Where did the name Mariah Art come from?

As a teenager, I was emotionally moved by the song, 'Mariah' performed by my high school choir. You could hear the sound of the wind. I love to walk on the beaches of the Oregon Coast in the wind. One day while thinking of my idea of an art school, the name connected with me. My thoughts included: on the wind of new ideas, winds of change; wind represents spirit, unrelenting with its own direction. I thought it was a good fit. With much stubbornness of direction, it stuck and the school survived. We have the caring teacher inspired and skilled teachers, teaching students all aspects of art. Mariah Art has it's own life. My job now is to keep up with my teachers and students and their whirlwind of creativity.

Mariah Art at our present Westside location has grown quickly to include 100 plus students a week. Mariah Art has been certified by the State of Washington for childcare license for the past six and a half years. Community activities: Mandala chalk Drawing in Street and Street Fair/ dragon building with Cobb technique, Procession of the Species, Olympia Spring Arts Walk, Painted Mural Nisqually Wildlife Refuge Education Center, Ceramics Mural Nisqually Wildlife Refuge Education Center, Super Saturday at The Evergreen State College. Face painting, Sand N’ The City Children’s Hands On Museum.

Classes for: Preschool, Kindergarten and After School Elementary, and Middle School

Subjects
The Visual Arts: Drawing, painting, ceramics, computer animation, multi-media,
Performance Arts: Music and Theater, creative movement, conga drumming, gymnastics and swim.

Mariah Art has thematic camps during winter and spring school vacations and half day conference weeks.

Summer Camps:

Art / Music /Theater: Peter Pan coming up this year!

Art with Field Trips: In the past we have gone to: the Nisqually Wildlife Center, NW Trek, Pt. Defiance Zoo, the Tacoma Art Museum, Weyerhauser International, Bonsai Gardens, The Squaxin Island Tribal Museum and local parks, galleries and studios.

Computers: Animation and Claymation, Stop motion movie making

20 Years Of Mariah Art School Highlighted

Mariah Art was first established in my garage twenty years ago. My dear friend Vicki Leanne Parker was the first parent to believe in and support an arts education for children. Her sons attended and she went to the swimming pool and the library spreading the word about my art classes. I was able to establish after school classes, which I taught part-time for eight years after my teaching job at the Oly Bear Preschool Lab at Olympia High School.

• 1st Storefront Division and Harrison Just in time to host the first Procession of the Species Workshops… Plaster gauze masks and giant puppets were something new for Mariah Art staff. We had monthly art shows of local artists. One of my favorite art shows was a sculpture by Simon Kogan who had recently moved from Russia. Simon, an international sculptor, taught sculpture at Mariah.

• Jefferson Street Studio The middle and high school students produced a show of larger than life pencil drawings of the Columbine students who died. The show hung at the Thurston County Family Court and was later on display at the Million Mom March in Washington D.C. where I met the art teacher from Columbine High School.

  One group of students, who had been with Mariah Art for years, created puppets and wrote a puppet play. The play was about Endangered Species and the students were invited to perform at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Conference. We had a slumber party at Mariah Art as a special thanks to their efforts. We also presented an art show on frogs. We sculpted over fifty frogs out of clay!

  We started the Collaborative Arts program while at the Jefferson Street location which was next to Johansen Ballet. We started a Preschool and Kindergarten program, adding dance, music and theater using the Johansen Ballet Studios.

• The Water Street Studio was wonderful in the fall because we could witness the salmon run and in the spring and summer we could enjoy the fountain. We saw a Blue Heron and it was like a dinosaur in the air. My Granddaughter, Amber, still believes she touched it. The students held puppet shows at the fountain for the public. We had Political Action That was the year the kindergarten class performed the Dinosaur Stomp and other plays at the Capitol Theater. We had twenty-six Kindergartners up on stage. Each child succeeded with great enthusiasm and confidence. The Earthquake of 2001 made the Jefferson Street building unstable so we moved to the Water Street location by the fountain. The space was small so the decision to our present expansion on the Westside.