free lesson in June 2013. Two women came and delivered the best art lesson I’ve ever been part of. We did a gold mining scene as I teach 4^th grade. I sat down and did it with the students and my miner turned out to be pretty chic as he panned for gold. I was so impressed with their professionalism, their ability to connect to my students, their dedication to children and the community.

My daughters have been attending Inspyr Arts for years — they absolutely love it. I am always amazed at the quality of the artwork they produce in their classes. The summer camps are fabulous too. We are so fortunate to have this wonderful school in our neighborhood.

My child has been attending this art studio. Vicky (owner) knows how to pick her instructors well. They are a talented group of artists who know how to teach a class of students at varied artistic levels at one time, they provide each student a customized learning experience.