We are excited to share the book launch of Words After Dark: A Lyrics, Lit & Liquor Anthology, edited by Amy Dupcak and JAC community member Amanda Miller. The anthology, now out on Lucid River Press, features poetry, essays, stories, comedy and song lyrics, originally performed during the now eight-year-run of Miller’s literary/performance series Lyrics, …

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By Annie Buckley This is the first in a series of four blog posts for the Justice Arts Coalition, excerpted from the series, “Art Inside,” published by Los Angeles Review of Books. The full series is available here. Stay tuned for the second blog in Buckley’s JAC series, which will be posted on Friday, October …

Continue reading Guest Blog: Annie Buckley – Oasis in the Desert

“A voice from inside… All my life I’ve been a drug addict, at least since I was 13 years old. What caused me to come down this life road?  IDOC # 101969 Inmate Daniel, I was supposed to be somebody special. Not some loser.  What makes me a loser? Societies views, and harsh opinions do…  …

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We recently talked with Annie Buckley, our newest addition to the Teaching Artist Spotlight series. Annie Buckley is a professor and the director of the School of Art + Design at San Diego State University and the founding director of Prison Arts Collective (PAC), a project of Arts in Corrections, a partnership between the California …

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By Joslyn Lapinski, JAC intern Chad Merrill’s story truly embodies the transformative power of the arts. When he was first incarcerated, Chad was on a path towards self-destruction. He barely cared about what happened to him or anyone else. He says, “I was so full of hate that I couldn’t see past my nose.” This …

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By John Zenc  “The drawing of the boy who only wanted to be loved is in memory of Timy, my best friend. Timy was born with no hands, and oversized eyes. Hazel in color. Looking in Timy’s eyes, you could see his soul, see the pain, the fear, the love. Timy would come to school, …

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JAC is excited to announce the opening of MoMA’s PS1 “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Incarceration”, an exhibit running from September 17th, 2020 – April 4th, 2021. As described on the MoMA website, “this major exhibition explores the work of artists within US prisons and the centrality of incarceration to contemporary art and …

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By Christian Trigg In the early years of the New Millennium, I was watching a series about famous artists on the little black and white TV in my cell in the federal supermax courtesy of PBS. I don’t know if they even made black and white TVs. The ones issued to us were color TVs. …

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