 Four o'clock rock here on a given Thursday. I'm Jay Fiedel, and I am happy I'm happy, and I'm honored to have Ruby Menon with us again today. Hi Ruby. Hi Jay Nice to have you here. Same here. It's great to be with you again. We've covered so much ground together, but today We're going to cover care. Mm-hmm. Okay care is all about the correctional arts re-entry Sounding a great project and art is so important to our lives everyone's life And you are a kind of artist. You are an artist. Am I right? I Yeah, I think that's probably better an art lover. Yeah, an appreciator and you you have been the curator the artist in residence so to speak at the TEDx Event which took place on July 9th, right? Yeah, what was it like to be the curator and artist in residence at that event? Um, it was a fabulous experience and one of the reasons why I actually Signed up for it was because of my care project and the fact that I've been so involved with art and Because of my the care project. I also had a connection to Miley Meyer and so Miley Miley Miley She was not one of our programs a few months ago. She was terrific. Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, and so When I took that project on with TEDx I you know was wondering who can we bring in to to be our artist in residence and I did Originally thought about Solomon But I needed to talk to Miley. She's referring to Solomon Eno. Yeah Solomon Eno. It's worth a you know a footnote on that Yeah, Solomon was here sitting in the same chair that Ruby's sitting in now and Solomon was an experience He was a phenomenon You gotta watch that show. I'm serious go back and watch that show look up Solomon Eno's enos and you will see Energy total energy. Yep on uncontrolled Uncontrolled energy. Yeah guy is truly amazing and it was an amazing discussion. Sorry. I interrupted you So I called up Miley because I asked her do you know any artists that might be interested in participating in this event? And so when we started talking She volunteered Solomon, which was kind of where I wanted her what I wanted her to do So I started meeting with Solomon We started discussing the ideas and I pretty much my role was more as a project manager, you know trying to ensure that all our timelines were met and that you know, we got the artwork in that we needed and The biggest part of the The event for him was to come up with this talk and to you know, practice it and get up on stage And also provide the artwork that as you saw he did the the individual pieces for each speaker The biggest piece of it though was the interactive art activity that we did at the very end And that was a piece that he designed specifically for the event and the night before His assistant and myself we stayed up pretty late and he was like cutting up the the blown-up design So that everyone could get a piece of the the design at the interactive table They would pick up a piece. They would color it in with markers And then we would reassemble it based on a grid Collaborative art piece yeah, okay now let's take that and translate that into care Do you have that kind of thing happening in care? What do you have happening in care in terms of the creation of art and when you say correctional arts? What do you mean is that got a lot to do with OCC or what? what it has to do is with people who are incarcerated and so the correctional arts is a Program that we piloted in the community originally with artists who Were already released into the community meaning that they were either on parole or they're off paper the reason why we started working with this project is I Have to give you a little back background, you know where this came from My husband has a nonprofit called work net and it's an offender services agency it's been around since 2000 and It's the specific intent of that agency is to assist people with their transition from prison back to the community and Work that does that through helping people get jobs Get their ID documents find housing Get their legal issues behind them. Somehow this is going to complement what he's doing then What Solomon is doing? No your husband. Oh Yeah, yeah, so So so the back so I'm giving you that background so you can understand, you know, like how did we get to care? so with the work that's been happening in the Prison system we started to see how much artistic talent there is in the prison system and it's this untapped Amazing talent. I mean you some of the things that come out of there are just Remarkable and they're worthy of a gallery showing but these people don't have a voice So we started asking ourselves a question about how could we help these artists market and sell their artwork? So that they can make money While I'm not recognized and be recognized But but the the men the money-making part is important because they need to have some financial resources when they transition back to This is not is this when they are in incarceration or after they leave both so the pilot project Started with community artists because we had to have a proof of concept and so I took that on and Because I I just recognized the talent that was happening with with this group And I wanted to do something to to see how far we could go with this So it took a pilot project. I pitched it to Miley and I told her about it She Miley has a gallery. See that's the important thing. Yes. Yes, and she is a platform For art in general. Yeah, and it's perfect connection, isn't it? Yes, it was an amazing connection And she also supports a lot of the social justice types of projects She loved the idea that we were working with artists in in prison and so Right around the Christmas season. She gave me two days outside of her gallery so I could bring three of my community artists with me and They showcase their work I mean it was an amazing experience for them because they had the opportunity to showcase their work to Have interactions with the public Talk about their artwork get a sense of how to you know do all their financial transactions and the event was actually quite successful We had I think about $300 in sales, which may not sound like much But for these guys that was a lot. They were selling this is right outside. Namaya that sort of right outside Namaya gallery. Yeah, right during the Christmas season one of our artists Mo Kalaikai Did very very well and he because he designs these beautiful Tribal designs and a lot of Hawaiian types of themes that people really gravitate towards and so people were buying his cards they were buying his matted prints and then he had a Portfolio that probably was about this thick of all the artwork that he had done over the years What meal you what what mostly he does pen and pen and ink drawings and uses colored pencils This is this is sort of like Solomonino's isn't it? Somewhat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, okay, so what's in it for you actually Ruby for me? Yeah Make money with this Well, it's a social enterprise project. I don't make a whole lot of money from it I get you know a small little salary for it But what I wanted to see happen was the I wanted to be able to show that this is a viable project So the proof of concept allowed us to get GIA funding. Oh So we got granted eight funding from the state in the 2016 legislature. Yeah, good work So we got the funding so so we started the pilot project outside with the community ours to show that There's some proof of concept there GIA funding got us inside the prison And so now we're piloting the project with the women at W triple C And so that started in January of 2016 So only a few months ago. Yeah, it's only six months into into the making but the women have just been phenomenal I mean they So what we so what I did is I pretty much put the whole project from scratch Got an instructor put all the policies and procedures together Got with the education center and started to you know work out all the systems with them and we recruited the students to come in and We taught them a a paper art form called quilling, which is Q you I I It's a paper so you take these thin strips of paper and you have a tool like a quilling wand And then you twirl the paper into like these little spirals and then you can start to design put the the spirals into There's a actually there's okay. There's an example as an example of it you can use all these brilliant colors and You shape those spirals into different types of shapes now that that photo is The women's fund of Hawaii you want to give a shout-out to them as well they gave us our seed grant and So we wanted to thank them so we took their logo actually Moe our artist He's our resident artist now. He works for work net. He put together the logo We blew it up and then one of our artists CJ started to work on quilling each letter and Then It's a lot of detail work, but that's the finished product right there and that's you I see you there Yeah, that's with and that's chaz Williams. That's the executive director of work net and We presented that to the women's fund board meeting about a week or so ago and Literally the lady right there who's holding it with the with the red right in the front. She started tearing up She was so moved by This gift that we made for them and they were all so highly impressed and a very very thankful We were very thankful to them for giving us the seed money for this So with the seed money you you have an instructor who goes into the prison am I right yes And shows them the art form or art forms that you are suggesting to them Yes, and then they get materials I guess yes We provide the materials and then they do art in the prison. Yes So that's the so our class meets Mondays when Mondays and Wednesdays two hours each class and We provide all the supplies for them and we also provide designs and templates and different things like that So for an example, they all worked on a butterfly design Even though they all use the same template. It was just remarkable how different each one was one was it was just amazing, I mean the color schemes and the Just the different shapes that they came up with and so they made these really beautiful butterflies They rise to the level of art. I mean you're a connoisseur that they rise to the level of art or was it arts and crafts? I would say it's more handmade craft products right now There are some women who have the artistic talent of drawing being able to draw But this stuff right now is more handmade craft. This lets you know who the talented ones are absolutely And that's important information and when we get back from this break, we're gonna find out why it's important information That's Ruby Menon. She's gee wish. She's she's what is your role there with care program director program director for care We'll be right back Hi, my name is Aaron will as you are watching think tech Hawaii comm I am the host of the show rehabilitation coming soon You can catch us live on think tech Hawaii comm at 11 a.m. On Tuesdays. I will see you there Hi, my name is Justini spirit to this is my co-host Matthew Johnson every Thursday at 4 p.m. We host the Hawaii food and farmer series. This is the place you can come to for insight on the perspective and history and passions of Hawaii's farmers and all folks involved in Hawaii's local food system What kind of folks we have on so we have everyone from local farmers We have foodies chefs. We also have journalists Researchers anyone who's actually working to help make Hawaii's local food system that much better so join us every Thursday and Tweet in us and ask us some questions and leave your comments as well Thank you. Bingo. We're back. I told you we'd come back. This is Ruby Menon She's the program director of the correctional arch reentry program. That's care C-a-r-e And we talked about you know how when you do this kind of Arts crafts whatever you want to call it in a prison you get to see in the course of the program Who has artistic talent and that talent becomes interesting because you know, you can parlay that later Tell us how that works so part of the program is First of all to have them be able to make the product so that we can market and sell for them while they're Incarcerated because we want them to be able to build up a nest egg for their transition to the community But the program also continues to work with them once they get out So for example if they need help finding work Get that getting their ID documents all of those little pillars that are necessary in order for them to be able to transition We help them with that so we don't just abandon them. This is more than art. Oh, yeah It's an entire program. You're really helping them in every way you possibly can absolutely. Yeah So art is just a component of it. However because they've shown artistic talent We want to nurture that in some way and if they want to use that as a side gig for example Then they can still continue to do their artwork They can come into our office and we can provide them with supplies and we can continue to sell a market their artwork Unless they want to actually, you know take on the business side, but I can tell you working with artists They don't like doing that. Oh, they want somebody else to handle it. Yeah, absolutely So who is the market, you know, you said that a few of the members of care went in front of the mayor gallery and sold sold some art made some money and and these Relatively talented people who are either in jail or coming out of jail can actually earn some money Who who is the market who's buying it? It can be just anyone who you know likes the artwork that's coming out like so for example with our artist a resident artist Mo Kalaikai So he works for us now. We've employed, you know, where we hired him And so we do we handle all of the we manage him basically as an artist Right, so I post all of his stuff on on our website. What's the name of your website again? Let me get that. Oh, yeah It's WWW dot work net ink W-O-R-K-N-E-T-I-N-C dot org and dot org Orgy and you are a 501 C three Absolutely, yeah, okay And people can go to the buy art tab on the website and then they can see all the different collections that we have It's you know, we're starting. We're still building it up So I did post a tab for Mo's collection that shows all his tribals and things like that and people just love the artwork that he does and The thing that the reason why this is also important Jay and this is to me This is this is really the heart of it, you know, people who are incarcerated Have so much stigma that they've got to battle once they get back into the community people don't want to hire them You know, they don't want them in their backyard, you know I mean, there's so many different Issues that they have to grapple with not only the fact that they've been incarcerated and now they're having to make this Transition back from institutionalized life to this to you know regular society But they're finding that they're they're getting so many societal barriers The thing that's beautiful about art is that when you show somebody a piece of art, you know Handmade craft that's gorgeous People don't think about you as an offender anymore They see you differently and it helps to break down those barriers so that now You are an equal with them your person again in their eyes not some ex offender that you know Got locked up and frankly, I'd rather that they lock you up and throw away the key You know when you've got that kind of mentality so the art actually breaks down those barriers and it's it's delightful to see because then when they hear the story about this is a redemption story, right? so when the The Artist offend, you know ex offender showing them their artwork. They don't see that the fact that that person You know, they then they they're a little bit more relaxed and their guard comes down They see this is just a person that makes some mistakes, but look at this gorgeous stuff that they're doing They're very talented, you know, is the art Hawaiian in nature is it local style? Is it depends on the artist sometimes? Yes, sometimes? Yeah, so Moe is more Hawaiian based So a lot of the tribals that he makes are very much Hawaiian based types of tribals Let me go back to this one point you mentioned and I'll take off a little on that, you know I like to know who my artist is Like you know, that's why the Biography stories of artists are so important to people to the market. Yeah people who want to buy people who want to know You know about the quality of the art they need to know who who is this person? Yeah, and you know Because because we all know that what they are producing What they are creating is a function of their life say the whole measure of their lives And so if I know that somebody has had a hard time in his life Whatever it be whether it be in jail or the things that led to jail or whatever might be then I am I have a greater Understanding of the art itself. I can I can feel it. It's almost palpable to know the trials and Tribulations that this person has gone through and and presumably are those things are expressed in his or her art Yes, so I see I see the biography in the art. Yes, I see the life experience in the art And so I think there's something really, you know really Compelling about art coming from someone who has suffered whatever the reason. Yeah. Yeah, yeah And I think it makes it interesting certainly for that person to be able to express You know the hard times of his or her life, but also for the market and the appreciator like you yeah, and And I think that's so so true also in that for these artists, you know Typically, I think people who have an artistic talent are The folks who typically have a more difficult time adapting to the society the norms of society, right? And it's I don't think it's an accident that you know a lot of people who have artistic talent get incarcerated So very interesting connection. Can we dwell on that from it? Why do you say that? Well? I think it's just because You know when you're when you have an artistic talent, I think that it's it's more maybe it's a little bit more difficult to to fit into that box, you know, you're usually on the fringes and You know the unfortunate thing also maybe is because you're on the fringes and you don't feel as accepted a lot of them wind up Taking drugs in order to heal that pain and that's the one thing that I'm you know As I've been working on this project. I'm finding that a huge amount of people are incarcerated because of drugs Probably that's the biggest Problem and a huge number of people are homeless because of drugs and drugs is really the bane of our society It's really bad here, especially with ice. Yes So gee whiz but that but the correlation that you make is so interesting That you know, it's pain and certainly pain pain for people of hard times but pain also Creates art Pain, I'm sorry to say that but pain creates art. Yeah, and maybe it's almost a Kind of reaction of the market to say gee this reflects pain and turmoil and confusion and trouble and all that You know those hard time things And and through the art I can understand it. Yeah through the art I can and I don't want to be there with him, but I want to know how it happened I want to know about you know the pain he had well, you know the other thing too for people who are in prison art is a therapy for them. Yes, and One of our community artists was a woman that who was one of our clients and she had been incarcerated for 20 years and When she went into prison, she had no idea that she had any artistic talent And she started doing art just so it would give her some sanity while she was you know within the prison system And she just blossomed and she just started finding that she had this innate talent and was making these amazingly beautiful murals floral murals and then she started making cards and And she you know a lucky break for her. Yeah found out To your point, I think a lot of people go through their lives They never know they never know and then you know, I have nothing but time on their hands, right? So even if they didn't know they can like learn from books and they can spend the time Doing that ten thousand hour practice stuff right in order to become really good at it. So a lot of these folks Discovered their art talent either while they were in prison or maybe they had the artistic talent dropped it while They were out in the community and then rediscovered it and that's what happened with Moe Yeah, you know, but the other thing too is that it's a it's a therapy for them And so the women who are in our our care class Constantly tell me how coming to care for them is like an oasis in their day Because there we create are we you know, I was very intentional about setting up a very safe environment for them Where they can come they can be relaxed and they can just be creative and create products Those are the happiest times aren't they? Yeah, I mean my own life experience and a life experience A lot of the people here at think tech is you're happiest when you're creating something. This is joy You know unbridled joy to be able to do that. It's a great gift that You know the the deity has given to us that we can enjoy being creative And so you are the handmaiden of that to make this possible To reach them in their moment of darkness and give them the light to bring them out and have them continued and You know perpetuate that experience. It's a wonderful gift. You're giving them Oh, we got a close now. So I want I want you to talk about the event the event on August 19th at 21st The event I guess it's at Namea gallery. Yeah, what's happening and why should we go? so Namea gallery is doing a Sort of a lateral project event with the made in Hawaii festival and they're calling there's the really made in Hawaii festival And so Really add something to that And so They've invited us to have a table Because Moe actually I set it up so that Moe can sell his artwork on consignment with them. And so Because they know him they've invited him to come and do a table do some drawing and also I'll be able to bring in some of the product products from the care project and now display it and start Educate the public about what we're doing with this project So we will be there from August 19 each day August 19 20 and 21 over at Namea gallery What days of the week? Those are that's Friday Saturday and Sunday and we'll be there from 10 to 3 and You know people want to come down and and check us out What do I have to do just come down just sign up or just come down? No, no, no, just cause me anything Well, I mean if you want to buy something Yeah, no, there's no entry fee there's And in a lot of the artists there they're trying to recruit a lot of the artists that are part of the Namea You know family to come in and do I don't see why not okay. Yeah, that'd be great Yeah So if you go to that you get to meet Ruby Menon in person and you get to meet Moe also and Moe and Miley Miley Meyer you can meet her in person too Yeah, and you can meet all these guys and girls who have been creating art in prison And you can look deeply in their eyes and try to figure out their life experience And see how it translates out into the art and how much happier they are for the creative experience Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you