TB

This is my self-portrait. It represents the temptation I deal with every day in society. Sometimes my negative side overpowers my positive side, and I choose to go down the wrong road. My emotions are mixed due to the situations I've encountered. I found my mother dead on September 5^, 2007. The tear drops are the pain and sorrow my heart has consumed through the years.

J

My painting is about my neighborhood. I am trying to say that we have a lot of drugs and violence in my neighborhood. I am looking down on my street and saying to myself that we need to stop the violence and drug selling on our street.

I am eighteen years old, and I was born in Rochester.

JC

This painting means a lot to me because being able to paint brought me back to loving art again. Before I just gave up on art, but this has allowed me to express myself especially during this time while I am incarcerated. My painting was derived from the idea of a mask.

The reason I love to paint is because it lets me express my talent and emotion. I want to continue art and be an art major one day.

IB

An angry Black man in the inner city who keeps going back and forth to jail so much that all he can see is that he has no future. He never learns from his mistakes and doesn't want to change. Can he change?

CM

I am a nineteen-year-old young man who has been through a struggle. My life has been based on ups and downs. Art is a great get away. In my art I am a young man trapped inside a world that doesn't exist, a world where there is peace and freedom for every living creature, a world where there are smiles on faces and ambition is in eyes, a world where there is nothing to hide. I liked doing this, I felt excited and fulfilled. I felt smart for once. I felt worth something. I felt as if I was a part of something. It is an accomplishment I have made and there have not been too many. It is a finished goal. I am proud of my heritage.

This work is really important to me. It is an accomplishment I worked hard to fulfill. I want to have the original piece to hang on my wall and remind me what good I can do!

A

I drew the picture of my daughter Ayanna. I drew her inside my eye because she is the apple of my eye. The tears are my happy tears for having her in my life. The hands that catch the tears are her hands. I used that because she's been so helpful to me through this whole thing. She really puts a smile on my face. I'm grateful for my daughter, and that's why she's my drawing because with out her life would not be the same. I might be nineteen but I've been blessed with the best love of all. Looking at my painting, I really want my daughter to see what I've created for her and about her. I originally planned on having this in her room above her bed. I know she'll appreciate it. I have big dreams for her and hope she'll never have to go through this.

DM

"I am only a number when I'm in this place. When I paint I go beyond the number to thoughts, dreams and ambitions. There is no pad lock when I paint, and I see there is life beyond the number.