Arizona native, Kraig Foote, opened Art One Gallery, Inc. in the Old Town Scottsdale Arts District in 1993, solely to provide gallery space to up-and-coming student and local Arizona artists. At the time, Foote had been working at the Scottsdale Design Center and living with an art instructor from ASU, who began allowing his students to create at their house because they truly had nowhere else to go. These kids were literally dumpster diving for supplies. It was here when Kraig had the realization these students had abundant talent, yet lacked money and support from the community to truly flourish in the industry. Using his experience in the design world, along with an existing clientele base, Kraig saw an opportunity to start his own business. Shortly thereafter, he awoke late one night to write these words across his bedroom chalkboard: “Open a gallery for student artists”. 

As an extension of the gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, the Art One Foundation exists as a separate nonprofit organization dedicated to providing financial assistance to underprivileged student artists. It is a reinvention of Kraig Foote’s first nonprofit, the Newlon-Foote Foundation, which began in 2004 with the same purpose: to provide art supplies, tuition assistance, and other art-related expenses to up-and-coming high school and college artists. With the community’s support, hundreds, if not thousands of student artists’ lives, have been touched.