The Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art, an ARC approved school, located in the unique setting of Duluth, MN, is a small, private studio offering classical training programs. it is modeled after and descended from the great, traditional European Atelier system that flourished in Paris in the later half of the nineteenth century. The focus of our program is to train up an individuals level of craftsmanship based solidly within the great and unbroken western art tradition. Just as a writer learns their craft to become a wordsmith, a dancer trains their body in how to move, and a musician masters their instrument so as to let the music flow through, we train the eye and the mind so as to recreate on canvas the subtle beauties that this world offers in full abundance.

The full-time program consists of up to sixteen students total, we accept three or four a year. We keep our costs as low as possible to avoid finances prohibiting talented students from receiving a solid, practical foundation. Richard Lack whom I studied with did this for his students and we are just paying it forward.

Drawing and painting are all that we offer, there are no classroom settings or written exams. All of your time is spent in front of the easel learning to see and translate the light filled , three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface using pencil, charcoal and oil paint. Day one the student starts with a pencil in hand, and over the course of studies will systematically work their way through the program at their own pace, eight hours a day, five days a week. the cost is primarily taken up with studio rent which they will have access to 24/7-365 days a year. They will be challenged with increasingly more advanced and difficult assignments throughout the four years. The exercises are just as much about training the eye as it is about learning the actual craft.

The instructors are very clear that they are “painters who teach and not teachers who paint”. They are instructing at a practical, professional level. Teaching consists of critiques throughout each week, most often working directly on the students work directly showing them their mistakes and demonstrating how to correct them. “Talent” and “Intuition” are set aside while logical and analytical processes are taught and mastered.

Our specific focus is what we refer to as “Classical Impressionism”. We define that as “rendering form within a unified light effect” (think Vermeer, Velazquez, and the American impressionists). This foundation, which has been passed on from teacher to student going back to Jacques-louis David (1748-1825), through Paul Delaroche, Jean-Leon Gerome, William McGregor Paxton, R.H.Ives Gammell, Richard Lack (1928-2009), to Jeffrey T. Larson and Brock Larson. This methodology is an extrapolation of the tradition that came through the French Academies and was honed through the Boston school, which worked to integrate the development of French Impressionistic color to an academic training in draftsmanship, form and composition.

After over thirty-five years of working full-time professionally in his studio, Jeffrey T. Larson (head instructor and co-founder of GLAFTA) has learned that there are no “secrets of the old masters”. Rather, it is a continued refinement of the basics, tied to a solid understanding of the limitations within our materials in translating the three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface.. The only ‘secret” and key to success is time spent under the tutelage of the master artist with the trained eye, and hard work. Copies, casts and figure work are only the means to the end of training the eye to see shapes, keying values and color relationships, and the training of the mind to conceptualize form through the logical flow of light. each exercise has been carefully and specifically designed to develop each of these skill progressively, and to bring them together as a student advances throughout the program.