Valentine’s Day was months ago, but the nonprofit Northwind Art School has kept the spark alive this summer with its monthly two-hour “Date Night for Buddies and Sweet-Arts” class, the first of which took place in June, and the next of which is set for Thursday, July 11.

Teaching artists Dana Sullivan and Kate Lovejoy come up with new projects for each class, and Northwind spokesperson Diane Urbani noted “all kinds of supplies” are provided for the student couples, who “don’t need any art experience” for what she deemed “a lighthearted evening.”

In June, in the Northwind classroom at Fort Worden State Park, Sullivan taught his students — who included two sets of friends, two long-married couples, and a set of new parents — how to make mobiles of mixed-media artworks that told stories. 

A week and a half before that June class, Vanessa had given birth to she and husband Dave’s daughter, and the class was their first night out.

“Grandma and grandpa were home with the baby and her older sister, a toddler,” said Urbani, who elaborated that Vanessa and Dave constructed a mobile with a blue-and-green model of the Earth made of tissue paper, below two wire stars representing their two daughters, with a pink ribbon as a centerpiece. 

Linda and Dena were friends who met while each were holding signs supporting the people of Gaza, and their mobile was about food for all the world’s children, prominently featuring a paper watermelon.

Another set of friends, Carol and Maria, each made her own simple mobile, with Carol’s mobile focused on a blossoming flower. Maria’s mobile centered on a dancing figure, “transformed by the joy of life,” since Maria had been “thinking about how every moment has the possibility of transformation.”

Ryan and Jessica, married two decades, mixed driftwood and paper cutouts in their mobile, including one of a Volkswagen bus, in memory of their first date, a road trip to New Orleans. Jonathan and Betsy’s driftwood mobile was populated by sea creatures, including an orange-and-blue giant octopus, due to their shared love for the ocean.

Teacher Sullivan knew Betsy as a “stellar” cookie-baker, and asked her to come to the next “Date Night” with cookies, so Jonathan and Betsy have already signed up for the July 11 class, along with a promise to bring cookies.

The next sessions are set for July 11, Aug. 8 and Sept. 12 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

For more information, including how to sign up, visit northwindart.org.