UPPER EAST SIDE — A tiny art studio filled with miniature plastic chairs and oversized paint brushes has sprung up on East 61st Street between First and Second avenues.
The studio caters to the pint-sized, with classes for children as young as two. Its name is befitting of a cozy, one-room studio for junior artists: Little Picasso NYC.
Isabella Grossman is the studio's founder. She launched the business on June 1 with the goal of inspiring children to create. To that end, she allows them to get messy, to paint on the walls, to color outside the lines.
“There are no rules,” said Grossman, who was born in Israel and now lives in Long Island City, Queens. “There is no right and wrong in art.”
Grossman said she had never taught art before opening the studio, but she had an affinity for oil painting and charcoal sketches as a child. She commercialized those talents with a degree from FIT and an almost 25-year career in the fashion industry.
“It’s hard work, a lot of disappointments, headaches,” she said. “Not everybody gets to be a Chanel or an Oscar de la Renta.”
Several years ago, Grossman’s career landed her in China, where she found herself working 13 to 14 hours every day.
“I was making good money, but I had no life,” she recalled.
Grossman said she was unhappy and far from home. Then her daughter told her she was about to have a baby. Grossman said she couldn’t stomach the thought of being on the other side of the world while her granddaughter grew up.
So Grossman quit her job, moved back to New York and spent as much time as possible with her granddaughter.
“I introduced her to crayons and, a little later, to paint and brushes,” she said. “And [my daughter] said, ‘Mom, you’ve got something here.’”
From idea to opening day, it took just under a month to bring Little Picasso to life. The walls of her studio are already covered with paintings. She’s even looking to transfer a mural of the solar system from the wall to the ceiling to make room for more art.
Grossman has stocked shelves full of eco-friendly and recycled materials. Plastic take-out salad dressing containers serve as her paint cups. Old paper towel rolls are good for papier-mâché, and egg cartons work well for sculpture.
So far, Grossman said she has seven regular students and is hoping to expand beyond that in the fall. She teaches them about primary colors and incorporates shapes and letters into the 45-minute classes. Students have to help clean up, and they get an organic snack and story time, too.
But the real thrill is the art. Grossman pulled out painting after painting, pieces her students left behind to dry, pointing out the children’s early grasp of brush strokes and color.
“I think all children are natural artists,” she said. “We are stifling their creativity with limitations.”
Whenever Grossman isn’t teaching, she’s drafting lesson plans for upcoming classes and working on marketing strategies to attract more students. On lunch breaks and after work, she heads one block north to her daughter’s apartment and visits with her granddaughter.
“She’s turned into quite an artist,” Grossman said, pointing to several of her granddaughter’s paintings hanging across the wall.
“What a contrast between the life now that I have with my little family and the life in China,” she said. “This is fulfilling me.”
