During one of the recent parent teacher meeting for my girl, her teacher mentioned that she had a penchant for drawing. Whenever there were opportunities to draw, no matter if it is on the board, or on blank pages of the worksheet, my girl would be filling up the spaces with her pencil. Her teacher encouraged me to consider developing the artistic side of her at home. Me being me.. I decided to do extensive research on the art classes available in Singapore... only to be overtaken by Chinese New Year, and other superb holidays that I... regretfully forgot entirely about my girl and her art classes... haha!
We were having an empty weekend that day, and was having breakfast at Marine Parade Central hawker centre... my favourite fish meat soup with fish egg.. superb! With nothing on for the day, together with mummy we took a stroll around the place aimlessly, until we discovered an advertisement from an art school in Parkway Centre. My memory got jolted and I immediately recalled.. "Girl's! art class!"
We walked towards Parkway Centre, and discovered a few more advertisements for kids art classes... Mummy said "Wow... can 'shop' liao..." Since we had sometime to kill before meeting my folks for Qing Ming, we went to "shop" around for girl's art class.
Turns out there were a few advertisers in the area.. advertisements splashed in the elevators and on the building walls. Like pasar malam! Turns out there were Innoworld, HiArt and GlobalArt. I've heard of GlobalArt.. they are everywhere, but haven't heard of the other two, so they were my first stop.
I discussed with mummy about our standard speech. We wanted to find out what programme is suitable for my girl, how much is it, see some of the works, and see if we are comfortable with the teachers. After that, go back and decide.
We started with HiArt. Walked in and surprisingly, was larger than the other art schools I've come across (actually just GlobalArt to be honest.. I once visited a GlobalArt in a CD shelter... I can't believe what I saw.) It was pretty quiet, so I took a stroll in, taking a look before I was stopped by one of the staff (I believe). "Yes you are looking for?" in heavy native Chinese accent. A lady walked out of the class and looked at mummy and me, with her arms in the "what are you doing here?" position. Mummy and I was so shocked we scuttled out of the place! In the elevator, Mummy and I looked at each other, wondering to ourselves.. "What was that???"
We visited GlobalArt next as it was just on the next storey. Well much nicer than the CD shelter that we visited! We walked in, and was met by a staff, who kindly showed us around the place. It was a nicely done up place, very kiddish, and pretty comfortable. Mummy and I were much more impressed with this GlobalArt! The staff showed us some programme works, as well as a colouring book or worksheets of what some of the students were doing. GlobalArt gave us a "Kumon" feeling... come to do worksheets/colour pages... We were not sure if that what we were looking for. To our next destination!
We took the lift up to Innoworld, located at a corner of the building. When we were in, there was a class in session, and the kids were all so concentrated in their work! Mummy and I stood there for a while, and there was nobody to attend to us. Busy weekend...! Finally a staff came, and we tried to find out more about the timetable. Mummy was not too keen on the chinese culture arts, but was rather interested on some of the music offerings... Was looking for kids art class, now have to look for music classes??? Why so much work... haha! We recalled that there was a Cristofori music school here too, so we went to visit it to find out more... Amazing how this shopping trip went from one thing to another...
Anyway the lift was packed, and we walked up the stairs to Cristofori. As soon as we came up to the storey, we chanced upon this place... Artary. We didn't recall any advertisements placed by them, but they were open anyway, and so Mummy and I walked in to find out what they offered. Our first impression was that it was an art gallery, and the place looked surprisingly modern... very much different from the others we visited that looked kiddish and frankly a little out of date. A staff greeted us and offered to show us around. "Do keep your volume low, as there are classes going on now." For a good 20 minutes, we hopped from the outside of one class to another, observing the classes.. the teachers and the students. This art school is totally different from what we've seen in the previous ones! The kids were smiling and always chatting with the teachers and friends. The kids were doing a space artwork, and it looked absolutely beautiful! Mummy turned to me and said, "I think girl can do better..." I replied "Come on.. it's not about the looks. Most important is that they learn something!" We thanked the staff for showing us around and left. Mummy and I were pleasantly surprised to find Artary. In a totally unexpected corner of the building. We loved the place and the scene of the kids enjoying their art really left an impression with us. The staff was also really polite and personal! Before we left, Mummy asked "Are you one of the teachers?" He replied "No, I'm one of the managers here!" No wonder... haha! We were so surprised that a manager took 40 mins to patiently show us around and shared with us about the place. Back at home, Mummy and I decided to take the first step to try a trial session with Artary.
As for music lesson. We are still on the look out. But since we are staying in Marine Parade, and I still love my mee rebus... I think we should be getting a lesson from Parkway Centre too.. or maybe Parkway Parade. The thing is... we need to find another weekend for it. This time, we'll be more prepared, with running shoes, bottle of water, sandwiches... and a lot of mints. Hahaha!
