FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 6, 2025
Media Contact: Gina Hyams, PR Consultant, 713-930-7554, ginahyams@gmail.com
“Cellblock Visions: Set Free in the Penitentiary” with Prison Art Educator Phyllis Kornfeld
Spencertown, New York–Spencertown Academy Arts Center Conversations with Neighbors presents “Cellblock Visions: Set Free in the Penitentiary” with internationally known prison art expert Phyllis Kornfeld on Sunday, March 9 at 2:00pm. An artist, author, and educator, Kornfeld had led art workshops with incarcerated men and women in facilities around the country—ranging from county jail to maximum security to death row—for more than four decades. She will offer a slide/lecture presentation with powerful images and eloquent quotes that reveal the unseen subculture of art making in prisons. While admission is free, advance reservations are requested via www.spencertownacademy.org.
Based in Stockbridge, MA, Kornfeld is the author of “Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America” (Princeton University Press). “Personally, it is always an illuminating, exciting event to see the prisoners discover something very positive, and mysterious, coming from inside themselves. The art is often miraculously fresh, and despite the context, there is a lot of joy,” she says. “I am convinced that art making is a natural human impulse and everybody has the potential. But often, internal and external life events block the access.”
The Conversations with Neighbors Committee is co-chaired by Lisa Bouchard Hoe and Cindy Atkins. “The art itself, and Kornfeld’s experiences behind bars with the men and women who live there, deliver irrefutable evidence that people in prison have the very same capacity, and desire, to create beauty and goodness,” says Bouchard Hoe. “That potential exists in all of us, no less in an incarcerated person, and can be elicited just as violence can.”
Spencertown Academy Arts Center Conversations with Neighbors is an occasional series designed to spark neighbor-to-neighbor conversations and celebrate the richness and diversity of the Columbia County community. This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Founded in 1972, Spencertown Academy Arts Center is a cultural center and community resource serving Columbia County, the Berkshires, and the Capital region. Housed in a landmark 1847 Greek Revival schoolhouse, the Academy is located at 790 State Route 203 in Spencertown, New York. For more information, please contact info@spencertownacademy.org.