Beth Thielen has worked as artist and educator with incarcerated and at-risk populations for over 30 years.
“Working with incarcerated people, I am constantly being confronted with how differently they are perceived by the outside world. I have taught at universities and there is no comparison in the quality of the experience. Those who have lost their freedom understand the need and power of art. To teach in the San Quentin art room is to experience a group collectively striving for transcendence. I get in at 8am. We work until they are called for count at 4pm. No one takes a break. No one wants to. Art matters here.”
Her work and the work of her students are represented in the Getty Research Institute, the Hammer Museum of Art, the Library of Congress Special Collections, the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Houghton Library at Harvard, Yale University, the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library, as well as other important public and private collections.
She is the recipient of awards from the Puffin Foundation, the Kalliopeia Foundation and is a Blue Mountain Center and Rauschenberg residency fellow. She gave a talk about her work at the Getty Museum of Art in the spring of 2024. She currently resides in Fresno, California.
Join us for a 30 minute presentation about Beth’s work with incarcerated students, live over Zoom.
The Zoom link will be emailed out at 10:30am on the day of the event. Please note, all times are Pacific.