Coming soon: The pARTner Project -- a collaboration between PAC and Prisoner Express which will provide an opportunity for artists and individuals with a working interest in the arts to develop friendships with artists in prison through letter correspondence and the exchange of creative works. In her newest blog, Treacy Ziegler reflects on her 8 years of experience directing distance-learning art programs for people in prison, and the relationships developed through this exchange.

Images from Behind Prison Walls is an exhibit of more than 60 pieces of artwork from men and women incarcerated in five maximum and medium security prisons, including Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the only maximum-security prison for women in New York State, that will be on display at the Ossining Public Library Art Gallery throughout the month of July.

In January of this year, we started a Prison Arts Pilot Program here at Avery Mitchell Correctional Institution (AMCI) in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. We set out to do a series of 9 drawing classes with 15 incarcerated men each of whom are serving sentences from a few years to life. Our original intention was to solely focus on drawing exercises as many of the men were most interested in learning skills and art terms that others are able to learn in school. Over the weeks though, our drawing exercises turned into communal teaching opportunities in which all participants taught each other and we all learned to grow together as artists.
More than anything, the men at AMCI would like you to know that they have talent, heart, and soul and do not want to be forgotten.

Guest post contributed by Shyla Maskell, who is being released from Suffolk County House of Correction today.    Many people rightly believe prison education reduces the recidivism rate and gives post release job opportunities. But what they don’t realize is that prison education, and specifically art, does much more than that. I am currently being …

Continue reading Prison Education and the Freedom to Create Art

"Writing grounded me and kept my mind from circling in on itself. Being locked in a concrete cell for twenty-one hours a day, you get consumed by repetitive and irrational thoughts. It's important to get them out of your system, otherwise they eat you alive."

The Annual Exhibition of Art by Michigan Prisoners is one of the largest exhibitions of art by incarcerated artists in the country. Each year, faculty, staff and students from the University of Michigan travel to correctional facilities across Michigan and select work for the exhibition while providing feedback and critique that strengthens artist’s work and builds community around making art inside prisons.

Visual artist D. Ashton recently contributed an incredible collection of drawings and paintings to our Gallery. PAC asked him what inspires his work. This is what he shared with us: Having gotten certification in art teaching as well as majoring in art and art history, I have been lucky to have seen and studied all …

Continue reading Artist statement: D. Ashton

By Treacy Ziegler Still life drawing by prisoner David “….tear the memory from my eyes” – Tom Waits In prison, where time can be ignored, the prisoner Joe says he no longer looks at a clock, “I don’t think about time. What difference can it make to me when I’m serving life without parole? Every …

Continue reading Still Life In Prison