Dream FREE Art focuses on the freedom and therapeutic

BY GINA GALLUCCI-WHITE Special to The News-Post

In the process of creating art, people are conditioned to follow certain rules. Stay inside the lines when completing a coloring page. Follow the contours already formed on the ceramics. Paint certain items their traditional colors. But imagine a space where there are no rules when it comes to art and the paint literally falls where it may?

Enter Dream FREE Art, a new Frederick-based art studio offering splatter art sessions, rotating craft projects and a variety of classes, including wine glass painting and wreath making.

“So often in life you have to follow the rules,” said Dream FREE Art owner Tina Harper. “There are so many set parameters that we follow that you don’t even realize it. One of the most interesting things to me, since I have been open, I noticed that when people first come in, it takes them a few minutes to get out of the mindset of ‘this is how it is supposed to be done’ and really let themselves go. I really enjoy the fact that in our studio, no two pieces of art work are alike. No one’s work is the same.”

About five years ago, Harper was working a mundane job and could “literally just feel my creativity being drained out of me,” she said. As a wife and mother of seven children, art became therapeutic and kept her in balance.

“I wanted to be able to spread that theory that art is therapeutic and art can be healing and restorative throughout the world,” she said.

She quit her job and started a traveling art studio, where she would go to people’s locations and teach art classes on various mediums.

When the COVID-19 pandemic brought her business to a halt, she poured her creativity into her family.

“We used art and creativity and social media and the trends on social media to keep us going as a family through the pandemic,” she said. “I decided to evolve the business from that point, marry the two ideas together and create an art studio where you can come in, try the trendy things that you see on social media, and just use your creative expression ... to restore your mind, to calm down, to have a good time, to lay down your stress for an hour and escape the world for a little bit.”

Her mentor, Karen Kalantzis, the Maryland Women’s Business Center senior business consultant for Frederick County, helped guide her through the process of opening Dream FREE Art. She also suggested Harper enter the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce’s annual S.H.E. Pitch Competition, a contest for female entrepreneurs in the idea and growth stages of business to win cash, non-monetary prizes and network with others. Harper was named a finalist and won the She’s Rising Award from the Maryland Women’s Business Center.

Jennifer Gerlock, the chamber’s vice president of marketing and communications, has enjoyed watching Harper’s journey from entering the contest, going through revisions, presenting on stage during the competition and now opening her business. “When she went onstage, you could just feel her personality,” Gerlock recalled. “She did a really incredible job of communicating what her vision was and also communicating her personality. She made you want to support her. Just watching her in action has been amazing.”

Dream FREE Art opened in December.

“I was realizing that, for once in my life, I was able to dream free,” she said about choosing the business name. “I was able to express myself freely and to be creative. You lose that over time ... you start to put boundaries on yourself. I don’t want that in my life, and I don’t want that in other people’s lives. I want you to be able to dream big, dream freely.”

Another unique aspect to Dream FREE Art is Harper, along with her staff, are fluent in American Sign Language. Harper’s older sister is deaf and she has known ASL for as long as she can remember. Her sister is an artist as well, so she is thrilled to offer an opportunity and a platform to her as well as others in the deaf community.

Folks can use several brushes and techniques to get paint onto canvas. Overhand or underhand brush throws or pulling the brush bristles back with their fingers are a couple of methods. “The key is to just be free,” Harper said. “Don’t overthink it.”

Harper has welcomed children as

A splatter room at Dream FREE Art, a new space in Frederick young as one into the studio, as well as senior citizens. “It is a very beginner-friendly studio,” she said. “Most people, when you hear the words ‘art studio,’ can get a little intimidat-