Anna Woerman, a Digital Arts teacher at Coronado School of Arts (CoSA) and Coronado High School for 12 years, started the #nadoartchallenge to have a fun virtual art challenge for CoSA and Coronado High School Art students during this time of the coronavirus pandemic. Anna was inspired by the Dutch Instagram page, “tussenkunstenquarantine,” which started as an idea of Anneloes Officier and a friend. Their Instagram page Tussen Kunst en Quarantine means “between art and quarantine,” and consists of recreating famous pieces using household items.
For the #nadoartchallenge anyone can see the creations by searching that hashtag on Instagram. In addition to students joining in, some teachers have been participating as well.
Anna shares that “making these recreations is so fun, therapeutic, and a great creative challenge during these strange times.”
In some of the photos with Anna is Jesse Egan. Anna and Jesse met when they were both working at Jack and Giulio’s Italian restaurant in Old Town San Diego 20 years ago and they went on one date. Shortly after that Anna moved to Italy for a couple of years and they didn’t reconnect until 20 years later, and now they’ve been together ever since. Jesse is a comedian from San Diego, and was winner of San Diego’s Funniest Person Contest, host of San Diego’s late night talk show Tonight in San Diego, and teaches, performs and travels for The Comedy Palace, Dry Bar Comedy, Laughs on Fox, and Tours with Vicki Barbolak of AGT. 
Jesse shares that “this was Anna’s amazing idea, but I am not only enjoying and appreciating it during this strange time, while learning about Fine Art, but creating a fun challenge for our communities to participate. I can only hope to also bring a little laughter and smiles to my friends, family and fans, including myself. Making ourselves and those we are quarantined with laugh often is equally important.”
Anna doesn’t have a specific time period for the #nadoartchallenge, but hopes it can run as long as it takes to get through the heavy surge of the pandemic in her home city of San Diego, while everyone is in quarantine and promoting staying home, being safe, and saving lives. Anna and Jesse’s hope together doing this is to contribute in some way to their community, bringing education, smiles, and laughs, as we are all in this together, as one nation and one world.
