Thorold resident Maria Wowk wants to help children unlock their creative potential.
Every week she hosts a wide variety of art programs in her Children's Art/Play Studio at St. John’s Church on Clairmont Street.
“We're offering a place where they can explore art materials and play without being told what to make,” Wowk tells ThoroldToday. “It's more process art where they learn to follow their own thinking and their own authentic ideas, and they're proud of their own unique constructions and paintings.”
Wowk’s art studio has many different stations that the kids can use at their leisure, such as a sand table, dough table, easels, sculpture, a drawing table, and others.
“It helps to develop their thinking,” says Wowk. “They learn cause and effect, they learn experimenting and modifying their expectations of different things. Like, why won't that piece of wood stay up there? Oh, it's off-balance. Maybe if I do this, it'll work. They learn to take initiative.”
Wowk comes from a long line of artists and child educators.
“My mom had a nursery school in Toronto,” she says. ”I worked there, and when she retired, it kind of evolved into more of an art school. My sister's running the one in Toronto now, and then we moved here to Thorold, and I opened this one last year.”
Her mother’s values still guide Wowk in her art studio.
“I learned a lot from her about child development and learning through play,” Wowk says. “I just always loved art with kids. I’m an artist and I admire how free they are with their work. They're not worried about the end product or what people are gonna say.”
The kids in turn guide Wowk’s own artistic expression.
“I feel inspired watching the kids, what they do,” she says. “Right now I'm interested in jugs of flowers. I went through a landscape phase. And now I'm kind of leaning towards photography, and I'm experimenting with texture.”
At the end of the day, Wowk just wants to help kids reach their full potential through art.
“It's really about giving them a sensory experience, kind of like creating what comes out,” says Wowk. “For them to explore their authentic selves, what their ideas are — what do I think? What do I like? If they're uninterrupted, they get into a flow state, which is really good for brain development.”
The Children's Art/Play Studio is currently running several programs out of St. John's Church. For more information, click here. To learn more about Wowk's art, click here.
