One River School of Art + Design

Monday Thoughts from Founder & CEO Matt Ross One of the coolest things about our summer camp experience is the Friday Exhibition / Recap. Parents and friends join us at all of our schools and our student campers get to present their artwork / outcomes. What makes this most fun for me is hearing our Teens and kids present in their words what they learned and what the experience was like. Besides growing as artists, this experience allows our members to demonstrate tremendous growth in their ability to present their thoughts and ideas… incredibly valuable skills that are just another one of the rewards of Summer Camps at One River School. Check out the faces in this photo collage and go view all of the upcoming Summer Camp options for July at One River School. See you on Friday…

Monday Thoughts from Founder & CEO Matt Ross It has been almost 250 years since we declared our independence. I am grateful to be an American and notwithstanding the challenges we face today, we continue on our journey as a country that is continuing to evolve and to do its best across a magnitude of complicated topics. Having said that, as an art educator I am enamored with the evolution of incredible artwork that celebrates our history and I wanted to share one of my favorites with you. Jasper Johns created “Three Flags” in 1958 and said that he painted the flag time because it came to him in a dream. He also was interested in painting things that he said “are things the mind already knows.” That is, things that we see in our daily lives that the artist doesn’t make up. I wish you the best for your holiday and hope that we can all “see things” that bring us happiness and joy. hashtag #IndependenceDay2024 hashtag #ModernArt

Monday Thoughts: Grow or Fold from Matt Ross For the last 20 years, I’ve invested my life in creative education, and I have seen the blessing of what it can do for adults and kids through the lens of my experiences as CEO of School of Rock and One River School. The metaphor, “grow or fold”, is a concept that I have grabbed onto and it offers some compelling things to think about. I am thrilled to share that I am in the final stages of completing my first book which will be available next year and the current working title is “Grow or Fold”. The story is a prescriptive memoir that shares a bit of my journey with a recipe for helping others to transform their lives in middle age. Very simply, we are growing or we are declining and when it comes to our intellectual, spiritual or creative growth, the choice is up to us. The journey of life is one part purpose, one part professional & one part personal…managing this three-legged stool requires you to challenge yourself to continue to grow and think differently. Think about it. https://lnkd.in/eFwBk5k4

Monday Thoughts: Showtime from Matt Ross It is showtime at One River School … each of our locations have either had their official Student Exhibition opening or it is about to happen. Either way, our fifteen locations in six states are celebrating the amazing efforts of our students and team, and having previewed a bunch of the artwork, I am so impressed.   Every year our innovative projects stretch our student’s imagination and skill. It is a time for greater focus and motivation and this culminates in significant creative growth and artistic outcomes that makes us all so proud. Visit your school and check out the presentation.   Artmaking helps to transform how we think and sharing it with the world allows us to let our guard down and take in some feedback. This informs how we approach our future projects and the circle continues every time you exhibit your work.   It’s Showtime!!! https://lnkd.in/eFt5txG8

Monday Thoughts: Artist Jeffrey Gibson from Matt Ross Artists like Jeffrey Gibson inspired me to create One River School and these days Jeffrey’s art and his personal story are inspiring others across the world. He is representing the United States this year in the Venice Biennale and this recognition is so deserving given both the unique art that he makes and the wonderful life journey that he has been on.   Jeffrey Gibson is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent and he incorporates elements of Native American art and craft into his practice, creating a rich visual and conceptual dialogue between his work and the histories that inform it. CBS Sunday Morning did a wonderful piece on him last week.   We often say at One River School that one of our core elements is that “we teach through the lens of living artists”. And, there are so may rich and moving lessons when you study the life and work of Jeffrey Gibson. https://lnkd.in/eTC9Ages

Monday Thoughts: Frank Stella from Matt Ross We have all seen these paintings but, I’m not sure that we’ve all spent the time to really contemplate with Frank Stella meant to the art world and to our culture today. Stella died yesterday at 87 and left a big, bold and colorful mark on the world. In 1959, Frank Stella’s “black paintings” challenged our senses and set in motion a career that spanned more than six decades. He was a painter, sculptor and printmaker whose practice stands as one of the icons of the minimalist and post-painterly abstraction art movements. When the Whitney Museum reopened in October 2015, they chose Frank Stella for their benchmark exhibition, and it was among the most compelling exhibitions I’ve ever seen. Very simply, Stella influenced a generation or two of artists who are working today and his use of color and his bold artistic sensibility will be remembered for generations to come. https://lnkd.in/dtsbWr-t

The Kindness Project by Matt Ross One of the things I am most proud of at One River School is our ability to “Teach Life Lessons Through Art”. This month across our network of schools, teen students participated in The Kindness Project, as part of our commitment to honor Autism Awareness Month. Students were tasked with the challenge of creating imagery set within a monochromatic blue color scheme and the results just blew me away. Take a look here. In addition, we exhibited their art in malls across the country and sold prints to raise money for local organizations that work with kids with Autism. These moments help to bring us together. They inspire the community. And, we get to shed a light on and provide support for people and families that struggle with Autism. https://lnkd.in/eyUf6xKQ

The Audacity of Richard Serra by Matt Ross When I began thinking about starting One River School, I was inspired by the audacious thinking that went into making bold contemporary art and I wanted to create a program that allowed us to “focus on the art of today”. Everyone knew about Picasso and Van Gogh, but I was disappointed that most people didn’t know about artists like Richard Serra, who died this past weekend at age 85. Serra was an unrivaled postwar sculptor with a diverse practice. He made work by splashing molten lead on walls and casting forged steel into great arcs of solid metal, which curve and bend transforming spaces and create a visceral experience. His 2007 exhibit at MOMA and his 2022 exhibit at the Guggenheim in Bilbao almost defies rational thinking. Click on those links to see what I mean. There is something that I admire about artists who stretch themselves to achieve unthinkable outcomes. And, given the magnitude of his achievements, I felt compelled today to recognize the life and passing of Richard Serra. https://lnkd.in/eQKM6Xzz

Benjamin Klein from Matt Ross I love when I walk into one of our schools and see dazzling art on our walls. It makes me feel like we are doing our job by sharing serious work from world class artists in communities that don’t get to engage with contemporary art too often. Benjamin Klein has an exhibition that is now open at our school in Montclair, NJ and it is his second show with us. As you can tell from the image, Ben’s work is vibrant, colorful and ambitious in the way it challenges our senses. I often think of rich color in paintings as the equivalent to spice in food, and this work amounts to a spicy broth. Benjamin Klein was born in Chicago and grew up in Montreal, Quebec. His paintings depict a rich but ambiguous landscape of dreamlike scenery and characters. Hallucinatory colors, strange environments, and unexplained scale shifts inhabit the space as much as do the figures themselves, who interact and confront one another in quietly poetic, charged psychodramas. Visit any one of our locations right now and you will get a taste of “the art of today”. I really feel that is an important thing to support the artist community, so if you have any interest in owning a painting, connect with our team and I’m sure they can walk you through the process. https://lnkd.in/eBp-EB3a

Improving Mental Health Through the Arts from Matt Ross The relationship between the arts and mental health is well established and there is growing evidence that the arts can be used to help people with anxiety, depression and other issues that impact us. Making art as a form of mental health treatment dates back to the mid-20th century, when soldiers returning from the battlefields of World War II were left with a condition that was known as “shell shock,” but is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans painted, drew, sculpted and made other forms of art to help process what they’d witnessed and experienced at war. Experiences like trauma are very difficult to articulate into words, so therapies that can support and connect patients with nonverbal expression are really the foundation of the creative arts therapies. Having taught thousands of art students of all ages, I can attest to the enhanced mood and happiness that people of all ages derive from artmaking. https://lnkd.in/e7snQb8k