At the Art Shack in Duvall, kids' creative spirits soar

Originally published Saturday, March 25, 2000

By JON HAHN  
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

If art is in the eye of the beholder, then you've got to behold what's happening in the funky little storefront Art Shack next to the smoked meat and cheese shop in Duvall.

Lily and Lupin Tapert -- they're some of those artsy-smartzy Tapert kids from out in Cherry Valley -- are teaching some pretty freewheeling art stuff to very impressionable kids. And you know it's not mainstream art going on in this former movie theater on Main Street because the kids definitely are not coloring inside the lines.

Looking past the front windows full of handmade paper artifacts and color-glazed clay pottery and woven baskets, you can actually see what's going on in the art world today. And it ain't exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect to happen in your own kitchen or family room. I mean, would you want your kids learning art in a place that has a bright purple refrigerator and colored paper starfish, and hot-air balloons hanging from the ceiling?!

And it says right on the Art Shack brochure that the young artists helped design: "DRESS FOR MESS."

Which is why it's happening on this side of the street, instead of across the street at the library, where Lily taught a class until they were asked to leave because kids tend to be messy in freewheeling art classes.

"It's amazing what kids come up with!" said 28-year-old Lupin, who was managing a pottery-painting store and throwing her own pots before she threw in with her 19-year-old sister on this self-proclaimed "multimedia art academy" last year. "It's so much fun to watch their creative spirit come alive. I get much more fulfillment in seeing the kids learn and experience the joy of art."

Picking up the thread of that thought -- in a way perhaps many close siblings do -- Lily added: "Some people think that kids' attention span is too short, and that they might not fit into a classroom regimentation situation. Here, it's up to you what you want to work on, and how long you want to do it.

"And the parents can see that their kids can focus on a project."

The Tapert kids -- well, all four were kids when I first met the family years ago -- were focusing on art ever since their parents, John and Candace, began building their home on Northeast Stossel Creek Way. The Taperts, former industrial design and art teachers, not only lived a sort of pioneer lifestyle on the very thin edge of exurbia, but they home-schooled their children before most people knew what that meant.

And they eked out a living making and selling art -- the whole family -- everything from folk art whirligigs to found-object jewelry to the liturgical art that now is their specialty. The two sisters' extensive art education was rooted at home but extended to the Kirkland Art Center and the Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle.

The tiny Art Shack building, probably not more than 1,000 square feet, was the Taperts' art gallery before it morphed into an espresso shop, a day care and pre-school and, now, the sisters' art school.

Their brother, Jonah, is a contractor and building manager, and another sister, Abby, drives a heavy truck for a local rockery. Tapert kids were raised to go in whatever direction offered the most fulfillment. And not just one direction.

Lupin, for instance, will be getting married this summer, not long before her willowy blond sister, Lily, takes off to go snowboarding in Chile. Seems that Lily is also broadening the scope of her teaching to include snowboarding and hopes next year to open a snowboarding school on property she is buying in the Cascades.

Which you'd think doesn't have a whole lot to do with teaching children how to batik their best T-shirts into something far beyond the wildest Dead Head dreams. But outside the lines is not a bad thing inside these old frame walls or inside your own imagination, as long as you follow some of the basic safety and courtesy rules set by the sisters.

"For example, the kids at home probably never are allowed to use, or even get close, to electric tools," said Lily. "But everything here, the tools and the materials and the projects, are all what we call 'age-appropriate.' "

She still remembers her parents restricting her severely when she was 10, "because I forgot to put on a hairnet while using one of the electric bench tools."

Two days each week, the sisters schlepp their materials and programs to other special schools in Lynnwood and Seattle. During the summer, they run all the children's art programs at Duvall's Sand Blast festival. And between all the classes, they also offer art parties.

Instead of birthday parties at home, parents can book the Art Shack for parties where the kids make jewelry, pottery, candles, baskets or dyed T-shirts, you-name-it.

"And all the mess stays here, and the kids go home to their clean houses and the moms are so grateful that they often offer to stay and help clean up here," Lily said.

Jon Hahn is a staff columnist who writes three times a week in the P-I. He can be reached at 206-448-8317 or e-mail him at jonhahn@seattle-pi.com