Nathaniel Santa Cruz, a U.S. Marine veteran, is a doting dad of four and a faithful husband. Mr. Santa Cruz is also a passionate artist, author, and composer. Together with his wife, Lisa, he is working to inspire the world’s children toward the path of goodness and beauty through his work at Wondergarten, a preschool dedicated to Waldorf-inspired learning.
With their shared dream of protecting “the kingdom of childhood” and cultivating childhood imagination, the Washington-based couple endeavors to make ordinary mundane things come alive with their original artistic creations: stories, music, and their now-viral chalkboard art.
“Evil cannot be known apart from goodness. Goodness and beauty must come first. It must be the foundation,” Mr. Santa Cruz told The Epoch Times.
Today, the couple is busy creating an early childhood curriculum, which will include lessons, stories, songs, and “recipes for every week of the year.” Mr. Santa Cruz says educating children entails nurturing their whole being: their heart, body, mind, and soul. It requires not only healthy food and mental stimulation but also nourishment for their hearts and souls in the form of goodness and beauty.
“That’s exactly what we aim to do here at Wondergarten,” he said. “It is of my deepest convictions that children, if they are to flourish, must be surrounded by beauty, not just in art but in every possible form. Beauty is necessary for the soul to survive.
“Today, we are a society of souls starved for beauty. We [at Wondergarten] take great pains to ensure that everything in the environment is beautiful, from the toys to the utensils, from the books to the bathroom, to our attire, and yes, especially my art, songs, and stories.”
The Journey
The couple’s journey so far has been anything but easy.For most of his life, art had been a far-off dream for Mr. Santa Cruz. As a young man, he struggled to believe he could support his family with it, so he joined the Marine Corps at the age of 20. For Mrs. Santa Cruz, art and dance had always been at the forefront—and that’s what brought them together.
“Two weeks before leaving for boot camp, I met my wife, Lisa, swing dancing at Century Ballroom in Seattle,” he said. “While I don’t believe in love at first sight, this was pretty close.”
Mrs. Santa Cruz, a ballerina at the Evergreen City Ballet, was smitten too. A week after meeting, they were committed to each other. The couple maintained a long-distance relationship for the next three years, as Mr. Santa Cruz was away serving in the Marine Corps. When he returned, in 2015, they got married.
“Once we were married, we moved together to Jacksonville, where I finished the last two years of my enlistment,” he said.
Though Mr. Santa Cruz was in the Marine Corps, the artist in him was always eager.
“While in boot camp, I was caught doodling during a brief,” he said. “My drill instructor had me stand at attention and, in the middle of an auditorium full of 400 other recruits, forced me to eat my drawing—and I did. At attention, I stuffed the drawing into my mouth, chewed it, swallowed it, and sat back down. It’s hard not to laugh when thinking about moments like these, but it’s not the first time I got in trouble as an artist while in the Marine Corps.”
For someone who has been an artist for as long as he can remember, Mr. Santa Cruz says, he “wasn’t quite sure if he could use his talents” as a Marine. However, things changed when he became a military mapmaker.
“After basic training, I went on to become a certified Geospatial-Intelligence Analyst, where I learned how to make maps using Geographic Information Systems (GIS),” he said. “I discovered a unique place for my talent there because most maps these days look awful. While I excelled in my analysis, I also became known to make maps beautiful; worthy to be hung on a wall. I thought I had found my place in society.”
Believing that he had found his life trajectory, even after his military service, Mr. Santa Cruz plunged confidently into the future. After earning a Master of GIS (MGIS) from the University of Washington, he became a program manager for Google Maps for the next two years managing 10 different teams.
During this time, the couple welcomed twin boys. He knew he must prioritize spending time with his growing family.
“I resigned my position at Google for a job much closer to home, working as the senior GIS Analyst for Joint Base Lewis-McChord, in Washington,” he said. “Then, 2020 had arrived, and I was working mostly from home. But in 2021, as things cleared up, and they called everyone back to work, I decided to resign that position to stay home with my family with hopes of finding a remote job—only, after six months of interviews, nothing showed up.”
It was during this time of unemployment that Mrs. Santa Cruz and her mother, Karen—a public school educator of 40 years—were making plans to start a little preschool for their twin boys.
Watch the video:
Starting the Pre-School
The family was introduced to an educational philosophy called Waldorf, which employs art as an integral part of instruction. Mr. Santa Cruz began helping with the preschool, which got his mind churning, and he began to create artwork.“I began to write weekly children’s stories about a squirrel who discovered four gnomes in a garden—Wondergarten. Then I began to write children’s songs, and, soon thereafter, began illustrating these stories on chalkboards,” he said.
After posting an Instagram reel of the art in September 2022, it instantly became a sensation, garnering over 100,000 followers. Witnessing their ever-growing online presence and impact, Mr. Santa Cruz’s focus shifted.
“By that time, I had given up the job search and began to support the school full-time,” he said.
Creating Art for Children
To support their early childhood curriculum, Mr. Santa Cruz began to write, compose, and illustrate chalkboards.“This is when I was given the opportunity to create as an artist again—not for me, but for my children,“ he said. ”I continued to write stories, which I later titled ‘The Gnomes of Wondergarten,’ compose music for lessons, and illustrate monthly chalkboards depicting scenes from my stories.”
Sharing their work online, the couple continued to fill their global audience with wonder. Recently, they posted another reel of his February chalkboard, which also went viral.
“[It] gained over 60 million views,” Mr. Santa Cruz said. “Lisa helped put things in perspective when she said that only 19 million people watched the Oscars this year; more people watched my chalkboard art than the Oscars.”
Sharing goodness and beauty with the world has also given the Santa Cruz family a unique opportunity to form a powerful community as they continue to create a curriculum that, they hope, will help children develop a love and yearning for all things good, true, and beautiful.
As an educator, Mr. Santa Cruz believes “imaginative children become innovative adults, and innovative adults will change the world.”
“Cultivating a healthy, thriving imagination is one of the most precious gifts we can give our children, for even when the world is dark, a heart filled with goodness and a soul filled with beauty will shine brightly for others to see,” he said.
“Through my art, I hope to restore goodness and beauty to homes across the world and inspire imaginations, both in children and adults alike, to remember and revel in the purity and innocence of their childhood. Art that sparks a new renaissance in our culture that seeks to restore the ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty as objective values in society.”
The Santa Cruz family’s mission statement is: In all things, we seek goodness, beauty, and truth with gratitude, love, and respect for the greater glory of God.
“That is what we do and who we are,” Mr. Santa Cruz said. “Everything we do in our family—in our home, business, conduct, is checked against this statement. Wondergarten, and everything we created for it, and will continue to create for it, is just an extension of these values from our home and into our community.”
The couple hopes to restore goodness, beauty, and truth to the world.
“If that happens, then Wondergarten will have accomplished its work,” Mr. Santa Cruz said.
With an increasing global presence, the couple is working toward completing their curriculum and other products. Mr. Santa Cruz intends to auction off some of his chalkboards to help raise funds for building the Wondergarten school and campus, which he says will serve as “the foundation for raising the next generation of world changers.”
