Janie Paul Brings Art to the World in 'Making Art in Prison'

Artist, curator, and author, Janie Paul, joins us to discuss her riveting new book about integrating art in the Michigan prison systems, Making Art in Prison: Survival and Resistance. Paul, along with her late husband Buzz Alexander, co-founded The Annual Exhibitions of Artists in Michigan Prisons, an organization that hosts yearly exhibitions at the University of Michigan displaying the artistry of inmates from all over Michigan. Making Art in Prison is an extension of the work Paul does and spotlights 94 different artists’ works and includes captivating stories of sixteen of the artists, all written in first person. When it came down to selecting which artists’ stories to feature, Paul said, “It was difficult actually…all of them were compelling. I interviewed about 32 people. I couldn’t do all of those. I also wanted a diversity in terms of gender and race and so I considered all of those things… humor, seriousness… it was like curating, putting together a group, where you get a variety of voices.”

The idea for Making Art in Prison came after Paul met Alexander and decided to move to Michigan to be with him. “I actually had the thought, previous to meeting Buzz, that I wanted to do some kind of work in prisons. I had spent most of my adult life teaching art to marginalized people …and I moved to Michigan and he had just founded the Prison Creative Arts Project, which is a project at the University of Michigan that sends faculty and students into prisons to do arts workshops… he said, ‘Let’s organize a show, an exhibit of art from Michigan prisons,’ so we did and it was an amazing experience. We just went to prisons locally …we met with the artists and we were kind of mind-blown at the talent that we saw and we organized an exhibit and it was very successful here. People loved it and so we decided to do it again and then it became The Annual Exhibition of Artists in Michigan Prisons… and now we’re going into our twenty-eighth year, so this exhibition has become a major phenomenon in the state prison system and in our community here and is well known around the country.”

To these incarcerated artists, art is so much more than a hobby. It’s a way to find hope when their future seems bleak. Paul remarked, “What I’ve come to see is that it’s a way of creating meaning and purpose for people who are locked up, either for five years or for a life sentence or anywhere in between. …if you’re making art there’s always possibility for the future…” Moreover, “[The Annual Exhibitions of Artists in Michigan Prisons is] not only an exhibit… one of our goals is to really support the growth, personal and artistic growth, of incarcerated artists and the other goal is to bring the work out into the world so that we humanize incarcerated people for people who come to the exhibit and they start to say, ‘Wow, this is amazing! These people are so talented! Who are these people that are in prison?’ We can start dialogues and conversations about why the United States is the most incarcerated country in the world, and what can we do about it, and what should we be doing about it.”