Art and Transformation

I see it all the time. It’s actually one of the great joys of being involved in community-based art projects. People find a place to belong in art and it empowers them to change their lives for the better.

I have countless stories but I’ll share another from the juvenile justice center.

A boy was arrested on a serious charge. He would likely be locked up for a long time. He had just arrived in the facility and he was angry and disoriented. They placed him in guitar class.

At first he refused to participate. He sat with his arms crossed and spent the class periods scowling at the teacher, the guard, and the other kids in the class. Our teacher patiently laid a guitar at his feet each day and told him it was fine if he did not want to participate, but that he was welcome at any time if he chose to do so. We were informed he was also not participating in his other classes or his treatment programs.

So for about two weeks he sat back and watched and listened to the other kids making music, and eventually he picked up the guitar and took his first courageous step out of the hardened exterior armor he’d been building and hiding behind for most of his life.

Our teacher, Jeremy Osborne, jumped into action, making sure that the tasks he was given would be achievable and sequential so he would not be embarrassed or alienated and, lo and behold, he began making real, expressive music with other kids for the first time in his life.

Within six months he was the best guitar player in the facility. He began asking the guards if he could practice on his own during the little bit of unstructured time they are given each day. Within a year he was playing solo repertoire at a level one might expect for an undergraduate music school audition. It was impressive.

At one point along the way, staff at the facility told Mr. Osborne they were taking the boy out of guitar, because he still had not come around to participate in his classes and treatment program and they felt he should not be allowed to do something he was enjoying while neglecting his other requirements. Mr. Osborne protested, asked for more time, and had a stern discussion with the young man. That discussion led to an about face in those programs, and eventually he graduated from high school while in the facility.

About a year after we met him, he informed Mr. Osborne that he had something he wanted to share. At first Mr. Osborne was nervous and didn’t know what to expect. Turns out the item was a full-scale 3-D replica of a classical guitar that the boy had painstakingly made out of copy paper and tape with yarn for strings. He wrote Mr. Osborne’s name across the front of it in big letters because he had made it as a gift.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash