Get ready to learn and grow your own style
LRL Studios brings a new option for art classes
The arts seem to flow through a large portion of the Minot community as the arts scene in Minot continues to grow. Starting in October 2018, the LRL Studios opened to give children and adults alike a chance to learn and progress their art in a new environment through weekly classes.
Opened by Arvin Davis Jr., LRL Studios brings an interesting teaching style to arts classes. Where many are focused on one thing and learning to do that specific topic, Davis allows people to come in, pick their chosen style and medium and take off to learn at their own pace while he works to guide them.
Davis explained, “I’m bad at making lesson plans. I’m very much like, ‘OK, let’s see what kind of mood they’re in today. Are they really excited and are they going to want hands-on type stuff or are they really reserved today?’ It’s really just pulling how the class is behaving.”
Davis teaches with a focus on the person’s goals and what they want to accomplish. Developing their own style is extremely important to him.
“It’s all about developing your own style instead of me saying ‘this is the way you do it.’ My style is more aggressive and I’m not going to implement that on to any kid or adult and say ‘you must throw paint at the canvas,'” explained Davis. “I want people to explore how they want to express themselves.”
Classes at LRL Studios are offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays with options to do an hour once a week or twice a week according to what the artist is ready to commit to. Davis offers three-month or six-month subscriptions.
The classes are open to anyone from age seven and up, with no specific class set for a specific skill level or for only adults or only children. For Davis, a blended class is important to help students learn not only from him but from each other.
Davis offers all the supplies that his students should need to work in almost any medium. By offering supplies for students, he says, it helps to eliminate them forgetting something and not being able to make use of the full hour. By offering supplies, his students can just show up and start working.
Davis opened LRL Studios with a simple goal: to help people explore and grow their interest in art while gaining confidence in their skills.
“One of my students said, ‘I’m never going to be able to do this,’ and she’s above and beyond what she thought she could do,” Davis said. “It’s wonderful to get to see people gain that confidence. I just want to get people bouncing and saying, ‘I did that!’ It’s a confidence thing.”
Davis had previously been placed in 62 Doors Gallery, but had quickly outgrown his space. He was contacted by his current landlord to see if he was interested in renting his new larger space and he decided to finally jump at the idea of teaching art classes.
He has a lot of goals for LRL Studios, the biggest goal being to make his new studio a non-profit so that people can go and learn for free. All he wants is to make enough to continue covering supplies and rent.
“I was denied numerous grants for it just because it was so new. I didn’t have the data to go with it to show it was worth it, so I need to do this for profit for now so that I can get the numbers to eventually get grants,” explained Davis.
Davis also plans to hopefully bring in other local artists to showcase their own style and teach students.
“I want it to be this progressive thing where people can just come and learn,” he said.
Davis operates as a mixed media painter and illustrator under the name Little Red Liar, shortened to LRL for his new studio. He has been drawing since he was child and picked up his alchemaike style early on.
Davis said, “I would close my eyes and scribble on a piece of paper and then open them and start coloring the different shapes and making things coming out of the abstract.”
As his children have grown, he has had them help with his art too by creating their own backgrounds and abstract drawings that he would then go and create something out of the lines.
“The way I do things is more alchemaike. I’ll draw things over and over and then piece it together. I will draw and draw and draw before I get it to the final where some people are the exact opposite and they’re immediately working on the final,” Davis said.
Art is immensely important to Davis and getting to share what he knows and help someone expand their own skills is something he enjoys.
“‘I’m not a master. I just really enjoy doing art. I’m a very capable artist, but I wouldn’t throw myself out there as a master. I’m learning just as much as them. For me, I’m just passing what I know on to them, saying, ‘This is what I’ve done. It might work for you, it might not.’ But that’s the purpose of this. You’re trying all these different things that you might not have before. It’s so they can develop what works for them and what doesn’t. Everybody has their own style and their own way of doing things,”‘ Davis explained.
While the style of classes isn’t for everyone, he welcomes people to come and try and a class, see if the loose environment fits them and will help them feel motivated to practice toward improving.
“Art is, no matter what your discipline is, very self-motivated. If you’re not motivated, you’re just going to plateau. You’re always learning something when you’re working,” Davis said.