Arts & Culture

Amid budget cuts and institutional neglect, San Quentin’s arts education volunteers keep working

On a cool Friday night in March, near the corner of Haight and Steiner streets in San Francisco, the hip boutique Tweekin Records hosted an unusual gallery opening of paintings, sketches, poetry and elaborate collages. It was created by inmates at San Quentin State Prison.

Organized by Kate Deciccio, an artist and a mental health and substance abuse counselor in San Francisco, the exhibit featured her own work, along with work by Eddie Sanchez and “Absent” Helean from San Quentin, and by inmates in the John Howard Pavilion at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. — Deciccio’s former employers.

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