Annely and Sally. Photo: Aivar Kullamaa, 1995

To tell everything as it happened frankly and from the beginning, we must go back to the year 1987 when I graduated from Kopli Art High School, as it is presently known, and decided to establish my own art club. Why? Our charismatic art teacher from that time, Leo Tõnisson, was always stressing how we were among the few to also receive secondary education in art and how our mission was to make sure that high-quality art education also reach as many students as possible. In those times, art lessons in mainstream schools concluded already with form 6… When there’s a will, there’s a way, and so I started my first art club in Nõmme in the autumn of that same year. One children’s group became two, then three, and the art club moved from beneath the pine-trees of Nõmme to Matkamaja (Travellers’ House) – presently known as Hopner House – on the Town Hall Square. The year was 1991. We were joined by a new addition to the family, the wonderful Great Dane puppy Sally, who started to accompany me everywhere, including the art lessons. And… what was bound to happen did happen. When you have a big, friendly and perpetually overjoyed puppy in your art lessons, it leaves its mark. A big and colourful one. It was numerous times that I overheard children asking each other, “Are you also coming to draw at Sally’s tomorrow?” So we had a name and it was time to establish our very own art school – Sally Stuudio – in the entrepreneurial atmosphere of the newly independent Estonia.

Artist talk / Kunstnikud räägivad: Björn Koop

We are open to international collaboration in the fields of contemporary art teaching, curriculum development and exhibitions. We are also highly interested in finding partner schools from different countries to give students international collaboration and art experience and engage in periodic teacher exchange.

Sally Stuudio has garnered acclaim with projects that break barriers between art and daily life and between children’s artworks and professional art. Our projects and exhibitions have over the years been characterised by an inquisitive nature, a focus on the surrounding environment, and a harmony between the aesthetic and ethical dimensions.

Examples:

—“Jazzimaal” (Jazz Painting) (since 2008) – a joint improvisational concert by students of art and musical schools in the framework of the Jazzkaar festival.

— “Eksperimenta!” (since 2011) – an international contemporary art triennial for school students.

— “Seoseid loov kunstiharidus” (Associative Art Education) (2012 to 2013) – a training project and a collection of educational materials for high school art teachers.