Fairmount Arts Center expands to Queen Village

Looking back on my own arts education, it's small wonder that stick figures are my trademark. Every year, it seems we did the same projects in my school. We made a fall tree by gluing tissue paper to construction paper to depict fall foliage. We traced our hands to make a turkey for Thanksgiving.

At home, my mother let us run wild with Shrinky-Dinks.

I hope my son will be able to draw at least as well as he can read and write, one reason I'm glad to see so many opportunities for art in the city, including the expansion of the Fairmount Arts Center to Queen Village. We've taken a few classes at the Fairmount location, an endearing and cozy space, so we were a little chartreuse with envy to hear that the center's new Queen Village spot has 3,000 square feet of space, four studios and ten sinks. Lots of room for kids to color their worlds.

"We're about hands-on out-of-the-box learning," said Jill Markovitz, who operates the two centers. "You'll never see a project where everything looks the same."

Like its Fairmount counterpart, the new center offers classes for adults and children, as well as after-school, summer and holiday camps, and birthday parties.

Fall classes began Oct. 31, but the official opening of the Queen village location is Nov. 13 and will feature "make and take" art projects, Mummers and cake. For more information, check out http://www.phillyartcenter.com/news/