The Art League - Alexandria, Virginia

Christina R

The sign-up process for the Art League is absolutely atrocious.

I’ve been a student here for several years and nothing has been done to streamline the process after patrons consistently complain about the antiquated procedures. They still do in person and faxed sign-ups inconveniently on a Monday morning. If you are choosing to test your luck through online sign-ups, the website will crash because of a mad frenzy of people trying to checkout and
they won’t increase the server capacity during that period to account for the increased load.

If you are lucky enough to get through the online sign-up, you aren’t guaranteed a spot. It is a manual process that they must complete placing students in the class.

This is a broken system and the administrators of the Art League don’t seem to care. The general attitude towards customers that express their frustration is that the Art League has plenty of demand for their classes and sign ups are working fine.

There are many factors that are increasingly frustrating about this fixable problem. This is an unacceptable process especially for the concentration of engineering and technology talent available to fix this problem in the DC area.

Carolyn Miller

The teachers have been great, the torpedo factory is very cool, but I can’t recommend it because it’s so horribly run. The woman in charge (Lizzy) is awful and really rude. They changed the class start date a bunch of times and wouldn’t refund my money; you can’t use your credit to purchase supplies; they won’t tell you what supplies are needed for the class you’re taking (you have to physically go to their store to get the list); and lastly, just signing up for a class doesn’t guarantee you’re in the class. I signed up for several and then got emails that the classes were full. It’s incredibly frustrating and honestly seems intentionally designed to take advantage of people - which sucks because the classes and teachers are awesome!

EDIT: this won’t allow me to respond so I wanted to follow up to the owner and say thank you for following up on my email and refunding the remainder of my money. I do hope that you will truly work on the admin/customer service side of the business because I otherwise really liked the school. Changing my rating to 3 stars because I do appreciate you responding.

Geoff Livingston

The Art League does many great things for the artist community within Alexandria city and its suburbs. I enjoy their gallery and their contest. At the same time, my family has registered for four classes and camps in total, and they have been hit or miss. Plus the league is really bad at communications (like they don't communicate when class will start or if it will be cancelled because of snow), prompting many a nervous phone call. It's a mixed bag.

Hilda Kroll

I try to get to the Torpedo Gallery at least once a month so I can see the current exhibit at the Art League Gallery. Paintings, sculpture, ceramics, all beautifully presented. A range of styles and prices. For those on a budget, original art note cards can be framed. Always worth a visit to just look or to buy something unique and special.

Michelle Gates

The art supply shop upstairs is my favorite art supply store in the entire Northern Virginia area. The shop is small, but it's highly curated with top quality supplies at very good prices. They also have some things (especially high quality papers sold by the sheet) that I haven't been able to find elsewhere in person.

I've taken a number of classes here in the past and learned a lot from my instructors.

If you're not an artist, this is a gem of a location to look for artwork and unique jewelry. It's often possible to meet some of the artists in the studios upstairs.

B W

I absolutely love this school! I am moving soon and will greatly miss the instructors and even the new friends I’ve made. The instructors are very patient and are passionate about teaching. I have learned so much from attending workshops and several 9 week courses!! I wished I could pick the school up and move it to my new dwelling place, but since I can’t, I will leave an awesome review 🙂

To all the instructors, Thank You! Thank you for giving of your time and knowledge to us the students! We are better artists of all kind because of you! I can only speak for myself, but I grew by leaps and bounds in my craft from being connected to this school! I am ever so thankful for the brilliant mind who was blessed by God to start this school years ago.

The education I have received was just as good or better than paying high priced tuition at a university. I pray nothing but continued blessings upon this institution!

Kirk Sigmon

In my opinion, completely unprofessional, and the sole reason why a needy girls' charity won't be able to throw a fundraiser.

I won a "corporate retreat" here through a local charity auction, and decided to use it to support a needy girls' charity in Nepal. I let my friends go for free, conditioned on them donating money to the charity. Apparently, that wasn't welcome. I quickly received a threatening call from the Art League, saying that they "never promised" an event, and even threatening to have their law firm prevent me from helping donate to charity!

This isn't even to mention the other issues I had trying to set my up in the first place - endless calls to try to set it up, vagueness about what the class actually would offer, attempts to not provide the class in the first place (they kept saying their schedule was too full to offer it at any reasonable time, then offered something ridiculous like 1 PM on a weekday), etc.

Needless to say, I'll try to find the charity another venue, but I feel completely scammed.

Sarah Concepcion

It's neat that you can go into an artist workshop and see what they work on. Sometimes they have public exhibitions too that can be interactive even. If you want to buy art though, the price is not cheap.