CYPRESS : Prison Art Show Sends a Message

Other than name, address and postmark, most of the envelopes entering and leaving this community are fairly plain. But an unusual exhibit at the Cypress Community Art Gallery is showcasing works that transform the envelope into an artist’s canvas.

On display through July 9, the exhibit features about 50 pieces of painstakingly drawn pencil sketches on envelopes recently mailed from men incarcerated in Southern California prisons to their loved ones. The intricate, often tender artworks chronicle the prisoners’ frustrations about life behind bars and separation from their families.

“It’s like he’s composing a love song,” wrote Lorena Trejo of Long Beach in a statement accompanying the artworks. The envelopes by her husband, John, make up almost half of the exhibit. He “wants me and everybody that sees these envelopes to know I’m special.”

City recreation coordinator Nancy Bruns, who helped bring the exhibit, titled “Prison Envelope Art: Imagery in Motion,” to Cypress, jumped at the chance to offer more diverse art to the community.

“I have really been looking to bring something different to the city for some time,” Bruns said. “And when I heard about the prison art, I knew this was it.”

The show has elicited praise from the local art community.

“This exhibit heightens the city’s awareness of others around them,” said Julian Bloom, president of the Cypress Art League. “They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and you get that after viewing something like this.”

“These prisoners are living under very poor conditions, and they’ve got some deep feelings, and they are allowing them to come out in their art,” added Bloom, an artist who works with watercolors. “You get a sad feeling. They are kept captive--probably for a good reason, but it’s still sad.”

The exhibit, which has had museum showings in Los Angeles and San Diego, is on loan from the Homeland Neighborhood Cultural Center in Long Beach. Dixie Swift of the Homeland center, a community organization dedicated to promoting the arts, hopes the exhibit will help balance society’s often one-dimensional view of the imprisoned.

Apparently, the show has had exactly that effect.

“You picture criminals as uncaring people,” said Tina Zimmermann, a video producer from Mission Viejo, who visited the gallery last week. “This shows they really are not hard-faced criminals and that they are caring and family-oriented. They have the same feelings as people who are not in correctional facilities have.”

The unique art tradition originated during the 1940s among male prisoners from Southwest barrios, Swift said. Back then, the prisoners drew only on envelopes, but today, prisoners sketch on handkerchiefs, plastic tumblers and even pillowcases, she said.

Even though the prisoners put their artwork in the mail, they were still hesitant about displaying it publicly, fearing others would judge their crimes rather than their art, Swift said. For that reason, Swift would not divulge information about the prisoners other than to say that most have been “in and out of institutions most of their lives.”

The exhibit is free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at Cypress Community Art Gallery, 5700 Orange Ave. For more information, call (714) 229-6780.