Wendy Awai-Dakroub of Honolulu and Poni Askew of Mililani were both moms and entrepreneurs seeking a quality arts education for their home-schooled children, ages 7 to 12. So they decided to launch The Art Loft, a community arts space in Kakaako that opened in February with the goal of making art accessible to everyone.

“The initial inspiration was just trying to find a place for our kids to have art classes,” Askew said. “We wanted a space where kids could create.”

As the owner of Street Grindz, which hosts the popular Eat the Street food truck events, Askew decided to make her Auahi Street office a shared space for art. Awai-Dakroub, co-owner of Kan Zaman, a Moroccan and Lebanese restaurant in Chinatown, took the helm for the new venture. The Art Loft offers classes for both children and adults as well as drop-in painting sessions.

The location at the intersection of Auahi and Cooke streets seemed perfect, according to Askew, since Kakaako has become an arts mecca. From the window at The Art Loft, the murals recently created by Pow! Wow! artists are visible across the street at Lana Lane Studios. The window itself is part of a mural, too, from the exterior.

For adults, there are beginning classes in abstract art and acrylics. For keiki, there is a songwriting class taught by songwriter and performer Kenneth Makuakane ($25 per child ages 7-14). There’s also a “Parents Night Out! Paint Party” on the third Friday and Saturday of each month so parents can drop off the kids and go on a date from 7-9 p.m. ($35 per child ages 7-12).

The goal was to offer fun art classes that are flexible, not too formal or structured. Many of the offerings are based on the type of activities the two moms were looking for.

A monthly class called “Boys Day Out! The Superhero in Me,” for instance, is designed to teach boys about self-esteem and how to deal with bullying. In the first half of the three-hour session, educator Kenny Morikawa uses role-playing and discussion to talk about peer issues; then the kids get to create their own hero in the second half, with help from illustrator Jeff Pagay.

For girls, a similar class called “Girl Power” is designed to help build self-esteem and confidence through art.

Cora Scanlan of Aiea enrolled her two boys in the superhero class recently because she wanted to offer them another activity besides sports.

“The boys had fun,” she said. “It was something different that they were exposed to, and I thought it was good for them to talk about (self-esteem) and being a superhero in a different kind of way.”

Both of her sons — Zayden Castillo, 5, and Legend Diesta, 7 — brainstormed the characteristics of a hero, describing someone who is smart, polite and helps others. They got to take their Batman-inspired superhero creations home to hang on the wall.

The Art Loft has partnered with three artists for its regular classes. Pagay, a fine artist, illustrator and owner of West Oahu Art Academy, teaches the kids’ classes. Ana Kon, a Native Hawaiian practitioner, teaches a bamboo-stamping workshop and other classes. Luke DeKneef, known for his surf art, teaches acrylic and abstract painting.

Awai-Dakroub said she feels that the arts, which are sometimes minimized in school curricula due to budget constraints, are more relevant in today’s world than ever.

“The arts are going to be really important as we have more technology and things become automated,” she said. “Arts are going to provide skills for critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Those are things robots won’t be able to do in the future.”

The Art Loft is offering a Kakaako Art Walk, a guided street tour of the Pow! Wow! murals, from 9 to 11 a.m. Sundays for $25 per person. Drop-in, do-it-yourself painting sessions are also available from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Art easels, canvases and paint are available to anyone who wants to paint for two hours at prices ranging from $27 to $45.