- Hi, I'm Michael Gadlin.
- And I'm Kate Perdoni.
- Welcome back to Arts District, on Rocky Mountain PBS.
- Life at the country's most secure prison
could be pretty mundane.
However there is a way out of this monotony,
through the use of paint and a brush.
- In the last two years, more than 90 inmates
participated in a creative arts program
at the Federal Correctional Complex
near Florence, Colorado.
It gives inmates an opportunity
to create all kinds of art.
While learning skills that can help them
re-enter society.
- That's right, Arts District producer, Scott Jones,
shows us the artistic talent hiding inside the prison
known as Supermax.
(inspirational music)
- The primary goal with the Creative Arts Platform
is kind of two fold.
We wanna individualize the process and the experience
for the inmate participants as much as we can.
And what I mean by that is, you know,
you have different levels of security you're working with.
You have different levels of engagement
with the participant.
Some of them just want to kill time,
some of them really want to foster that identity
as an artist.
So Dr. Zohn and myself really take a lot of time
with each participant once they get past the first phase.
What we do is we basically teach them about art history
in the first phase and by doing so,
we're projecting their history onto the art assignments.
If they enjoy that, they move onto phase two,
where they get to explore anything they want.
We basically help build them an individual platform.
We're trying to highlight their creative tendencies,
and help them evolve into artists.
So by the time they make it to phase three,
they're working on artists statements,
they're working on cataloging and a portfolio.
It really is a therapeutic component to it
that really focuses on identity.
- The best thing about being a psychologist
in an environment like that
is what these inmates would reveal
through their art and through the experience
of being together as a collective.
What was interesting about this
was it was coming out through the form of creative art.
- The whole idea behind Color Of Hope
was to highlight how you can diminish darkness
through creation.
And so it really was a collective
of two years' worth of inmate participants.
And it was fascinating to see
that the majority of the work that was displayed
didn't necessarily reflect what you would typically call
correctional work, or work from the incarcerated.
Though we had a few challenges with that.
The work that they do
isn't necessarily large at this point.
Some of that's due to budgeting,
some of it's just due to
what we have to refrain from
in terms of security working in a prison.
A lot of the work that they're doing in phase one
is gonna be based on our history.
So they're gonna be introduced to guys like Jackson Pollock.
Movements like abstract expressionism,
where we challenge them to try to control chaos, you know.
So a lot of the work that was displayed
may have had that vein,
it looked like abstract expressionist work.
We spent two weeks with them doing surrealist packets,
where they have to keep a dream journal.
And their final practical assignment
is kind of a reoccurring dream
or a prominent dream they had.
So we had some of that on display.
And we have a packet where they learn about Vincent Van Gogh
and the many self portraits that he did.
And so we had a lot of those on display.
But also in the main gallery
we had a lot of these artists that were
starting to evolve into artists themselves.
(slow dramatic music)
The first idea to kind of move
beyond the walls of the prison into the community,
we reached out to Mat Taylor,
who's a good friend of mine, a street artist
that I've known in the circuit.
And just kind of playfully started a dialogue,
like how cool would it be to do a mural lot
in the community through CAP.
- I thought this would be an opportunity
to sort of put the federal stamp on a local community
in a way that was really positive
and reflected the positive things
that the inmates are doing.
- I had done a few sketches
based on what my ideas of the concept were gonna be.
Like what I thought incarceration was.
And I gave them those ideas
and then they came back and rebuttled, basically,
with what it really meant to them.
And they really designed the mural themselves
by giving their feedback
on what they thought incarceration was.
- [Justin] We took seven camp inmates,
which is the low offenders that we have at the complex,
out into the community
and we were able to create this wonderful mural
at the Colorado Prison Museum.
- The mural tells the story of incarceration
from going in to getting out.
And what you experience on the inside
from what you learn to what you,
kind of, grow through as an inmate.
And then it ends with
you being free, going back to nature.
It starts off with a group of people
getting shackled into the prison.
And then it goes through imagery of what's inside,
from brick walls and razors
to reading books to finding a form of faith
and then the things you miss.
The biggest thing that they were concerned about
is the way that their families are affected
by their incarceration,
so that's a big part of the mural.
And then it goes to them being released
and going back into the world
and back into the nature of things
and not being incarcerated anymore.
- They're getting to do murals
at the most secure prison in the country.
They're getting to do murals at historical landmarks,
like the prison museum.
They're getting an opportunity to go right into
a prominent art center here in Southern Colorado.
And we try to walk alongside them
as much as we can in that process.
- It's the most fulfilling art project
I've ever worked on.
The entire times that I'm working on the project,
they're just completely enthusiastic about it.
We're working full weeks,
so it's like a 40 hour work week that we're working
and at no point are they unenthusiastic or bored
or anything they are just so happy to be there.
- The biggest over reaching thing
that I hear from inmates about going through this program
and going back into the world
is that they have a sense of excitement
that they didn't have before.
That the possibilities are endless.
But they also have a plan.
So part of what they've done through the program
is to create a plan.
But also in doing that,
there's still that endless possibility
that maybe they didn't have before.
So I like that the program isn't necessarily
strictly goal oriented.
But it ends up showing results.
(light jazz music)
- The Creative Arts Platform
uses a curriculum provided by the National Gallery of Art.
Currently, there's a waiting list
of over 50 inmates who want to participate.
- I can see why.
And the murals created by these inmates
have become so popular,
that requests are pouring in from the community.