Why Paintbox Kids?
5 Qualities that make our programs unique:
• We view you and your children as individuals. Our highly trained staff values and appreciates your child's unique personality and interests.
• We believe that joyful learning takes place in a supportive atmosphere of non competitive, judgement free communication.
• We teach skill based creativity, carefully assessing your child's readiness on an ongoing basis.
• Paintbox understands that parents know their children best. This is why parents are always welcome in our studio during classes if they feel this is best for their child.
• We are passionate about what we do. You will feel our enthusiasm as your child makes and takes creative leaps!

Message from the Director

     How important is art education? What environment promotes creativity? Seeing the satisfaction that quality art experiences foster when offered in a supportive and nurturing environment is what ultimately led to my desire to open Paintbox Kids. For the past twenty-five years it has been my pleasure and challenge to introduce art as an opportunity for students to learn about themselves in ways they may not have previously explored. Expanding critical thinking and problem solving skills and learning to authentically express one's unique vision are often unexpected and surprising elements of coming to art class.

     The families that have thus far participated in this community studio experience have responded with such enthusiasm and joy that I am truly grateful. On behalf of the Paintbox Kids staff and myself, I welcome you and your children to share with us the joys and benefits of learning about and creating art together.

Warmly,
Terry Laurents

Bio – Terry Laurents
artist, teacher, museum educator, wife, mother

Terry is fortunate in being able to combine her two great passions: art and children. Working in both private and institutional settings, Terry’s expertise lies in developing and implementing extraordinary art curricula and experiences for students of all ages.

Her career highlights include:

• Being on staff for the past ten years as an Educator at the Norton
  Simon Museum in Pasadena, where Terry has designed and taught
  art classes and continues to lead family workshops and tours of
  the collections.
  
  
• Assisting in the development of a school tour program for the new
  Claremont Museum of Art led Terry to design lesson plans for
  teachers to coordinate with the museum’s exhibitions.
  
  
• Her writing experience includes developing lesson plans for the
  Pomona College Museum of Art, to be utilized by educators during
  field trips to the James Turrell exhibition. To view these lesson
  plans, designed for students in kindergarten through high school,
  please click on this link:
  
  
• http://www.pomona.edu/museum/exhibitions/turrelleducation.shtml
  
  
• KCET recognized the elementary art program that Terry designed
  and taught for nine years at Castlemont School in Woodland Hills,
  with an Excellence in Education award.
  

Terry holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Humanities from Pepperdine University in Malibu, where she graduated cum laude. She has currently completed all coursework for the Master’s Degree in Child Development with an emphasis in Art Education at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena.

Teaching Artists

Maria DeLuca

Maria DeLuca began her musical training at the age of two and studied violin, viola, and trumpet at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Center for Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College. Maria has taught music for the Southwest Chamber Music Society as well as developed music, theater, and literature curricula for educational organizations such as Parents as Partners and STAR Education. She has performed in Italy, Venezuela, Romania, as well as at Carnegie Hall, and at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. She currently works as a professional recording artist in Los Angeles and plays viola, trumpet, and sings in the band Le Switch. Her two original musicals, "Harry Heart and the Greatest Jug Band...Ever" and "On The Ranch" received Backstage West's Garland Awards. Maria DeLuca also produced and oversaw the musical direction of The Blue House's production of Peter Weiss' "Marat/Sade" which received the 2006 LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Production of the Year.

Shannon Richards

Ever since she was a little girl Shannon has loved making things with her hands, coloring, drawing, making clothes and paper dolls. Her formal art training began in Boston at the Massachusetts College of Art where she studied jewelry making, photography, and fashion. She graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor in Fine Arts. While in college she taught photography and art to children ages 6-12 at a private art camp each summer. After graduation Shannon worked professionally as a costume designer as well as a fashion and accessories designer. In 2002 she opened a sewing studio called the Muse Sewing Workshops in San Francisco, one of the first of it’s kind offering sewing workshops to a new generation of women interested reviving the world of craft. After getting married and having a baby she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son and teaches private sewing lessons as well as group classes to adults and children.

Karen Anagnost

A Los Angeles native and teaching artist, Karen Anagnost's whimsical, bold artwork has been published on hundreds of greeting cards as well as on other stationery products, children’s books, giftware and houseware items. The other half of her career has been involved in her 15 year love of teaching. She has taught art on college, high school and primary school campuses throughout the Los Angeles area.

Sapphire Sandalo

Sapphire is a graduate from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Although she majored in Animation and minored in Studio Arts, she has always had a love for dancing Hip Hop. Since freshman year of college, she has been a member of multiple school dance teams, including one that she founded and coordinated. She has also choreographed for a friend's past 2 annual concerts at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, and was a backup dancer for a Filipino concert at Pala Casino. Currently she is a member of V.ENT, a dance crew located in Northridge. She also cuts her own hair, and dreams of one day being a lead artist at an animation studio.

Vanessa Lynn Garcia

Vanessa first discovered that she would be an artist at age four, when she decided, ahead of a planned family photo, that she could give her two year old brother a mohawk - clearly a much cooler haircut than the one her mother had arranged. Parental reception was decidedly mixed, but young artists are always misunderstood, and luckily for Vanessa, her talent was nurtured during her time at the Orange County High School of the Arts, where she studied painting, chorus, and photography before moving on to become events coordinator and artist liaison at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. Museum life was great, but Vanessa wanted to entertain and inspire others through her own art, and soon found herself gravitating to education and entertainment. She spends her days as an elementary school campus supervisor in Los Angeles and her nights and weekends as a birthday party entertainer throughout Southern California, where you may have met her as Elmo, Snow White, Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh, Cookie Monster, a certain big purple dinosaur, or even as her clown character Holly, a traveling clown-magician with an epic bubble-making machine and the best face painting brush in the west. Vanessa also sings for two bands in the LA area, both of whom release albums this year, and in her free time can be found in Topanga Canyon, working out the details of her dream - the world's first solar-powered, completely sustainable enchanted treehouse.