ZaZa Fernandes

Art Education / Master of Arts (MA)

School of Art Education

My name is Zaza, I have been teaching Visual Arts in international schools for almost fifteen years, and I’m currently in Zagreb, Croatia. I was born in California but grew up overseas in a multicultural household with a Lebanese background. I enjoy working in charcoal, graphite, watercolor, but most of all, ink. Although the majority of my life has involved a lot of movement, the past seven years have been pretty stable in Zagreb with my little family of three. I have a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and a postgraduate in education from University of Sunderland, and decided to pursue my masters in art education at this stage of my life, as it feels like the right time to reinvigorate and push my teaching practice.

Lesson Plan Inspiration:
I left home for college when I was seventeen, an ocean away to a place I had never been, completely alone. Within the first year I tore a ligament in the wrist of my dominant hand, and tried to keep my head above water to get the extraordinary amount of work done with a hand that was essentially useless and painful. In memory of the perseverance and resilience I learned, I wanted to create a reliquary for my bones, which I sculpted from air-dry polymer clay. The word “severance” is written across a scroll of paper in walnut ink that I made myself, symbolizing not only the severed ligament, but the separation I experienced between myself and everything I knew. During the process of creating my reliquary, I imagined my students would enjoy the idea of creating shrines to their own memories, bringing their inside out.

Multimedia Project:
This instructional video was made to show students how to use pen and ink to create value in a drawing, specifically using the technique of hatching. The video was intended to be used by students both in and out of the classroom, whether they needed a refresher after the in-class demo, or if they wanted to practice at home. Recently a student of mine who was absent from school used the video to keep up while away, and as an English Learner, they were happy to return to school with the vocabulary already learned.