University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

When I get out of here

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When I get out of here

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Content WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE

by

Alyse Emdur

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS

August 2010

Copyright 2010 Alyse Emdur

ii

Table of Contents

List of Figures iii
Abstract iv
Introduction 2
Chapter 1. Prison Landscapes, Backdrop as Escape 4
Chapter 2. Fall’s Fall, Darrell’s Escape 17
Chapter 3. Body Talk, Eroticism and the Body 22
Chapter 4. Fountain of Youth, Magic Pill 28
Chapter 5. Green Screen, Platonic Form 31
Conclusion 33
Bibliography 34

iii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Warm Mineral Springs Fountain of Youth Spa, Aerial View 1

Figure 2: State Correctional Institution at Graterford, Aerial View 1

Figure 3: Bruce Emdur, Bayside State Prison, Leesburg 3

Figure 4: Correspondence with Josh Wilder, page one 11

Figure 5: Correspondence with Josh Wilder, page two 12

Figure 6: Kimi Buntyn, Valley State Prison for Women 13

Figure 7: Antoine Ealy, Federal Correctional Complex Coleman 14

Figure 8: James Bowlin, U.S. Penitentiary Marion 15 17

Figure 9: Brisio Pintor, Smith Unit High Security Lamesa 16

Figure 10: Fall’s Fall, 10’ x 14’ backdrop painted by Darrell Van Mastrigt 19

Figure 11: Fall’s Fall statement by Darrell Van Mastrigt, page one 20

Figure 12: Fall’s Fall statement by Darrell Van Mastrigt, page two 21

Figure 13: Body Talk, video still, directed by Gary Boyd 25

Figure 14: Body Talk, video still, directed by Gary Boyd 25

Figure 15: Correspondence with Gary Boyd, page one 26

Figure 16: Correspondence with Gary Boyd, page two 27

Figure 17: Fountain of Youth, film still 30

Figure 18: Fountain of Youth, installation 30

Figure 19: Green Screen, installation 32
Figure 20: When I Get Out of Here, installation 32

iv
Abstract
When I Get Out of Here is an in-depth guide to the thesis exhibition of the same
title, When I Get Out of Here. The exhibition includes a collection of photographs of
prison inmates representing themselves, a prison backdrop, a workout video made by an
incarcerated personal trainer, a 16mm film documenting an exercise class in a Florida
mineral spring, and a store bought green screen. This written thesis is also a guide to
Prison Landscapes, a collection of over 150 images and 500 letters, which came out of
correspondences initiated with American prisoners in January 2009. This guide explores
escapism and idealism in prison, spa, and school cultures. It focuses on the backdrop as a
landscape of escape. It looks at ways people escape through fantasy, illusion, creativity,
performance, utility, exercise, eroticism, and myth.

1

Figure 1: Warm Mineral Springs Fountain of Youth Spa, Venice, Florida

Figure 2: State Correctional Institution at Graterford, Pennsylvania

2
Introduction
The framing and editing of my work places a particular intentionality on objects
and situations which at first glance appear banal, but that become extraordinary once seen
through the gaze of the person who owns the object or situation. The work presents
people presenting themselves. Viewers are asked to find meaning in subjects’ realities. A
main point of departure for my work is the realist idea of immanence that ultimately, the
real is already meaningful and that my job is to witness it.
The Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition, When I Get Out of Here, at the Roski
School of Fine Arts, presents five works that explore escapism and idealism in American
culture. The title simultaneously suggests, when I get out of graduate school, when
prisoners get out of prison, and also, when the bathers get out of the Fountain of Youth.
The exhibition compares schools, prisons, and spas as institutions of reform. Do we come
out new and improved? Are the criminals no longer committing crimes? Are the bathers
no longer suffering from arthritis? And are the graduates no longer making
unprofessional choices? The show looks at entrapment and escapism in these three
institutions. Although dark and sad, the artistic gestures, Prison Landscapes, Fall’s Fall,
Body Talk, and the Fountain of Youth, imply hope for what awaits us when we get out of
here.

3

Figure 3: Bruce Emdur (middle), Remi Lana Emdur (left) and Alyse Lee Emdur
(right) in the visiting room at Bayside State Prison in 1988, Leesburg, New Jersey.

4
Chapter 1. Prison Landscapes, Backdrop as Escape
While going through a family photo album at my parent’s house, I found a
Polaroid picture of my older brother, sister, and self posing in front of a tropical beach
scene in the visiting room at Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey. (Figure 1)
Significant memories of visiting him while locked up came back to me. Although, only
five or six years old at the time, I was already accustomed to the tradition of posing in
front of backdrops on special occasions, for my class pictures and at Disney World. I
remember the prison backdrop appearing, not out of place, but special. The backdrop
coupled with a junk food vending machine were the only two friendly amenities this
place offered.
Although the backdrop’s presence felt like a kind gesture, it amplified the sadness
of visiting him. The painting represented freedom, the exact opposite of the prison’s
mission. My sister and I could go to the beach, but our brother could not go with us. We
posed in front of this painting of a beach and then didn’t feel as uncomfortable showing
our friends the picture. We could say, “This is our brother” instead of saying, “This is our
brother in jail”. From the picture, no one would even know he was in jail. The truth is, I
don’t think I ever showed anyone the photo. I was too young to think about photographs.
I expressed my complicated feelings by negation; “I have three sisters” to the question,
“How many siblings do you have?”

Upon entering the prison, even as a visitor, the physicality of the space and of my
body confined in the space was strongly internalized. After waiting in a long line, a guard
patted us down and led us through a metal detector to the carefully monitored visiting-

5
room where our brother, just a few months past his 18
th
birthday, waited for us anxiously.
Noticing a couple reprimanded for kissing, he pointed out that kissing was not permitted
in part, to deter visitors from passing drugs stuffed in balloons from mouth to mouth. The
first time I visited, a guard explained to my mother that my tank top did not meet dress
code. “A five-year old exposing upper-arms might arouse incarcerated men”, he
explained. As we walked through the grid of parked cars, to our car, to find a long sleeve
shirt, I asked my mom why I had to wear a sweater on such a hot summer day. She
surprisingly told me the truth.
Although my brother was released from prison over a decade ago, the experience
of being institutionalized is still very present in his being. It is in his rough language, his
skepticism toward others, and the use of his body, weight lifting, as a form of escape
from the struggles of everyday life.
In another album, I found a Polaroid of Bruce with his arm around his girlfriend,
Cindy, sitting on a bench, in front of an Emerson-esque cabin along a stream secluded in
the forest. In another, he is between our mother and Cindy blocking the majority of a
more rudimentary depiction of trees. A potted plant hanging in the frame mirrors the
plant life in the painting.
These images, evocative of feeling trapped and finding ways to escape, instantly
captivated me. From the years 1988 to 1998 my brother served time in and out of three
prisons for grand theft auto and possession of illegal substances. There was a backdrop,
hand painted by a talented inmate, in the visiting-room of each prison. He explained that
the most talented artists in prisons are well known and highly respected for their creative

6
visions and skills. Many run businesses inside selling ballpoint pen portraits or hand
calligraphied love letters to mail to pen pals. Used like cash, artworks are traded for
concession items including stamps, cigarettes, ramen noodles and candy bars. Although it
is illegal to engage in economies outside of prison walls, some manage to sell works
through internet galleries and supportive non-profits like Safe Streets Arts Foundation in
Washington DC. Photorealism is close to magic in prison culture. When artists stray
away from this genre, they are often considered eccentric loners and left to serve their
time alone. Artists who embrace it are invited to paint the backdrops. Although some art
programs within prisons initiate these paintings, most prisons do not have the resources to
offer art programs nor are they even interested in offering educational tools to criminals.
In these facilities, a generous guard or staff member donates the supplies and oversees the
painting. After the warden approves the proposed backdrop, the artist, often a
perfectionist, paints the mural during non-visiting hours with a guard by his or her side.
In prison, an environment that strips freedom and individuality, the backdrops are a major
opportunity for incarcerated artists to express themselves creatively to the population.
The painted backdrops, representative of idealized places the artists wish to
escape to, are used within the prison system as portrait studios. The prison provides a
camera and inmates volunteer in shifts to work as in-house photographers during visiting
hours. This is an attractive task for many who enjoy watching the visiting-rooms unfold
into intimate familial scenes. A single photograph costs $1-$2 to cover the costs of
running the portrait studio. In most American prisons today these are the only
photographs permitted to be shot inside.

7
In the 1960’s, 70’s, and 80’s, photographers Douglas Kent Hall, Ethan Hoffman
and Danny Lyon were granted unrestricted access to photograph inside cells, yards,
visiting-rooms, weight-rooms, offices, libraries, corridors, showers, and factories. With
this access, they provided significant in-depth looks into prison culture. They generously
show us Arnold Schwarzenegger demonstrating weight lifting techniques in San Quentin,
a couple marrying in Main Facility Santa Fe, the tattooing of a sexy woman caricature,
and a Native American Powwow including an image of nude inmates entering a sweat
lodge on the yard in Washington State Penitentiary. Since the decades when these images
were taken, the US prison population has risen from less than 500,000 to over 2.3 million
Americans.
Over the last 20 years restrictions on camera use has tightened. Inmates are no
longer allowed to possess cameras and the photographic eye is rarely granted access. As a
result, our prison system has become increasingly opaque. Thirty-foot walls not only lock
criminals in, they also keep society out. These visiting room portraits are one of few
accessible visual entrances into this system.
The Prison Landscapes collection offers a survey of landscape painting produced
in prisons across the country. This survey reveals the American Correctional System as
an institution of power that uses trompe l'oeil illusion to hide the realities beyond the
camera’s frame. The idealized paintings of tropical beaches, fantastical waterfalls,
mountain vistas, and cityscapes alternatively invite sitters to perform their own fantasies
of freedom.

8
As inmates and their visitors pose for photos in front of these backdrops, they
pretend, at least for a nobody-is-really-fooled sort of moment, that they are someplace
else. The portraits, which sit in as a substitute for reality are given to these visitors as
precious objects to take home and remember the face of a son or boyfriend while he or
she is locked up. Other images are taken of the inmate alone playing out attractive roles
or stereotypes to post on prison dating websites and ultimately attract friendship and
support from the outside world.
While my initial plan was to travel around the country visiting and photographing
inmates, I soon realized that I wanted to see how people represent themselves without the
interruption of my presence. What began as a few correspondences through inmate pen
pal websites evolved into a proposal inviting 300 prisoners across the country to send me
photographs of themselves to be included in this collection. Of the 300 invited, about 150
individuals responded with pictures. My mailbox was instantly flooded with more letters
than I could physically respond to in a timely fashion. Some contributors sent their
photos with brief notes expressing their support. Many wrote three or four page letters
sharing their lives and expressing hopes to form a friendship. Contributors Shagasya
Diamond, Dimas Garza, and Rahmon Soto helped from the inside by recruiting friends
and mediating information.
The relationship between a free person and a physically captive person is
inherently complex and fraught with contradiction. I was one person trying to keep in
touch with over 300 individuals who had plenty of time on their hands to write letters.
Many contributors revealed that I was the first to respond to their classified ads. These

9
contributors generously offered their trust and insight. To escape from serving time,
many wrote about their troubled pasts and hopeful futures avoiding, like their
photographs, their time spent locked up. In between discussing the book, I shared stories
of my life, self-consciously aware of the large gap between my freedom and their
imprisonment. But also, searching for commonalities and shared experience.
When I began collecting the images for Prison Landscapes, I used the alias Lee
Lana, a combination of my and my sister’s middle names. During the correspondences, I
sent them a release form with both my legal name and my alias; it was then that a number
of inmates stated that they too had used aliases, and clarified their legal names.
They have chosen to trust me with their photographs, one of their few personal
possessions. I have chosen to trust these men and women, who smuggled drugs, robbed
banks, cheated state lotteries and committed acts of horrendous violence, a far more
difficult reality than I have encountered in my personal experiences with prison. Whether
or not I have the authority to speak for the individuals pictured in this collection, I believe
that their decision to participate speaks for itself.
The contributors have represented and framed themselves. In sending me their
pictures, they have agreed to be gazed at and have expressed their agency and desire to be
seen by a world that they are locked away from. In prison, decision-making is limited.
Although a small gesture, their decision to engage or not engage with this project was a
rare freedom. Together, we are exploiting ourselves to offer a window into the American
Prison System.

10
These images, often difficult to look at, confront viewers’ personal feelings,
attitudes, and biases toward prisoners. Here prisoners are not seen dehumanized behind
bars, in mug shots, or beside brick walls. They are seen with their families. The
photographs point to the wives, parents, and children who get trapped in relating to this
system. Posed and frontal, these images intentionally hide what is outside the frame and
gloss over the struggles of being locked up. The collection presents people's impulses to
represent their own life circumstances as better than they actually are. Although the
contributors share the experience of being locked up, this collection does not intend to
define a community. These images provide an extraordinary and valuable collection of
individuals presenting themselves while lumped inside the walls of the American Prison
System.

11

Figure 4: Correspondence with Josh Wilder, page one

12

Figure 5: Correspondence with Josh Wider, page two

13

Figure 6: Kimi Buntyn, Valley State Prison for Women, Chowchilla, California

14

Figure 7: Antoine Ealy, Federal Correctional Complex Coleman, Florida

15

Figure 8: James Bowlin, U.S. Penitentiary Marion, Illinois

16

Figure 9: Brisio Pintor, Smith Unit High Security Lamesa, Texas

17
Chapter 2. Fall’s Fall, Darrell’s Escape

The following chapters are a guide to the thesis exhibition When I Get Out of Here
which included five works: An excerpt from Prison Landscapes, 15 original photographs
and four letters presented on a shelf. Fall’s Fall, a large-scale prison backdrop painted by
Darrell Van Mastrigt. Body Talk, a workout video made in an Ohio prison by Gary Boyd.
Fountain of Youth, a looped 16mm film documenting an exercise class in the legendary
spring by Alyse Emdur. Green Screen, a partially unfurled roll of green backdrop paper
purchased by Alyse Emdur.
Fall’s Fall was painted by Darrell Van Mastrigt in his cell at the State
Correctional Institution at Graterford, 30 miles west of Philadelphia. Commissioned
specially for this exhibition, the 10-foot by 14-foot backdrop depicting a stream and a
waterfall in autumn, comes from the tradition of prison backdrop painting, which Prison
Landscapes also explores. The mesmerizing large-scale painting carefully brings to life
fallen leaves, rocks, water, and trees with equal detail and value. Darrell has painted many
similar photorealistic backdrops in Graterford. He and other inmates earn 51 cents an
hour painting for the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia. Their murals, aside from being
used in the prison, are painted on parachute cloth and adhered to walls in Philadelphia
neighborhoods with acrylic gel. Due to the limited size of Darrell’s cell, he painted Fall’s
Fall in sections on the floor and was unable to see the full artwork vertical on a wall until
I mailed him an installation shot of his artwork in the Roski School of Art Gallery. The
unusual task of mailing the backdrop out of Graterford was made possible with the

18
generous support of the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia.
1
Darrell’s girlfriend Pam
Piterski, who lives in Ormond Beach, Florida, responded to an advertisement I published,
Seeking Incarcerated Muralist, and also helped mediate the exchange.
23
Fall’s Fall,
juxtaposed with the Prison Landscapes collection, offers viewers the opportunity to
experience the presence of a large-scale prison backdrop and to imagine posing in front of
such a backdrop in a visiting-room. Although Darrell could not get out of prison to attend
the opening, his painting did. The exchange proved a rare opportunity for Darrell to
connect with the outside world and for me to collaborate with an incarcerated artist.

1
Robyn Buseman at the Mural Arts Program met with the Graterford prison’s Superintendent on Darrell
and my behalf to gain permission to mail out his large-scale artwork.

2
After advertising to commission a backdrop, the Mural Arts Program informed me it is illegal to do
business from prison. But, Darrell, Pam and I had already agreed on a $200 compensation plus the cost of
materials ($150) and shipping ($163). The Mural Arts Program advised instead, a legal donation of $200 to
Darrell’s legal expense fund. Darrell technically gifted the backdrop to the Prison Landscapes collection.

3
No boundaries on content or form were specified but I did request the backdrop fit the preexisting
graduate school gallery wall. I did not know this scale was larger than the room he painted it in (his cell)
until after it was finished.

19

Figure 10: Fall’s Fall, 10’ x 14’ backdrop painted by Darrell Van Mastrigt

20

Figure 11: Fall’s Fall statement by Darrell Van Mastrigt, page one

21

Figure 12: Fall’s Fall statement by Darrell Van Mastrigt, page two

22
Chapter 3. Body Talk, Eroticism and the Body

Performed in front of a visiting-room backdrop depicting a tree with a cartooned
rabbit reading a book, Body Talk was produced by and starring Gary Boyd in the North
Central Correctional Institution in Ohio. A guard lent him a video camera for the filming
and a friend posted the workout video on You Tube in 2008. While corresponding with
Gary
4
through the US Postal Service for Prison Landscapes, he asked me to check out his
workout video. Body Talk is an inspiring testament to overcoming hardship with
creativity and utility. Both a practical workout and an informative entrance into prison
workout culture, Body Talk points to weight lifting as an exercise that helps convicts deal
with and mentally escape from incarceration. Weight lifting is a spiritual tool that
transforms bodies into weapons for self-defense, intimidation, violence and to combat
depression. The body is the sole physical possession of the incarcerated
5
. The only thing
left to control in prison is the transformation of ones own mind and body. Body Talk
shows that this transformation can be achieved on the worst diet, with no workout
equipment, and in a space as cramped as a six-foot by ten-foot prison cell. Each Body
Talk exercise is based on cumulative resistance and requires the teamwork of two

4
While finding spirituality in prison, Gary Boyd legally changed his name to, Sol Amen Ra meaning,
Ancient Egyptian Sun God

5
The rules for personal possessions vary from prison to prison. In Ohio’s North Correctional Institution
inmates are allowed only surveillanced personal photographs and letters sent via the mail and surveillanced
printed matter including books and magazines mailed directly through a publisher.

23
dedicated people and the use of two “industrial towels”. As the cellmates resist one
another’s strength to build muscle, Gary Boyd entertainingly narrates:
“You all are accustomed to buying exotic workout equipment for $59.99
and not using it. Every time you look at that piece of equipment sitting in
your bedroom corner, you’re saying to yourself, subconsciously, ‘I’m
worth nothing’. Because you haven’t committed to a process that you
began.”
Although filmed in prison with minimal production, Gary’s direction and narration
resemble a mainstream workout video. The fades, close ups, stage design, and
instructional commentary imitate the structure to a T. Between scenes Gary repeatedly
directs, “fade”, perhaps to highlight the do it yourself production or to simply instruct
the cameraman.
Inherent in resistance weight lifting and in this video is the eroticism of the body.
Body Talk points to escapism, not only through physical exercise, but also through
human touch and a connection to the outside world. The homoerotics of the image point
to the complex manifestation of sexuality in incarcerated straight men, segregated from
women. While the physical exercises are suggestive, Gary’s imagined audience equally
includes the middleclass housewife. “These are just two industrial towels and this is a
workout for your arms ladies.”
Although surprised by my invitation to exhibit his video in an art context, Gary
Boyd was pleased to contribute. In the video, he himself refers to the workout as body

24
sculpture. After serving an 18-year maximum-security sentence, he was released into
Ohio’s probation system in September 2009 and is now pursuing a career in personal
fitness training.
6

6
While incarcerated, Gary Boyd worked as a freelance personal trainer often working for trade. As a
trainer, he taught his Body Talk method.

25

Figure 13: Body Talk, video still, directed by Gary Boyd

Figure 14: Body Talk, video still, directed by Gary Boyd

26

Figure 15: Correspondence with Gary Boyd, page one

27

Figure 16: Correspondence with Gary Boyd, page two

28
Chapter 4. Fountain of Youth, Magic Pill
The sculpted body in Body Talk is charged with eroticism. The aged body in the
Fountain of Youth is seeking to regain its eroticism. Millions of incarcerated men and
women sculpt their bodies to create ideal selves. But the body remains captive. The
utopian vision of a fountain of youth speaks of this same quest to control the body.
Fountain of Youth was included in When I Get Out of Here to point to idealism and the
belief in a magic pill.
Fountain of Youth was shot on 16mm film in the healing mineral water and
landscape known as the legendary spring that Ponce de León searched for in the 16th
century. The spring today is an 87-degree, 1.4-acre, 250-foot deep sinkhole operated by
the Warm Mineral Springs Spa, Inc. Their website boasts the third highest mineral
content of any body of water in the world. Samples collected, from this Florida historic
landmark, reveal that the underground water may have taken 60,000 years to filter
through the earth before reaching the surface. Hopes that the mythic water will alleviate
illness and restore health attract thousands of international tourists to the spa annually.
The Fountain of Youth employs a 10-minute long shot to document a class of
Canadian retirees, Eastern European retirees, and myself exercising in the spa’s daily
water aerobics class. The film’s soundtrack, DJ’d by the class’s flamboyant instructor
Brigette, includes a diverse mix of oldies, classical, Japanese new age, and even, Lady
Gaga. The film looks at mortality and the attempt to escape from growing old.

29
My participation in the class signifies my own personal assessment of death. Although
decades more youthful than the other students and teacher, I position myself not as an
outsider, but as an inside observer and participant. I am literally seeking eternal youth
right along with everyone else.
The composition of the film’s static background highlights the spa’s idealized
landscape. Paired with Prison Landscapes, it appears flat, like a backdrop. Unlike the
prisoners, the retirees are actually bathing in their ideal destination. The inclusion of the
Fountain of Youth in the exhibition heightens the idea of freedom and of the human body
captured over time. The body in jail literally has an arrest and release date. The body of
the youth-seeker combats life’s only certainty; we all die. Juxtaposed with Body Talk,
these two exercise routines show inmates and retirees as socio-economic populations that
share the common desire to escape from their bodies into idealized embodiments of
themselves.

30

Figure 17: Fountain of Youth, film still

Figure 18: Body Talk (left) and Fountain of Youth (right), installation

31
Chapter 5. Green Screen, Platonic Form
Green Screen is literally a store bought roll of paper used by the studio based film
industry to insert an unlimited possibility of digital backdrops onto. Green Screen,
viewed on the backside of the same movable gallery wall that Fountain of Youth is
projected onto, is a key to the idea of the backdrop explored in the rest of the exhibition.
Unlike the other artworks in the exhibition, Green Screen reveals the fragile, flimsy,
unspectacular object behind the illusion. In proximity to Waterfall and Prison
Landscapes, it suggests, not the hand-painted creative expression of prison backdrops but
rather, the backdrop as tool to create an illusion that is used by institutions of power-
prison systems and the film/ media industry.
Green Screen is the Platonic Form of backdrop. It is the projection of any ideal,
across any time, any geography, and any dream. The action-based sculpture accepts the
limits of art to deal with social and political incongruities.

32

Figure 19: Green Screen, installation

Figure 20: When I Get Out of Here, installation

33
Conclusion
When I Get Out of Here presents works by three individuals attempting escape
from their everyday constraints. This thesis-as-guide looks at ways people escape through
fantasy, illusion, creativity, performance, utility, exercise, eroticism, and myth. Together
these photographs, letters, painting, video, sculpture, and film present a deep
investigation into escapism and idealism in prison, spa, and school cultures. The curation
of these objects in an art context acknowledges them as valuable artworks and tools used
to escape. The exhibition presents a model of the artist as curator, researcher, documenter
and performer.
Although my authorship is faded in respectful documentary witnessing, it is
present in my decisions to select subjects, connect relationships, edit material, and place
value. My pose to neutrality is deliberately performed to allow a richness of semiotic
discourse. When I physically stepped away from the 16mm film camera and jumped into
the Fountain of Youth, I became a bather while remaining a documentarian. Though at
five years old I did not choose to pose in front of a prison backdrop, at twenty-five, I did
choose to connect with hundreds of incarcerated men and women, in an attempt to
understand self-presentation and escapism through idealism.
Prison Landscapes and When I Get Out of Here investigates self-presentation as
performance. The performative use of my own body in Fountain of Youth and Prison
Landscapes, is a reenactment of my subjects self-presentation. I’m reenacting my
subjects’ performance.

34
Bibliography
Altman Nathaniel, Healing Springs: The Ultimate Guide to Taking the Waters, Healing
Arts Press, 2000

Benson Thomas and Anderson Carolyn, Reality Fictions: The Films of Frederick
Wiseman, Southern Illinois University Press, 2002

Deller Jeremy and Kane Alan, Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK,
2005

Feigley George, Views of hell from heaven, http://www.prisoners.com/heavens.html

Hansen Steven, Hardcore Fitness: Training Developed in Some of America’s Toughest
Prisons, 2008

Hoffman Ethan and McCoy John, Concrete Mama: Prison Profiles from Walla Walla,
1986

Kelder Peter, Ancient Secrets of the Fountain of Youth, Doubleday, 1985

Kent Hall Douglas, In Prison, New York, Henry Holt, 1988

Lyon Danny, Conversations with the Dead, 1971

McConnel Patricia, Creativity Held Captive: Guidelines for Working with Artists in
Prisons, 2005

Zucchino David, With Each Abstract Acrylic, Inmate Seeks to Draw Freedom to Himself,
Los Angeles Times, March 16, 2009

Abstract (if available)

Abstract When I Get Out of Here is an in-depth guide to the thesis exhibition of the same title, When I Get Out of Here. The exhibition includes a collection of photographs of prison inmates representing themselves, a prison backdrop, a workout video made by an incarcerated personal trainer, a 16mm film documenting an exercise class in a Florida mineral spring, and a store bought green screen. This written thesis is also a guide to Prison Landscapes, a collection of over 150 images and 500 letters, which came out of correspondences initiated with American prisoners in January 2009. This guide explores escapism and idealism in prison, spa, and school cultures. It focuses on the backdrop as a landscape of escape. It looks at ways people escape through fantasy, illusion, creativity, performance, utility, exercise, eroticism, and myth.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Emdur, Alyse (author)

Core Title When I get out of here

School School of Fine Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Fine Arts

Publication Date 08/10/2010

Defense Date 04/21/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag escapism,Fountain of youth,idealism,OAI-PMH Harvest,prison art,prison visiting room backdrops

Place Name USA (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lockhart, Sharon (committee chair), Benning, Sadie (committee member), Wagner, Jon (committee member), Zittel, Andrea (committee member)

Creator Email a.emdur@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m3364

Unique identifier UC1118363

Identifier etd-emdur-3950 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-362932 (legacy record id),usctheses-m3364 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-emdur-3950.pdf

Dmrecord 362932

Document Type Thesis

Rights Emdur, Alyse

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu