In 2012, a 16-year-old’s childhood dream of becoming a professional ballerina was shattered by a devastating injury. Visual arts teacher Hannah Kremin could no longer sustain the intense training required to pursue a career in ballet because she fractured both of her shins and developed spinal cysts. Feeling uncertain about the future, Kremin turned to art to express her physical and mental struggles.
As Kremin expanded herself as an artist, she found the creative outlet she always wanted without the physical drawbacks of dancing. She credits her time at the Art Institute of Chicago for helping her understand the transformative power of art and developing a passion for sharing its power with others.
At Archer, Kremin teaches a student-focused arts curriculum that helps students find their creative voice and use their art to motivate change and establish connections. The curriculum is not fully independent until students reach advanced study, at which point they can propose projects they’re interested in and submit them to Kremin for approval.
Junior Cleo Wilson ascribes her artistic growth to Kremin. Wilson joined the visual arts community three years ago and said the class is always a highlight of her day.
“She both teaches, but also encourages, you to learn on your own and explore your own creative endeavors,” Wilson said, “rather than creating strict guidelines for what to create or how to create it.”
Photography teacher Marya Alford works alongside Kremin as co-leaders of the Eastern Star Gallery. Together they re-wrote the mission statement of the Eastern Star Gallery to incorporate more diverse art exhibitions. In addition, they aim “to highlight under-represented artists who can receive the attention they deserve in mainstream media or museum galleries,” Alford said.
“I think it’s twofold. It supports the artist, and then it’s supporting our students. Someone who’s up and coming, who has not had a museum show or a gallery show, per se, isn’t shown in that space,” Alford said. “So it’s benefiting our students and our whole community, because it’s showcasing work…that they wouldn’t at LACMA.”
This change reflects Archer’s diverse community of artistic talent, Kremin said, and provides students with a space to critique modern art stereotypes.
“This is a school with such an incredibly, beautifully diverse community,” Kremin said. “We’d be doing them a disservice to this community to show them, you know, just one type of fine art and the type of fine art that they’re already used to seeing.”
The Eastern Star Gallery hosted various artists this year, including Tierra Del Sol, a Los Angeles-based foundation dedicated to empowering people with developmental disabilities through careers in the arts.
“We wanted the students to consider what an artist is, what artwork is, what you could bring into that space,” Kremin said, ” [and] how it doesn’t always have to be a male painter who already is backed by a gallery and selling his paintings for thousands of dollars.”
Kremin strives to create a personalized curriculum that caters to needs of her students. Wilson said her classes are purposefully structured and lessons feel geared towards her interests.
“Kremin’s class is executed perfectly so that the lesson plan makes sense for each individual student,” Wilson said. “She really just does a great job of making each student feel the class was designed for them.”
When Kremin first became a teacher at Archer, she said students found her visual art lessons were more feedback-based. She found this to be less productive, as students relied heavily on her approval and felt confined within various artistic boundaries. As a result, she decided to create a more proportionate balance of instruction to creative time.
“Lesson time is more about technical things or looking at artists’ work. When it’s studio time, I’m really just letting them get into the zone and create,” Kremin said. “Oftentimes I’m making work with them. I like them to see me as an active maker.”
Her seventh grade two-dimensional art course found this strategy particularly effective. Kremin’s students thrived off of the freedom she gave them to simply create shapes and figures out of paper.
“The simple joy that they have is crazy. I walk in, I put music on, and they are like little elves, running to the materials in machine lines, so excited. It’s usually a pretty giggly, loud class, since it’s seventh grade. They’ve never been quieter, but they’ve also have never been more active,” Kremin said. “ I think it’s just that sense of freedom and using a material in a way that you wouldn’t typically use it.”
Kremin could not imagine her world without art and feels lucky to be a mentor to aspiring young artists at Archer. Doing what she loves every day is the most rewarding part of her job, she said, and sharing art with others has transformed her life for the better.
“I get to do what I love, and I also get to pull that out of students and show them that there’s truly no limitations to expressing yourself and to creating,” Kremin said. “It’s accessible to everyone, and I want to show them those different access points. I want them to think about what they could do for the future.”
Correction Statement (February 12, 2025, 1:33 p.m.): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the date and type of Kremin’s injury. The article was also edited to clarify the arts curriculum’s mission statement and to revise one of Kremin’s quotes.
Izzie Erickson • Feb 4, 2025 at 10:14 am
This is a great article Julia!! Great job.