Megan Navarro
DRIPPING SPRINGS — One family was inspired to bring art classes, creative and wellness workshops and afterschool enrichment sessions to the city of Dripping Springs by way of a community space called Sanctuary.
The faces behind the space, husband-and-wife duo Paulina and William Armstrong, aim to have Sanctuary be a community hub for art classes and workshops, collaborating with local artists and creators. The founders come to Sanctuary with their background in art education, specifically Waldorf — a holistic and creative approach based on Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy back in the early 1900s that nurtures the whole child intellectually, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
“It’s really about the development of the whole child through a lot of things, like art, things like handwork, music, handwriting [and] really not any emphasis on media, screen [and] things like that until high school,” William explained.
When Paulina became a mother, she sought holistic practices for natural birthing and healing; it was then that she also discovered healing power of plants through herbalism, nervous system regulation through mediation, yoga, sound healing and more. She knew that she wanted to share this new found passion with others, leading her to become the kindergarten assistant for three years at a small, private, Waldorf-inspired school called Living Oaks in the Texas Hill Country.
With a degree from California State University, William’s foundation is in classical figure drawing, illustration, painting and art history, along with explorations in philosophy, modern art and innovative mixed media. He has also taught Waldorf-inspired art to students from first through eighth grade at Living Oaks for more than a year.
Sanctuary initially started after William and Paulina answered the community’s call for art classes over the summer and, with the success of kids loving the camp, parents were asking for more.
“The idea organically happened around the community’s desire to be innovative. From there, we built it pretty fast and the mission became clear for what we wanted to do,” William said. “It was easy to jump into because of our background and experience already having taught. I taught everything from watercolor to block crayon, form drawing and more technical things, like shading, perspective, sacred geometry and things like that.”
William explained that there is a large homeschool community and people looking for after school enrichment. While there are art classes that are available, he shared that they feel like they are fulfilling a need in Dripping Springs, as Waldorf-inspired art classes can be hard to find locally.
“We're not claiming to be a Waldorf-style education, but we do pull from those lessons and those ways of learning,” William said. “We don't want to keep the child busy for an hour like doing arts and crafts. It's really focused and intentional in the lessons that we would give to build skills they can use. It’s really intentional and very observational in the work they do. It's slow, but it produces meaningful work and [we] really wanted to offer something that really touched on the soul and grew artists.”
Currently, they offer classes for youth ages 5-12, with plans to expand to teens and adults, and are working to host enrichment art sessions for local schools, such as Raphael Springs Academy in Dripping Springs.
While they are currently holding the classes in their home, the founders are working to secure a physical space for the studio, which would also be able to serve as a retail opportunity for locally-sourced pottery, skincare and other products.
To learn more about Sanctuary, visit www.sanctuarydstx.com.
