How prisoners from San Quentin brought world -class murals inside

From Joe GarciaCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

About a month after I won my conventional release and I was released from the High Desert State Prison in 2024, my friend Kai Banon called me from San Quentin through the institutional phone portal. My eyes were with emotion when I was on the other side of those observed, calling for the first time as a free man.

Kai is a co -founder San Quentin SkunkWorks -The non -profit laboratory for social innovation focused on introducing and testing ideas for reform of the moon photo, and he and his internal team have launched a series of prison -oriented projects.

Now Kai wanted my help to realize a bold new vision – to rehabilitate the 19th -century San Quentin’s architectural landscape, infusing it with light, color, beauty and art.

Government Gavin Newsom engaged $ 240 million to renew the oldest prison in the country and rebranded it as a center for rehabilitation of San Quentin. Its plan includes a new educational complex with a lot of construction as well as rearrangement of the previous Death order in residential premises for the common population.

But this does not include a change of beige and brown exterior exterior, which surround the inhabitants when they leave their small dark cells that were built in the late 1800s. The physical environment still means oppression, retention, punishment.

With so much attention, focused on the new buildings, which will be opened in early 2026, Kai began to anticipate SkunkWorks as a platform that can increase the aesthetically, the older, less glittering parts of the facility.

He named the Chiaroscuro project: light in the shadows. Italian art mandate, Chiaroscuro Describes the graphic interaction between light and dark accents. Metaphorically, it emphasizes the bright comparisons of humanity that live deep in our prisons.

We had to achieve two goals at the same time: 1) contact global artists to see who would be interested in working in a community of prisoners; and 2) to understand how to convince prisons administrators that our project has merit.

From Dubai to the United Kingdom to California, world -renowned murals responded. The concept intrigued them and they wanted to find out more about San Quentin. They wanted to understand the community they could soon visit, and hope to inspire through art. Skunks gathered stories from people living inside San Quentin – including officers and employees who spend large pieces of their days working with residents.

To our surprise, prison staff agreed that we were on the right track. With their support, we have received approval for photos and design layouts of the facility to be shared with future artists.

“The murals are not just about looking better. They change the mood here,” said the SGT San Quentin correctional. Freddie Bres. “A more relaxed yard means a more favored yard -for the staff and for the people who live here.”

We soon felt an immediate relationship with Faith XLVIIThe South African artist, known for creating community -inspired street murals in public wall spaces and buildings.

“My personal view is simply that art has also been in all traditional societies, many part of the cultural tissue of life and the processes of life,” Vera said. “It’s catartic; it’s therapeutic; it’s psychological. It speaks in a visual language that denies words and can speak directly to the heart through metaphors and symbols.”

Vera already had a planned trip to San Francisco in June for an exhibition of the gallery, so the conversations quickly developed. Would it be possible to create a mural of San Quentin’s wall in July? We will need Clearcut approval by the administration. We will also need to raise funds to cover materials and costs.

Kai and his team launched a major media campaign for donation. As this was Chiaroscuro’s debut installment, we felt additional pressure to pull it without a very hanger.

Skunkworks raised thousands of dollars until June. A percentage of this comes from dozens of residents who filled the donations to sneak inside the facility, as the money should be deducted from their institutional trust accounts.

“It’s actually something great,” Kai told me. “A number of people came and said they had given five dollars or $ 10. These are small quantities for people outside. But we both know how many five or $ 10 it means here.”

In addition to our faith, we partnered with Shannon Riley, one of the co -founders of Building 180 – Art production and consulting agency responsible for the coordination of public art installations around the world.

With Riley’s Outreach, Dunn-Edwards Paints sponsors most of the paint for the murals. Their local distributors mixed and prepared personalized colors, along with the UV protective finishing layer.

“I think putting art in public spaces can really help people in meaningful ways,” Riley said. “This provokes conversation and dialogue, curiosity and confidence – all really important for healing and rehabilitation.”

The son of faith, TamaIt came from New York to help paint. One of the SkunkWorks beyond the volunteers who traveled abroad donated their Sausalito residence to stay in comfortable accommodation near San Quentin.

The artist himself, the pier, felt forced to install his mural after talking about the project with residents and staff.

“When I saw the wall, I just had a feeling,” he said. “Much more like finding something that should be there – or always should have been there.”

“As a piece of freedom”

The mural of the faith XLVII stands on the outside of the western bloc, where more than half of the population goes back and forth on any normal day.

George Medo Coles-El has lived in San Quentin for 13 years, and throughout this time the big empty walls seem to represent only institutionalization and despair.

“To be able to go out for the last few days and see a mural on the wall in front of me when I come and get this first fresh breath of air in the morning, it’s really affecting me,” Coles-El said. “I never thought I would see such a mural in a gloomy place as a prison.”

Coles-el, Tony Haro and Luis Maya worked with Faith XLVII and Keya Tama. They helped to organize and prepare the paint, maintained brushes and rollers, and were given a chance to color different segments.

“You can see something as different as a piece of freedom,” Haro said. “We go back -behind, looking at this beautiful mural that has a quote that says” The Heart of the World, “you know? The other day someone asked me what did that mean?

“And I said you listen to what they say, bro – wherever you are, you are the heart of the world. We are The heart of the world. You carry this with you. “

More than simply transforming the physical environment, murals also helped to shift cultural perceptions.

“Honestly, I have a new respect for the staff,” Maya said. “Many of them made additional efforts to see the project – it could just be flexible by perceiving communication. And then he saw how employees needed a new change of landscape as we can.”

Goodbye to the gate

On July 11, the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center plans a media event to celebrate murals. Faith and news photographer were waiting outside, but on that day there would be no guests due to an unexpectedly modified lock.

But Wardon’s associate Yasser Samara called and asked them to return. Despite the blocking, he was ready to help the faith to receive photos and to celebrate his art before she returned to South Africa.

“I am sure there are many perspectives on this, but at least in my experience with the warden, the assistant and the security guards – I met some quite special people who seemed to want to make and change the system,” said Faith. “And that was very inspiring to see this.”

But because of the modified lock, Kai was not allowed to be out when photos were taken. He saw faith through the locked gate, and she came to say goodbye and shake his hand through the thick iron bars.

“It’s not how I imagined this region,” he told me. “But maybe that said everything – as even in this place that was built to separate us, we still found a way to connect.

“And I think the handshake said more than the words he could ever.

Joe Garcia is a local associate of California news.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.