John Solomon Sandridge

!One-Great-Thing! (OGT) is a movement to promote individual change and mindset shift to achieve successful relationships and a happy life. Sandridge birthed the concept and wrote a 35-page book of the same title based on his experience studying and practicing self-help and personal growth for over forty years. His message to "change your attitude" is simple yet powerfully motivated by his desire to influence a generation of children, youth and young adults to use their imagination to change the world, save the future, and create a better place for everyone. To spread the OGT message, Sandridge has assembled a powerhouse creative and consulting team to develop videos, music and content, that includes accomplished music producer and songwriter Terry Coffey, videographer Jason Knotts, videographer Nick Lang, actors David "Dae" Sandridge and Judah Sandridge, and author and radio host Frances Irene. The team plans to launch the OGT campaign in summer 2015.

Sandridge's artwork has been collected internationally and some notable collectors include celebrity radio personality Tom Joyner, retired business executive Al Joyner, Atlanta business executive Mack Wilbourn, business executive Bernard Bronner and president of Bronner Bros., former NFL offensive tackle Howard Ballard, actress Beverly Todd, singer Larry Blackmon of Cameo, singer Dionne Warwick, and President Barack Obama, who was given a Sandridge painting by Mack Wilbourn during a 2012 visit to Atlanta. Dr. Douglas Highland, former director of the Birmingham Museum of Art, commissioned a painting of his wife, Tedia Highland, and six of Sandridge's Black Western-themed sculptures were bequeathed in 2013 by the Wideman family to Athens State University in Athens, Alabama.

Sandridge established the Number 2 Pencil Foundation, Inc., in 2011 as a 501(c)(3) art education nonprofit in Chelsea, Alabama. The organization's mission is to inspire creativity and imagination through visual arts while helping students to develop cognitive, critical thinking, verbal and reading skills. The Foundation hosts workshops, trainings and art education programs and creates products, such as books, art kits and T-shirts for youth and young adults throughout Alabama. In 2014, Sandridge through the Number 2 Pencil Foundation, instructed a group of high school and college students in a mural workshop and guided them in creating an outdoor mural for a local business.

Sandridge has been publicly recognized for his artistic contributions with the Distinguished Service Award from Gadsden State Community College (2011), Governor of Alabama Award, City of Gadsden Award, and the keys to the cities of Birmingham, Alabama; Gadsden, Alabama; Rainbow City, Alabama; and Fairfield, Alabama. In February 2019, Solomon was named 19th on the list of 100 notable people in Shelby County, Alabama.

An aesthetically, divinely and ancestral-inspired art style, Numinousneoism Art, was developed in 2010 when Sandridge created 100 pieces of uniquely original artwork. The transformative art style focuses on using spiritual messages and imagination coupled with a diverse collection of visual elements to create artwork infused with Black American heritage and feminine energy principles of warmth, surrender, openness and trust. Sandridge says that the art "contains all previous and future art styles – cubism, expressionism, impressionism, realism, etc. – and most importantly, captures the expressions of our ancestors, the original Black Africans." More than 400-plus Numinousneoism™ Art paintings and sculptures, along with six original handwritten books, have been produced and sold or for sale with Sandridge creating more on a daily basis.

Sandridge continued to maintain a relationship with The Coca-Cola Company in which he was commissioned in 1997 to paint a portrait of Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas, and served as a feature artist for The Coca-Cola Company's Las Vegas gift store opening. After working with the global soft drink manufacturer, Sandridge became an art educator for the Gadsden, Alabama City School system, and was instrumental in helping to develop The Gadsden City Arts Program.

Prior to that, however, as metro Atlanta prepared for the 1996 Centennial Summer Olympic Games, Sandridge was commissioned by the Olympic Soccer Committee to create limited edition prints and a limited edition bronze sculpture. Sandridge has also illustrated numerous books, including The Bridal Wreath Bush and The Little Known Black History Facts, featured on The Tom Joyner Morning Show and through a marketing venture in 2000 with The McDonald's Corporation, The Coca-Cola Company and celebrity radio personality Tom Joyner.

He was licensed by Coca-Cola International from 1990 to 1996 allowing him to use their images and bottle designs in his artwork, making him the first Black American licensed by the company to create paintings. He would go on to design paintings using Black American themes that would become Coca-Cola art collectibles in the form of serving trays, note cards, prints and other memorabilia. His first original Coca-Cola painting sold for $30,000, which at that time was the highest he had earned for a single painting. The value of his later works reached up to $1.5 million.

Sandridge Signs was the first of many ventures that Sandridge established over a forty-year period. In the late 1980s, he closed the sign company and worked as a full-time painter while opening Sandridge Art Studio and Gallery. For nine years he taught private classes and art groups. In 1994, Black Enterprise Magazine recognized Sandridge's successful art distribution niche selling limited edition prints and figurines. Next, he began focusing on natural healing and well-being while studying naturopathic medicine and developing and marketing an herb supplement line.

Even though Sandridge had no formal training or art education, his intuitively unique style and hand painted talent of billboards caught the attention of The Coca-Cola Company in the early 1970s. Working for an outdoor sign company, Sandridge painted a realistically, eye-catching image of Niagara Falls featuring the iconic Coca-Cola bottle and logo design on a 14 ft x 48 ft billboard. So popular was the sight that the billboard won an award, prompting representatives from The Coca-Cola Company to drive from Atlanta, Georgia, to Gadsden, Alabama, to preview Sandridge's artwork. Feeling proud of the attention his craftsmanship had attracted, Sandridge recognized that the weight of the adverse racial overtones of the time would not allow him the recognition he deserved. He was not even given a formal introduction to the men who were captivated by his work. But not one to sit idly by and accept racism or tolerate blatant disrespect towards his work ethic and creative abilities, he soon left that company.

John Solomon Sandridge (born May 10, 1950) is an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, author, educator, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is notably recognized as the first and only black artist licensed during the early 1990s by The Coca-Cola Company to incorporate African-American themes in their artwork, and being selected as a commissioned sculptor by the Olympic Soccer Committee during the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia.