Little fish, big pond

by Walt Williams

This is my main takeaway after four days in Soledad State Prison where I spent four Mondays this summer painting hearts with inmates. On the first day, one of the inmates, we’ll call him John 1, said

“You know that saying, Hurt People Hurt People, that’s us man, but programs like this, it’s hurt people helping people.”

The hearts came from Tracy Ferron and her posse at “Life on Art” in Petaluma.  The program came to my classroom in Sonoma last year and did their hearts with wings art project which was the most engaging project I can remember in my many years as an art teacher. https://lifeonearthart.org/

The art program was brought to Soledad through “Empathy in Action” and its founder, UCSC professor Megan McDrew, I would link the website to the program here but there isn’t one because Megan is just getting started.

“How can we get this into every prison in California?” was a question I asked anyone who would listen. Prisons in California are a mess, archaic, expensive, and they don’t do what they were designed for. Criminals go in and often learn to be better criminals. “Empathy in action” gets them thinking and moving in the right direction.

I was honored and intrigued when Life on Art asked me if I wanted to be involved in the prison program because I believe the incarceration system parallels the education system in that both systems could and should function much better (Isn’t an 82% national recidivism rate proof that things aren’t working?)

The symbolism of the Life on Art program is deceptively simple, A heart with two wings attached, but what it evokes is much deeper. A few students went deep when the program came to my classroom but at Soledad some went all the way to the ocean floor. https://vimeo.com/video/974752277?share=copy

A good art project hopefully makes people think, “How does the art make me feel?” “What can I learn from this project”. A great art project does that but also leads to questions like, “How can art improve my life?”  it can inspire and unlock further creativity. It can make hurt people want to help people.

Soledad Prison (formal name, Correctional Training Facility) is a minimum-median security prison unlike San Quentin,https://valleytalking.blogs.sonomanews.com/2016/06/14/day-san-quentin/. When you deep dive into California prisons you see that while incarceration is down, costs are way up and when you walk the yard and talk with inmates, you wonder where the estimated $132,000. per inmate per year goes.

I want to interject here that prisons in California are changing, our governor is looking at the problems, designing programs and closing facilities but many problems continue to be ignored. I also want to interject that while I am a big believer in restorative justice and rehabilitation programs, consequences matter and incarceration sometimes leads to remorse, understanding and change.

I also have seen, after 25 years teaching in an alternative high school setting, students who learned to be better criminals in juvenile hall and that is always wrong.

It’s all about choosing the right path. On day two of the art program the warden came to see the inmates creating and we talked about teen rebellion and how yes, it is perfectly normal (I told him the story of hitting my Physics teacher in the face with a cake in high school) but the key is to learn and grow from the rebellion.

I also had three different inmates talk about the 15 second choice which they think about every day because making the wrong choice in that 15 seconds led to their incarceration. This will be a big topic in my classes this year.

“Those seconds when I could have walked away, I think about those seconds every day. But I was so full of rage and hate that I lashed out and it led to 20 years in here.”

John 2 needs help putting his thoughts into his art. He wants to depict non- traditional gender stereotypes on his heart so without asking too many questions (we have been counseled not to ask too many questions or share personal information), we come up with the right colors and images.

On the third Monday I ask John 3 about the dog he has painted on his heart,

“This dog is just like me man, it grew up abused, kicked, hit, thrown away then it came into this program where it gets attention and love and learns a different way.”

John 3 is training dogs through PAWS, which brings rescue dogs into prisons to be trained and cared for so they can be adopted by the public. Amazing program, amazing results.

On the last Monday of the program we had a an organic art show pop up on the wall of the Gym (painted by inmates), one of the guards was strumming a guitar with two inmates in the corner of the gym, one guy was crocheting at the end of the table, Peanut, the rescue dog from New Life K-9 Rescue (a second therapeutic dog program) was sniffing under the table, and John 4 tells me,  

“I feel like I’m not in prison for two hours per week during this project.”

Prison costs are up while the prison population is down. The governor changed the name of San Quintin Prison to San Quentin Rehabilitation Facility and there is an interest in more programs like “Empathy in Action” which is all good but the machine moves very slowly, too slowly.

The hearts created by inmates will be on display in a show called, “Visions of Hope” September 5 through October 24 at the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael.