Prison Artwork Reflects Jail's Harshness

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By Associated Press

Published: 03/05/2003

Their subjects are stark, edgy: steel bars, guns, drugs, devils and monsters. And their tools are homemade from matchsticks and plastic spoons.
But the artwork produced by dozens of Kentucky prisoners is helping to keep many out of trouble.
A 130-piece exhibit of prison art - colored sketches, black-and-white drawings, wooden sculptures and poetry - has been traveling through the South and border states.
'All of it that I have seen is very expressive,' said Adrian Swain, a curator for the Kentucky Folk Art Center, which will show the exhibit in February. 'The three-dimensional pieces are extremely impressive - they're made by people who don't have access to a typical toolbox that an artist would use.'
The exhibit - 'Behind the Walls: Art in Confinement' - debuted at Murray State University earlier this year and is currently on view at Spalding University in Louisville. It will be moved to the Folk Art Center in mid-February, and will continue traveling through August, including a show at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
Art curator Craig Bunting began corresponding with prisoners more than three years ago about their interest in the arts. After dozens of letters, he learned they not only had an interest in art, but a talent for it. Soon afterward, he organized the exhibit. He also began teaching an art class at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in Eddyville.
'My experiences in life are not to better society,' Bunting says. 'I'm selfish. This was simply a path of curiosity. I had no intention of starting an arts program or displaying the pieces at festivals and shows.'
He was amazed at the talent shown by prisoners, and the controversy surrounding some of the pieces also intrigues him. At a recent show promoting tourism in Lyon County, several of the 'darker pieces,' such as a sketch that shows a baby hooked up to an electric chair, received mixed messages.
'I received some nasty comments,' Bunting says. 'But freedom of expression is important in this country and I want to protect that right for them.'
Jo Ann Phillips, executive director for the Kentuckians' Voice for Crime Victims, found the exhibit to be disturbing. 'I'm all for art therapy, but why an art show? It's one more way of getting attention for violent perpetrators,' she says.
David Beck, recreation director for the Kentucky State Penitentiary, recently added art, music, drama and writing classes to his recreation program. The classes - taught by four instructors including Bunting - began in September as a pilot program paid for by a $5,000 grant from the Kentucky Arts Council. The classes will run through February, and then be evaluated to determine if they are beneficial.
Beck says the classes could help rehabilitate some of the inmates.
'It gives them a sense of self-accomplishment, or fulfillment. For some it's giving them a confidence that they weren't getting before - inside or outside of the prison,' he says.
In the early 1980s, Bill Cleveland helped create an arts program for the California Department of Corrections. The program - which includes classes in visual, literary and media arts - continues today in the state's correctional facilities. 'We thought we could reduce stress and idle times for the prisoners, and increase the safety of the prison by using art,' says Cleveland, who now runs The Center for the Study of Art and Community, which uses the arts as a means to teach public safety and economic development.
Ed Lawrence, a spokesman for the Kentucky Arts Council, said the organization was first contacted by an inmate requesting that art programs be available at the penitentiary. A prison official then requested an art instructor.
'Anytime an inmate spends their time constructively it's to our benefit,' Beck says. 'The recreational program is for the inmate to use it in a worthwhile manner ... opposed to negative ways that placed the prisoner here to start with.' Cleveland says that in two studies following the pilot program in California, researchers found that inmates who participated in the art program were 40 percent less likely to return to prison. There was also a 60 to 80 percent reduction in misbehavior by the inmates.
'I found that the impulse to disrupt and destroy is often coming from a similar place as the impulse to create,' Cleveland says.
About 60 of the 450 inmates in the general population at Kentucky's state prison participate in the program. Bunting says his class usually includes 12 to 15 inmates.
Prisoners' art materials are limited to pencils, matchsticks and everyday items, such as plastic spoons, cigarette packages, paper clips, toilet paper and clothing. The participants - many of whom are serving sentences for violent crimes - are not allowed to use paint, toxic materials or items that could be fashioned into weapons, Beck says.
The artwork on display includes pieces created by prisoners at the Kentucky State Reformatory and Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, the Green River Correctional Complex and the penitentiary. All 31 artists are serving sentences of 10 years or longer.
William Miller has 28 pieces in the show - the most of any inmate. He had worked with the Kentucky Folk Art Center before being incarcerated. His work includes brilliant-colored sketches including images of humans, animals and prison.
Dale Brown's 'Matchstick Fiddle No. 2' is one of several fiddles he constructed from matches. Billy McLimore also used matches, along with Popsicle sticks and tongue depressors, to construct several riverboats. Adam Alli used a mixture of pencil shavings, tobacco and a potato chip bag to sketch a drawing of the former World Trade Center in New York City.
'I think the collection of work is very interesting as a statement of what's going through people's minds in that environment,' Swain says. 'Collectively they provide a cultural statement about that world - a world that is quite foreign to almost all of us.'
Bunting has sold seven of the pieces - ranging from $25 to $400 - since his opening in Louisville. He says the inmates usually send part of the money to their families, but save a little to purchase more art supplies.

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