Meet Our Team
Allendale Leadership Team
Angela Shin | Director
David Shin | Assistant Director
A graduate of The College of New Jersey, David brings his background in visual arts and interior design to One River School. He fosters a creative environment for students, ensuring they receive the best in art education. David hopes to continue building a community of young artists and support living, working ones.
Corianne Darienzo | Assistant Director
Corianne graduated from Montclair State University with her BFA in Illustration & Animation and began working at One River in 2017. Corianne loves that One River is a "safe" place for young artists to collaborate and make art as a form of self-expression.
In-Studio Educators
Shannon McGillick
Shannon is a Manhattan-based artist and curator. She received her BFA in fine art with a focus on photography from Pace University. Her other work explores digital design, painting, sculpture, and mixed media. Shannon recently launched an artist collective in NYC, where she now curates art shows. In her spare time, she enjoys playing with her dog Luna and baking.
Renata Francesco
Graduated from Fordham University in 2019 with a BA in Visual Arts, concentrating in Painting and Drawing. As an educator, her focus is to encourage students of all ages to grow in their relationships with art by exploring traditional media with contemporary approaches. Her work is tailored to help students embrace and realize their artistic visions in a supportive and collaborative environment.
Matthew Gysin
Graduated from William Paterson University and received his BA in media & film production. Since a young age, Matt has been very passionate about the art of storytelling through film, digital animation, and theatre. His career in the arts began at various theater companies and now brings his love of digital art to One River School.
Jason Howard
Jason earned his BFA in Illustration from Syracuse’s College of Visual and Performing Arts. He created graphics for the Childrenswear and Accessories Industries, developed Characters for PBS, Warner Bros., and Marvel Licensing, and collaborated on many children’s book projects over the years. He trained and worked in the Culinary Arts, and loves teaching cooking almost as much as inspiring young artists to find their creative voice.
Virtual Educators
Abby Cheney
Cheney is a multimedia artist and educator living in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute in 2018, and has taught visual art to students ranging from preschool to undergraduate for the past six years. She creates painting, sculpture, and video that reflect our relationship with domestic space and the personal objects we carry throughout our lives. Abby excels in drawing, painting & mixed media and teaching K-12
Anthony Lawler
Lawler is a digital artist and educator working in the fields of illustration and art science. He received his MFA from Montclair State, using EEG machines to record and interpret brain waves into sound & color based dynamic installations. He has spent 10+ years working in the digital illustration and comic fields and as an Adobe certified expert, has accumulated a vast expertise on skills related to all things illustration, digital painting and sequential art.
Yasmeen Abdallah
Abdallah is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, educator, and arts advocate. Her work is featured in public, private, and traveling collections in the U.S. and abroad. Yasmeen excels at teaching traditional studio practice in drawing & painting to students of all ages, including Adults. Abdallah has been a visiting artist, lecturer, and panelist at numerous arts, cultural, and educational institutions.
Nicole Arecibia
Arecibia is a teaching artist who focuses on using drawing and painting materials to establish large-scale, mixed media shadow boxes. Nicole excels at teaching: Kids, Middle school & Teens in traditional studio practices. Besides creating and teaching art, she enjoys being active with events like obstacle course racing, volleyball and crossfit. .
Ben Rizzo
Rizzo is a fine artist (drawing & painting) living & working in New York City. With over 10 years of teaching experience, Ben applies his expertise (both in digital & traditional studio environment) to the classroom. Ben is primarily focused on teaching teens & adults, both in studio and digital.
Dan Katz
Katz is an artist & educator with a focus on hand-drawn and digitally rendered animation, illustration and comics. His work fluctuates between fictional stories, personal works, and animation experiments. He received his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and has been teaching since 2014. Dan has a personal focus on character development/design and world-building.
Jackie Salemme
Salemme is a mixed media artist and writer, working as a middle school and high school art teacher for NJ public schools. Jackie has taught fine art to students in grades K-12. She received her Fine Arts and Creative Writing degrees from Montclair State University. Her work reflects an inspiration taken from history, antiques and nature. She lives in Ocean County with her pets; an old cat, a parakeet, and hedgehog!
Erin Foley
Foley has been an art educator for the past 18 years. She has worked in private and public education and taught all age groups, even adults. Her background in mediums is vast (drawing, mixed media, painting, etc), although her true love is working in clay. She is certified in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate teaching of high school students.
Damien Torres
Torres is a freelance artist, and an educator. He has worked on comics, trading cards, book covers, and provided art for TV productions. Some of his clientele include: Marvel, Dynamite, Netflix, and HBO. Torres’ studio specialization includes penciling, inking, painting, marker work and pastels. While his digital practice primarily includes Photoshop & procreate.
Viviana Maciel
Maciel is a summa cum laude graduate of Kean University, where she received her BFA in Studio Art. She specializes in drawing and sculpture, and uses both to explore the range of human emotions. A passion for guiding others in refining their craft led her to begin her teaching journey several years ago. Since then, she had directed the Fine Art Department of a local art school before finding her calling at One River.
Kristin Stazzone
Stazzone graduated from High Point University in North Carolina in 2016 with a B.A. in Studio Art and minor in Events Management as well as traveled abroad to study at Studio Art International (SACI) in Florence, Italy. She worked as a Graphic Designer for several years prior to working at One River School of Art + Design. Kristin is a practicing oil and acrylic painter that focuses on abstract cityscapes drawing much of her inspiration from her love of traveling.
Bill Donovan
Donovan is a working artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally. He has interviewed many of the leading contemporary artists, and his writing has appeared in many publications, both in print and online. He graduated from University of Iowa with a degree in Painting. He has his graduate degree in Art History and Criticism from Stony Brook University.
Join Our Team
Career opportunities at One River School allow passionate artists, educators and lovers of art to share their love and knowledge of art and enhance the lives of people they connect with everyday.