ART AMONG THE WHOOPEE CUSHIONS
In the show: an oil on canvas, above left, by Jasmin Jackson, 17; another oil, top right, by Anastasia Yakovlena, 11; and a pastel by Zack Longo, 16. (Click to enlarge.)
Better known as the go-to source for goofball extendable forks and t-shirts for the pierced-navel set, Broad Street retailer Funk and Standard will take on the air of an art gallery Sunday.
That’s when two-dimensional works by students at the extracurricular Inspired Minds Fine Art School in Lincroft go on display for a monthlong run.
The exhibit will introduce a bit of contrast to the store’s cigarette-pooping donkey vibe. School co-owner Heather Brown wants it known that Inspired Minds is not one of those programs where a kid is handed a box of pastels and told to go play. Rather, the school is all about the fundamentals of realism: light, shadow, form, color. The basic techniques that artists have been taught across the last millennia, whether or not they remained true to realism.
Who knows? Among its students may be a future Michaelangelo, or Hans Holbein or even (gasp!) John Currin.
“What sets us apart is that students as young as five years old [and as old as 17] are learning, step by step,” says Brown. “It’s knowing how to look at things and convey them in your work.”
Earlier incarnations of the annual show have been held at Starbucks and No Joe’s Cafe, but the exhibit outgrew those venues, says Brown. So Funk owners Patti Siciliano and her sister, Kelly Atonacio both parents of Inspired Minds students offered their store.
Siciliano says F&S and the art school are a good fit. The retailer’s mission, she says, is “to delight all of the senses and inspire people to step outside themselves and try something colorful and different” not a bad definition of an artist’s mission, too. She and Atonacio will relocate inventory now displayed on the upper part of the walls to clear out space, and will show some of the art in the windows, too.
Some 90 students who enrolled at the school in the last year have been invited to show one piece each; 50 to 60 are expected to take up the offer, says Brown.
Inspired Minds, located at 517B Newman Springs Road, runs one-week sessions throughout the summer priced at $265 for three hours a day and $465 for full days. Twelve-week sessions in the fall, winter and spring are priced at $400 for kids under 8, and $500 for those up to 17. All fees include supplies.
The opening reception runs from 10a to noon Sunday; live entertainment will be on hand, as will many of the artists. For art lovers who can’t make the opening, the exhibition will remain on display through June.