Prison Arts Project
What is the Prison Arts Project?
The major program of the William James Association is the Prison Arts
Project (PAP), created through the vision and efforts of Eloise Smith. A
pilot project was set up in 1977 at the California Medical Facility at
Vacaville, with funding provided by the San Francisco Foundation, the
National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, and the
Law Enforcement Assistance Administration.
Eloise Smith’s vision was based simply on the value of providing all
individuals with the most meaningful art experience possible; in her
words, “that mysterious life-enhancing process we call the arts, a realm
in which patient application and vivid imagination so often produce
magic.”
The success of this initial program led to the formation of
Arts-in-Corrections, an administrative office within the California
Department of Corrections, which oversees the staffing of
artist-facilitators at all prisons in California. Unfortunately, in
January 2003, all Arts-in-Corrections artists’ contracts were terminated
as the result of a budget crisis in California state government.
Through some limited funding from private sources, the William James
Association has been able to hire a few professional artists to teach at
San Quentin State Prison and the women’s unit of the California
Rehabilitation Center in Norco.
Philosophy
Bringing
the arts to institutionalized individuals is based in the belief that
participation in the artistic process significantly affects a person’s
self-esteem and general outlook on the world. Art workshops teach
self-discipline, problem-solving, and concentration through absorption
in a specific creative endeavor.
The skills acquired through participation in the arts are translated to
other aspects of one’s life. Art satisfies an individual’s need for
creativity, self-expression, recognition, and self-respect.
“There are general feelings of hostility and
hopelessness in prisons today and it is getting worse with overcrowding.
. . Art workshops and similar programs help take us out of this
atmosphere and we become like any other free person expressing our
talents. Being in prison is the final ride downhill unless one can
resist the things around him and learn to function in a society which he
no longer has any contact with. Arts programs for many of us may be the
final salvation of our minds from prison insanity. It’s contact with
the best of the human race. It is something that says that we, too, are
still valuable.”
- a prison inmate
Theprison system punishes negative behaviors but offers little to
replace them. The capacity for personal change is great, although
daunting within a repressive environment and culture of extreme power
imbalance, racism, segregation and manipulation. The Prison Arts Project
creates a sanctuary where inmates are treated with respect, courtesy
and an openness to their unique expressions as creative human beings.
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