"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." -William James

The WJA News Room

Prison Arts Update

The Prison Arts Project at San Quentin is alive and thriving and I am so excited to have this opportunity to share it with you and to tell you about the celebration we are planning to mark the Thirty-Fifth Anniversary of the William James Association! I'm hoping that this newsletter will help us to stay in touch with so many of you who care about our work to bring meaningful arts
experiences into prisons.

William James Association turns Thirty-Five!

Join us to celebrate William James Association's 35th anniversary on Saturday, April 5, starting at 5 at The Attic in Santa Cruz.

We'll have a silent auction of prison artwork, live music from prison teachers and former participants and a program featuring WJA co-founder Paul Lee, Guitar-makers Kenny Hill and Robert Vincent. CYAP brings artists to the alternative education high schools in Santa Cruz County. These students face learning difficulties, attention deficits, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness, gang affiliation, legal and substance abuse issues. Were it not for the this project, they probably would not otherwise get to experience the arts in meaningful, hands-on classes with professional artists.

Prison Arts Project at San Quentin

The Prison Arts Project at San Quentin is going strong with activities seven days a week - painting, drawing and printmaking classes, inmate bands, theater, writing workshops and book-binding.

We received a $25,000 challenge grant from the Marin Community Foundation, which means that your donation to support the Prison Arts Project at SQ is doubled.

WJA's commitment to keeping the arts alive at SQ as a living example of excellence in correctional arts programming and it is paying off:

Michael Franti and Spearhead performed at San Quentin on May 19, 2007. You can see more in an episode of FrantiV or read about it in Leah Garchik's column in the Chronicle.

Alarm Magazine wrote a long and thoughtful, two-part story about Arts in Corrections at San Quentin.

Marin Independent Journal published an extensive piece about the visual arts program with some very nice photographs of the guys and their artwork.

TOWER BOOK Black/ White [and Read] Designed by Beth Thielen, the Tower Book project is a collaboration between the women of California Rehabilitation Center and the Men of San Quentin and is the first of its kind. The work is currently in the exhibition: "Black/White and Read" which opened at the New York Center for the Book in April, 2007, showed at the San Francisco Center for the Book, last fall, just closed a the Los Angeles Book Arts Center and will open at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts April 2008.

The creative writing group, aka the San Quentin Nine, has just released their second anthology, Brothers in Pen: A Means of Escape. Their first anthology, Brothers In Pen, released in 2006 is also available on-line.

Congratulations, also, to SQ9 member Kenny Brydon for winning
the 2007 PEN.ORG Prison Writing Program honorable mention for fiction with a short story entitled, San Quentin, July 4, 1975.

What Else is WJA up to?

WJA is also about to start a contract with the National Endowment for the Arts to seek out and place artists and writers to teach in federal prisons.

The Community Youth Arts Project continues with ever increasing funding. We recently hired Jessica Wolf to oversee the CYAP and help with other projects.

In 2007, we hired artist Claudia Stevens and began weekly arts programming at the Santa Cruz County Jail.