Studio 58 in Sharon Making Art for Nearly 20 Years

Elaine Goldstein started Studio 58 in her Sharon home 20 years ago and she said it’s been quite a ride.

“I was a fifth grade teacher and I had given up my tenure when my children came along,” she said. “My husband did a lot of traveling and I needed to be here.”

Goldstein said she started teaching one cartooning class at the Cottage Street School, and realized she had something.

“They said they had to turn away 150 kids, they all wanted to my course on cartooning,” she said. “Then one of the parents said why don’t you start your own school, my son really loved your course.”

She said she then redid her sun room into a studio and started to get a following. She said it came through word of mouth.

“We developed a following through having the students here,” she said. “The kids were just very happy here. Now, I have a Web site. That’s the way the technology is going; we get a lot of people from the Web site. Now I have students from Canton, Foxborough, Stoughton, Easton, Wrentham, Raynham; they come from all over the place.”

Goldstein said her love of art came very early on for her. She said she was in kindergarten the teacher first called her up to the painting easel.

“When it was my turn to paint, I would get so excited,” she said. “I knew right then and there. As soon as I got out of college, I took every art course I could possibly take from private people as well as classes at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design].”

Goldstein said the last 20 years have been good for her, because she keeps the class sizes small, only eight students per class.

“Class size is very important,” she said.  “Middle schools students stay together, kindergarten to grade one are together and the upper elementary students are together. It’s teaching time for the first half of the class and then they can pick out what they want to do.”

She added mixing media is also very conducive to the learning experience.

Goldstein said she has received awards for her work over the years but she said it’s very rewarding to see her students really succeed in their work. She said recently some of her students won the Boston Globe’s Scholastic Art Awards for 2012 and 2013.

“We had somebody win a gold award each year we submitted our artwork,” she said. “There are 14,000 pieces of work to be judged. That was unbelievable with the competition that high in Massachusetts. The gold and silver awards had their work exhibited at the Transportation Building in Boston.”

Goldstein said the kids recently wanted to create a piece in memory of the Boston Marathon bombing in April. She said they created a piece on a large poster board that was displayed recently in Copley Square and will be put in the Boston archives.

“I was really proud,” she said.

Studio 58 is located at 58 Deb Sampson St. and is open by appointment.