Tag: arts

How a Die Hard movie inspired me to swap prison for university

Author: | 11 Apr 2023

Alex is serving the last final years of a long sentence at an Open prison. With a Longford Scholarship, he is studying on day-release at the University of East London. For Longford Blog he describes how education had never figured in his plans, until he was in prison watching a lousy Die Hard action film on TV.

He knew he could write something better.

When I landed in prison there were two options to get paid. One was you work in the prison – cleaner, servery, painter. The other was you attend education – maths, English, journalism, IT.

Growing up in Hackney, I had seen it all. What we were taught as teenagers was – it wasn’t cool to get a job or even go to school. The cool thing was to go to prison and get fast money.

But in prison, I picked education. It was a no-brainer for me. I tried every course that they had to offer because I have always been a believer that knowledge is power. Plus, most of the courses I would have to pay for in the real world.

A Better You

I noticed, though, that a lot of prisoners wanted to work and despised education. They were scared to do something that they had never done before, or felt had no real value in their lives.

There is a huge number of people in prison who don’t know how to read or write. That lead me to write an article for the prison magazine called ‘A Better You’. It was basically giving tips on how to better yourself in custody and have something to carry out with you into the real world so your sentence didn’t feel like a big waste of time.

My light-bulb moment

I had never known what I wanted to be, and really enjoyed in my life until one day, in prison, I was watching a film, A Good Day to Die Hard. I thought to myself, ‘what the hell? I can come up with a way better script than this’. So, I put pen to paper and got creating.

I called my friends in the acting world and they sent me scripts which helped me learn about the format. They also sent me a book called Save the Cat. It really helped me out a lot because it taught me about writing a film.

Throughout my years in prison, I used to go around to the staff and ask, ‘is it possible you will let me put on a play in prison that would be really educational and helpful to others’? But I got rejected year by year.

Passion for film

Still I had a real passion for film. Something felt different this time. I knew this was my future. So I never gave up. I kept writing and I kept asking to put on a play.

When I got to Standford Hill (a category D prison) I had a big break from writing because there was so much freedom there, I couldn’t concentrate.  The courses they had were mostly manual handling (which I tried, but I knew straight away, this wasn’t for me). Or others I have already done in other prisons.

My creativity was fading, so I told my prison offender manager to send me back to a Category C prison so I could focus on my scripts. Suddenly me and a staff member got speaking. I told him I wrote screenplays and he said, ‘great, can you pull off a play in a month in the prison?’ I told him yes, then realised I had to get actors, props, sound, staging… and write a script.

Getting the green light

I gathered a group of people for a writer’s room and then went around approaching prisoners to act. And we made something that prison and prisoners had never seen before in a prison. We have carried on putting on plays and well-known film makers and industry professionals have been coming to watch and giving the prisoners words of encouragement.

Today we have a company called F.A.T.E (film art theatre entertainment), we have performed numerous plays in the prison, we have been approached to do plays in other prisons, and we have a short film in the pipeline. We are also working on a prison series with a TV director known for a TV drama series called Noughts and Crosses, adapted from a book by Mallory Blackman.

Destined for greatness

One of our main ideas behind the company is giving back. We have planned some events to raise funds for charities that help victims of crime, the sort that help keep youth off the streets and people not to re-offend. As a fundraiser, and to remind people when they are feeling defeated to keep on target, we have developed silicone wristbands emblazoned with ‘destined for greatness’ on them. Sales of these bands will be split amongst the charities we support.

Another idea in the pipeline is working alongside the Koestler Arts Award to host an annual auction event selling prisoners’ work. The money raised would be split two ways between a victim awareness charity, and the artist’s family. It would make the artist feel proud of themselves and maybe inspire them to continue their art upon release.

My main message…

So, don’t give up when you get told NO. Use that NO as motivation to better yourself. And DON’T be scared to fail.

If you feel inspired by Alex’s story to find out about going to university, contact Clare Lewis, the Longford Trust’s scholarship manager, or write to her at Freepost, Longford Trust. You don’t need to put a stamp on it.

I know all about art’s power to change lives

Author: | 17 Oct 2022

With so much turmoil in the world at the moment – anyone reading this will know prisons and the justice system are by no means immune- it is heartening some things are resilient enough to withstand external pressure. Art has the power to allow people to express themselves and be a key to transform lives.

So much so that one ex-scholar is keen to share the opportunity to exhibit from a seaside art gallery. 

Jamie Chapman writes below for Longford blog: 

I have been lucky to have people who have played a positive role in my life: the team in prison education when I was inside; Sister Carmen, the prison nun; Inside Time newspaper; those at the Koestler Trust who unlock the talent inside; and the Longford Trust and my Longford mentor Carolyn in supporting me through my fine art and professional studies degree at Bath Spa University.

Since I graduated in 2017, I’ve been working as an artist, selling my work (I exhibited at the 2016 Longford Lecture, alongside three other fine art student scholars) and enjoying life.

I didn’t go back to London where I grew up.  Too many bad memories. Instead I’ve stayed in Weston-super-Mare, next to the sea, where I did my art degree in a college that comes under Bath Spa’s umbrella.

I now live in a flat that looks out to sea, and in June this year had an exhibition of my landscapes and sculptures  – many using recycled materials – in the Granby Building in the town. The Mayor came to open it. (See picture above)

Some people say art is self-indulgent but I know all about its power to change lives, mine included.

It has built my confidence and, when I work with young people at a local rehabilitation unit, I see how art gives them a way forward, an outlet, a non-verbal way to say what they think and have been through when they can’t find the words. Instead they use a pencil and a paint brush.

Recently I lost one of the last surviving members of my family. Because of that I’ve reached a turning point. Life is too short so I want to show my thankfulness and a respect for the opportunities and love that I’ve been shown.  I know what makes me happy and that is to make others happy and help them take their lives forward.

I have therefore taken on the rent of the same space in the Granby Building in St Margaret’s Terrace where I had my exhibition. It’s a great space. I am calling it The Gallery and – between other jobs – I’ve been busy doing it up to professional standards.

It’s cost me a fortune, but greed for money caused me problems in the past, so no matter.  I don’t need that pressure in my life. Now it is almost ready and my plan in the months and hopefully years ahead is to run it as a not-for-profit gallery, renting it out at cost to other artists so they can show their work.

Giving them the keys is my way of spreading happiness, whether it be to students at the local art school, the groups of local photographers and artists I’ve got to know here, or to any past and present Longford Scholars who are reading this and who are artists with work to share.

 

If you are interested, get in touch.  You can find me on Instagram at TheGalleryWeston, or contact office@longfordtrust.org and we can connect you.

 

 

Lee running in Prague

How a paid internship proved a gamechanger

Author: | 10 Feb 2022

For graduates internships are a well-recognised route into a career, often providing that all-important introduction into a sector or profession which might otherwise seem closed. Whether it’s finance, accounting, engineering or journalism, a degree is significant but it is estimated that an internship improves the chances of securing a job by as much as three times.

At Longford Trust, as part of our new employability programme, we have bolstered efforts to partner with employers to provide these vital placements. The list of employers who scholars have worked with range from the heart of Whitehall (Cabinet Office) to policing (Office of West Midlands Police and Crime Commission) and charities (Justice; Justice Gap and the Criminal Justice Alliance).

The Criminal Justice Alliance (CJA) is now hosting its fifth Longford scholar intern and has become a beacon for others.

Artist and ex-scholar Lee Cutter helped the CJA run its annual awards last year. Lee and the CJA’s Communications and Engagement Officer Jamie Morrell talked about their experience….

Why was the timing right?

Lee: I guess previously I’d had 5 ½ years working with Koestler Arts in their events and exhibitions team and the CJA internship came at a perfect time. I’d left Koestler (based in London) to live in France a year before and moving in a pandemic, everything was in lockdown. I’d been unemployed for a year, unable to go out and speak with people, so my confidence had dropped quite a lot. So this internship came up and it was an opportunity to build my confidence, bring some skills with me in and also it was an opportunity to learn some new skills and work in a new team. I’d never done an internship before.

How much of a difference did it make that this was a paid internship?

It made a huge difference just knowing my input was valued in this way. People deserve to be paid for their work. To be honest I’m pretty sure most people would agree.

Tell us about what you worked on …

I worked on the CJA’s annual awards, which was held online due to the pandemic. The awards celebrate individuals and organisations helping make the criminal justice system fairer and more effective. There are media awards too which spotlight journalists, documentary makers and digital media champions who are improving public understanding of criminal justice and challenging misperceptions. Initially, I was encouraging people to nominate themselves or others. Through this process, I found out about new, brilliant things happening in the sector. I coordinated the entries for the judges and worked with Jamie and the video production team to deliver the online ceremony, broadcast live from a studio in London.

 Any testing moments?

Yeah, (laughs) there were moments. Technical ones, like when the award winners were struggling to join the live call. There were a couple of touch- and- go moments. Luckily, there was only one hiccup in the end with one award winner but it went smoothly on the whole. And to be honest I quite enjoy problem-solving, being in that moment.

For most of the internship you worked remotely, how was that?

I wondered how that would be but from the first day I felt so welcome in the team. I don’t even know if it was extra effort for the team, it was just them being themselves. To feel valued from the first day was great. We had lots of small meetings and they wouldn’t always be just work-focused, more like general conversations about your week, things like that. The little things which make you feel valued as a person. And the stuff you’d have if you were going into an office every day.

There was an unexpected bonus trip though, tell us about that…

Oh yeah, the trip to Prague! That certainly wasn’t in the job description. It all happened very fast. It was a knowledge exchange trip between Holland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and England and we were exchanging learning about the different prison systems, what works, what doesn’t. I’d been working at the CJA for one week, and then I was off to Prague just as the borders were opening [with the lifting of Covid restrictions]. They were a brilliant few days. We visited an open prison, which had a garden and a small farm with a llama that we fed. It was very different from what we do – it was for around 32 people whereas our open prisons are a lot larger. There was a lot more 1:1 support.

We also took part in the Yellow Ribbon Run, a relay race which brings together people with convictions, people working in the criminal justice system and members of the public to raise awareness of the importance of second chances (I was pleased to beat Jamie’s time – she’s super competitive!)

What key new skills did you acquire at CJA?

It was a chance for me to bring in skills I’d had from before and use them in a new setting. But one thing I learned is that the criminal justice sector is bigger than arts and criminal justice. It’s been interesting learning about the different bubbles. And my writing skills had been lacking a bit. Jamie helped me improve in this area, showing me how I could cut down a 1,000 word award nomination into a short, punchy bio for the awards brochure while still doing justice to the great organisations.

So Jamie, what was it like working with Lee?

Jamie, Criminal Justice Alliance

Jamie: Lee’s obviously very talented, intelligent and thoughtful, which is a massive help.

But the key thing about the Longford internships for the CJA is that it’s not just about what we want to get out of the experience, it’s what the intern wants to get out of it too. Lee already had experience of running large exhibitions and handling submissions from lots of artists, which was useful in helping deliver the CJA Awards. But we want to have a conversation to find out what additional skills our interns would like to gain. Lee lacked confidence in writing. Actually, when I read his descriptions of the organisations for the brochure I thought they were very well-written, but I gave him some extra hints and tips to tighten things up and Lee made some tweaks and then it was ready for the brochure.

Lee has expertise both professionally and from his lived experience. He provided lots of fresh ideas and insights during his internship. These insights help the CJA team think about things in a slightly different way.

We also enjoyed having Lee’s artistic presence on the team. When our European partners visited London in November as part of the knowledge exchange programme, Lee gave us all a fascinating tour of the Koestler Arts exhibition. We also went to see his work in the Royal Academy – we were blown away by his intricate soap carvings!

If anyone’s thinking of doing an internship partnering with the Longford Trust– either as an intern or an employer- what is the real benefit?   

Lee: For me it was a gamechanger. My confidence grew, being part of such a nurturing team. If I made a mistake, I was able to talk about the mistake, we could develop on that, it was all about growing and learning. Who wouldn’t want that?

Jamie: Interns offer valuable expertise and a fresh perspective to your organisation and anyone who employs an intern with lived experience will not regret it.

*******

Inspired? If you’re an employer or a scholar interested in internship opportunities, we’d love to hear from you, scholars@longfordtrust.org.

The Criminal Justice Alliance has launched a new lived experience leadership programme and is recruiting a project manager with first-hand experience of the criminal justice system. For more click on the link here.

Isolation: an expert survivor’s guide

Author: | 20 Mar 2020

Isolation: an expert survivor’s guide by artist and former Longford scholar Lee Cutter

I know a bit about isolation. In fact, after three years in prison I am an expert.  Through this coronavirus crisis people keep asking me, ‘What’s it like in isolation? How do you cope?’ as they deal with anxiety and worry about separation from friends, colleagues and family. Everyone is searching for reassurance and tips to cope with curtailed freedom, albeit at home.

It’s got me thinking.

They say your first day in prison is the toughest. For me it came about six months into my sentence. The first day in a young offenders prison was certainly confusing and a struggle, my whole understanding of the world feeling flipped upside down, but I still had some freedom, as prison goes. This was because I was on remand, waiting for a judge to sentence me. I could work, attend classes in education, mix with others in prison – ‘associate’ as they call it inside, and go to the gym.

Just a few months on, I started to understand the environment, in an odd way, I felt part of a community. Then I was sent to Crown Court to receive my sentence. At that time, the now thankfully abolished indeterminate sentence was popular. It was a lottery whether I’d get one, carrying the real fear of never knowing when I might ever be free again. But my case was adjourned, pushed to another date. It was in the next, different young offenders prison where the pain of isolation really hit.

In limbo, I spent days and months on end in a single cell with only myself for company, locked up for 24 hours a day, with access to two phone calls and two showers a week. The prison was overcrowded, understaffed, and those under 18 were given priority to work and education. I was unlucky I was 18 years old. Though looking back, my mind felt a lot younger and I had never experienced anything like this before.

In the first few weeks I distracted myself with the television and the radio, anything to get a sense of a world beyond my four walls. During the day I’d talk with my next-door neighbour through the gap in the pipes at the end of the cell. It was at night I’d struggle with my thoughts. It’s an understatement to say the next few months were a challenge. I’d think, and think, and think. I’d think about the mistakes I had made, how they had affected people, I’d think about my family, the events that led to my situation. I wondered if it would be like this forever. It was sending me crazy. I knew I had to change, and that I’d need to teach myself how.

And then an unexpected opportunity presented itself – a pencil.

An officer had left a pencil in my cell by accident, I used it to write down my thoughts and feelings onto any scrap of paper I could gather. It took the negative thoughts out of my head, and by seeing them in front of me, it somehow helped me to understand where they might have come from, how I could change them. I began making drawings of my cell, I’d draw the sink, the bed, the window, anything in front of me. When I ran out of paper, I would draw into bars of standard prison issue soap. The soap was free on the wing and it was much more accessible than a piece of paper.

Funnily enough, I didn’t see myself as an artist, I found a creative side within me. I didn’t know anything about art, I don’t even think I liked art much at the time but I knew that making was helping me.

A few months later I was sentenced, avoiding the dreaded indeterminate sentence. This time I moved prisons again. In the new prison I had access to more arts materials, more time out of my cell. Officers and other inmates saw my drawings and soon started to give me photographs of their loved ones and pets to draw. They’d ‘pay’ me in toiletries and food. Looking back, I guess these were my first commissions.

It’s odd thinking back to those times. It feels like a different me then, and yet those times, and the isolation, have contributed to the person and the artist I am today. I’ve been out of prison for ten years now, have completed a BA degree in Fine Art, with support from the Longford Trust, got a postgraduate at the Royal Drawing School. I now have a much sought-after job with Koestler Arts – encouraging people in prisons and other secure settings to engage in the arts. I am proud to say I have achieved what many artists never manage, exhibiting in the prestigious Royal Academy, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Christie’s, the upmarket auction house and the Royal Festival Hall. And I am now a mentor for an artist through the Longford Trust who is studying a distance -learning degree in prison. I often think about what life is like for him being creative in his prison, I can see confinement shapes his work.

As we all face the isolation of coronavirus and restrictions in our daily lives and relationships I wouldn’t wish this uncertain period of confinement on anyone. One silver- lining is perhaps the insight it offers, a window into imprisonment. The lack of control, unable to go out when you feel like it, prevented from learning in a classroom or library when you choose, no longer seeing or hugging a grandparent –the punishing impact of not doing what used to be normal. I hope and trust we will all dig deep in this coronavirus, finding some hidden talents – as myself and my mentee have done with art. Spare a thought for the 80, 0000 plus men, women and children in overcrowded, often dirty prisons across England and Wales who know isolation and resourcefulness all too well. Next time someone says prison is too ‘soft’ remember this time and remind them what it felt like during the coronavirus crisis.

 

 

 

Find out more about Lee and his hand-made book An Inside Story, a hand bound with prison bedsheets and visitation shirts here: https://www.koestlerarts.org.uk/shop/books/an-inside-story/

 

 

From Prison Cell to The Walls of The Royal Academy of Arts

Author: | 10 Jun 2019

From Prison Cell to The Walls of The Royal Academy of Arts

For the Longford Blog, scholar Paul Grady reflects on his journey towards last year’s prestigious Summer Exhibition

Do you know where you were on Christmas Day, 2012? I do. I was in a prison in Somerset, many years into my sentence and still a few more to go.

 

Working on a distance learning art degree, I was looking for inspiration. Trying to come up with a project that would take me away from traditional prison art: pencil portraits from burn (tobacco), painting landscapes from photographs torn out of magazines, sculptures made from bread or matchstick models of boats and clocks. I have always been interested in the process of art and how it can be created in so many ways. Wanting this project to last a while, with New Year approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to create something over the whole year of 2013, from January 1st to 31st  December, to mark the passing of time. Almost as if I was crossing off the days.

 

With this seed of an idea, I had to decide how to get it onto paper and let it grow. How often would I sit down and draw? When, and for how long? If I was going to use this project as a way of marking off the days, then it stood to reason that it would have to be done every day of the year ahead. To work around my job in prison, I came up with the idea of drawing as soon as I woke up and let the inspiration flow from that first day. See where it took me.

 

The first day of January dutifully arrives, my alarm rudely awakens me from my slumber at six a.m. and I grab the board that I use for drawing, tape a large sheet of paper onto it and reach for a black ballpoint pen. Now what? Do something. Start. Make a mark. So that is exactly what I did, right in the middle of that huge piece of paper I drew a shape, a small circle that looked so lost on that expanse of whiteness. I drew more shapes around this circle slowly spreading outwards, I was starting to enjoy this. Let my hand flow, make marks that follow on from the last one, allow the drawing to grow organically. After an hour or so I wondered how to bring this first day of drawing to a close and allow me to begin again the next day? A membrane! Small circles around this shape, with larger circular globules within the membrane. I’m done and the door is about to be unlocked ready for me to face another day behind the highest prison walls in the country.

 

2nd January and the alarm screams at me to wake up. I grab the board from under my bed, put it on top of my still warm quilt and reach for my pen- blue today. Starting with a part of the membrane next to my first day’s drawing I figure out what shapes to put in the middle. These are totally random, allowing my hand to control the pen and make marks. When I feel it’s done I close off the membrane and wait for the sound of keys in the door.

Day three, the alarm trills and I’m up. A green pen waiting, ready to be used, the rules have become clear. The membrane stays the same, inside I can let myself be free and put any shape that feels right that morning, no colour will touch itself and the minimum colours I can do this with is four. Tomorrow I will use red. The next hour and a half rushes by and before I am finished, I hear the turn of the key in the lock before the bolt crashes back. I close this cell, as that is what each day’s drawing resembles, making up what, I do not yet know. What I do know, as I head down for breakfast, is that I want six a.m. to come around again.

 

The fourth day. I’m awake before the alarm. The board is on the bed before it sets off and I’m there, red pen in hand making marks. I begin to get a sense that something is happening to me, that I am ready to invest in this artwork like never before. As the prison door opens for the first time that morning, I’m putting the last few circles on the paper, my first series of four colours is complete. Bring on the rest of the month.

 

The last day of January is upon me and I must bring this drawing to an end. I have marked the passing of one whole month. In that month I have learnt that the prison I am in is going to close. I will be moving, it could happen with very little warning and I must be ready for it.

 

February arrives and I get a new sheet of paper, the only one to hand, a smaller piece of watercolour paper. Over the next few days the rules make themselves clear to me. It is during this month that I get two days’ notice that I am moving. The morning of the move I get up as usual at six and get to work on my drawing, the only thing that I haven’t packed and sent to reception. I am just about finished, the key turns the lock for the last time in that cell for me, I have to go and complete this somewhere else.

 

I have no job in the new jail and as a distance learner I have been told I must be locked in my cell for the core day. It means I now spend hours each day drawing tiny circles on a piece of paper. It is at this point that the title for this project makes itself known to me, ‘Twelve Months Hard Labour’, quite fitting don’t you think?

 

In the next ten months I’m on the move again, this time to an open prison. I experience my first day in years outside prison walls. I can prepare for a future where there will be no more keys heard early in the morning.

 

In the open prison I apply to university to study art. I use the twelve drawings as part of my portfolio at my interview, the tutors are very interested in the concept and process. I find myself explaining each drawing, why I chose the medium, the colours and the two different sizes of paper. I carried on using the smaller watercolour paper for all the months that were less than thirty-one days. All because it was the only decent sized piece of paper that I could find on the first day of February.

 

Fast forward to last Summer. Released, I have completed my university course and with the help of The Longford Trust as a Longford Scholar I have gained a First class degree in fine art. Not only that, my ‘January’ drawing from ‘Twelve Months Hard Labour’ has been entered into The Royal Academy Summer Show. It’s made it through the first round of judging. I take it down to London; everyone is excited. I don’t know why, it’s not as if it’s in the final cut yet.

 

I arrive at The Royal Academy to drop off my drawing and see how many people are there, as well as the television cameras. Maybe this is a big deal afterall.

 

A few weeks later I get the email, Congratulations. I got in! I’ve won my place in one of the biggest, most prestigious art shows in the world. Thousands will see my work. It’s real. My drawing, completed on a bed in a prison cell, will hang on the walls of The Royal Academy of Arts. I’m a full-on artist now.

 

You can see more of Paul’s work here: https://www.facebook.com/Pagartist70/