Media Credit: Photo by: Lindsay Jaye Sluggo's is at 2403 W. Cervantes St. Pensacola. The exhibit offers a rare insight into a new group of artists. [Click to enlarge]

     Are you ready for some culture and cuisine? Sluggo's Vegetarian Restaurant Bar located on West Cervantes Street will play host to the "Art from the Inside Out" benefit dinner and reception, which will display prisoner art, at 5:30.p.m Wednesday Sept. 21.
    The display will feature sculptures, sketches and paintings created by such unusual supplies as toilet paper, discarded bed sheets, dyes from M&Ms and human hair paint brushes.
     "It runs the gamut," said Terry Johnson, owner of Sluggo's.
     Johnson said the benefit dinner is open to the public and will take place from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.. A four course meal will be served at a fixed price. At 8 p.m. the opening and reception of the exhibit will begin.
    "It is only there for that night," Johnson said.
    The evening's proceeds will support the Subterranean Prison Book Project based at Subterranean Books in downtown Pensacola.
    The book project is a volunteer based program that provides reading materials for prisoners in underfunded prisons. 
    Volunteer Lauren Anzaldo said she only has been involved for one year and that the program seems worthwhile.
    "I thought I could make a big impact by packaging books," Anzaldo said.
    The No.1 request is for dictionaries and thesauruses, she said.  However, all the book project's materials are donated, and it isn't always able to fulfill every request. Much of what it sends out is fiction, classic literature, best sellers and some educational materials, Anzaldo said.
    Last year, 400 packages of books were sent out. This year, 715 packages have been sent to prisons, she said.
    Anzaldo first heard of the prisoner art exhibit from a friend who had seen the display in South Florida. Together, they contacted Carol Strick, the exhibit's curator, and brought it to Pensacola.
    Strick first became involved in prisoner art after her husband's death.
    "I was lonely, and I always had sympathy for prisoners," she said.
    Strick said she saw and responded to an advertisement in a magazine requesting pen pals for prisoners.
    "We're still writing, by the way," Strick said.
    From her pen pal, she learned of News from the Gulag magazine, which dedicated some space on its pages for prisoners' articles. Strick soon became part of the magazine's staff and wrote a column for 10 years.
    Having worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 20 years and having collected photographs and decorated envelopes from prisoner pen pals, Strick decided to make a collage and see if a museum would feature it. 
    She was told she needed more artwork to cover the empty walls of the museum.  Strick proceeded to write in her column that she was going to open an art show featuring prisoner art.
    "Then I got swamped with stuff," she said.
    In three months, she received more than enough artwork to cover the bare museum walls.
    Strick said her purpose with this display is to change the misconception of prisoners.
    During the past eight years, the exhibit has traveled to New York, California, Texas and Louisiana, as well as the Florida cities of Miami, Tampa and, now, Pensacola.
    "I love this project because I'm an artist," Strick said.
    Johnson said that although she has been receiving phone calls, she has no idea what the local interest will be.
    "I think a lot of people are interested, and it will be widely received," Johnson said.

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