Folk art is a category that Wikipedia describes as: “art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic.” In today’s art world, it is super hard to receive credibility from…

Describe your business in three words.  It’s hard to do.  I loved when Nike tackled it with Just Do It.  My background and roots are in marketing and advertising and I have always felt that simplicity sells. Recently we made a cool video where we asked our students to describe One River…

One of the most interesting things to me about art is its pure connection to history. Sometimes it’s reflected in an aesthetic and how it correlated to a moment in time and sometimes it is way more literal.  Carrie Mae Weems is a socially motivated artist whose works invite contemplation of race,…

Somehow I try to see the art in everything around me.  Now, we can debate whether making cookies is an art form but when you watch and listen to 9 year old Mr. Cory from Englewood tell the story, you quickly get a sense that cookie making is seriously “articious” (sorta delicious in…

  What do you think is the most compelling thing about collecting contemporary art?  No, it’s not the money made selling it.  It’s the journey of learning and discovering new artists that you connect with.   In some ways it is sort of like when I used to listen to music and…

Football haters, stay with me for a minute.  This note is not about football, this is about excellence.   At the age of 37, Peyton Manning is back in the Super Bowl after a season where he also broke numerous records. This is on the heels of neck surgery and a…

Not sure if you caught the special on the Beatles last night, but there were so many epic moments, including watching Yoko Ono–who is now eighty years old–flop around in a surreal dance in the front row. That felt like performance art. The highlight for me was Joe Walsh and Gary…

It may be obvious that the career path of a professional artist is more difficult than most.  It requires skill, commitment, perseverance, luck, and finding people who believe in you.  One of my purest goals with One River was to provide a professional stepping stone for exceptional emerging artists by…

It’s not so easy starting and building an art school.  Take a look around…how many really cool, super successful art schools exist in the community?  How many don’t rely on grants and external funding…virtually none.I don’t ask this question to toot our horn or to offer some “woe is me”…

Homeland (don’t worry—I don’t reveal what happened!) I watched the finale of Homeland on Showtime last night and was proud that I actually watched the season finale when it aired.  Remember when watching TV was a real appointment and the best you could do was tape it on your VCR?  Not…