We're used to prison images of heavily tattooed men lifting weights,
playing basketball, huddling in "the yard." And fighting.
  

Jeffrey Greene, an art teacher who works with inmates at four prisons in
Connecticut, says there's something else they do more often. Even before he
walks through the gates from the outside in, he says, "In prison there are
already people making art. It's the most prevalent activity in prison."
  

Those who can, create, Greene says. Those who can't, barter, trading a
stir-and-serve cup of noodles or a deodorant stick for a present to give
someone on the outside. Prison artists are resourceful, Greene says,
crushing fruit and mixing it with floor wax (inmates do a lot of mopping, he
says) to create contraband paint.
  

Some of that creativity is on display in "New Work from Connecticut
Prisons," an exhibition ongoing through June 2 at the Institute for
Community Research, 2 Hartford Square West, in Hartford. The show, which
went up April 24, is a joint venture between the Institute and Community
Partners in Action, a nonprofit group that works with people affected by the
criminal justice system.
  

There have been complementary panel discussions to go with the show, and
on Thursday from 5 to 8 p.m. there's a talk scheduled called "Prison Arts:
The Power to Transform Lives." Greene who comes from Portland and lives now
in Brooklyn, N.Y., will be one of the presenters.
  

Since 1991, he's been teaching art in prisons, starting with Cheshire
Correctional ("Big Cheshire," he calls it, and still teaches there) and now
including men's prisons in Sommers and Suffield, and at York Correctional
Institute in Niantic.
  

What goes on there, artistically, might surprise people, Greene says. "Unless you have been in the prison system, or unless you have a family member who works in the system, you probably wouldn't know it. You would probably only know what you see about prisons on television. And what you see on television rarely shows the whole picture of what's happening."
  

Not that prison is a nice place. But Margaret Weeks, director of the Institute for Community Research, says art can be a valuable tool for inmates.
  

"They can begin to become introspective and reflective," Weeks says, "not only in their own perspective of what brought them to where they are, but also of their place in society."
  

ICR, says its Web site, "conducts research in collaboration with
community partners to promote justice and equity in a diverse, multiethnic,
multicultural world." Community Partners in Action, Weeks says, was looking
for a place to hang the "New Work" exhibition, and "we felt it really meshed
with our mission."

CPA also has a collection of inmate art on display at Hartford Stage,
adorning the theater lobby during the ongoing run of "Frankie and Johnny in
the Clair de Lune." In Terrence McNally's play, Johnny is an ex-convict. Prison isn't a major theme of the production, but Hartford Stage says it saw enough of a connection to warrant the art display.
  

According to Jacques Lamarre, Hartford Stage's marketing director, the
theater exhibition highlights work by Joseph Cusano, a 26-year-old sculptor
doing time in a maximum-security prison in Enfield. Allowed only limited
materials, he works with soap, wax and shoe polish, creating a marble
effect.
  

Equipment is always an issue in prison art programs, which are supported
largely by grants, Greene says. He tries to at least get good quality
pencils and paper, and sometimes watercolors. At some prisons, he says,
inmates are frisked on their way from art class, depending on the prison's
security level.
  

But, Greene says, the inmates he teaches are happy to be there, diligent
and respectful of the rules.
  

"I've worked with thousands of inmates over the last 15 years, and I'd
say I only encountered one or two artists who would try to take art supplies
that they're not allowed to take."
  

Gallery hours for the Community Partners in Action Prison Arts Program
Annual Show 2006 at the Institute for Community Research are Monday through
Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., open Thursday 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. (extended this
week for the discussion) and Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. For more
information, call (860) 278-2044.