The Gratitude Tree
As we move through the holiday season towards the end of the year, I wanted to share an artwork / graphic that I stumbled on a few years ago that has resonated with me. It’s called “The Gratitude Tree” and if you take a minute and really stare at this…
Read More
A Moment to Pause and Reflect
There is no American holiday like Thanksgiving, and there is no holiday that provides a better opportunity to pause and reflect on what we are grateful for. This has been an intense year, and it seems like time ticks by so fast these days while the noise and discontinuity hum…
Read More
Veterans Day
Every week when I sit down to write my Monday Thoughts, once I decide the topic I try and find an image that blends interesting artistic qualities into the message that I’m trying to convey. I’m an arts educator and love the fact that we could take any topic and…
Read More
The Day After Tomorrow
I run an art school because my mission in life is “to be positive and to help people find their magic and their creative inspiration”. I wasn’t built to be in politics and it’s even hard for me to talk about it because everything is so layered and so multi-faceted.…
Read More
Have You Ever Thought About Collecting Art
Not sure if it ever crossed your mind, but art collecting isn’t only for the super-rich. In 2010, when I was just beginning to think about the idea of building One River School, I started to research and take classes to better understand contemporary art, and along the way, I…
Read More
Summer Wheat
One of the most fun parts of my life is connecting with artists to understand what goes into their craft. It takes massive time, effort, and commitment to cut through the clutter and artist Summer Wheat is one artist that is doing some really special things that I want to…
Read More
Own a One River School Franchise
One of the greatest joys I have had in my career has been creating business ownership opportunities within the arts. Almost twenty years ago, I joined the School of Rock as CEO. We quickly began franchising and to this day I have maintained such amazing relationships with our earliest franchise…
Read More
The Inspiration of Eddie Martinez
Sometimes things just hit you instantaneously. That’s how I felt when I first saw Eddie Martinez’ artwork. It was 2011 and I was deep into the process of thinking about starting One River School when I stumbled on Eddie’s paintings at an art fair. At the time, I remember…
Read More
This Week…Plan Your Plan
Every year there is something great about the week before Labor Day and something that I also find modestly unsettling. I guess that’s normal human behavior given the fact that summer seems to be grinding to a halt, while September brings a greater sense of seriousness as people head back…
Read More
Olympic Inspiration
Forgive me for the back to back Olympics inspired Monday Thoughts, but I had a compelling personal moment on Friday that led to this. Steph Curry is undoubtedly a wizard and one of the greatest basketball players ever. In fact, he had a fairytale performance in the gold medal game…
Read More