Discover Your Inner Artist at the Flint Institute of Arts Museum + Art School
By Chris Ringler on Apr. 02, 2025
Whether you live in the Flint & Genesee area or are just visiting, one stop you’ll want to make is the Flint Institute of Arts + Art School (FIA). The FIA is home to over 20 galleries and art spaces and art aficionados and casual art lovers will leave breathless. There is more to them than just art exhibits. The FIA is also home to an art school offering students the opportunity to learn from professional artists. The art school offers curious, budding and seasoned artists classes that will challenge and engage them. Focusing on introducing new skills and techniques or honing what someone already has, the art school’s focus is art and not grades. And for Donovan Entrekin, the director of the art school, it’s about much more.
“It’s a really authentic art-making experience,” says Entrekin. “We’re not grading people. We’re not giving credit. I think that’s what makes us special.”
The Flint Institute of Arts’ fully updated and professional space welcomes students seven days a week to work on their projects. The art school recently underwent a vast expansion to offer greater student and patron experiences with glasswork, clay, ceramics, and more, with part of the space open to the public for demonstrations. This investment in makes these spaces welcoming and professional-grade, providing students with all the tools they could ask for. For Entrekin, it’s about the process, and where it leads you.
“For a lot of people, it’s scary to try to make something. They have a lot of doubt – ‘I don’t have any talent, I don’t know how to draw’ – you can. Anybody can make things. For me it’s really what makes us human, that ability to make things and express ourselves visually,” Entrekin says. “If somebody takes a class here and they’re just excited to make something and it feels good, then it was a success.”
The art school not only serves the community but students from the University of Michigan-Flint. It’s the community, though, that this space was made for. “We have classes for people who are curious and have never done art before and there are opportunities to discover they’re really good at something or they really enjoy something,” says Entrekin.
The faculty in the art school are all working artists sharing their expertise with students. They offer insights from their careers as well as guidance and critiques to help an artist grow and hone their skills.
The Hot Shop, part of the recent expansion, is where the glass and ceramics work is done. Classes in glassblowing and flamework draw visiting artists for demonstrations, which let students manipulate heated glass into delicate pieces of art.
Other class offerings include drawing, painting, ceramics, welding, photography, printmaking, and jewelry classes. The art school’s quarterly catalog has something for every skill level and interest. The Flint Institute of Arts has become synonymous with art as they serve the patron and the artist alike and is the perfect place to discover or enhance one’s skills. With the opportunity to have studio experience under the guidance of a working professional, emerging and developing artists have an exciting opportunity right here in Flint & Genesee.
“We have people who want to build their craft who want to get better at it,” says Entrekin. “For people who are really accomplished, we are able to help them develop their studio practice, with advanced studio classes. The very best thing they can leave with is being excited to make things,” he concludes.
For more information on the programs offered at the Flint Institute of Arts + Art School or their other offerings, visit https://flintarts.org/.
