Education:
Bachelor of Fine Arts with Concentration in Art Education, UNC Charlotte (2018)
Hometown:
Mount Pleasant, NC
When she was younger, Hannah Allman’s favorite birthday parties were always at pottery painting studios and she always asked for art supplies for special occasions. Her family recognized her passion for art very early in her life and has always been supportive of her creative endeavors, which helped pave the way for Hannah to have a career that she loves – as an award-winning art teacher.
Hannah is in her sixth year as an art teacher at WM Irvin Elementary School in Concord, North Carolina. She teaches Kindergarten through 5th grade to around 700 students. In November 2023, she was named 2023-24 Teacher of the Year at her school.
“I truly feel that this school is my second family,” she says. “We have the most amazing students and staff members. Their perseverance and creativity have helped me grow as an educator.”
Hannah says her studio education at UNC Charlotte “opened my eyes to many different types of art and processes that I had not yet been exposed to” and prepared her to bring a broad set of art experiences to her students at WM Irvin Elementary School, while her art education faculty “were the best support system that I could have asked for.” One of her favorite memories was the Art of Teaching exhibition held at the end of her student teaching semester.
In addition to teaching, Hannah has been able to continue to work on her own art, and she dreams one day of having her own pottery studio, “where I can make my own work and have smaller classes of students to teach,” she says.
Recently, Hannah painted a mural for her school.
“The mural spotlights a variety of places and landmarks in the Concord community and in North Carolina. I wanted to incorporate our community into our building and spotlight things that would be familiar to our students. This mural was featured in an article through Cabarrus County Schools. It also was featured through the Independent Tribune.” (See picture above.)
Her advice for current students: “Be present in the moment. Be curious and use the resources that you have at your disposal. The studio spaces in the CoA+A are top notch and as an alumni, I would do anything to get back in that ceramics studio or printmaking studio and make more work!”