Education & Classes in Keller

During A Piece of Work’s interactive classes, amateur artists receive the supplies they’ll need before relaxing at an easel with a bottle of wine. Background music fills the air and eclectic paintings splash color across the walls in the studio. A local artist demonstrates how to paint a copy of a masterpiece while the class of students follows along, unleashing their creativity and filling canvases with elegant reproductions of works such as impressionist paintings by Claude Monet and Vincent Van Gogh. Kids' camps introduce young artists to the famous works of their forebears and impart crucial techniques, while paint-your-pet nights help students re-identify with man’s best friend.

Owners Maarten and Hanna Vanderstoel created Van Grow Studio of the Arts to promote creative thinking and problem solving in children through artistic crafts. Boasting degrees in fine arts and studio arts, respectively, Maarten and Hanna teach most of the classes and prepare the curricula for all of the studio's camps. TCU graduate Alma Worrell manages the open studio and paint-your-own-pottery rooms, which are also accessible to adults. Van Grow's upbeat instructors nurture creativity and confidence across three age groups, offering classes, parties, and workshops to pique a wide range of interests. Courses foster each student's individual vision, rather than a mastery of technique, and help to develop motor skills, self-esteem, and the ability to sculpt gummy-bear replicas of Rodin's The Thinker.

Cofounded by dancing legend Fred Astaire to train new generations of rug cutters with his signature easy grace, Fred Astaire Dance Studio uses a unique curriculum to create comfort on the dance floor. Instructors start with steps and rhythms common to most social dances, steadily building toward more specialized combinations of moves for a variety of rhythm-dance styles such as cha-cha and samba and smooth-dance styles such as the foxtrot and waltz. Once they've learned to follow, lead, or just pare down unnecessary finger-snaps, students can take to the purple-walled dance floor to practice their steps and try on new partners at social parties.