Painter couple launch new art school

The Flathead Valley’s newest art school has been in business just over two months, but already budding artists of all ages have flocked to Glacier Art Academy.

“We’ve so appreciated the supportiveness of the community with us,” said Jennifer Li, who is operating the school with her husband, Nicholas Oberling. “It’s been a really, really nice response.”

Li and Oberling are Kalispell painters who have been studying and creating art all their lives. Their work is well-known in the Flathead Valley, where they have lived since 1998.

They have taught other art classes over the years, but the idea for a full-fledged art school was born in February.

“I had just turned 50, and I was looking at the rest of my life, like you’re supposed to, like the cliche,” Oberling said, laughing. “I said I would really like to do something that has a legacy, and we were talking about what that could be. Jenny and I both came to the conclusion rather quickly that what we really wanted was to open a school.”

That desire was due in part to the couple’s training at the Art Students League of New York, where some of the nation’s most distinguished artists teach. Oberling studied there for a decade, Li for 12 years.

That training gave them both insight into how to help other artists, Li said.

“Sometimes people come in [and might say], ‘I’ve never been able to draw a nose,’” she said. “We can say, ‘If you look at it like this, it might help you.’”

Once she and Oberling made the decision to open a school, the details fell into place with astonishing speed. The couple went into town to run errands and bumped into an old friend, Bill Goodman, who owns the KM Building in downtown Kalispell.

“He immediately got us to look at a space downstairs in the KM Building,” Oberling said. “He gave us a deal, and we were very happy. By that afternoon, we had a school.”

They had the “empty shell of school,” at any rate, he added. “We did it kind of backwards. We didn’t have a business plan, so we had to come up with one.”

Oberling and Li both had administrative experience from the Art Students League and years of experience as self-employed artists to help them create the plan for the school. It didn’t take long for them to formulate a workable plan, and by March, Glacier Art Academy was up and running.

They’ve split the teaching duties, with Li instructing children and Oberling leading adult classes. The young artists in Li’s classes range in age from 5 to 14.

“I didn’t know how that was going to work out at first,” she admitted. 

So far, it has worked out just fine. Even if everyone is working on the same project, older students can take a more advanced approach and get just as much out of the day’s lesson as younger children.

Oberling’s adult classes are likewise full of artists of all levels, from novices to more advanced artists. They also have a variety of strengths and backgrounds, and, he said, all of them benefit from the wide variety of subjects covered.

“Each week we do something different,” he said “If you do a good still life, your landscapes improve. If you do a good landscape, you can bring that knowledge back into creating a good portrait. It all kind of ties together.”

Since Glacier Art Academy opened in March, the community has been nothing but supportive, Li said. Eager artists of all ages have taken classes, and other professional artists have helped the new school.

“We’re just so grateful people have been so enthusiastic and supportive,” Li said. “It’s nice. We feel really like people are on our side with this, and that’s been great.”

For more information about Glacier Art Academy, call 260-5666 or visit glacierartacademy.com.

Kristi Albertson, editor of This Week in the Flathead, may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.