The artful results of soul searching by members of the Yale and New Haven communities were on display in the Cushing/Whitney Rotunda of the Yale School of Medicine. The exhibition featured dozens of artists' richly varied journals produced in classes and workshops titled "Visual Journal: Imaging the Interior" taught by artist Constance Pierce, a lecturer at the Yale Divinity School. Pierce says of her work,"Image journaling merges the healing qualities of journal writing and image-making in potent combination. The process encourages compassion and inner renewal. It also brings awareness to the innate connections between the arts, humanities and medicine."

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March 24, 2000 Volume 28, Number 25
This page from the
visual journal of Yale
student Annette Lee
is part of the exhibit
now on display in the
rotunda of The
Cushing/Whitney
Medical Library.
'Visual Journals' on view in
Medical Library
The artful results of soul searching by members of the Yale
and New Haven communities are now on display in the large
glass cases wrapping around the rotunda of The
Cushing/Whitney Medical Library at 333 Cedar St.
The exhibit features dozens of artists' visual journals that were
produced in courses and professional development
workshops -- all titled "Visual Journal: Imaging the Interior"
and taught by Constance Pierce, a lecturer at the Divinity
School. The exhibitors are Divinity students, and educators
and artists from the Greater New Haven arts community.
Among the latter are noted Connecticut artists Martha
Savage, Yolanda Petrocelli and Jon Mascartolo, and
calligrapher Annette Chittenden.
According to Pierce, who also curated the display, creating a
"visual journal" brings together the healing qualities and
spiritual renewal so often associated with journal writing and
image making.
"Part soul retrieval and part personal narrative, the intimacy
of the sketchbook allows archetypal imagery to surface from
memory and imagination," she says. "Through explorations in
watercolor, ink and monoprint unexpected images emerge
and prompt the accompanying journal writing. ... The journal
reveals our interior life and its healing connection to the
sacred whole."
The participants in the courses and workshops enriched their

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understanding of sketchbooks and journals by studying
special Yale collections including the historic and
contemporary sketchbook archives of the Yale Center for
British Art and the Yale Arts of the Book Collection, as well as
special examples from the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library. After "paraphrasing" master artists' work,
the students were better equipped to express their own voices
in a meaningful way, says Pierce.
The Yale students and New Haven artists featured in the
display engaged in separate but related work in their visual
journals. The students in the Divinity School courses searched
for new ways of pondering and expressing scriptural texts
through visual imaging, while the educators in the
professional development workshops sought to renew their
creativity and germinate fresh approaches teaching art and
literature.
"The aesthetic process itself, however, engendered a common
language which can be easily discerned in the library display,"
says Pierce. "In many cases the qualities of compassion and
inner healing are evident, and so too the connection to issues
of arts, humanities and medicine."
Pierce also noted that the library's rotunda is "a perfect
setting" for the exhibition as it is dedicated to the Yale
surgeon Dr. Harvey Cushing, who was known to enjoy
sketching in his diaries and personal medical journals.
The "Visual Journals" exhibit is sponsored by The Program for
Humanites in Medicine, directed by Dr. Thomas Duffy. The
idea for the show was generated by the Reverend Sally Bailey,
who heads the program's Arts Subcommittee and is a noted
pioneer in illuminating the links between the arts and healing.
The exhibition will run through April 28 and is open to the
public during normal library hours. For information contact
the office of Toby Appel at (203) 785-4354 or at
www.med.yale.edu/library/about/exhibits.html. For
information on the artists, contact constance.pierce@yale.edu.
T H I S W E E K ' S S T O R I E S