Helping individuals unleash their creative and distinct natures through unconventional artistic activity is the concept behind ArtSparcs, Downtown’s newest business.
Four partners – Bert and Judi Herring, Allison Holdridge and Tayloe White – signed a lease Wednesday on a space at 115 W. Adams St., where White will be leading morning and afternoon sessions.
“Sparc is an acronym for Strategically Placing Arbitrary Randomized Constraints,” she said.
“ArtSparcs is art-based programs and products for brain exercise,” said Judi Herring, a urologist turned business consultant and ArtSparcs co-founder.
“It’s a way to overcome the ‘I’m not creative mindset’ for people who want to think innovatively. It sounds like a cliché, but there are specific skills,” she said.
The program’s methods were discovered through art therapy designed to help people who had suffered functional losses due to strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
“We have developed it as a way to get over creative block,” said White, who is the former executive director of Art with a Heart in Healthcare, a local nonprofit that facilitated artists working with patients and their families at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, Nemours Children’s Clinic and Ronald McDonald House.
She described ArtSparcs as “merging the thrill of activities that stimulate the pleasure centers in the brain with a playground environment.”
“It came out of the need to solve a problem. This is not therapy, it’s entertainment,” said Judi Herring.
The partners chose Downtown as the best place to open their business because it’s a “conducive environment for bringing ideas together,” said White.
“And we believe in investing Downtown,” said Judi Herring.
To learn more about ArtSparcs, visit artsparcs.com.
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