Starting in 1997, educators Barbara Rosenblit and Sheila Miller collaborated on a course in which high school students collected life stories of older Jewish women and translated those interviews into the language of visual art. Each year, students used a different visual form as the basis for their art, which included painting, collage, assemblage, and text art. One year the artwork might take the form of a hat; another year, a handbag. The course's culmination was a public exhibition that brought the community together to celebrate the artists and subjects alike. 

With the support of the Covenant Foundation and in partnership with the Jewish Women’s Archive, Miller and Rosenblit adapted their original high school curriculum to serve adult groups. Recently, they created a toolkit that allows anyone to bring Artful Disclosure to their community. 

JWA chats with Artful Disclosure's creators about the new toolkit, the power of visual storytelling, and their hopes for the future of the program. 

How did the idea for Artful Disclosure come about? 

The idea began simply enough: to conclude a semester high school elective course on Jewish women in modern America by interviewing a woman at least 80 years old. We had worked together for many years incorporating art into many different courses, including English lit, Dante’s Commedia, and Biblical women—so it was no surprise that Sheila suggested these interviews might be turned into visual stories that could be exhibited on the school’s empty walls. Little could we have imagined the legs that idea grew. That notion was the beginning for Artful Disclosure, which came to include yearly anticipation for the projects, culminating in community-wide celebrations and display in what became The Women’s Gallery, taking up most of our school’s first floor.

What inspired you to combine oral history and visual art in this unique way?

Written memoirs, once completed, can easily be relegated to a library shelf and forgotten. On the other hand, art—or visual storytelling—invites ongoing conversation. We realized the act of translating ideas into visual imagery and metaphor was in itself an act of creation and interpretation. The artist interprets and creates, and simultaneously the subject is brought out of obscurity and into public view. This mutual recognition is transformative. 

What do you hope participants gain from the process of oral history interviewing?

Oral history interviewing is a great teacher. We learn from it the importance of patience, of careful listening, of not prejudging or anticipating an answer, of silence as a precursor to more complex answers, of the ability to be surprised and amazed and the curiosity to ask follow-up questions and then patiently await the response.

How do you guide participants who may not consider themselves artists through the art creation process?

Talking with participants about the metaphoric potential of a variety of materials and priming the pump with examples are good beginnings. Folding in time to talk through what they want to express visually is a good on-ramp for confidence. There are specific art media that are more responsive to the less secure artist, like collage or multimedia art to build the story.

What kinds of responses have you gotten from participants in this program? 

Barbara: We have notebooks of participant reflections of how this course impacted them. They are regularly amazed at the challenging lives they are learning about. On some level they understand Maya Angelou’s line, “There is no greater burden than carrying an untold story.”

One example: Fifteen years after his high school course, a former student, by then a successful businessman and entrepreneur in another city, was visiting his old high school. By chance, I saw him standing by the piece he had created, weeping. I came over to say hello and ask what had brought him to tears.  He said he had come to town to attend his grandmother’s 100^th birthday party.  “I suddenly realized,” he added, “I would never have known who she was without this project, would never have known her disappointments and challenges and the complex decisions she faced. I would have always thought of her as a generic old cookie-making, not particularly interesting Bubbie. Thank you for helping me know where I come from, and who I am.”

Sheila: Two participants representing a prominent cultural center from Montreal, Canada (my original hometown) attended our teaching workshop in Atlanta. They successfully replicated our model in their arts curriculum. I personally attended their “vernissage” (exhibition) of the finished works, accompanied by a video of meaningful and inspiring testimonials of the participants and the experiences they shared about their artistic process.

What inspired you to create a toolkit for Artful Disclosure, and how did the process of developing it unfold?

JWA, always our champion, inspiring our work and wanting to expand it through their website, suggested that together we apply for a Covenant Foundation grant to expand this school-focused approach to far more diverse audiences. We had experimented with adult groups in the past and realized the potential to reformat this approach to build communities. The Covenant Foundation found our grant proposal compelling enough to fund. As a side note, Covid was rampant during the time we wrote the proposal and during the early experimental workshops we conducted. The need for connection, community engagement, and storytelling is always present in our lives, but was especially so at this emotionally fragile time.

What has been the most rewarding aspect of this project for each of you?

Barbara: Teaching is intangible, its impact impossible to measure, even in the face of external praise or awards. We can talk ourselves into thinking something matters without real proof. But Artful Disclosure is a public, visible, and shared measure of accomplishment, so the ante for the participant is sky high. Perhaps that is the most rewarding aspect for me: We can see and celebrate the work, the heart, and the creativity that went into this historical deep dive. Yes, participants and subjects write reflections, and the community sends notes of appreciation. But there is nothing pro forma about the answers; they exude honesty and emotion. For me, the gift of this project is its tangibility and the shared conversation it sparks.

Sheila: As an artist and art educator, I enjoy the challenge of developing and designing a variety of art forms and prototypes as teaching tools. By building a dynamic exhibition component to our curriculum, we're able to share the revelations and insights of women’s lives with the wider community. Witnessing the impact of these shared visual stories has created a lasting legacy.

What are your hopes for the future of Artful Disclosure? 

In creative and adventurous hands, this toolkit is meant to invite a wealth of possibilities. We dream that Artful Disclosure will embed itself into the lives of institutions that use it so that each year, new groups of women will discover its ability to mine and share and celebrate their stories.

Artful Disclosure is designed to be open-ended and flexible, able to accommodate groups large and small, for workshop periods long and short. In creative and adventurous hands, there is no end to its impact.

Check out our website for Information about the new Artful Disclosure toolkit, including sample lesson plans.