A Belfast couple have quit their jobs to follow their passion of teaching abstract art full time.
Chloe Mayne, a former Librarian and her partner James Shannon who managed a coffee shop quit their jobs three months ago following a brainstorming session of how they could make art more accessible to people.
Now, the pair have launched The Abstract Art Academy and are teaching classes in shopping centres and community spaces to students from the age of two to 89.
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"We have always been involved in art and we met each other at a point where we weren't really making a lot and were sort of disillusioned with where to go with our art," James said.
"We stumbled upon the idea of teaching and launched ourselves into it head first and started to promote the classes.
"After a couple of classes we decided to go into the deep end and quit our jobs to teach full time at the start of April."
The couple said the decision to quit their jobs wasn't easy and although they have the drive to do it, doing it in the middle of a cost of living crisis was a worry.
"The worst that would happen would be that it wouldn't work out," Chloe added.
"We have noticed that everyone starts to experiment a little bit on their own but one of the biggest parts of our class is having everyone know that they actually can do it and no matter what rules or standards are set in the art community or art scene, that no matter what they do it is good because it is abstract and that is the point."
James said that he sees the classes as more about building someone's self esteem and confidence rather than the art.
"If someone comes in thinking oh I can't do that, after an hour of us talking to them person to person, they come away learning that they can do it which they can apply to anything," he added.
Video by Harry Bateman.
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