Remember your first art show from kindergarten?
It was during the afternoon your teacher turned you and your classmates loose with watercolors.
You didn’t know what a “muse” was then, but yours was aglow with the inspiration of a thousand Starry Nights.
And when it was done, you’d created something.
Straight to the front of the refrigerator door, it went.
Irma Barazzone wants every student in her art classes at University High School to have that same kindergarten-joy when it comes to making art.
For the former graphic artist-turned teacher (that’s her work on the sign you see when you turn into the West Virginia Botanic Garden on Tyrone Road), art is a soothing balm against the abrasions of days of fraught with pandemic uncertainty.
So her students have spent past days crafting greeting cards in watercolors which will soon hit the mail, earmarked to residents of area nursing facilities.
Brushstrokes and swirls beget hellos and hugs, the teacher said, if only from a distance.
“Distance,” has been the coronavirus watch-word for many of America’s elderly.
Nearly 3 million of that segment of America’s population reside in long-term nursing facilities of some sort, according to AARP and other senior health-watchers.
Then came COVID and its quarantines and other social-distancing measures.
Which meant missing even more milestone events, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, graduation and sporting events.
The isolation made them just as vulnerable, emotionally.
That’s what Drew Zundell was thinking about as he was putting brush, water and paint to paper.
He’s a freshman in Barazzone’s class and found himself moved by the project.
“You think about everything going on the world and it just seemed like a nice thing to do,” he said.
“I keep picturing the looks on people’s faces as they open their cards.”
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