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For the 30th year, the River City Community Players will be giving an audience to a group of artists who typically don’t have one.
Frank Geib, a member of the board of governors for the RCCP, said he helped approach the USP warden about organizing the first “Hidden Art Locked Away” art show. The idea then, as now, was to give inmates at the area’s prisons a place to show the art they were making behind bars.
Last year, the show featured between 150 and 200 works of art from inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth and the United States Disciplinary Barracks on Fort Leavenworth. Geib said the works typically include airbrush, paintings, pencil, pen and other two-dimensional mediums.
“It’s whatever basically is in the mind or the eye of the inmate that’s doing the work,” he said.
The show will open with a preview between 4 and 8 p.m. Friday and continue with a sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Riverfront Community Center.
The proceeds of the sale itself are split — 80 percent of the revenues will go back to the inmate who made the art, while the remaining 20 percent benefits RCCP, who produce plays yearround at Leavenworth’s Hollywood Theater. Geib said another long-time volunteer, Linda Finch, helps catalog and prepare the paintings for display.
The works are judged before the show officially opens, with ribbons awarded for first, second and third place overall.
Over the years, Geib said the show has attracted a following. One patron has been traveling from Washington, D.C., to the show every year since seeing an article about it in an area paper about a decade ago to buy art.
And the show is a popular one for the inmates as well because of its uniqueness. Geib said when the USP was a maximum-security facility, it was not uncommon for inmates to be moved frequently.
“They were always very eager to return to Leavenworth,” he said, because of the opportunity to participate in the show.
For the 30th year, the River City Community Players will be giving an audience to a group of artists who typically don’t have one.
Frank Geib, a member of the board of governors for the RCCP, said he helped approach the USP warden about organizing the first “Hidden Art Locked Away” art show. The idea then, as now, was to give inmates at the area’s prisons a place to show the art they were making behind bars.
Last year, the show featured between 150 and 200 works of art from inmates at the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth and the United States Disciplinary Barracks on Fort Leavenworth. Geib said the works typically include airbrush, paintings, pencil, pen and other two-dimensional mediums.
“It’s whatever basically is in the mind or the eye of the inmate that’s doing the work,” he said.
The show will open with a preview between 4 and 8 p.m. Friday and continue with a sale from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Riverfront Community Center.
The proceeds of the sale itself are split — 80 percent of the revenues will go back to the inmate who made the art, while the remaining 20 percent benefits RCCP, who produce plays yearround at Leavenworth’s Hollywood Theater. Geib said another long-time volunteer, Linda Finch, helps catalog and prepare the paintings for display.
The works are judged before the show officially opens, with ribbons awarded for first, second and third place overall.
Over the years, Geib said the show has attracted a following. One patron has been traveling from Washington, D.C., to the show every year since seeing an article about it in an area paper about a decade ago to buy art.
And the show is a popular one for the inmates as well because of its uniqueness. Geib said when the USP was a maximum-security facility, it was not uncommon for inmates to be moved frequently.
“They were always very eager to return to Leavenworth,” he said, because of the opportunity to participate in the show.
