UPTOWN — A studio offering dance and art classes for kids is now open in Uptown.
Uptown neighbor Morgan Maxon opened My Art House Studio this month at 1255 W. Wilson Ave. It’s Maxon’s first time opening an in-person arts studio after teaching dance with Chicago Public Schools for several years and offering virtual classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At My Art House Studio, kids can try out a variety of dance and art styles, Maxon said. She typically offers 12-week sessions of classes, but she also offers drop-in classes for kids to try it out, she said.
Summer sessions and summer camps start June 15, with signups available online.
The studio offers traditional dance lessons for styles such as ballet, jazz and tap, as well as classes that combine art and dance, particularly for younger kids. One example is a class called Make & Move, where kids will make a craft that dictates the dance they’ll do, Maxon said.
The classes at My Art House are generally for kids between 6 months and 8 years old, Maxon said. As the studio grows, she hopes to open it up to 10-year-olds and eventually to teens, she said.
Maxon, a Florida native, has been dancing and teaching since she was a teenager. She worked as professional dancer for several years after graduating from Columbia College, but she found it wasn’t quite what she wanted. So Maxon started teaching dance, including at CPS schools as an extracurricular offering.
“Teaching dance was not, in my experience, a very well-respected craft,” Maxon said. “It was always presented as either like a side gig or, ‘You gave up, and you became a teacher.’”
But once Maxon started teaching, “I found myself when I would be walking to my car at the end of a class, more ecstatic, more excited. I’d go home like, ‘OK, here’s what I gotta fix, here’s what I gotta bring back for the kids,’” she said.
Maxon continued teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. She taught virtually and continued once schools opened back up. She eventually started looking to open a physical studio to create more of a community with kids and families and have a “home base,” she said.
“The thing that would always make me kind of sad with working in CPS is that for these eight to 12 weeks, I’d be with these kids, sometimes every day, and then it would just vanish,” Maxon said.
Maxon found the Uptown studio with the help of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce, she said. The chamber is also helping the business through a storefront activation grant, which funds a portion of the rent because the storefront had been vacant for years.
The storefront was previously home to Sheridan Park Wine and Spirits, which closed in 2016 after 46 years in business.
Maxon said she sees the studio as her way of getting “back to the root” of why dance and art is fun.
“The mantra I have is, a lot of other dance studios want to create the next generation of performers, which is great, they should do that,” Maxon said. “I want to create their patrons. I want to create the ones that are going to buy season tickets, they’re going to show up and understand why art is so important, why it matters to us as a society.”
