Santa Rosa Junior College’s Second Chance Club displayed displayed artworks from current and formerly incarcerated people at its second annual art show at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 15 at Bertolini Hall.
The art displayed ranged from music and drawings, to a life-sized recreation of a prison cell with a real prison toilet.
Club president Nick Melanson said the freedom and creativity in creating art is “one part that can’t be incarcerated or kept from you.” He feels that art can be an outlet for someone with trauma to express their feelings in a way that words can’t.
Melanson said he saw a higher visitor count than last year’s art show, and hopes to continue inspiring more people to submit their artwork for next year’s show. He hopes to be able to move next year’s art show to the art gallery in Doyle Library.
The music played at the show was made by people held in the Sonoma County Juvenile Hall. The Second Chance Club art show was done in collaboration with Free Voices Studio, which operates within Sonoma County Juvenile Hall to promote creativity and make a positive outlet for young people to express themselves while incarcerated.
Herb Polk, the head audio consultant for Free Voices Studio, said he feels that creating music with the kids there creates a special bond. “There’s a bond that you create with someone when it comes to art. As music is a collaborative art.”
Carlos DelPalacio, a formerly incarcerated artist, created the life-sized mock prison cell room within the art show. The display included a prison toilet and sink, a bed, a prayer rug, plastic headphones and stacks of books he read while incarcerated, topics included business management, religion and self help.
“My message is that we’re here and that we belong here,” he said. “We come from a place where a lot of people don’t really know how it is, and I want people to know that there are people that make mistakes and later on they become a different person than they were before.”
DelPalacio said that he wished to show people that the mistakes someone made in the past do not define who they are now.
“That’s why I brought all my books, because I want people to know that while I was incarcerated, I was bettering myself, I was busy doing that, I was educating myself, and what I wanted more than anything was to come to college.” he said.
An attendee of the art show, Ronny, said the art was inspiring and diverse. He said that he enjoys the fact that the Second Chance Club was hosting an art show and giving their members a creative outlet. “Their dreams are not shut down,” he said.
