William James Association

Project PAINT needs your help! Project PAINT: The Prison Arts INiTiative creates collaborative projects, facilitates multidisciplinary visual arts workshops, provides informative lectures, organizes public art events, and imagines creative possibilities with people who are incarcerated at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, and California State Prison- Centinela in Imperial, California. We are fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit William James Association, the progenitor of prison arts programming in California. A longtime primary funder included us in their Notice of Intent to Award after a competitive application process, but soon after they cancelled the Request for Proposals and rescinded every organization's planned awards. We are now suddenly and unexpectedly without funding.

However, we can't give up on our participants! We have a full schedule of new classes ready to go and a whole team of staff members ready to work! Your tax-deductible contribution will be used to help us provide impactful visual arts programming to more than 125 people incarcerated at two state prisons, employ and further train 10 teaching artists (some of whom are formerly incarcerated), and enable us to share incarcerated artists' work in exhibitions and publications.

With your support, these are the classes we plan to bring inside in 2023:

• Contemporary Painting & Its Appreciation - participants will get to make work in response to art created specifically for our class by professional artists across the United States
• Pen & Ink Drawing: Visual Self-Reflective Approaches - participants will creatively engage in deep self-reflection and explore global differences using social science research methods
• Art Anywhere - participants will explore how non-traditional materials can be used to make art
• Fiber Art - participants will be introduced to the latch hook and tufting mediums, opening up discussions about gender and masculinities and enabling reflections on self-identity and cultural backgrounds
• Paper & Printmaking - participants will engage in identifying innovative ways to practice printmaking, repurpose old materials to create handmade paper, and practice basic graphic design skills
• Mural Making - participants will collaborate to paint murals and learn the process of creating public art to beautify the institution, benefiting the entire prison population and the staff who work there

Project PAINT Background

Project PAINT has consistently provided visual arts programming since 2013, beginning on a single yard at RJ Donovan Correctional Facility (RJD) and now providing arts classes multiple days each week on 3 yards at RJD and 2 yards at California State Prison- Centinela (CEN). We have worked alongside participants in gyms, chapels, housing units, classrooms, and chow halls inside medium to maximum security facilities on sensitive needs to non-designated to general population yards. Your support will help us reach a milestone of a decade of impact. In the words of one of our participants, "we put paint where it ain't!"

We have facilitated classes, which generally run from 12 to 30 weeks (with individual class sessions of 2.5 to 3 hours), in a wide variety of media, from drawing and painting to printmaking and bookmaking to collage and 3D pen sculpture and beyond! Our course themes have focused on topics such as art and politics, healing art, color theory, social practice art, contemporary art, storytelling, nature journaling, poetry, and more. All of our workshops promote significant introspection, supportive collaboration, and creative problem-solving. Our work is couched in sociology, recognizing our individual agency within a constrained social world; we focus on social context and social issues in every course. Written and oral reflection is a large part of our art-making process.

Staying Connected

During prison lockdowns due to COVID-19, we quickly pivoted to provide programming throughout the pandemic by developing numerous original comprehensive distance learning courses, even collaborating with a formerly incarcerated artist and incorporating artwork by currently incarcerated artists into lessons in the process!

We also regularly share the work of our participants and co-create exhibitions with them to facilitate public dialogue and make the community more aware of issues related to the carceral system. Our collaborations with other arts and community-based organizations help us to broaden our reach. Project PAINT artwork has been published in Iron City Magazine and ReSentencing (as well as our own zines) and exhibited at Future IDs at Alcatraz on Alcatraz Island, Incarceration Realities: Walls and Beyond at the University of LaVerne College of Law Gallery, Pain at the USC Keck School of Medicine Hoyt Gallery, and more. We have held exhibitions at venues including the Oceanside Museum of Art, Art Produce, and MiraCosta College's Kruglak Gallery; we even hosted RJD's first in-prison exhibition (curated by our participants!) in which we were able to bring in members of the public to enjoy the event alongside the people living on the yard.

What our participants have to say:

• "This program has been very, very important to me and my rehabilitation, and instrumental in my social growth as well. It’s helped me and other inmates erase the borders of separation that prison has as far as other races. And this prison for sure has very limited programs as it is, and to have this one taken from me (and other inmates) makes no sense at all and is counterproductive. We all really appreciate this program and the sacrifices that the sponsors make to get here to help us with our rehabilitation. Please bring Project PAINT back A.S.A.P." - Wanjiko H.
• "Project PAINT art programming has been vital, essentially to me and my creativity side. For me it has been the very first art program I have ever attended/participated ever. I have been incarcerated for over 24 years and was never given the opportunity to participate in a art program like PPaint until now. Project PAINT is important to me for many reasons. One reason, when participating in the art class art lessons I revel in the sense of being productive, challenged, inspired, and creative. As well our teachers have taught me new art skills/exercises to expand my artistic horizons. I immensely appreciate the time, dedication, and passion our teachers teach us in our art time and lessons, tho, most of all the demonstration of respect and worthiness they extend to us students regardless of our convictions… Since attending/participating in PPaint I have come to a new perspective for art, which is, art can be defined in many ways and art can be formed in also many forms, and our teacher that is Art within itself… Us students as well experience to learn off each other, allowing me for the opportunity for me to then teach my young daughters the art knowledge/skills I’ve learned from PPaint. So for me, the benefits I’ve gained from participating in PPaint are profound and consequential to my life, loved ones, and positively productiveness." - Jose P.
• “The Project PAINT program is an essential outlet that helps me get through stress and antisocial behavior, as depressing as prison is. This art class is a ray of light that warms my spirits and soul. It helps me connect with people and really is a workshop that helps me with my mental health. I would like to appeal to whomever it may concern to please consider this program that helps me and others around me connect in a positive light. I would like to thank all whom help fund this program as well as the staff who takes their time to teach us." - Joel A.

A current staff member who was incarcerated for over 25 years and participated in Project PAINT courses while at RJD discussed the profound impact of participating in our classes inside and then becoming a teaching artist for the program upon his release: "The real magic came for me when I was released and I became a teaching artist for Project PAINT/WJA. All my life I was considered a loser for the poor choices I made and I was expected to die in prison. My first job + employment was to teach my ex-fellow students how to draw and improve their skills... At this moment I knew I was not a loser, suddenly I knew I was going to succeed..."

We also have excellent relationships with the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) staff at the prisons where we work and they are excited to have us return! As one staff member wrote to us, "Project Paint is an exemplary program and we look forward for its restart as soon as you are able."

The Justice Arts Coalition is raising funds via our fiscal sponsor, the William James Association, for CorrespondARTS, our new distance learning arts program at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. When the pandemic shuttered prison arts programs nationwide, JAC recognized the urgency of reestablishing opportunities for creative expression inside during this especially isolating time. The CorrespondARTS team of teaching artists is sending out packets full of engaging curricula to incarcerated folks, and we need YOUR help to keep this going. 

We’re participating in #GivingTuesday, a national day of giving on December 1, 2020 - your donation today would go a long way to ensure this initiative finds continued success! 

CorrespondARTS is a first of its kind six-month pilot project through which incarcerated women will receive biweekly arts engagement materials. JAC assembled a team of experienced teaching artists specializing in poetry, creative writing, visual art, and theater to create and compile themed packets of prompts and activities. These packets will be delivered to the prison and distributed to participants, who can then send their creative work back to our team for feedback and reflections before beginning the next packet. CorrespondARTS will be the only arts program functioning during the pandemic in a carceral setting in Maryland. 

Your donation matters! 

$50 = Art supplies for 5 participants
$70 = Printing costs of 20 packets of arts curriculum 
$150 = Full costs for 3 participants for 1 round (printing, curriculum design, and, supplies)
$500 = Full costs for 10 participants for 1 round (printing, curriculum design, and, supplies)

JAC is grateful for the support of the Maryland State Arts Council in making this program possible. We’re fundraising to supplement the budget so that the teaching artists and JAC volunteer staff administering the project can be adequately compensated for their time and labor and participants can receive the highest quality materials possible within the difficult restrictions of the prison.

 “It is enough that our time with loved ones is taken from us in penalty. Our voices and hearts expression should have a continuum always, this is the essence of life and no one should be allowed to take that from any individual under any circumstances. So thank you so much for providing an outlet for this; it’s rewarding to me to have this form of expression, correspondence, communication. I sincerely hope this is reciprocated to you and the members of the Coalition committee who work to make this possible that they can continually feel their efforts are making a difference and receive a beneficial impact in their own lives as well." – Cedar, artist



Our Mission: 

The Justice Arts Coalition (JAC) unites teaching artists, arts advocates, currently and formerly incarcerated artists, and allies, harnessing the transformative power of the arts to reimagine justice. 

Our Statement: 

As an organization, we envision a world without prisons and hope for a day when our work is no longer needed.  Currently, we engage in harm reduction and transformative justice through arts programs, resources, and community-building, and we commit to acting upon anti-racist values in everything we do.

Want to join us in making a difference? Your donation through our fiscal sponsor, The William James Association, will help us to reach our goals and is 100% tax-deductible.