The pandemic turned out to be a boon for the mother-daughter team Nikusha Beatty and Olya Losina, causing them to switch their family art business from in-person to online.
And the pair, who jointly run Prima Materia Art Institute, have successfully made that change – and never looked back.
“We switched completely online after COVID,” said Beatty, who noted she and her mom previously operated out of a brick-and-mortar space at 3350 Sports Arena Blvd. in the Midway District.
Beatty admitted, after having been forced to go online, that she and her mom both thought doing so “would just be temporary.” But as it turned out, “It worked so much better, all of our students begged us to stay online saying now they didn’t have to drive, sometimes as long as two hours, to get here. Now we have students from Brazil, New York, Canada, and Costa Rica. This has definitely been helpful in extending our reach.”
On primamateriainstitute.com, it states that Prima Materia Art Institute is open to all levels of experience ages 14 to adult. Their programming is described as accelerated learning for a wide range of artists including absolute beginners, those self-taught, and those searching for a unique identity. The website notes their ongoing art classes and art techniques are applicable for recreation and personal development, professional training for career artists (certification), art teacher training (certification), one-day workshops like “Learn to Paint in 1 Day” and more.
The Prima Materia Art Institute website claims the “Losina Method” will help artists discover their “art gene” whether they think they have it or not. The method is geared toward helping students learn to draw and paint in less than 30 hours of studio instruction, allowing them to apply for one of the certification courses.
Beatty said techniques taught at Prima Materia Art Institute cover everything from classical to contemporary. “It’s fine art drawing and painting, collages, sculpture, and mixed media, whether it’s about self-expression or realism,” she said.
“We want to emphasize that we are science-based,” said Losina. “We talk about physics and chemistry and history and linguistics. At the same time, we teach people how to express themselves, even those who’ve never tried to paint. We’ve actually ‘converted’ people who thought they were talentless, turning them into talented masters within one year.”
Online classes at Prima Materia Art Institute are 90 minutes. Most students are either members of the institute or subscribe to year-long programs, though classes are also taught in blocks of weeks. Typical classes cover subjects such as figure drawing or abstract painting focusing on drawing proportionally, sketching people in motion, or rendering facial expressions.
For a class on impressionism, for example, Beatty said students are taught the history of the artistic style before they set out to try to mimic artists using that style.
“We believe in emulating before innovating,” noted Beatty. “Some of our classes are experimental, where people don’t know what’s going to happen. We propose a technique, and they come up with their own style. We try to introduce people to everything and anything in art that ever existed.”
Prima Materia Art Institute classes involve slideshow presentations, online discussions, and live demonstrations by the instructor. “Students are able to listen and follow step-by-step in real-time,” noted Beatty.
Beatty talked about what’s best about Prima Materia Art Institute. “Our program works,” she said. “When fully committed, our students make more art than they ever did in person. People who used to come in twice a week are now going online six days a week. When the Zoom sessions end, they just keep painting, keep going.”
PRIMA MATERIA ART INSTITUTE
What: Online art instruction.
Información: primamateriainstitute.com, 802-505-7624.
