"This engaging, honest diary of a prison art tutor reveals much about the workings of British prisons, the human psyche, and the transformative power of art."
Packed with insights, surprises and a darkly witty sense of the absurd, Steven Tafka's The Art of Crime documents his experiences as a prison art tutor in a frank and often funny style. “I was a qualified teacher, I’d done my PGCE, I had years of experience as a lecturer in art and design, but nothing in my training quite prepared me for this” — and so the scene is set for a unique and often extraordinary diary-style book. A book that served as a tool for the author’s own survival of extremely challenging circumstances.
From the author’s first moments in prison, any idealist notions of his tutoring role are quickly crushed. The conditions are often brutal, as are the crimes of the inmates he works with — murderers, gangsters and violent armed robbers whose art often reveals what they’ve done and how they feel about their offences. There are small triumphs, and big setbacks; monumental psychological strain, and life-affirming successes, and all shot-through with a sense of pride, humanity and the power of finding a creative outlet. A fascinating read for anyone who needs to know what art is for.
The Art of Crime Diary of A Prison Art Tutor Synopsis
As an Art Tutor working in Britain's jails, Steven Tafka's job was to teach the supposedly unteachable. The longer he did the job, the more it seemed like it was him that was serving a sentence. Writing this darkly comic book gave him a release and helped him to survive. From the initial job interview, 'The Art of Crime' charts the journey of a rookie prison art tutor from idealism to the depths of the prison underworld. Written in diary form it details the tragi-comic, often absurd daily experiences of trying to help prisoners to achieve a qualification against all the odds. Tafka had to discover the art of teaching watercolours to violent gangsters and introduce murderers to Monet. He finds himself doing swimming pool designs for an armed robber and trying to keep order in a classroom where one of the learners thinks he is Picasso Peppa Pig. And all this is happening as he is having to count the latex gloves in and out (so the prisoners can't smoke them) and watch out for illicit hooch brewing behind the classroom radiators. This book gives a rodents-and-all insight into the dysfunctionality of prison life, the often-abject conditions, but more importantly the power of art to transform lives. There is an undoubted fascination with the art prisoners make, because it has something to tell us about the human condition and this book reveals the characters behind it.
