Afterwords: Oh, the places you’ll go!

Take a look back at life’s surprises, make time to capture and share the journey.

by Michele Weiner (Bernstein) Klausner ’69

My yearbook statement should have been, “Oh, the places you’ll go!”

The Dr. Seuss classic was published long after I graduated, but its wonderful theme still applies to my story.

I never became the high school art teacher I’d hoped and studied to be. In fact, the places my education took me were nowhere near where I expected.

In 1969, the suburbs of Philadelphia had an overabundance of teachers, never mind art teachers. I subbed for a bit and then moved back to New Jersey and became the recreation director for a nursing home. I loved bringing art and pizza to folks who had never tasted either. I left there after becoming pregnant and was fortunate enough to be a stay-at-home mom until my daughter started school.

I began keeping a journal then and that is where my story takes me. I wasn’t looking for a job when a small, classified ad in the local paper offered a part-time position that described everything I wrote about hoping to do in my journal. I got the job.

“Oh, the places you’ll go!”

I wrote a weekly advertising column, some humor pieces and even had a couple published in The New York Times. My journal brought me back to my art. Years after graduation, I began painting again, taking classes and exhibiting my work.

“I should teach journaling to other artists,” I wrote. And so I did. I began teaching journaling at the Center for Visual Arts in Summit, the Newark Museum in Newark, and The Open Center in New York City. I also taught art at an adult day care center and a domestic violence shelter.

My art and writing took me places I never could have imagined. I studied journaling and became a certified journal facilitator. I taught journaling and art at The Women’s Project at Christ Hospital in Jersey City and became the program supervisor, offering workshops from anger management to Zen meditation and everything in between. That led me to pursue a master’s degree in psychoanalysis from Centenary University.

“Oh, the places you’ll go!”

Now in my retirement, a six-week journaling class I started for a local museum has been ongoing for 10 years. I’m enjoying my art more than ever, making my own journals and, as a result, reconnected with my college roommate, Lorraine Gavel Kirkpatrick ’69, now retired from a lifelong career as an art teacher.

Today, many miles apart, we collaborate on a shared art journal, like pen pals. I think we’re on our 14th volume. We share our art, our memories of GSC and photos, old and new. We’ve reconnected in a most enjoyable way, motivating and cheering each other on, just as we did way back in the 1960s.

I thank my well-rounded GSC education for much of my success in art, design, writing and creative thinking.

Take a moment and reflect in your own journal: “Where have I gone and where do I want to go?”

Michele Weiner (Bernstein) Klausner’s motto is “Make art every day”—even if it’s just a two-minute sketch or a doodle on the back of an envelope. She began teaching art journaling long before many had heard of it or knew there was such a thing. Her art includes Chinese brush painting on silk, mixed media and bookmaking. After decades practicing and teaching about journaling, the Monmouth County resident continues to share art and help people start their own art habit. “I have a 90-year-old friend doing collage,” she said. “It’s a wonderful thing to have creative projects.”