Education & Classes in Stuart

Not many actors can say they've performed in a production directed by a 12-year-old, but Erin Coley has always had an instinctive sense of how to put on a show. Years later, she and her husband, J.R., founded Standing Ovation Performing Arts, assembling eight other experts in the field to encourage kids to get on the stage as early as possible. Improv comedy, puppetry, and playwriting help students express themselves while giving them the skills to deliver confident class presentations and rousing monologues on the futility of naptime.

Art-Sea Living owner Babs Lentz caught the entrepreneurial bug at age 12, when she helped her father sell his car for $200 more than what he was asking. But Lentz has always intertwined her business savvy with free-spirit artistry, creating a children’s clothing line, designing jewelry, and opening the Art-Sea Living boutique gallery. Inside this welcoming studio, Lentz displays her own handmade creations as well as items from other local designers. Above all, she believes that art can be a great healer. Visitors can unleash their own inner artists during pottery-painting sessions, clay-sculpting classes, and watercolor studies. And for special events, Art-Sea Living can bring its studio on wheels to your party, offering paint-your-own pottery, wineglass painting, and more.

Named after the historic art-deco structure rescued from demolition nearly 30 years ago, the Armory Art Center is home to a dedicated staff of artists, instructors, and community activists. These passionate individuals make media from ceramics and jewelry to computer design accessible to aspiring artists young and old through art classes. Their campus sprawls over three buildings and acts not only as a school but also as a gallery for students and residents to showcase their projects. The Armory's staff is proud of their youth-outreach programs and offer need-based scholarships for qualifying students of all ages, and since all ages includes the age of 537, Michelangelo is eligible.