United Duos | Art of Voices #ZHill

United Duos

The Voices Behind Walls (VBW) program aims to create opportunities for participants to connect with each other.  Apart from creative writing, music recording, and other literacy activities that incarcerated youth were involved in, photography gave participants a chance to reflect on what their collaboration looked like.  In this photo turned illustration we have two participants locking hands...united.  Their place in the picture is important.  Where we hosted the workshop there weren't a lot of spots, if any, that I'd consider good backdrop to take a photo.  We found ways to use the background with how they wanted to pose, whether standing or crouched.  For this photo the hallway was central to their pose.  Examining the image today, the way they decided to pose for the camera says a lot about their style and story.  It took a while for them to collaborate, but eventually they'd learn more about each other's unique skills to create music or write lyrics.  They were one of several duos in the facility that collaborated on ideas for Hip Hop songs and spoken word concepts.  

In Hip Hop, an eMCee (rapper) or beat maker's entire career can be defined by who they collaborate with.  In the 90s, an eMCee like CL Smooth was immediately associated with a beat maker named Pete Rock because of their history making music together.  When we think of the late Guru, we think of DJ Premier.  The RZA, we think of a number of other eMCees from the group they formed (the Wu Tang Clan), such as the Genius/GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface, and others. An example most of the VBW participants were familiar with would be the connection between Snoop Dogg or Eminem with the production of Dr. Dre.  While collaboration being central to identity and how groups marketed themselves in the 90s may not be as prominent in how Rap music is marketed today, it did become a part of how participants in our workshop viewed their identity and involvement in making music.  

VBW workshops gave youth the space to share what they were good at and learn about each other's skills.  While some participants may have decided to work alone, others sought collaboration to improve their skills. This included making music, writing or learning how their styles could come together to create new ideas around a duo or a group of more than three.

    

This illustration represents this idea of creating connections through Hip Hop programming in a juvenile prison and is titled "United Duos".  

The "United Duos" is illustrated by Zachary, a volunteer with the Art of Voices project.  He's an incredible illustrator from the University of Kansas. We look forward to sharing more of his work through Art of Voices. You can learn more about Art of Voices by scrolling down below the illustration. Here are Zachary's thoughts on the development of "United Duos"  

"...the pose I was given to work with already did so much of the work for me. It was really more of a matter of just figuring out what elements to enhance and what could stand to be pushed back. I exaggerated the scale of the arms and hands to draw more attention to them. I also simplified the background so it didn't distract from the figures, since they are a little more important to the message of the image. I also gave them smiling faces to further add that positive vibe to it. To get the idea of unity and keep a warm positive mood, I gave the piece a more harmonious color pallet of yellows and greens." - Zachary

#Lee

Art of Voices is a Voices Behind Walls (VBW) project supported by Community Solutions of El Paso to recruit illustrators through Volunteer Match to help recreate VBW workshop photographs into art.  The photographs were taken during workshop activities in juvenile detention between the years of 2006-2014.  Artistic remakes of the photographs protect the identity of workshop participants by changing details of face and other identifiers.  The purpose of this project is to document the VBW program's history and the creative expression activities incarcerated youth were engaged in.  This project also offers the VBW photographer and illustrators an opportunity to reflect on what the images say about the juvenile justice system and the importance of creative expression activity for youth as a means of education, therapy, self-improvement, community engagement, rehabilitation, positive Hip Hop activity, and mentorship.

Introducing the Art of Voices #Brianna

Introducing the Art of Voices

Art of Voices is a Voices Behind Walls (VBW) project supported by Community Solutions of El Paso to recruit illustrators through Volunteer Match to help recreate VBW workshop photographs into art.  The photographs were taken during workshop activities in juvenile detention between the years of 2006-2014.  Artistic remakes of the photographs protect the identity of workshop participants by changing details of face and other identifiers.  The purpose of this project is to document the VBW program's history and the creative expression activities incarcerated youth were engaged in.  This project also offers the VBW photographer and illustrators an opportunity to reflect on what the images say about the juvenile justice system and the importance of creative expression activity for youth as a means of education, therapy, self-improvement, community engagement, rehabilitation, positive Hip Hop activity, and mentorship. It's also important to understand how the VBW program connected with participants through Hip Hop activity.  Hip Hop opened the opportunity for participants to explore their talents as lyricists/eMCees, singers, writers, storytellers, poets, musicians, beat makers, sketch artist, and other collaborative involvements within and outside of the detention facility.  In addition, the VBW workshop engaged youth in literacy development by promoting reading activity, chess, and encouraging juvenile detention units to work together to support individual and group accomplishments.  Through Hip Hop we also discussed the importance of listening to each other and the world around us.  

The Art of Voices will document these activities and encourage the juvenile justice system to support and promote creative expression programming for incarcerated youth and youth released from confinement.

Below is our first Art of Voices submission by sketch artist Briaanna.  The sketch is titled "Mousey". It captures two VBW participants learning how to program an old keyboard to make beats.  The facility often kept the keyboard locked in a closet since it was missing a power adapter.  The other option to power the keyboard involved batteries which were considered contraband in the facility.  The VBW program acquired approval to purchase a power adapter for the incarcerated youth to turn on the keyboard and use it during workshop time.  Although the keyboard didn't have very many functions to support actual beat production, incarcerated youth still managed to create several sounds they were proud of and that are now part of the VBW instrumental archive.  One of VBW's participants who went by Mousey became known as one of our first "in house producers".  His natural talents on the keys maximized what we thought could be done on the old beat up keyboard.  

Eventually, the keyboard would be used as an incentive by certain staff for good behavior.  This became a problem since any infraction, depending on the staff member, could result in the keyboard being locked back into a closet or "lost".  There were long stretches of time where we'd often find ourselves trying to figure out what happened to the keyboard. 

The expressions of the youth in Briaanna's sketch capture several feelings including sadness, and the depression of living in a juvenile detention unit.  There is also something to be said about their concentration and focus on the sounds being created with the keyboard.  

The poster in the back includes a message I saw on a dry erase board of an education room in the juvenile detention center.  On this particular day I waited at least an hour for the staff to transport participants to the education room to begin VBW programming.  Between reading and listening for any indication that staff didn't forget I was there, I scanned the room and took pictures of what the teacher wrote with my camera.  Reflecting on the original image, I asked Briaanna to include the message in the sketch, except in the form of a poster taped to the wall.  Outdated motivational posters were common place as decoration in the education rooms.  

Until the next sketch, we present the Art of Voices.  A link below will direct you to a VBW audio produced by Mousey titled ((Mysterious Minds)).  The beat was created on the very same keyboard you see represented in the sketch.  

Thank you Briaanna.

((Mysterious Minds))

Instrumental: click here