Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts

The Eliot School is amazing. They have the best upholstery program in the region. Their shop is great, excellent and abundant tools and materials with friendly instructors who really know what they’re doing and love to teach. Plus they are in a terrific area.

Upholstery is to furniture what corsetry is to the human body. People are generally more interested in the plush and bouncy results than the engineering that goes into making the results.
Refinishing furniture has been a long-​time hobby of mine, and I was recently able to get into the Introductory Upholstery class at the Eliot School. I’m so glad that I did. Sign up for this class, and you will learn from the ground up, in a hands-​on way, what goes into making a high-​quality piece of upholstered furniture. And, as a bonus, you will have a lovely, usable footstool that you can proudly display in your home.
Kathleen Gaskin-​Holland was an excellent teacher. The teaching style here is very hands-​on, and Ms. G-​H spent her time in the class bustling about, showing us all how to correctly attach webbing, sew down springs and then tie them down properly, and all the other detailed tasks that go into making a piece of upholstered furniture sturdy and comfortable. And after taking this course, I have a better idea of why the upholstery I have paid other people to do for me has cost so much — there’s a hell of a lot of picky hand work required.
If I can do so, I will definitely be signing up for another upholstery class, and have a list of the furniture in my house that I will be working to turn from shabby and run-​down into plushly and prettily cushioned. I’m looking forward to it.

My favorite community art school!

After walking past this school house for years, I finally signed up for some classes. I’ve now taken ²⁄₃ bookbinding classes and love them! The classes are just the right size, the instruction is spot on and beautiful supplies are provided. I was able to bring home several finished products. These classes were just $ 40 each, with a $ 10 materials fee. Very worth the time and money. Can’t wait to take more classes!

I can sincerely say that the Eliot School is like a dream to me. A dream where I am productive and surrounded by friendly strangers turning into friendly friends.
hahah… i know i know
but seriously, I am a recent Undergrad graduate and found myself pining for a different type of school lesson and finding that I really wanted back a classroom setting asap.
I have always loved the idea of upholstery and getting to know the ins and outs. I enrolled in the Upholstery class they offer and it has been a pure delight.
Instructor Seymour Beckford has amazing words about the piece he will be assisting you to transform and just good stories.
I have learned everything that I had hoped to learn thus far in the class. (decided to take it, along with the 5 other women in my class, a second time)
The school is full of charm.

It makes me sad to write this review, especially since I felt the possibilities of a community atmosphere at the Eliot school, but I was really disturbed by the use of the words, to me in the last email by the Assistant Director, Jean — «At this point, I think we just need to part ways.» (when someone who’s providing a service to you says that — HUGE RED FLAG!)
So, I signed up for private lessons with Joe for $ 65/​hour. This was expensive for me, but I really needed to get a project done for a deadline.
I was clear about what I wanted a small model of a house, with all mitered joints, because I was going to use it to cast a model. I even brought paper patterns. Joe met with me and said it was do-​able. We did the first session of three hours, one of which he gave me an hour free, it seemed to go well. (I got the hour free — because the the machines here aren’t so good — so its not your fault, his words) We didn’t finish so I suggest we meet again.
An hour into the next session, Joe proclaimed that the project was not do-​able and too complicated, because there isn’t a left-​handed table saw. He even took my piece and attempting to go forward, took it the sander and wanted to sand it down to 45 degrees (yikes). Anyhow, so I decided to cut my losses and say, okay let’s stop. He decided not to charge me for this hour. So I left with a pile of wood, and also broken-​hearted, because I had really wanted to complete this piece.
So, I wrote Jean, asking if I could get my money back, because I was clear about what I wanted in my project and felt like I should have been told that my project was not do-​able from the beginning or at minimum, warned. Not have my project unfinished, after I had spent $ 130, 4 hours of time, and $ 30 on materials. And on top of it, I now need to find and pay someone to build this model. It wasn’t anything personal against Joe, he was a nice guy, but more about professionalism.
For example, if you had a contractor who said they could do something, they wouldn’t walk away midway through the project and say it was too hard, leaving you hanging. Same concept.
But instead, I got an email that from Jean that said, we are NOT refunding you, but (as if I had won a prize) we aren’t charging you for the extra two hours Joe gave you, and «at this point, I think we just need to part ways.»

The Eliot School is like a beacon waiting to change your life, sitting so happily at the end of Brewer St.
This perfect little yellow school house is not the original site of the third oldest school in the country but it has been home to one of the best educational institutions in the nation since 1831.
I took the basic woodworking class in the fall, a six class course — cheapest of its kind in the area — teaching the fundamental skills of woodworking. We used the chop saw, table saw, planer, joiner, biscuit cutter, and power sander, among other intimidating tools.
Now I’m taking furniture design and I’m as happy as a clam. The teacher, Matt Files, is a young guy with a great, down to earth attitude about design and building. He claims the other teachers who run the open shop have «300 years of experience between them,» a pretty good set of resources for a community sustained adult art course.
Other classes I hope to someday try include drop-​in figure drawing, reupholstery, quiltmaking and every wood class they have!
One more thing: the website was recently updated and is incredibly helpful with online registration and many other resources like reading and supplies lists, faculty bios, and links to other local community art programs (like the diablo glass school in roxbury and metlwerx in waltham).
Places like this just make me so happy. The Eliot School makes life better.

Woodworking is in my family’s blood. My great grandfather was a carpenter, my Opa was a luthier and woodworker, my grandfather was a cabinet maker, and my father has a garage full of tools that, when he feels the urge, can create masterpieces out of wood.
So, I move two thousand miles away from the family and I have to pay to learn how to tap the family talent. Luckily, the Eliot School is reasonably priced, all things considered. I signed up for the Beginning Woodworking class where I
— learned to mill raw wood;
— used a table saw, planer, jointer, and other loud machines;
— got sawdust everywhere (I still have some in my purse– it’s like sand from the beach, it won’t get out);
— met several really cool people– both students and staff;
— got to feel like a bad ass when using high powered tools with big spinning blades; and
— came away with a pretty cool box that’s square and everything.
Best of all? I didn’t lose one single digit on the machines. And neither did anyone else in the class. All ten fingers remain intact for all ten students. Not bad considering not one of us had ever really used things with spinning blades before.
I’m already signed up for Furniture Design so I can create my own plans to build something fabulous in the open woodworking studio. It’s a great environment to learn in– lots of support, great teachers, and really a lot of fun.

After eying The Eliot School’s class offerings for a year, I finally decided to take the plunge and sign up for the Beginning Woodworking class with Joe Stanewick. What a great decision! The class itself was a fun, 3-​week introduction to the machines and basic techniques, resulting in a snazzy CD box with a sliding lid. I have so many ideas for other projects, which I’m looking forward to building in their Open Woodworking class. The class sizes are kept small — mine was a healthy class of six.
All of the staff I encountered were such sweethearts and passionate about sharing their knowledge. Demographics of students in my class and in those I saw going into other classes were quite mixed in terms of age and experience, which resulted in a dynamic, yet comfortable atmosphere.
The Eliot School is a charming fine arts/​crafts school, running all sorts of fascinating woodworking, sewing, upholstery, drawing/​painting, etc. classes to all age groups in the community. I want to take everything! Thankfully, (I feel) the classes are very reasonably priced — far below the cost of other crafts courses in the area. The school itself holds a great amount of historic value — the school has been in existence since 1676 and has been located in its current building since 1831! The 3-​level space is small, but well maintained and used very well. Everything about this place feels very JP, in the best possible way.

The Eliot School is a really sweet, little schoolhouse community art school located on a beautiful street in Jamaica Plain. They offer child, teen and adult art classes in everything from woodworking to sewing to painting and drawing.
They are very reasonably priced with most 6 week adult classes between $ 140 — $ 160. The teachers are really talented and super nice… you can check out their credentials and bios on the eliot school website. This is an art school where you never have to worry about being criticized for your ability level. They arent trying to make modern day Monets out of their students. It’s a comfortable, relaxing environment, where everyone is at different levels and most importantly, people are there to be creative, express themselves, and have fun!
Total bonus points for the awesome, creative environment of a turn of the century school house, on a quiet back street near the Jamaica pond. Great natural light, wooden plank floors… being in this setting really gets the creative juices flowing! …With an ancient cemetery next door and the footlight club (be sure to check our their plays, they are great!) an equally old playhouse across the street; walking down Eliot street is like walking back in time. I can picture horse and buggies and people wearing victorian clothing because of all of the turn of the century original architecture and open spaces on this street.