The Justice Arts Coalition has been honored to collaborate on a panel within Refueling for Justice, an all-day, free virtual event for those in the movement for Black lives, highlighting Black artists, teachers, musicians, dancers, healers, speakers, and more. From the Refueling for Justice website: To win long-term, systemic change – we need to be …

Continue reading Virtual Event 6/27: Refueling for Justice feat. “Art as Release” JAC Artist Panel!

Our online Summer Workshop Series Create+Connect is going strong! This week, on Thursday, June 22, we are so excited to be joined by the incredible Kenneth Reams. Kenneth Reams is an artist, social justice activist, and the founder of Who Decides, Inc., a non-profit that aims to raise awareness through the arts of the racial, …

Continue reading Workshop Spotlight: A Conversation From Death Row with Kenneth Reams

By R. Zumar This is the first piece of abstract art that I’ve ever made. I didn’t know what it would mean to me once it was finished and really didn’t have a plan of what I wanted when I was looking at this blank piece of paper in front of me. Then I started …

Continue reading The Becomings of A Master: Abstract

JAC network artist Chris Trigg details the enormous challenges facing incarcerated artists over the last 10 years and more recently in light of pandemic lockdowns. Surviving prison requires some creativity. It often becomes about making the most of a bad situation. If you look, creativity manifests itself everywhere. People making something out of nothing. Some …

Continue reading Chris Trigg on the state of the arts in federal prisons

This piece written by Janie Paul was originally published in The Conversation. Reposted with the author’s permission. Over the past few months, most of us have found ourselves in unfamiliar territory trying to shape the formlessness of our days while contending with physical separation. Many incarcerated people, however, have spent years figuring out what to …

Continue reading What we can learn about isolation from prison artists

By R. Zumar This is baby Harmoni, born January 27th, 2020. I look at her at peace with no worries in the world. A new little human gifted to us, a life with so much potential. Like all children, at least in our country, she will have the basics to survive and grow. She will …

Continue reading The Becomings of A Master: The Portrait Series #3

We write this message in response to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, David McAtee and countless other Black people at the hands of police and law enforcement across the country. As a community that includes many people impacted by our unjust law enforcement and carceral systems, we mourn the deaths …

Continue reading Black Lives Matter

This month, we are highlighting two artists in our network: brothers Jordan (Jordy) and Douglas Earls, a poet and painter/writer, respectively. What follows is gathered from our correspondence with the artists, the work they have generously shared with JAC, their descriptions of their work and processes, and an interview with their parents, Penny and Bobby Earls. …

Continue reading Artist Spotlight: Jordan and Douglas Earls