Crystal: Hi everyone, welcome to our 3rd minisode of Abolition is for Everybody, the one where we talk about art in prison.
Ra: Artivism! I’m excited! For those who don’t know, Minisodes are much shorter, and a little less polished, but still super friendly and still all about abolition. My name is Ra
Crystal: and I’m Crystal, and I’m really really excited for this episode because at Initiate Justice we receive all types of art every single day! Because we communicate with 45,000 people, art is inevitable.
Ra: So true, and 45, 000 people is a lot of people, by any measure, but since this particular group is currently incarcerated– can you tell us a little bit about what that’s like?
Crystal: Well, it’s really really bittersweet, right? We have these amazing, beautiful, colorful pieces that are being sent to us every day, but at the same time because of the work that we do, we know first-hand what folks inside are going through. And Ra, I know we’ve had conversations offline, and you’ve talked about how difficult it was for you and for folks inside to get supplies and how you have to go through all these approval processes, and how it’s really really expensive!- and it really is not as accessible as folks really think it is.
Ra: Yeah, it is, it is or at least can be complicated. I applied for a hobby card right away when I got to prison-
Crystal: For our listeners, um what’s a hobby card? Because I just learned what that is not that long ago.
Ra: Oh yeah! A hobby card is like a permission slip so that you can do crafts or art while you’re inside because otherwise the materials that you would need to do that would be considered contraband. Even something as simple as like a needle could be a weapon, so if you’re using it to make, you know, small crafts or embroider, that can actually get you more time, so the hobby card protects you in that sense, it lists out what your hobbies are- you can have knitting needles. Um, I applied when I first got in and it didn’t get approved for a whole year later. So processes are pretty slow, pretty intense, as you would expect. And because I didn’t stop making art, that means pretty mu8ch everything I created during that first year was contraband. And that can be, that can be a pretty big deal, you can catch more time on making, making art. And of course in jail, where there isn’t a thing like a hobby card, all art is contraband. So we used what we had and we definitely, and this varies from jail to jail, but where I was we didn’t have like coloring um pencils or crayons on the commissary, so we would take um deodorant and press it onto magazines and then use our fingers to lift the colors out of the magazines and with the color on our fingers we would paint or draw or make designs for our loved ones. Because that’s a big thing in prison, is sending art to our loved ones.
Crystal: And you have to get really really creative, I know when my brother applied for a card, he had to keep reminding and asking and it also took a really really long time and by the time it got approved, he had been transferred so he didn’t get to start the art at that particular facility. And um I remember when I was younger we would sometimes receive these little huaraches made out of plastic and they were mini ones and they came in like a little bundle so we would hang it in the car or hang it around the house to remind ourselves of my brother and he would make um little uh portraits out of plastic as well and um he would make necklaces for my dad so he still wears those right now, ‘till this day. And it really is amazing how folks inside, how you uh inside, and you know all these artists, still manage to create such beautiful beautiful pieces inside of a place that’s not beautiful at all. Inside of, you know, prisons all over. Um, and we know prison is a horrible place and I can just imagine how difficult, and you shared a little bit about how difficult it is to create art and beauty inside.
Ra: Yeah, it is- um for a variety of reasons, you know, it’s not just the processes, it’s not just the minimal supplies, um sometimes too it’s also you know space or lighting. One of my cells didn’t have a light, you know, so I only had a natural light source for a couple of hours where it would like peek through the trees and no other light at all. So, my primary art form of choice is writing and um I just got really used to writing in complete darkness. Or in jail where we didnt have like full length pencils. We used to take like an Uno card and wrap it around two of the small pencils and press them in together or use whatever we could like sometimes the food seals would still stay sticky and you could use those as a tape product so we would make essentially make one long pencil and then I could actually, I could actually write. And um yeah, the amount of creativity that goes into accomplishing even something as simple as writing, you know, and when you get into the more complex art forms, like you’re talking about, right, I mean I saw all of that, dreamcatchers, necklaces, rings, creative frames, and um netting and weaving is a big thing inside because we have like thread from the state blankets, or if you do it with uh authorization, you can string from the commissary. And uh string from um your art catalogs and things, but of course as you mentioned that’s expensive and takes a lot of time so instead when a blanket is ruined and is going in the trash we kinda scavenge it, pull all the string out and we use that to make a lot of different things. But netting is a big deal because like you have to have a bag to carry to your shower and you have to have a bag to take to these places and they don’t sell those bags, so your other option is just like a handful of soap supplies on your way to the shower. So instead, people weave and they take, they make these like macrame bags and shelving systems for our lockers so that there can be some semblance of organization. Yeah, it’s, it’s very clever. And I have like uh an only slightly related thought that I want to put down here: I guess I wanna first, that I believe in the happy, flourishing artist. I do not believe that art has to come from suffering, or that artists have to stay in their suffering to create, which is like a very common myth. But that said, when you are face to face with a bad system that is hurting people, it’s hard not to find your way to art. Art is about advocacy, it’s about relationship building, it’s about imagining something beyond the stuff that’s right in front of you, and all of that is just so incredibly critical for the movement. For any movement. For any change. So when you talk about prison being like a horrible place and how difficult it is to create art, it’s like yes, but also being in prison up close and personal to these failing systems, you can see, clear as day, that change is needed, that prison is a boulder in the way of our path forward and I guess it just doesn’t surprise me at all that human beings chip away at that boulder through art. That we are, you know, doing whatever we can to figure it out. It’s advocacy, you know, for something better.
Crystal: Yeah, every single piece that we receive at Initiate Justice always has beauty, always has pain, suffering, um hope, behind it. Every single piece comes with a story from someone who is incarcerated somewhere in California. And after I began receiving all of this art, and we just kept putting it away in a safe fireproof box, and putting it around the office, and sharing with each other on staff to, you know, give us motivation, keep us going, um I quickly decided that although very motivational and helpful to our staff, everybody else had to see this art as well. Everybody else had to learn the stories and the beauty and the pain behind every single piece that we were receiving. And with that, I began planning an event, so we can accomplish just that.
Ra: And of course, I’ve been helping behind the scenes too, um I think, I love how with this podcast, we are just like these floating voices for people, but we both work at Initiate Justice and I am just so excited to see this project, to have been able to see this project from it’s grounding idea to its full blossom. But, for people who don’t know, can we get details? What does, what does this special event look like?
Crystal: Yeah! So we’ll be showcasing art from Inside– all of the art that we will be showcasing was created inside a prison in California. From currently incarcerated folks. And we somehow, from the dozens and dozens of pieces that we get, we got it down to just a select few pieces, but we’ll also have many more outside the showcase, you know, available for auction and um available for sale. But, we’re calling it The ART Gallery, where ART stands for Abolition, Resistance, Transformation. And Initiate Justice, you know, fighting every single day trying to end incarceration in the state of California by changing laws, and we always say that changing laws and shifting culture go hand in hand. And our stories as system-impacted people are so so so important. And being able to really see the stories of incarcerated folks, brought to life in whatever expression they chose, whether that was a pair of earrings, or a painting, um or a bracelet, has been such a motivating and rewarding experience for me as I do this work and has really helped me, you know, keep going so that we can bring them home. And I’m really really excited for other people to be introduced to the community that I work with every single day, and to see their vision, and look at the beauty they have created inside very ugly places.
Ra: Thank you for explaining all that. I think um what I love about what you just said is how clearly advocacy and art go hand in hand in the world of work that Initiate Justice is doing and um and so many places because art can be such a tool for social change, you know, such a tool for culture shifting, and I think that’s really exciting. I think it’s exciting because we talk about like empowering system impacted people and people closest to the system. And I think for a lot of people, we envision that being done one specific way, you know. Like when you say so and so is a teacher, you imagine them, if you’re a U.S. citizen and grew up in this last couple decades, you imagine this very specific picture. You imagine this teacher in front like I guess, depending what decade you grew up on, a white board or a chalkboard, and it’s in a classroom of seats and uh that’s what you think of but when you live in other places or in different times or even here in this country, a teacher can be so many different things, you know, we talk a lot about in this podcast, about the teachers I met in prison and they weren’t in classrooms, they you know, they had lessons where they were, and I think advocacy works very much the same way. Where we imagine an advocate as a certain thing, almost like a lobbyist in our mind, and um but there is so much work being done in the field of art, to change minds, to change cultures, to really um put legs on those laws, you know, so they make their way around the world. It’s um, and that’s like what the artists in this exhibit do specifically, they responded to calls for abolition specifically, right, and that’s so exciting! It’s so exciting to see their form of it and um yeah, I’m just, I’m grateful that you coordinated it, Iknow sending art to and from prism can be, can be a lot. It’s not easy to mail things like that.
Crystal: So what are some other ways that we can support artivists, are there any you’d like to give a special shout out to or you know, some of your favorites? I know as we planned for this event, you have mentioned that you know a lot of wonderful people and organizations using art as a form as a way, as a way of abolition.
Ra: Yeah! So, so many! I think maybe, I do wanna give recommendations, but I think maybe just to limit it, I’m going to list some system-impacted artists, but all art is shifting something, all art is doing the work even if they’re not like responding to a prompt on abolition, it’s um, and even if they aren’t directly impacted, like they’re doing, they’re pushing something. That’s like the essence of art, you know. But yes, okay, system-impacted artists, let’s see– There are so many different artforms! – so let’s like, okay some create music like Antwan Banks or Initiate Justice’s own Adam Cain, there are folks who make films like Kamisha Thomas, others create pottery like the folks at People’s Pottery Project, (Susan from one of the Episodes past creates there)– and oh and then there’s Aimee Wissman who paints and, writers like the poet Reginald Dwayne Betts, podcasts like The Prison Post, and then like, I guess a special shout out to organizations that do this all day long, they support incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted folks like Justice Arts Coalition, Prison Journalism Project, Prison Arts Collective, Returning Artists Guild, and For Everyone Collective. I know I’m forgetting people, there are so so many in this work, there’s really a whole world of advocacy through the arts, so many people who do time, and use their art, you know, they use their art to say what needs needs to be said about the world right now and the world we could make. And sometimes, that’s just like a picture of a flower because the only thing that needs to be said is that beautiful things are still possible.
Crystal: That’s really really amazing! And I’ve been to some of the events and follow them on social media and buy a lot of their merch, you know, to support the formerly incarcerated artists behind that beautiful shirt. And everyone, don’t forget to check them out, support their work, and –
Ra: especially especially don’t forget– if you’re interested in supporting our community’s incarcerated artists, please view the pieces in The ART Gallery – visit InitiateJustice.org/TheARTGallery