ANDERSON GALLERY

One of the best reasons for including access to the arts in prison is that art helps people strengthen their self-knowledge, identity, and connection to their communities and culture. All of those are fundamental to personal growth, and to being able to develop awareness of both the consequences and underlying causes of one’s behavior. Since Native Americans are incarcerated in California at twice their proportion in the state population, this potential for healing and growth is vital. 

The strong traditions of Native American artwork are especially rich in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, which are home to the largest enrolled California tribe, the Yurok, as well as many other tribes and reservations, including the Wiyot, Hoopa, Karuk and Tolowa. The images and patterns used to decorate gourds, drums, canoes, beadwork and so many other fundamental parts of traditional life offer incarcerated Indigenous artists a rich connection to their family and larger community. When people have the opportunity and support to draw, paint, create ceremonial objects, and to gift art to the families and communities they left behind, it is both healing and empowering. 

The arts in prisons and art in general can be a vehicle of healing. Healing in the sense of having an outlet for the trauma, the pain, and the anger endured by the ancestors of today’s Indigenous people who are now suffering from post-generational trauma. Colonizers were literally trying to strip indigenous people of their identity, culture, language, history, values, ancestral lands, and freedom. Art can bring that to the surface in paintings, words, dance, songs, performance and begin to see it, acknowledge it and heal from this damage. 

This exhibition offers the public a chance to share in the beauty and depth of Native American artists’ lives, culture, and spiritualities. Art that will encourage you to think outside of your box, touch your soul, and embrace your attention.