Yale Bulletin
and Calendar

November 16-23, 1998Volume 27, Number 13




























Exhibition of sketchbook journals reveals women's
inner lives and visions

Sketchbooks and visual journals revealing the personal explorations of 17 very different women are now on exhibit in the Reading Room of the Divinity School Library, 409 Prospect St. Titled "Imaging the Interior: Women's Sketchbook Journals," the display will continue through Saturday, Dec. 12.

The works on display in the exhibit were created over the past five years by participants in courses and workshops led by Constance Pierce, who currently teaches the course "Visual Journal: Imaging the Interior" at the Divinity School, where she is a visiting resident artist and research fellow this year.

Pierce has offered her sketchbook journal workshops at museums, schools and other institutions throughout the country. In those workshops, she introduces participants to a variety of mixed-media, including ink, watercolor, collage and monotype. Pierce then encourages participants to use the images they've created to develop "a searching narrative of their inner life and spiritual history," she explains. "Many worked on their books as a form of healing, or as a process of creative renewal. ... Through the creation of these very personal books participants learned to access, decipher and nurture an inner vision."

The artworks in some of the journals extend outside the boundaries of the sketchbooks themselves, with participants using pieces of watercolor and collage shapes, bits of ribbon or weaving, to overlap the page edges. "The unconventional approaches to imaging, through a variety of media, empowered the written journaling in surprising ways," notes Pierce.

The women whose journals are on display hail from six different states and represent diverse ages and professions. Although some are professional artists or designers, others are in the fields of education, ministry, therapy and even law.

Attorney Jackie Tatum from Mississippi wrote in her journal: "In my sketchbook is my ego's ruin. Layer after layer peeled away. My true self peers back with her piercing eyes. What terrible joy is this archaeology!"

The exhibit is on view during regular library hours. For further information about the library, contact the curator of collections at martha.smalley@yale.edu. For further information about the exhibit or the sketchbook course, contact Pierce at constance.pierce@yale.edu.