When I started One River School, I wanted to create an art school that focused on more than just painting.  So, we created our core program Art Shuffle® to allow students to try all aspects of artmaking by “shuffling” the projects regularly which allows them a journey across all media.

Take a look at the project above: these sculptural artworks are world class…the form, the material, the composition…you could see these in galleries in New York!

Zachary Erdmann, our Assistant Director of Education at our Englewood school described the project this way: “This project was influenced by the sculpture and installation work of Marela Zacarias, and the way she melds traditional Mexican Muralism, geometric patterns, and fabric-like undulating forms. This project was an interesting and out-of-the-box way for our teen students to consider sculptural form, pattern design, color theory, and craftsmanship. The results here speak for themselves and we are so proud of the amazing work our teens are creating at our school and they really enjoyed this lesson”.

Don’t get me wrong, we spend a significant amount of our projects working on fundamentals and teaching drawing and painting.  But it is a testament to our commitment to be different when we can teach our students to go beyond the basics.