In Waunakee, art studio finds larger space, expands classes

With more classes and space, Lyon Road Art Studio & Academy has found a new home on Frank H Street in the Waunakee business park.

Now, three instructors bring a variety of specialties for students of all ages, and the larger space also offers the opportunity for open studio time, when kids and adults can purchase a canvas and use the paints, brushes and other materials to create on their own.

Kaitlin Walsh founded Lyon Road Art Studio and has expanded the instruction, adding an academy to the business. The Sun Prairie High School graduate opened her Waunakee location in 2021 right on Main Street, but outgrew it.

“I needed more space for the printing and shipping side of things,” she said.

While she thought teaching classes would be a minor part of her business, she found a greater demand existed.

She recently hired two Madison artists to teach classes. Some may know Poornima Moorthy’s work from a recent cover of Isthmus. A visual artist who does digital drawings, Moorthy has been the artist of residence at Sequoya Public Library and is now completing a residency at the Monroe Street Public Library in Madison.

A graduate of Alverno College, Moorthy has a fall exhibit at the Overture Center and will have one of her prints at the Madison Municipal Building.

“I teach all over the place,” she said, including at her son’s school and as a leader of workshops.

Walsh said she appreciates that Moorthy brings a different skillset to the academy.

Moorthy described having students do doodle drawings and doodle booklets.

Originally from Milwaukee, Banks taught special education in Madison for 25 years. He has a master’s degree in fine arts from UW-Madison, and has completed murals, including one for a New Song Church in Henderson, Nevada. Banks works in a variety of media, including oils, watercolors, and pastels.

Banks brings diversity to the academy. He spoke of bringing form and layering to his subjects, as often in conversations about African Americans and other minorities, there is a “flattening,” he said.

“We are layers, not a flattened cartoon,” Banks said.

Walsh is known for her abstract watercolor painting of anatomy and said she appreciates that her instructors can bring greater diversity to the academy, not only in media.

Workshops in July will include pet portraits and intro to floral, with adult classes in oil painting and figure drawing, teen classes in pastel and creative art journals, and kids classes in unruly journals and impressionist paintings. Classes for little ones are also offered.

Walsh began Lyon Road Art after the premature birth of her first son. As she describes in a news release, “Her doctors’ care and expertise inspired Kaitlin to use her medical illustration degree to paint anatomy in a way that inspires respect for the human body, glorifying its beauty and strength.”

A permanent display of her work was recently installed at the Children’s Hospital and Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and she has a show called Exquisite Anatomy opening at the SSM Monroe Health Center in Monroe, Wisconsin this month.

Walsh seems excited about the open studios she plans to offer, as well.

“A lot of young people struggle with mental health,” she said, adding that art has a calming effect, and the studio could offer a refuge during anxious times.

“If you’re feeling that life is too much, you can come and create,” she said.

Community members are invited to celebrate the new space at a New Digs Dip Party. They can bring a dip to be entered into a contest for the best dip.

“I like dips,” Walsh said. “It’s not my first dip party.”

Co-hosted by Create Waunakee, music, drinks and supplies to create will be part of the evening from 6-9 p.m. June 22.

For information about Lyon Road Art Academy, visit www.lra-academy.com