NON-SUFFICIENT FUNDS, the prison art show I organised at Vermillion opened to much fanfare, good feelings, silent-auction bids and sack-loads of positive feedback. Quite proud.

Photographs of the opening and artworks to come soon. In the meantime, watch this video of our students at University Beyond Bars (UBB). We showed this at the opening too.

When You Learn, You Don’t Return, is a documentary by Gilda Sheppard an award-winning filmmaker and sociology instructor at UBB.

Many UBB students are unpacking the fact the world is a complex place and our existence (and its comprehension) is based upon the complex brew of individual responsibility AND societal circumstance. In other words, we only have choices within the parameters available to us and those vary widely town to town, neighbourhood to neighbourhood, block to block.

UBB students absorb material like sponges; engaged in a process of transformation.

PLEASE SPEND YOUR MONIES

I hope that all the interest and praise in the art show converts to bids on the pieces. University Beyond Bars is an important cause, but unfortunately prison reform initiatives are not as popular as the more visible charitable causes (animal shelters, children with chronic disease, common cancers, etc.)

Bidding on the silent auction continues until May 12th. If you’re in Seattle please stop by. Notify your benevolent friends.

PRESS

Insider Art: A Show from the State’s Most Unlikely Art Academy (Seattle Weekly)

Slideshow – “Insider” Art: Prisoner Art From the Washington State Reformatory (Seattle Weekly)

Suggests. Non-Sufficient Funds, Thursday 28th. (The Stranger)

Blog: Monroe Prison Art on Display at Vermillion on Capitol Hill (Seattle Weekly)

Now You Can Own Art By Monroe Inmates (Seattle PI)