Last year, USM shut down an art exhibit for the first time in the school’s history. During the time that “Can’t Jail the Spirit” was supposed to be hanging in the Woodbury Campus Center, Ubu Gallery in Portland’s East End hosted the exhibit. The show then traveled to Philadelphia, Providence, New York City and Cambridge to the Harvard Divinity School.
The controversial show has now returned to Portland and includes new works by Tom Manning, the artist considered by many, including himself, to be a political prisoner.
Through February, the Meg Perry Center for Peace and Justice on Congress Street will be hosting “Art from Inside: Paintings by Political Prisoner Tom Manning.” Most paintings are up for bid in a silent auction. Proceeds of the sale will go to grassroots social justice organizations.
When bidding ends this Friday, “Remembering SCAR: Art and Activism in Portland, 1972-2008” will be held, including a presentation by 4th year history major Dan Chard, who is helping organize both the show and the event.
Chard has been an active participant in the discussions of academic freedom on campus, and is on the steering committee for the annual Gloria Duclos Convocation at USM whose topic this year is academic freedom.
At the Meg Perry Center, Chard will talk about SCAR, the Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform, an organization formed in Portland in the early 1970s. The organization’s work was done by and for prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their loved ones.
In Manning’s words, the work of SCAR “was rapidly expanding into all areas of the community: finding jobs and housing for people coming out, trying to stay out, support and welfare advocacy, transportation to the prisons for visiting, childcare, organizing young people, a bail fund, and a book store.”
Political activists Tom Manning and Raymond Luc Levasseur are active members of SCAR. Levasseur was scheduled to speak at USM for the opening of the original show.
Levasseur was released in 2004 after spending 20 years in federal prisons for his connection to the bombings of empty buildings carried out in the early 1980s – the same bombings Manning served for.
A Vietnam veteran and political activist from Boston, Manning is currently serving a total of 133 years in prison, 53 of which are for his involvement in the bombings on the East Coast; the other 80 are for what he considers the self-defense killing of a New Jersey state trooper.
On his personal website, Manning states that the bombings were carried out as armed propaganda against apartheid in South Africa, U.S. imperialism in Latin and Central America as well as “racist, genocidal capitalism here in the belly of the beast.”
While on the inside, Manning taught himself to paint. He produces vibrant, honest portraits of people from all around the world: fellow activists, musicians, friends. “Art From the Inside” features several works from Manning’s previous exhibit, “Can’t Jail the Spirit: Art by Political Prisoner Tom Manning and Others,” as well as many pieces which have never before appeared publicly.
In the fall of 2006, USM displayed “Can’t Jail the Spirit,” but in the beginning of September, then-President Richard Pattenaude issued an immediate cancellation of the display on the grounds that the university officials weren’t previously aware of the specific nature of Manning’s crimes.
This came after pressure from police.
Pattenaude issued a statement that he and the university officials “just did not do our homework.” The public was critical of Pattenaude’s decision, which inspired numerous and ongoing debates regarding the university’s academic freedom.
“Remembering SCAR: Art and Activism in Portland, 1972-2008” will be hosted at the Meg Perry Center by Portland Women’s History Trail co-founder Pat Finn, who worked with the Cumberland County Bail Fund throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In addition to the artwork, the event, free to the public, will feature live music, a raffle, print sales and a silent auction.
Proceeds will be distributed to four non-profit organizations whose work is inspired by the legacy of SCAR: the Portland-based Blackbird Legal Collective, Foglight Collective and the Kellogg Street Girls Herbal Medicine Class, as well as the nationally organized Jericho Movement.
Performing will be local socially conscious artists Mark Otim and Christopher Teret. It will also be the last chance for anyone to place a silent bid on fifteen of Manning’s paintings.
The auction may prevent the exhibit from further travels, but the aim of Manning’s work is to support the kinds of organizations that will be supported financially in this way.
Both the event and the art exhibit are sponsored by Portland Victory Gardens Project, the Foglight Collective, and the Blackbird Legal Collective. Tom Manning’s website, which includes images of some of his work, is www.geocities.com/Tom-Manning.