Heart and art

Art
Anna Nuttall makes community the center of her art classes

For Anna Nuttall, it takes a community to make art — and arts education — truly effective. It’s an idea Nuttall has put into practice frequently during the eight years she’s been an art teacher at Portsmouth Middle School. In fact, you’ve probably seen her students’ artwork throughout the city. Colorful ceramic tiles designed by her students are part of the African Burying Ground Memorial, which opened in May; her students also designed ads for Seacoast Local’s H(eat) campaign and have partnered with the Seacoast African American Cultural Center on a host of projects.

“They bring (art) to life (for students) and make it relevant,” she says. “They need those opportunities to build relationships and be empowered to be an active part of the community, to be part of the fold.”

Nuttall and her students have been making their mark on the Seacoast for years. Now, she’s getting recognition from the state’s arts education community.  Nuttall received the 2015 Arts Education Award at the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts’ Governors Arts Awards ceremony on Oct. 21.

I’m trying to help (students) find their personal connection, because that’s why we make art. — Anna Nuttall

Nuttall grew up in Newburyport, Mass. In college, she studied graphic design and was on track for a career in marketing. “I realized it wasn’t enough,” she says. “At the same time, I was teaching swimming lessons and was a camp counselor and always loved working with kids and making art, so I switched (my major) to art education.”

As a teacher, her aim is to give students “as many tools to express themselves as I can.” Walk through her classroom and you’ll see massive cardboard sculptures made by students, including a gigantic, wing-less dragon (the student took the wings home, she says); outside in the hallway, wire sculptures and brightly colored paintings are on display.

“I try to give them a lot of choices of subjects and make it as independent as I can. I’m trying to help them find their personal connection, because that’s why we make art,” she says.

Nuttall also wants her students to build a connection to their community. The latest project was the African Burying Ground Memorial. The memorial’s designer, artist and sculptor Jerome Meadows, met with Portsmouth Middle School students and worked with Nuttall’s classes on incorporating their artwork into the design. Having students working on tiles for the memorial provided opportunities for talking about history, racism, and the role of public art. “That’s where the discussions are really rich,” Nuttall says.

A former board member of Art-Speak, the city’s cultural commission, Nuttall also teaches visual art at Portsmouth Music and Arts Center, where she’s also taking music theory and piano lessons (“It’s good to be really bad at something when you’re a teacher, because it keeps you humble,” she joked).  She’s also a practicing artist and works in a variety of media, from watercolors and block prints to pastels and collages. One of the challenges of arts education is teaching students that art and creativity are a process, not innate talents or things that happen randomly.

“Art isn’t something you just sit down and ‘do,’” she says. “The perception of art is so often off of reality … and that part is good for them to learn too.”

Many of the community projects Nuttall has worked on with her students have been funded through grants. Her next goal: finding a more balanced, sustainable way to fund those projects, especially ones that focus on careers in the arts and bring in visiting artists from around the Seacoast.

“It’s so much work to dream up a program, but I love doing that part. Fleshing out the grant and writing it … is a lot of hard work, but the opportunities they provide are awesome, and these kids remember that stuff forever,” she says.