Art as a Tool for Cultural Understanding – Audrey Reich

Episode 65.
This is the second part of my conversation with Audrey Reich. In this second part, Audrey talks about how she incorporates her Jewish teachings and values into her art classes, creating a diverse and open environment for her students. Whether teaching in a Jewish school or a secular school in New York City, Audrey's experiences with students from various cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds have inspired her to foster open dialogue and appreciation for different perspectives. She also reflects on her personal art, and how her artworks have been influenced by her visits to Tarnów, Poland where her father’s family comes from. 

Highlights:

·       Teaching art in Jewish and secular K-12 schools with diverse student populations.

·       Engaging discussions about international events like the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.

·       Managing open discussions and differing opinions in the classroom.

·       Personal experiences and connections related to Jewish history and heritage.

·       Discovering personal connections and roots in Tarnów relating to her family history.

·       Audrey's personal art and how it reflects her experiences.

Social Media links for Audrey:

Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center – https://hhrecny.org/generations-forward/#unger

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066435622271


Transcript:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/14866705-art-as-a-tool-for-cultural-understanding-audrey-reich


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Questions? Email  Méli at – info@talkingwithgodproject.org
 

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/

Transcript

Audrey Reich transcript pt 2

Art as a Tool for Cultural Understanding

Méli [00:00:05]:

Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. To learn more about that research and invite me to give a talk or workshop, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. This is episode 65 and is the second part of my conversation with Audrey Reich. If you haven't listened to part 1, I recommend doing so as you will have more context for this episode.

Méli [00:01:00]:

In that first part, Audrey talks about her family and her Jewish path, including her parents' journeys to the US after surviving the Holocaust. In today's episode, part 2, Audrey talks about teaching art in K to 12 schools, her own artwork and how her background informs that work. Links to the first part of Audrey's episode and her social media links will be listed in the show notes. What is the makeup of your students and and what what are the grades that you teach?

Audrey [00:01:37]:

Right. So it's interesting. I did teach for many years in a Jewish school, and I learned more Jewish history that way. It was, k through 8, and we often worked with the teachers, the teaching the academic subjects and the Jewish sub more more even more so the Jewish subjects. So if they were learning the story of Joseph, I found a way to translate that into a lesson, where I show the artwork of Marc Chagall and others and we did pieces that looked a little like stained glass windows, but told the story of Joseph. And we used the art technique Chagall and others have used changing the scale of things according to memory and emphasis and and turn the paper around so that, you know, you could see it from different positions and and different perspectives and things like that. You know, that's what I always found very creative about teaching art. You sort of absorb something.

Audrey [00:02:36]:

I think about it and I think how can I teach art skills and art concepts and the content and subject matter as well? So it's a very interesting, give and take for me, and that's what's kept me interested in teaching for years years. Now I'm teaching in a secular school where we have a very diverse group, And I started teaching, kindergarten, 1st grade, and I gradually moved up to teaching high schoolers, 11th 12th grade, as well as 6th grade and 9th grade. But I still use my Jewish lessons in my teaching because the things that resonate, things like, Lashon Hara, gossip, bad gossip. You know, in teaching in general, I I think teachers are more open to talking about their own background now. And I teach that everybody has a story, so I tell them my own story. And I'll say that I learned from Judaism that when you gossip, when you talk about somebody, it causes harm to 3 people, The talker, the listener, and the and the person being talked about. And I'll tell them where I got that from. I talk about treating others the way you wanna be treated.

Audrey [00:03:50]:

Do you if you don't want a pencil ripped out of your hand, don't grab a pencil from somebody else's hand. And I tell them where I got that from and that all cultures and religions believe in that as a basis. And then again, like I said, I choose the aspects of Judaism. I love Shabbat. I've never observed it completely. I'm not Shomer Shabbat. I drive if I need to on Shabbat, but I believe in a day of rest or at least a day that feels different from every other day. It's about family and friends, and I think one of the things my children have gotten most out of that is that it was a day, at least an evening Friday.

Audrey [00:04:32]:

It's spent in conversation away from electronics, and they talk to people of all ages. And I think it was extremely beneficial to my children. And I try to set I, create a setting like that in my classroom. I tell them this is different from all your other subjects. From math, we talk a little quieter here. We are open to listening to each other. We are we wanna have a different mindset in this class room where we think intuitively and we look at things. We draw from observation.

Audrey [00:05:05]:

We appreciate how you see the form of a 3-D object, the way light is hitting it. I try to convey a sense of awe and curiosity about the world. And we talk about each other's backgrounds and how that relates to them. So I found that everything I've seen and done and my background can all be used and accessed.

Méli [00:05:29]:

Yeah. Wonderful to to hear how things flow really quite seamlessly through your life, the family, the history, your art studies, and your art teaching in these various communities. I can hear how it really springs from the lessons of your childhood, of your parents saying, we're not going to stay stuck in the trauma of the past, but we're also not going to forget it. And we are going to grow and build and learn the values, the Jewish values, avoiding l'Shan hara, the golden rule you mentioned, treat others as you would like to be treated, and the value of the resilience and the curiosity and the awe. There's all kinds of interesting things out there in the world. You've done it through art and teaching children.

Audrey [00:06:37]:

And I learned from the children. That's what's kept me interested and engaged all these years also. It's fascinating to me to present something to them and then to see what they come up with that is informed from their own backgrounds and from what they've heard at home and what they've seen and I can't possibly and from what they've heard at home and what they've seen and I can't possibly know all of that and I'm endlessly fascinated with what they come up with. And when I see them working intuitively, it's just so inspiring. It's a give and take and it's wonderful.

Méli [00:07:08]:

Yeah. I'd like to hear just a little more about the children. So you said it's a very diverse group. You have certainly covered a huge range of grades k to 12. That's a lot. What sorts of communities, languages, cultures, religions are in your classroom?

Audrey [00:07:27]:

There is Muslim students. They're Jewish. There's Protestant and Catholic. It's a New York City school based private school. Within their families a lot of diversity. So I have a student whose mother is Panamanian and father is Irish background. I have a Russian and Jewish. There's a diversity of socioeconomic situations too.

Audrey [00:07:53]:

And it's interesting when things come out. I'll just tell you this story. When Queen Elizabeth died last year, I said to the students, did anybody watch the funeral? It was all the gold and red and, you know, I always approach things from a visual perspective. So one of the girls said my father hates the British. He's from Ireland and he hates the Queen and we had a discussion about that and then there was an African American girl whose father from Jamaica and she said the Queen is was terrible. They dominated everybody around the world. And I said, those are such interesting points you're bringing back. And you know what? I found the funeral fascinating for its multisensory colors and sounds, but you're right.

Audrey [00:08:49]:

There's a lot more to it. And and the British Empire did have a history of forcing people to subjecting people. So we've had very interesting discussions like that.

Méli [00:09:00]:

Yeah. Fascinating. And I can I can really appreciate how there would be these different sides? And sometimes I find that can be a bit tricky in a conversation. It can polarize into this group is terrific. No. This group is terrible, and it can get kind of locked into that oppositional thing. But, you know, perhaps in a grade school or a high school, especially in an art class, you have found a way to keep the conversation open and leaning more into the subjective rather than this is right, this is wrong. Is that fair?

Audrey [00:09:42]:

Yes. We try very hard to, and I'm chill as the kids tell me. And I let them talk. There are times admittedly that I have to stop the conversation. And I'll say, seems to me that this could get hurtful. You know, we're getting very heated. Let's all go back to our work. There are and and this conversation, so I feel like I'm not prepared for.

Audrey [00:10:08]:

You know, as you're aware, there's some very heated issues going on in the last few years. New York's a hotbed of all different kinds of point of views. But I think because we have a mixture, the children are used to that. We've had professional development and and town hall meetings with the students about critical dialogue and how you do that and how you can have a constructive dialogue and you know listen to each other and ask questions. You know and I try to model that that ask asking questions. Why do you think that? What is your background that makes you feel that way? Yeah. If we practice it and have enough of it, I we're able to. And then, fortunately, I always have the option of going back to our work, back to our arts because we're an active class, multi sensory activity.

Audrey [00:11:01]:

We have that and that's calming for everybody. I always have children breathe when they come in. We do a little bit of breathing because they do come in with baggage from the day and disagreements they've had over the course of the day. So we take a minute to breathe 3 times before we start. And it's amazing how it calms all of our bodies and minds.

Méli [00:11:26]:

That's a good practice. Breathe 3 times before you start something. Yeah. I'm in a group working on a project, and each call begins by making notes of 3 things. What have you just come from? Then what's really top of mind kind of generally in your life, and what's top of mind for this particular project?

Méli [00:11:52]:

It's kind of similar to the 3 breaths. These are ways of bringing you emotionally and physically, as you say. It brings you from wherever you've been into this moment and kind of centers you so that you can then start this new activity. And that's so important. I think it can be a challenge in our in our life. It's always rush, rush, rush on to the next thing, optimize efficiency in in all of this business, And and taking these moments to breathe, to think about, okay. Where was I? Where am I going? What do I wanna be focusing on? Is these are great techniques.

Audrey [00:12:38]:

Right. And it's about refocusing and then being open to new information, new ideas, each other.

Méli [00:12:46]:

Yeah.

Audrey [00:12:47]:

And and Judaism, you know, that's what Shabbat is for too, to reflect on the week before. We used to go around our Shabbat table and say, tell us what was the best part of your week. Tell us what was the worst part of your week. It's it's to reflect, absorb, and then figure out how you'll refocus and move on from those things.

Méli [00:13:08]:

A Shabbat dinner I was at, their question was say something you're grateful for this week. And I thought that was beautiful. I thought it was a great way of making that transition into Shabbat.

Audrey [00:13:21]:

And that's like I said, that's something I got from my parents too, not to take anything for granted, to be I have gratitude for everything and appreciate everything from the smallest to the largest.

Méli [00:13:35]:

When you think of these various, the travels and all these years teaching children, is there a time or a person where you have realized, oh, I'm grateful to learn that thing that has really surprised you? It's like, oh, I connect with that person. I never thought I would. Have have you is there a time like that?

Audrey [00:14:00]:

Sure. Well, you know, an example is what I've learned from from the kids from very different backgrounds. I tend to learn a lot from the foreign language teachers. You know, I, I'm very drawn to people who have immigration stories, you know, why and how they came to America. And I also have a lot of friends who, converted to Judaism and I've learned so much from them. I have a friend who grew up in Catholic school and and then came to Judy's, and we actually traveled to Poland together. And I went looking at the Catholic churches with her all in Krakow. You know, I, I added that to my experience of being there.

Audrey [00:14:43]:

You know, I've learned so much from things like that. I think I told you that I, connected with a high school teacher in my father's hometown of Tarnow, who grew up there. And he said until he was 30, he didn't know that half the population had been Jewish before the war. And once he knew he wanted to learn about it and he wanted to bring it to his students, and they they decided to do a project that would connect. And he he came on a Jewish Tarnow Facebook group and asked if there was anybody who could speak to the students. And my father, who's still alive now at 96, was very much able to speak then about 7 years ago, and he ended up Skyping with the class and speaking to them. But they create create an exhibit where they took photographs of the old part of town, which is very much like it was before the war, and then intermeshing them with Photoshop with historic black and white photos of Jews living in that part of town. And they had this exhibit at the Tarnow Regional Museum right in the Rinnek in the town square.

Audrey [00:15:51]:

There was a video showing with my father being interviewed on it, and it was an amazing experience for my family. My father couldn't believe it. And I went to meet the class in 2016 and see the exhibit. And I told them standing there, I said, I live in New York. And I told them a bit about my mother's background. And I said, you know, this is the only place where my father lived, my grandfather lived, my great grandfather lived. I have real roots here. You know? I and I'm just sort of living in New York by chance.

Audrey [00:16:27]:

I could have lived in any play ended up in Italy, China, maybe even. But here, I really have roots. It was so powerful for me being there. And and I really did. I found my father's home and a Mazusa still on the door of the former home and walked from there to the building where his father's store had been, really followed the path he had followed as a boy. And I was able to tell, Marchin, the the teachers' students about that and how meaningful it was to me and really connect with them. It it was fabulous. And Marcin and I have stayed very close.

Audrey [00:17:06]:

He then did another exhibit about an industrialist named Madras who's sort of like the Schindler of Tarnow because he came in and set up a factory and employed people, including my father's family, and that's why they were only in the last deportation in September 1943 from the Tarnow ghetto. That was an amazing eye opening experience. The the person who in in Tarnow, who I'm also very in very close touch with, who started researching the Jewish history of the town, is a man named Adam who is of Roma Sinti background. And he was the director of the museum. And he decided just, you know, after the Soviets left Poland and things opened up more, he started putting up plaques where synagogues had been in and coming up with a way of commemorating the, liquidation of the ghetto. People stood holding hands around the area where the ghetto had been. And he continues it to this day. There's commemorations.

Audrey [00:18:12]:

Survivors, I I've met other second generation people whose families lived there for generations through these activities, and we've met in Poland. And I was scheduled to go and speak again in June 2020, and then COVID started. So I haven't been back since then, but I'm planning to go again.

Méli [00:18:31]:

Amazing. Fantastic stories. And what a wonderful example of bridging differences, of appreciating difference, of the curiosity, and the moving forward. Appreciating the past, remembering the past, but using it to feed art and education and learning and connection across differences. Fantastic. What what great experiences, and and how interesting that you would be able to go back to Tarnowand feel the roots and make such a wonderful connection.

Audrey [00:19:10]:

I tried to plan a trip with my father years ago, and he stopped it a few weeks before we were going to go and said he can't go there. He said things happen there that I haven't told you. And and I've since read Yisker books that tell the history firsthand that, you know, pretty horrific. But he was not opposed to me going, and I think it's really provided closure for him. I've brought I've brought back all sorts of picture books that he loves looking through and participating with, the current students there. And and he's had lengthy conversations with this teacher, Marcin, who grew up at a time when Tarnow was not so different as it than it was before the war, where people still skied skied to school and biked. And he played the the the both of them were so excited talking about the park they played in. And there's a little Saint Martin's Hill outside of town that they went and skied to.

Audrey [00:20:16]:

Now, Marchin tells me, and I've seen it for myself, that Itarnell that that they're talking about the small old center, and now there's been urban sprawl. And he said his kids live by going to malls and driving everywhere and things like that. So

Méli [00:20:33]:

Yeah. These are generational differences, but, you know, I'm hearing a lesson of, you know, when you talk about your father saying, no. I can't go there. Really, the the moral for me is to know your limits.

Audrey [00:20:50]:

Yes.

Méli [00:20:50]:

You know? Even if as as he did did a lot of healing post war, and hats off to him for that, But still, everybody has a limit and to and to know where you can be open, where you can explore what you're curious about, and where there's a red line, where you just say, I can't I can't go there. And it's so important to to honor that.

Audrey [00:21:16]:

Yes.

Méli [00:21:17]:

There are these extremes of there's a sense of, oh, well, if you're open and curious, then you're open and curious about anything and everything goes and, you know, there are no limits. And I think that's I think that's a false idea. It it's really about having the the foundation, as as you said earlier in our conversation, Audrey, having the ground of of your Judaism and and and valuing that on an ongoing basis then allows you to be open to the world, to be curious, and to help your students, and to help the folks in Tarnow or wherever else you go. Thank you for walking us through how they flow together for you. Our time is drawing to a close here, Audrey. Is there some small piece that we haven't said that that you'd like to add? Mhmm.

Audrey [00:22:18]:

I didn't talk too much about my own art. Everything that you've just summarized, I try to incorporate in my art in a in a formal way by using mixed media and collage, showing how layers and interconnectivity. And I try to contrast light and dark beauty and ugliness from my first trip to Tarnow. It inspired me to look at the nature there and the buildings there and show that they were the witnesses to this history. I kept thinking what remains, and I include that in my art and photographs I've taken and everything like that. So that really became a kernel of of of the creativity within my own art that I capture. Moving on from documentarying the history of the time, I've moved on from what the people that were lost to to what was lost culturally too and and researched synagogues that were destroyed and and try to do tributes to those in my art too. So it's about cultural destruction and trying to incorporate all all of that in in my teaching and in my art.

Méli [00:23:27]:

Thank you for adding that about your artwork. So thank you, Audrey, for coming on my Living Our Belief show. This has been a great conversation. So much new information, interesting stories, and really appreciate you being willing to tell us about your teaching and your art and your family history. Thank you.

Audrey [00:23:49]:

Thank you, Meli. It's it's been an honor. Thank you.

Méli [00:23:55]:

Thank you so much for listening. This Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of my Talking with God Project. In that research, I explore how Jews, Christians and Muslims live their faith, including their sense of God, prayer practice, and how faith is present in daily life. If you'd like to keep up to date about the project, subscribe to my twice monthly newsletter at www.talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Thanks so much for tuning in. Till next time. Bye bye.