Running on nothing but generous donations, a backyard garden, and a passionate love of all things imaginative, therapist and artist Lynn Okun manages Kids Arts Ventura, or The Art Barn, a nonprofit creative space for children ages 5-14.
Started in 1992, the Art Barn’s original owner handed the space over to Okun a few years ago who salvaged wood, tile, and other things to make the studio what it is today.
Recycling supplies from schools, gracious benefactors, and even her own reserves, Okun not only provides the environment and the crafts that allow children to grow, but also offers little to no-cost family therapy for those who need it. 
Okun believes that the Art Barn should also be a place of learning, teaching those who venture over to the studio on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays skills such as gardening to improve confidence and self-reliance as well.
In exchange for a donation, the foods yielded from the gardens go to local Ventura residents on a 'give what you can' basis.
Despite its location behind a beautiful Victorian home, the hidden cultural treasure that is The Art Barn has seen interesting people of all kinds from bossa nova musicians to post-modern collage artists such as Steve Linden, and shows as much by the boisterous and colorful rooms of the interior.
Whether you’re inside those decorative ‘barn’ walls or tending to the varied crops outside, it is impossible not to feel inventive at the small artistic sanctuary on the corner of Thompson and Kalorama.
