21Country: North Manchester teacher immersed in the arts

NORTH MANCHESTER, Ind. (WPTA21) - Walk through the halls of Manchester Junior-Senior High School, and you’ll find display cases showcasing the art of some of its 400 students. Teacher Hannah Burnworth has helped mentor many of them to explore their creativity. “I’m in charge of Drawing 1, 2, 3,” she told us. “Painting 1, 2, 3 — printmaking, AP 2D & 3D drawing, and on and on and on.” Maybe that’s because as a young student herself, art wasn’t the career path she first pursued. A native of northern Indiana, Burnworth began college as a business major, and German minor (an interest relating to her Amish heritage). But a trip abroad, changed her perspective. “I ended up spending a year-and-a-half in Germany, and while I was there, I took art classes to pass the time while I was a nanny,” she explained, “this is what I loved!” Her interests shifted, and big decisions were made. “I’m not going back to school, I’m not going to be in business,” she said. “I’m not going to make the language my major even though I enjoy it. I’m going to go ahead and study art because this is what I want to do and this is how I want to spend my time. It’s what brings me joy.” For over 16 years, Burnworth has been teaching students art full-time. In the early years, adapting to the new career took its toll, and her own personal art was shoved to the side. “As a teacher I realized I have to return to the artwork because I want to remember what it’s like to create,” Burnworth told us. “I want to remember the struggles the students are going through. I want to connect with them and keep learning my own profession and that is a huge part of professional development if you’re in the arts.” In between classes, and raising a family at home, the teacher made creating collages a priority. “I really got into mixed media work when I had children 9 years ago, because I had to have something I could do in small pieces, like piece together — and then I could come back later and sew things back into larger compositions, or take these smaller pieces and collage them back together — and that’s how I kind of created the style I work in now.” Now she sells her works over instagram and at local galleries. One of her pieces was selected for Artlink’s most recent show, the 2022 Midwest Regional Exhibition. Despite thriving as both an artist and teacher, she says one can’t happen without the other. “The passions feed each other. I can’t really consider myself a teacher over an artist, or an artist over a teacher,” Burnworth shared. “They just have become one thing.” Last school year, four of her students pursued some kind of art major in college. This year, she expects even more working for a similar degree. “One thing that I definitely want to encourage through my artwork is spending time doing things that bring you joy and fulfillment,” she told us. “As a teacher giving students opportunities to make something with multiple solutions, so making sure they know there’s never one path and now they can take many paths and reach the same spot, and being really able to truly problem solve.” “I think that that is such an important part of teaching art,” she ended, “giving them an opportunity to really think.”