CIYL Correctional Facility Art Workshops Documentary

The TV series Colour in your life is a series of shows on Artists in their studios that is broadcast across Australia on National TV and in New Zealand and on Virgin International airlines.

The series has created interest in a number of other countries and the response from the public has been amazing. An idea who’s time has come!

The essence of the web site and the TV shows is to build a library of the minds of Artists, so that future generations will be able to see how the many creative people in our society create their individual work.

Due to that fact that the series is seen on National TV, a number of in mates in various correctional facilities across the country have started to paint due to the fact that they can get instruction from watching the shows. They have also begun to donate their work to various charities to help raise money.

The colour in your life team has managed to raise the funds to go to Junee Correctional Facility in August, we intend to film the in mates while they take part in a workshop that is intended to greatly help their skills and then film the day and make it available for the public to see on the TV show and also so that the inmates can see that there is a place for them in society if they truly wish to change themselves.

The funds that are raised will go to the Colour in your life team to pay for filming the inmates for the TV series while we teach them in the workshops. The funds will pay for the production and editing of the documentary ready for TV, obtaining art materials - paint, canvases, brushes, travel expenses, fuel and accommodationfor the team and airfares to fly some of the artists to Bathurst. The money does not go to the jail, but enables the team to be able to help to change these men's lives in a positive way.

The correctional facilities seem to have very little or nothing in place to assist in teaching these men to use their right brains - a good reason they may be in there in the first place.

The Bathurst Correctional Centre, which is a medium/minimum institution for males, is situated 210km west of Sydney. The Facility's priority is to contribute to a safer community by reducing the risk of re-offending and this project would greatly benefit welfare and positive development of the inmates.

A number of young indigenous men have also been watching the series and have asked if the team would be able to come to them and also film and do the workshops and give them instruction on how they too can pursue their creative right brains once they have served their time in the jail.

After speaking with a number of the inmates on the phone I have realized that a good chance why they are in these jails is due to the fact they had never had the opportunity to explore this side of their minds.

I am hoping as time goes by we can visit many of these facilities and have the chance to change these people through creativity and enable them to pass on that legacy themselves.

It is only by helping people connect with their creative side will we be able to truly change the way we think as a people and a society.

We hope you can help us in our endeavours. 
Thank you

Graeme Stevenson and the Colour In Your Life Team