Our New York City Story
SPARK started in the small Upper West Side studio apartment of Sebastian Alappat. After a friend mentioned he should teach art to kids, he took it to heart and started with one student at his dining room table. Through a connection to a local school, Sebastian began running summer camps in his NYC backyard with the support of his wife Amanda.
In the early first years, Sebastian focused on teaching just art but being an avid yogi, he realized there was more that he could offer to make this small business stand out. He completed a WeeYogis certification for kids yoga as well as Mission Be certification to become a mindfulness educator. These two new elements of yoga and meditation in addition to art changed everything.
In order to reach more kids, Sebastian needed to hire his first Teaching Artist to continue to grow the program. As a fellow creative, he saw the tremendous value in teachers who were also artists on the path to honing their unique crafts and talents and loved working with kids. Now Spark employs 10 Teaching Artists and is always looking to work with who share the same vision of helping kids
Because of Spark’s success, he outgrew its humble apartment beginnings and decided to open up his own studio on the Upper West Side. Over the years, Spark has had multiple spaces but now employs a gorgeous sun lit studio on West 72nd that has become our base of operations.
Sebastian has been able to leverage the best of what the city has to offer to bolster and enhance Spark. There are regularly scheduled trips to the BEST museums in the world, from The Met, MOMA, Guggenheim, or the Museum of Natural History. With sketch books in hand, they draw, observe and develop an appreciation for some of the best artwork ever made. Spark also loves to use Central Park and Riverside Park as a way to forge a connection between kids and nature.
In the last decade since Spark’s inception, Sebastian and his talented team have taught and served thousands of kids. Currently, in over 20 schools as an enrichment provider, Spark continues to spread to Brooklyn, Long Island and now his new home state, Pennsylvania. Spark has multiple offerings from classes to birthday parties, holiday and summer camps, portfolio prep programs for kids looking to get into prestigious art high schools as well as pods, privates and virtual classes. In the spring of 2025, he will be launching a forest school based in New York to further cultivate the vision of using nature as yet another powerful tool for children’s wellbeing. In 2024, he also created Spark Arts Inc, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to bring the arts to underserved communities.
2024-2025 Holiday Camps
The school year is here and we have the entire year of camps mapped out! When school is out, we’ve got you covered. Sign up for our holiday camps and get your kids out of the house and inspired with us!
