Grand opening of new Montclair children’s art school this Sunday
By Lou Fancher
Why a highly successful creative director who has held senior leadership roles at major architectural and design firms for years would leap into the great unknown and open an art education studio in Montclair Village becomes entirely clear within five minutes of speaking with Jen Tank. “COVID was a big changing point for me, like it was for a lot of people,” she said in a recent discussion of her Corner House Studio, which will have its grand opening from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Sunday (cornerhouse.studio/grand-opening). The studio is at 6472 Moraga Ave. in Oakland’s Montclair Village. “I was leading a brand and digital design center at Gentler, a global architecture, design and planning firm that’s one of the largest in the world,” Tank said. “We went home for months, and that gave me time to pause and assess what was meaningful. I realized how little time we have and how quickly things can change. “I wanted to pursue an art practice and making art specifically with children. It had become apparent how much we need to come together for our physical and mental health. To come together around art was something that was needed.” Tank began teaching at Rebel Art School in Walnut Creek and found the experience exhilarating, prompting her decision to open her own studio closer to her home in Montclair. Corner House Studio will officially launch in November with classes offered for children ages 4 through 11. Classes will focus on drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, crafts and mixed media. Art parties and “School’s Out” camps during holiday breaks will round out the opportunities for now, but Tank says she fully intends to expand the teaching roster and open the doors in January for adult workshops and activities. Tank said she has lived in Montclair for eight years, the longest she’s lived anywhere after growing up as one of three siblings in a military family. Her father was a pilot in the Air Force and her mother a creative homemaker who taught her to sew, knit and make other home-based crafts, she said. Tank said she decided early on that she wanted to be an artist and initially aimed at Virginia Commonwealth University to earn a studio arts degree. Her father, concerned about an artist’s ability to make a living, convinced her to change her major to graphic design, which she says he felt was a more practical application of her talents. “That stayed my focus for 20 years: using art for a commercial process. I loved being a creative director, and it was meaningful. I got to work on high-profile projects and advanced quickly. I got great feedback. It had purpose, until it didn’t.” While continuing to work part-time as a creative consultant through her company, Supergood, Tank says artistry that is not entirely about outcome or product is her focus now. In her home studio, she creates medium- to large-scale abstract paintings using acrylic inks and a flow medium that allows the colors to soak into raw canvases (untreated with gesso), resulting in something rather like a watercolor painting. Behind it all and including the energy and practices she brings into Corner House is an open-minded perspective on art. “From my work history and from teaching adult workshops at my home studio, I was familiar with the ways adults practice creativity. They can be rigid in their thinking. At Rebel, it was incredibly refreshing to see the way kids have of looking at creating art. They inspire me in the way they solve problems. They are so unburdened when compared to adults.” A major principle in Tank’s approach is fostering independence and confidence within each person’s creativity. She found that even people who had studied design, graduated from college with multiple degrees and were working at a design firm would lack confidence, fear making mistakes or worry about not knowing what to do. She said all of this would shut them down and that much of the self-doubt linked all the way back to childhood experiences. “Picasso said all children are artists and the trick is to stay an artist,” she says. “I could see the shift in kids somewhere between 5 and 6. They start telling you they can’t draw something, that they aren’t good at art. “It comes form the types of work they’ve been given where there is a right or wrong answer. Or there’s a product focus: we’re all going to make a thing. We’re all making a tiger that looks like a tiger. That decreases their confidence.” The countermeasure, she says is to offer open-ended challenges. One day that might be to use bleeding tissue paper and watercolors for a mixed media project. Tank demonstrates how to use the materials but then encourages students to follow individual intuition. Some kids mirror the steps she’s modeled, and others embark on their own journeys. “What is made at Corner House is all original artwork based on their own ideas of the world,” Tank says. Although it has taken sacrifices for Tank to “follow my heart’s work,” she says she is convinced the opening the studio in Montclair Village is not just her passion but something closer to destiny fulfilled. “I only wanted to do the studio in Montclair. I’ve lived here for eight years, my stepson when to elementary school here, and my husband has lived here his whole life. It’s the place I’ve lived the longest in my entire life. We moved every four years when I was young, and then as an adult I’d never stayed anywhere more than a few years. “There’s also a need for more activities for kids in the Village. There are so many families, and when I looked around, other than the (children’s ballet) Tutu School, there seemed to be a gap for art and creative activities.” The grand opening will feature an Art for All Ages project, resulting in a giant wall-sized painting that will be displayed in the studio. Raffles for free classes, food, drinks, music and early enrollment will come with a chance to make new friends and connect with neighbors and families. “I’m already 75% sold out for the winter, so the community has already been supportive. I hope Corner House shows other people who may be stuck in what they’re doing that it’s possible and rewarding to pursue new dreams.” |