COD teachers creating art with a mission

Best friends Jennifer Hereth and Kathy Kamal are teachers, artists and mothers, not mental health professionals.

But a deck of 88 archetype cards for teens that they led students at College of DuPage in creating are being used by therapists in the United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Scotland.

The deck is expected to be published later this winter by Random House.

"Every time we'd give a deck of cards to a therapist to test out, they wouldn't want to give it back," said Kamal, an associate professor of art at COD.

Hereth, a COD art professor, took the lead on the project and had 150 decks of the cards printed herself. She marveled that she sold 70 decks at $50 each in an hour at a conference for therapists.

"Anything to get the teens to talk," she said. "That really was our idea."

Hereth, who teaches painting and an introductory art class, and Kamal, who teaches jewelry making and metalwork, have long been believers in the power of archetypes.

Since becoming best friends, or "besties" in today's teenage lingo, after they both started teaching at COD 15 years ago, they have used archetypal images to support one another. When Kamal would be worn out from giving to her students, Hereth would tell her to spend the weekend being something other than a servant.

So when Hereth watched a TV program in October 2008 on Robert Hawkins, the young man who shot and killed eight people and himself in a mall in Omaha, Neb., in December 2007, she was struck by the messages he left behind.

"All the text messages said 'I'm a loser. I'm a burden,'" she said, but then Hawkins concluded on his suicide note that the shooting would make him famous.

"It sent chills up my spine," Hereth said. "The text messages were terrifying."

Hereth thought a deck of archetype cards might help troubled young people to open up. Up to now, no archetype cards existed strictly for teens, she said.

"Maybe it would help to expand their vocabulary," she said. "Maybe it would expand their image of themselves."

Class projectHereth contacted colleagues Kamal, Dan Trotter, Brian Blevins and Jean Bevier at COD and Dominican University in River Forest. In spring 2009, the teachers in art and computer-generated design classes assigned their students to create artwork reflecting archetypes with which teens could identify, such as "mother," brat" and "loser."Originally, Hereth thought the deck would contain 16 cards, but the list of archetypes grew as they were run past teens for their reactions. One hundred fifty images were created, which Hereth edited down to 88.The images are in artistic styles ranging from realistic to childlike, abstract and goth. An abandoned baby is on a lottery card. A card titled saboteur shows an angel-like figure clinging to a tree instead of flying off while wolves are coming for her."I thought it was a wonderful illustration of how we sabotage ourselves," Hereth said.Careful to make the cards multiracial, Hereth chose the image of a young black man in a graduation gown to represent the word "scholar" and a Hispanic girl to represent "achiever."The deck even contains a blank card."I was trying to make it (so) a teenager could look at these and find something that looked like them," Hereth said.Geraldine Jender, a clinical social worker in Naperville who took an art class with Hereth, tested the cards in therapy last summer and has used them ever since."They are visually beautiful and provocative," she said. "They represent parts of the self."The cards allow teens, who are notoriously unwilling to open up, to discuss their feelings in third-party language, she said."This is kind of a back door way to get kids to examine themselves," she said. "It's a little distance and makes it a little safer."Community serviceThe cards will be marketed through iArtists, a group for artists started at COD to help New Orleans' Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the city in 2005. All proceeds from the cards will go to a teen center in the Ninth Ward, Hereth said.It's not the first time Hereth, of Chicago, and Kamal, of Wheaton - both practicing artists as well as teachers - have used art to speak out on social concerns."We are two teachers who say, 'Who put the community in community college?'" Hereth said.She was named among "100 Women Making a Difference" by Today's Chicago Woman magazine for the year 2000. Hereth and her students also were recognized as "Outstanding Volunteers of the Year" by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. She curated a "Baby, Baby" exhibit, in which Kamal also participated, to benefit the Infant Welfare Society.But Hereth is proudest of being named among "Who's Who Among America's Teachers" for six out of nine years."I love teaching art," she said. On sabbatical this year, Hereth is putting together a catalog of her paintings and traveling with a student to Honduras in February to help in a clinic. A silver teapot Kamal created is one of five finalists in the holloware category of the 2010 Saul Bell Design Award Competition, which carries a $10,000 prize. Both women are eagerly awaiting the publication of the archetype cards they created. Kamal said a representative of the publisher initially said he wouldn't even consider publishing the cards unless they had reinvented the form. He concluded they had."We were just going with our gut," she said. "We really underestimate what artists can do as a community, as a group."For details about obtaining a copy of the cards, contact Hereth at rlieberthereth@yahoo.com. bull; Do you know someone with an unusual job or hobby? Let us know at sdibble@dailyherald.com, (630) 955-3532 or 4300 Commerce Court, Lisle, 60532.True20001273Kathleen Kamal created the image on this card, titled "seeker."Scott Sanders | Staff PhotographerTrue