Creativity is Home: MAT Alum Laura Zimmaro

Artists have the ability to remind us of our common humanity. In a time when we are deprived of social connection, their work is more important than ever. Many UArts alumni have been forced to reimagine how they make and share art while in quarantine. Laura Zimmaro MAT ’09 (Visual Arts), for example, has certainly risen to the occasion.

For the first alumni story in our “Creativity is Home” series, UArts caught up with Zimmaro to hear how she has adapted her hands-on classroom to a virtual experience.
 

Zimmaro: On Friday, March 13, I went to school to teach art to grades K through 5 at Bret Harte Elementary in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I had my Art Club… We had been making bookmarks to sell to raise money to buy Art Club shirts. I had this idea that it would be awesome, if we did move to online learning, for each student to have a sketchbook. But I was out of time to try to order any. 

I had the Art Club mass produce sketchbooks out of our “free draw” paper. They were able to make 260 sketchbooks with 28 pages and 3 staples in each that day, like a little assembly line. They didn’t know they were making materials for what would be their project for the next few months! 

By Monday, school was closed and we were up and running in Google Classroom. I decided each day to post a prompt, word or theme to inspire the students to create art. Some prompts so far have been rainbow, light, texture, love, fly, animal and music. I thought it would be so much fun [for them] to see what their classmates created for each prompt using whatever materials they had on hand. I also thought about how cool it would be for them to have a sketchbook full of art from this unprecedented time in history!

 UArts: What are some challenges of this transition and how have you adapted?

 Zimmaro: Some challenges have been learning Google Classroom overnight (actually overnight!) and helping the students figure out how to photograph their work and [upload] it to deliver it to me. I also have two children at home—Gemma (5) and Vinny (10 months)—so I quickly realized how hard it is to be a stay-at-home mom who also has to work at home!  Between being a chef, a diaper changer, a teacher to my own child, a bottle-maker and an endless source of entertainment, I also have to teach 400 students.
 

The art from the students makes my heart so happy in this uncertain time, and I am forever indebted to my students for that.

UArts: Are there any silver linings you’ve found?

Zimmaro: The great part about it is, I can do most of the work on my phone, monitoring my online classroom and answering questions. Every night around 5 p.m. I go through every drawing and screenshot each one. I comment on every drawing personally. I then pick 10 works from that day and share them on our Harte Art Class Instagram [account], which I created earlier in the year. I also share the prompt there, so people who follow us on Instagram can follow along! I have lots of friends (and even our school principal) who follow the prompts and use them to inspire art with their own children. The art from the students makes my heart so happy in this uncertain time, and I am forever indebted to my students for that. They thank me for sharing prompts each day, when in reality they are helping me more than they know.  

UArts: Is there anything you do for creative inspiration at home? Anything you’d recommend to fellow artists or educators?

Zimmaro: Something I would suggest that my daughter and I have done is to find things around your house to use as alternative art materials. We tested out things such as paprika, turmeric, beets and charcoal for teeth whitening as watercolors! None of us had any time to prepare for so much time spent inside, so people may not have traditional art materials stocked up and on hand. Beet juice makes beautiful watercolor! Thanks to my Art Club, my students have little sketchbooks, but no paper. No problem—[they can] use junk mail or cardboard!  

UArts: What are some methods you’ve been using to connect to your creative community? To your students?

Zimmaro: Social media has been great for us to share what we are working on. Our Instagram handle is @harteartclass and I just started a Twitter for the students yesterday (Tuesday), [which is] also @harteartclass. Follow us and create along! 

Since speaking with Zimmaro, she has been selected to teach an art lesson on the NJTV show Learning Live, a program featuring New Jersey teachers. According to a recent press release, the initiative, "created through a partnership between NJTV, the New Jersey Education Association and the New Jersey Department of Education," is "designed to advance learning during the statewide school closures caused by the COVID19 pandemic."

Zimmaro's episode airs on April 17 at 10 a.m. on NJTV. 

 

Explore the the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Visual Arts program.

UArts alumni are encouraged to send their stories to the Office of Alumni Relations at alumni@uarts.edu.