Letters from Prison: Continuing the Conversation
Clare Gallery
St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church
Hartford
April 30, 2025
About six months ago, I wrote about how an exhibition of inmate’s art at Manchester Community College made me begin to ask questions about my own experience with my father’s incarceration. What I did then is what I always do: I intellectualized the experience, turning it into questions to answer instead of emotions to work through. Visiting the Clare Gallery and seeing the current exhibit Letters from Prison hit me on a much deeper level than I was anticipating. I began to feel very uncomfortable.
The exhibit is the third iteration of a show that began 30 years ago, run by the Community Partners in Action Prison Arts Program. The exhibit ran again in 2005, partnering with the Clare Gallery for the first time. Twenty years later, the exhibit has returned, featuring letters from the two earlier exhibits as well as new letters. The letters are combined with artwork on the envelopes, which illustrate the messages that inmates are trying to convey.
“There are times when I learn a lesson that I didn’t set out to seek,” writes Victor Velasco at the beginning of his letter (pictured above). “But I stumble upon it nonetheless.”
Velasco’s envelope is adorned with an exquisite tree, with a massive crown and large roots running deep. In the center of the tree is a brain, drawing in light and energy to power the giant tree. It’s an interesting take on the Tree of Knowledge. In his letter, Velasco sees the tree as a lone sentinel, gathering knowledge and experience with each day. It goes with the flow, something that he said he’s finally learned to do as well.
“I’m grateful for the wisdom of trees,” he says.
Edwin Leon’s envelope features a breathtaking rendition of a hundred-dollar bill, blossoming like a flower and surrounded by trees and wildlife. He uses the imagery as a metaphor for a lesson he learned about keeping it “a hundred” while incarcerated.
“Coming to prison opened my eyes and showed me who’s who, and it also taught me the meaning of undying love,” he wrote. “I say that because the people who stayed by my side and that’s only a handful, been here since day one … I’m only strong because of them.”
One of the most striking envelopes came from Jonnie St. Pierre, who did a pencil sketch of Father Time pointing at a clock. The simplicity of the image belies the depth of the message that he conveys in his lyrical, almost poetic letter.
“Deliberating through broken windows and slightly closed eyes, as you realized you’ve been all alone with disconnected voices and deeply aged skies that have only watched you as life passes by …” St. Pierre has captured regret without melancholy, just a grim realization that what has passed has passed, and the world keeps turning.
I don’t have any of the letters my father wrote me while he was in prison. I can’t even say that I made a special effort to save them. I think that’s because I was ashamed of the situation. I’ve always hated talking about my father’s prison sentence. It made me feel like a statistic: another Black boy growing up in the shadow of the criminal justice system.
As I grew up, I started to realize that while mass incarceration is often discussed in terms of its effects on African-American communities and other people of color, the fact is that everyone has been caught up in the nation’s voracious appetite for criminality.
It’s hard to admit that you fear the world is leaving you behind. It’s hard to admit that only a few people in the world truly care about you. These letters have helped me to make my own admission too: It’s hard to admit that you’re ashamed.
NEXT
Letters from Prison: Continuing the Conversation continues at Clare Gallery through May 18.
Jamil returns to First Thursdays at the Wadsworth Atheneum.
