Vincent Nardone
Osborn CI - Audio Statement 2008
You may not be able to see me physically, but you can see me through my art.
Community Partners in Action and their Prison Arts Program bring people into the light. People who are - for the most part - invisible.
The CPA generates community recognition - and understanding - for men and women from all walks of life. The Arts Program is an outlet for creative and positive energy, as well as for endless possibility.
It is a foundation of voice, through art, unheard in the world.
The art is born from a necessity to express. It is a live wire of emotion that would otherwise be stifled in a mundane environment. The art is created for people to share and is gleaned from a very unlikely place because of the consistent efforts of the CPA, its staff and volunteers.
Be it a simple portrait of a loved one, or a landscape from a previous life memory lost. The art may be made in prison, but it is free in spirit. The images may represent many things, but they are always thought provoking. This art is very real and honest, and it comes form deep within the soul.
Prison is a place where privileges are few but long on regimentation. Marching single file on a yellow line in the center of each corridor, to get from point A to point B, may seem disconcerting, at best, to any normal social being, but predominates most all prison routine. The workshops that I, and a few other artists are privileged to attend, afford us a rare opportunity under these conditions.
This is the most humane time of our incarceration. I feel on the same level as the instructor (who is FREE) and every other artist.
The CPA sponsored workshops are a natural social gathering of artists. We critique each other's progress and share our thoughts and ideas. We pull together to support one another in volunteer ventures suggested by our instructor. We maintain a foundation for open artistic communication. It affords us, as prisoners a chance to give back to society, on a positive and motivational level.
Proceeds of donated art work help various non-profit organizations. We participate in an Annual show each spring. We undertake health education projects for students and the public at large. Our art is shown throughout the State to inspire and inform others. Through our art we visit clinics, public schools, colleges, libraries and doctor's offices. We donate artwork to create a pathway for released inmates by working with collaborating agencies to fund job training tuitions, ex-offender reintegration programs and seminars. We work to have a positive effect on our community. What a great feeling. Art helping to make a difference in people's lives!
I have personally been in prison longer than I care to think about, but in that time, I know full well what the CPA has done for me.
My frame of mind and quality of personal assessment has benefited me tremendously. Though being incarcerated as long as I have, the CPA has given me a vehicle that I use to Save pieces of my life, long forgotten, now found and saved and shared through my art.
I work from memories past, and with each panel I complete, I feel it is part of my life that I have saved and not wasted. I now make art that has great feeling and meaning to me!
The art that I create is a tribute to family and friends alive and whom have passed - Preserved moments of happier times for me. It is the only way that I can give back - to immortalize them. Sharing a forgotten moment that perhaps the viewer themselves had forgotten, And now remembers well. This would not be possible without the help and support of the CPA Prison Arts Program.