What to Expect
Getting started is simple. The studio is open to children and teens year round for individual sessions and community exhibitions. Reach out through the contact form or by phone and we will get your child scheduled.
What Happens in a Session?
There isn't a project waiting when you arrive.
There might be clay on the table. Paint. Wire. Paper. Fabric. A pile of strange objects. Sometimes a child arrives knowing exactly what they want to make. Sometimes they don't know where to begin.
We start there.
From that beginning, we follow what has energy. A drawing might become a sculpture. A sculpture might become a character. A character might become a story. A mess might become the most interesting thing in the room.
I might offer a material, join in, ask a question, make something alongside you, or simply stay with what you're doing. There is no predetermined outcome and nothing you have to finish.
Planless doesn't mean unstructured. Each session has a beginning, a shared space, materials, time, and a person paying close attention. What happens inside that container is shaped by the child.
There is no lesson plan, but there is a practice.
Unlike an art class, there is no project to reproduce or skill to master.
Unlike therapy, there is no treatment goal to work toward.
Instead, the work begins with a child's own curiosity, attention, movement, and relationship with materials.
Skills come when a child reaches for them. A child who wants to print learns how to pull a print. A child building a creature from clay learns how to join the pieces so they hold. A child who wants to try photorealism in drawing learns how to clock angles and grid an image. Painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawing, and installation are all here, taught in the moment, when they serve what the child is already making.
Interested in a Free Studio Visit?
Curious about Freeform but not sure if it's right for your child? Come visit the studio before you decide. Meet the facilitators, explore the space and materials, and get a feel for what Freeform is like. No commitment, no cost.
Parents are always welcome to stay and work alongside their child, or step away and let them explore independently.
Individual Sessions
Sessions are 50 minutes. The work is active, responsive, and evolves differently for every child. Some children settle into a material and return to it week after week, developing something slowly over time. Others move fluidly between making, moving, and imagining within a single session. Nothing is scripted and nothing needs to arrive at a destination.
I create and play alongside each child, entering the creative space with them, following their lead, and responding in the moment. The most meaningful things often happen when a child feels free enough to go wherever they need to go. Occasionally sessions move outside into the natural environment around Stillwater.
Children do not leave every session with a finished piece to bring home. Some work stays in the studio and evolves over many sessions. Some gets torn apart and started again. That is not a sign that nothing happened. It is usually a sign that something real did.
Think of the studio the way you would any serious extracurricular. As arts are pushed further to the margins of the school day, a sustained practice outside of school becomes more important, not less.
The studio works best as an ongoing practice. A semester or summer of sessions gives a child time to find their footing, go deeper, and surprise themselves. That said, children are welcome to begin at any point in the year.
Children return weekly and gradually develop a relationship with the materials, the studio, and their own creative process. Over time, they begin taking greater risks, working with more intention, and discovering ways of expressing themselves that cannot always be reached through words.
Show and Shares
Once a month I offer a Show and Share — a small informal exhibition of your child's recent work. Parents are the audience. It is a chance to see what has been made, to hear a little about what it meant, and to offer your child the experience of being genuinely seen. Always an invitation, never a requirement.
Community Art Exhibitions
Freeform Studio regularly works to arrange exhibitions of work made in the studio within the broader Stillwater community. All studio participants are invited to contribute.
Children's art is not decoration. It is a direct expression of inner experience and it deserves to be taken seriously as such. When we look carefully at what children make, we see something true about the world we have built around them.
These are real exhibitions, thoughtfully curated and seriously presented. A child's work is treated with the same care and respect as any artist's work.
Because it is.
FAQ
Yes. The studio provides all materials used during sessions as part of your membership. Families are welcome to purchase additional supplies if a child wants to continue working with specific materials at home.
Yes. The studio uses only non-toxic, water-based materials. Safety and care in material choice are taken seriously, especially with younger children.
There's no fixed curriculum, the work follows each child's interests and the materials they're drawn to. That said, real technical depth is available when a child's ideas call for it, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and sculptural and installation processes. What gets explored depends entirely on where the child wants to go.
That's incredibly common, and it's not a barrier here. The work isn't about producing something polished, it's about making, exploring, and discovering. When constraints and expectations are removed, a child might surprise themselves!
Some parents stay and join in on the making, others use the time for their child to explore independently. Either is fine, and it can vary from session to session. Freeform Studio is located along Brown's Creek Trail and just a block from downtown coffee shops, with a yoga studio, gym, salon, and the St. Croix Artist Guild gallery in the same building. Many parents use session time for a bit of self care, a coffee, a walk, a class, or time spent among the work of fellow local artists.
No. Freeform Studio is a private studio practice, not a clinical service. The work can be meaningful and reflective, but there are no diagnoses, treatment plans, or therapeutic claims involved.