"Voices from the Darkness" by Robert Judge Woerheide

 

“. . . as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to . . .”1

     At first, Nick Capaci wasn’t interested in setting foot near a prison. Art was his game—teaching it and making it—not dealing with the paramilitary environment of the American penal system. And he’d never much cared for locked doors and razor wire. “I was extremely apprehensive about the whole process,” he explains to me as we sit in the shade near the studio where he and fellow art instructor Jonde Northcutt work. “But the interesting part was, after we presented our program and our workshop, I really fell in love with working with the incarcerated population.”
     It isn’t just that Nick and Jonde teach art—something they’ve done for decades and continue to do today—and it isn’t just that they’ve worked in the prisons. What stands out here is the impact their efforts have on a population that society seems content to simply write off. Their work in both prisons and mental hospitals has had an extraordinary impact. “There are three programs within the Department of Corrections that always have the best recidivism rates,” Nick says. “The therapeutic (program), education . . . and the arts program. It’s always (in the top three).” These kind of statistics are often needed as justification for a prison arts program. Many people can’t understand why—especially in a day and age where massive budget cuts strangle arts programs in the school system—money should be spent teaching convicted prisoners how to paint.
     But when you’re involved in such a program, as Nick and Jonde are, it doesn’t take long to see the impressive impact art can have on a prisoner. As Jonde relates, this impact often translates to behavior. “(We could see) that the self worth of these individuals that were touched by art was magnified in kindness—they were nicer to the guards for instance—and this (behavioral improvement) has been documented.”
     Nick agrees: “The people that participate in the class become more sensitive to their surroundings: they don’t fight as much with other inmates, they don’t deface property as much. (Art becomes) an incentive to behave. Art is teaching them because they come to realize the value (of art) and they also realize they’ve experienced something they hadn’t experienced before. They can grow now from their own experiences, and that’s the important point.”
     Yet sadly, many in this country seem to forget what Nick and Jonde so clearly remember: that the prison system is at its noblest core a system of rehabilitation. How better to demonstrate to the inmates that the system intends to carry through on that promise than by allowing them to engage in an artistic activity? Activity that makes no demands for tangible returns; it is up to the artist to give or not, in an environment where everything is ordinarily forced. Art in prisons is about both respect and healing, and those things inevitably lead to rehabilitation. That is surely worth the sliver of budgetary support the arts receive in the Department of Corrections.
     The funds themselves come from outside sources, the Department of Corrections, and the California Arts Council. “(In the past),” Nick points out, “our program for all 33 institutions was three million dollars, and the Department of Corrections' total budget was 300 million dollars. So ours is a very miniscule amount of money, and the return—the human return—is immense. It’s a very inexpensive investment for a great return.” Nick manages to remain optimistic in the face of growing budget cuts, and considers them a challenge that the arts can rise to.
     Some still question the value of such a program, even if the benefits to the individuals attending are substantive. But as Jonde clarifies, it isn’t just the inmates attending classes that benefit from this program, the effects are felt throughout the institution. “(It’s) like throwing a stone in water, (it’s) a ripple effect. It’s not just the inmates that are in the classes with you but it’s the peers that those inmates know within the prison, because they . . . satellite out.”
     It was like that once when Nick and Jonde were teaching at Nellis, a young men’s correctional facility in Whittier. “We were doing an arts class for thirty young guys (aged) fourteen to eighteen,” Jonde tells me. “A couple of them started the class . . . and they said, ‘You know I’m not really sure we want to be here . . . Those guys out there on the yard that are our peers think we’re insane and are kind of thinking that we have to prove ourselves . . .’ And so at noon the class broke and the guys that were in the peer group wanted to sign up for our next class, because (the first group) had had such a revelation. They actually shook our hands after four hours, where if you’d have turned the clock back three and three-quarter hours they were lined up . . . with their arms shut.”
     With results like that it is easy to see why Nick and Jonde keep going back into prisons to teach convicted criminals art. “The rewards are certainly there,” Nick says. “What I really love is to receive a letter or phone call after they’ve left (prison), saying that I’ve been part of their process of healing—getting back to some kind of normalcy—where they can actually go out and function in society and pay taxes and not think about infracting upon (somebody’s rights).”
     In the meantime, the art created by inmates—which includes paintings, prints, drawings, and art that incorporates poetry—grace many public offices throughout California, as well as schools and libraries. Often the work of a particular group of inmates is gathered into a book which the inmates can then pass on to family members. These are tangible achievements for people whose lives often lack achievement. “It doesn’t always have to be grand,” Nick points out. “It’s OK to be yourself and (the program) reinforces being honest. Honest with the process, honest with the material, and not trying to hide behind it or make something more than what it is.”
     Embracing this ideal of honesty as Nick presents it is not an easy thing to do, for any of us. I shared with Nick my assumption that mental health patients in particular would be more likely to shun honesty, to hide themselves from the creative process. His response surprised me. “I think the patients actually don’t understand that element, at that level. I think (for them) it’s a pure physical and mental experience at the moment. They certainly connect quickly (with) just letting go. There are no agendas. And I find (the same thing) with a lot of the incarcerated men and women”
     Perhaps there is a lot we—as artists and as a society—could learn from the students of Nick and Jonde’s art programs. Imagine it, the “deviant” helping us connect more honestly with art. As revolutionary as it sounds, isn’t that what art is all about? Gleaning the good from everything, even the bad?
     And in the end we are all healed, we are all rehabilitated, we are all saved.
 

1] Henry David Thoreau: Resistance to Civil Government