Art Behind Walls

When Daniel Ager’s father was sentenced to prison for 16 years, Daniel knew right then he wanted to make some kind of a difference. The specific idea for the Art Behind Walls project came to him when he received his first letter from prison from his father (in the form of a poem) which included a beautiful sketch of he and his father that a fellow inmate had drawn from a photograph his father had with him.

Daniel realized that inmates had a contribution to make and a way to communicate through art and poetry. The first project he initiated is a coloring book for kids that inmates created through drawings of heroes that were imprisoned at one time, such as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Ghandhi. The coloring book is being given to teachers as an educational tool and to kids whose parent or parents are incarcerated. Watch Ager tell the story in his own words: