New Exhibit is Live!
Now Open at Berkeley Art Center, plus 20 new writings
Welcome to Empowerment Ave! Learn more about our history, partnerships, and past published work here. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
Thank you to all the folks who came to the launch of Painting Ourselves Into Society at the Berkeley Art Center, co-curated by Rahsaan Thomas and O. Smith. It was a truly powerful event with many of the incarcerated artists calling in, as well as a statement from O. Smith by phone. You have until January 12th to view the exhibit and experience this beautiful community offering.
We also have two public programs as part of the exhibit. “A Moment Missed: Connected Through Loss” will explore the shared experience of missing everyday moments in our lives due to incarceration. It will be on Saturday, October 12th, between 11am and 2pm. The second, “Building Beloved Communities Across Prison Walls,” will explore what it means to build beloved community among incarcerated culture bearers and local residents. It will be on Saturday, November 2nd, between 11am and 3pm. Find details for both events here.
It was a great month for publishing, with a major investigative news story, lots of poems, an award and more. Below, read the urgent work writers put out in the world.
Our Latest Work
We kicked off this month with an investigative report by Sara Kielly for New York Focus1 about how New York’s maximum-security women’s prison failed to HALT solitary confinement. This is a result of our Solitary Watch partnership to support the Ridgeway Reporting Project2; huge thanks to EA volunteer Kristen who helped Sara navigate endless challenges and censorship from the DOC.
For Film Comment Magazine3, Sara Kielly also wrote about watching movies in prison, in her “Black Heart Movie Diary.” “My workweek at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley of New York State leaves me no time to relax in front of the television—except at the end of the day as I begin to nod off to sleep.”
Demetrius Buckley was announced as a finalist for the 2024 Rattle Poetry Prize, which had over 5,000 entries! His poem, The We, will be published in issue #86 of Rattle.
Demetrius Buckley, Elizabeth Hawes, and April Harris all had poems publish with The Rumpus, as part of a folio feature on Empowerment Avenue. Read it all here.
Christopher Blackwell for The Appeal4 shared the importance of artmaking in prison as both a restorative practice and source of economic support: “Although my artistic pursuits began with material necessity, they have become a way for me to express myself and find inner peace.”
For Local News Matters5, Steve Brooks wrote from San Quentin about a demolition that happened behind prison walls to make way for the governor's plans for the prison. Before it came down, residents and COs were allowed to graffiti the wall.
Steve Brooks also wrote about Prop 6: “This November, Californians will have an opportunity to eliminate slavery by voting yes on Proposition 6, which will remove involuntary servitude from Article 1 Section 6 of California’s Constitution…”
We partnered with Prism Reports6 to uncover life-threatening, extreme climate conditions that women and queer folks incarcerated in Texas endured this summer. Testimony is from Kwaneta Harris, Xandan Gulley, Marissa Potts, and Lanae Tipton: “Without intervention, we can expect more preventable heat stroke deaths like those in Central California Women’s Facility to multiply—transforming America’s non-air-conditioned prisons into death chambers.”
Kwaneta Harris also wrote for Slate7 on the horrors of getting an abortion when you’re formerly incarcerated. “If we care about half the population’s bodily autonomy, we must do more to secure these rights for returning citizens.”
Another for Slate: Robert Lee Williams penned a piece about why he’s desperate for Microsoft Word: “…when they take things that they didn’t want you to have in the first place, rarely do they return them.”
Don't miss Tariq Maqbool writing for Marshall Project Life Inside8 about how lingering COVID-19 restrictions still impact visiting rooms in New Jersey prisons. “Visitors have to call the prison and book a slot 48 hours in advance. But this only works if someone answers the phone.”
Our latest in our partnership with Black Lipstick9 is by Elizabeth Hawes. Titled "Two Days In September," it's an intimate look inside the Shakopee Women’s Prison, where she's incarcerated.
Antoine E. Davis wrote for Front Porch Republic10 about pastoring while living in prison. “…those simple words, ‘Jesus loves you,’ broke down the wall he had built around his heart after years of neglect, violence, poverty, and eventually prison.”
Tony Vick’s latest for Filter Mag11 is about how everyone in prison needs a hustle to afford basic necessities like shoes, soap, phone money, stamps, and edible food. For a small fee, Vick provides a one-hour workshop about how to get one.
For Felix Sitthivong’s latest On The Fence Line column for International Examiner, writes about how we deserve a world where stories of survival and resistance are considered stories of inspiration and love. Yes!!
Alvin Smith’s artwork, Outside the Rusted Decay Of Confinement, was featured in this Prison Journalism Project series on voting, politics and democracy behind bars.
Artist Spotlight: Corey Devon Arthur
For his contribution to the exhibition Painting Ourselves into Society, Corey Devon Arthur created his largest painting yet—The Left Hand of Feminism. As Corey describes:
“I illustrated [this painting] with brighter and bolder colors, and on bigger canvases than the carceral state could contain. The sheer size of this piece is an act of resistance. It surpasses the rules and regulations for the allowable painting size done in prison. I painted composite style, each panel in community with several others, but never all at the same time. I worked with what I saw in front of my eyes balanced with the macro painting in my mind. I've never seen the entire painting complete.”
The Left Hand of Feminism (shown here) is 8 feet wide by 4 feet high. It’s made from 54 sheets of letter-sized paper turned into 9 panels. Corey’s outside community completed his vision and sent this image to him, which was a critical part of the creative endeavor. That accomplishment wasn’t lost on anyone, and it truly took a village to pull this off. As Corey says, “The fact that you are looking at this painting proves that absolutely nothing could stop an artist determined to atone for his wrongs by helping to heal folks in free society.”
Inside/Outside Insights
WELCOME HOME!: Welcome home Kunlyna “K” Tauch, who was resentenced and will leave prison in a few weeks. It was amazing to hear the judge praise K for being a published writer, and how humanity shines through in his writing. His Harpers Bazaar story on crocheting in prison was mentioned throughout the hearing.
ADVOCACY: Thank you to The Dissenter for covering the retaliation by prison officials against Jeremy Busby, an incarcerated journalist in Texas. They also published an op-ed from Theodore Amey, a friend and supporter of his.
ART: Artist Alvin Smith is featured in a Open Campus Media story about the struggle of artistic freedom inside prisons. See his work here. Smith said “prison officials did not allow him to submit a painting depicting the 13th Amendment as modern day slavery to the University of Michigan show.”
COVERAGE: Thank you Berkeleyside for covering Painting Ourselves Into Society.
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New York Focus is a nonprofit news organization that produces investigative journalism covering New York State and City politics and policy. They pay around $800 for a feature.
The Ridgeway Reporting Project is designed to award grants and provide technical support to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated journalists.
Founded in 1962, Film Comment magazine features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. They pay $300 for a 1,000 word story.
The Appeal covers criminal justice issues from a progressive lens and pays $1/word.
Local News Matters is a nonprofit site bringing community coverage to the San Francisco Bay Area region so that the people, places and topics that deserve more attention get it.
Prism is an independent, nonprofit newsroom led by and for people of color that launched the Right to Write Project to feature and pay incarcerated writers. They pay .50 per word.
Slate is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. They pay around $400 for online stories.
The Marshall Project’s Life Inside series publishes weekly first-person essays from people who live or work in the criminal justice system. Pieces are between 1,000 and 1,400 words, and the rate per story is $200.
Black Lipstick is a Substack publication featuring art and writing on makeup, mental health, mortality, queerness, sex, gender, nostalgia, pop culture, parenthood, weird dreams, dark thoughts, and everything else. They pay $150 per essay.
Launched in 2014, Front Porch Republic Books publishes works about place, localism, community, decentralism, and conservation.
Filter’s mission is to advocate through journalism for rational and compassionate approaches to drug use, drug policy, and human rights. They pay $300 per essay.