Studio E... Encourages Creative Thinking by beth Diane braDLey >> MiLestones photography
When Emily Williams-Wheeler says everything she does in her classes is an experiment, you might think her students are busy dissecting frogs. But if there are any frogs in her class, they are most likely made of clay. “I call my art studio a laboratory because we’re always wowed by the results of our experiments,” Wheeler said. Her classes focus on art enrichment and creative thinking. And when it comes to the projects she assigns her students, she leaves much to their imagination. “I have a vague idea, but I don’t know where it will go. It’s very important to explore their own creativity I don’t want to direct them too much. I believe art is magic. It is amazing to watch someone creating something. I try to make the children see and feel the magic as I do. When they do, they just beam!” Originally from southern Iowa, Wheeler graduated with a degree in interior design from Iowa State University and moved to Fargo in 1986 with her future husband, John Wheeler, the meteorologist at WDAY. The couple has two children�Maggie, 22 and Cameron, 16. She worked in interior design for about five years, focusing on health care facilities, schools and churches. Her first impression of the area was a little grim. “I was really thinking I’ll only be here three years, because there’s no design here,” she said. But twentysix years later, Wheeler admits she loves it here. An art class taught by local artist Janet Flom led her back to her true passion and she spent the next 20 years as a studio artist focusing on acrylics and mixed media. Six years ago, she decided to share her talents by offering art classes to youth ages six through high school at “Studio e” located in her South Fargo home. When kids first come to her classes, they often want to draw pictures of something that already exists like Pokemon, Wheeler said. “I don’t want anything that has already been drawn. They are frustrated at first, and once they get past that, they relax and start doing their own thing.” “Every year we have the ‘ultimate whatever’ project,” she said. “The first year it was the ultimate tree house. The kids had to learn to draw a floor plan and read it with the basic symbols. Imagine a whole city in tree tops because they had so much fun they added many trees. They made a model of part of their project.” Each class has just five kids and the age groups are mixed together. “I can give them a project, and everybody attacks it in their own way with their own skill level and the results are amazing,” Wheeler