Our Mission Our History Arts in Community

Mission

ArtSpring, Inc., a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization in Florida, believes in the power of art to transform individuals and strengthen communities. Our mission is to use arts, education and environmental programming to develop self-growth and effective life skills for incarcerated women, men and youth as well as other at-risk populations in underserved communities. Our faculty empowers participants to redirect their lives, resulting in a healthier and safer society.

History

ArtSpring, Inc. was founded as Leslie Neal Dance, Inc. (LND) in 1992. Initially, this company of female artists created dance theatre works that were performed throughout the Southeast. From 1986 to 2007, Leslie Neal was a choreographer and associate professor of dance at Florida International University (FIU). Her research became focused on the value of art in community settings. In 1994, LND’s activities began to increasingly shift to serving the community by teaching arts to incarcerated women. As a result, LND changed its corporate name to ArtSpring, Inc. in the summer of 2000 to more accurately reflect its community-based efforts.

Since 1994, ArtSpring has achieved national recognition for the longest ongoing arts-in-corrections programming in Florida providing quality arts-based, educational workshops to over 600 inmates and juveniles per year. Teaching arts in correctional settings assists participants, often from abused and emotionally damaged backgrounds, to find an expressive voice to address their issues, make good choices, and change destructive patterns of behavior. Over the years, ArtSpring has proven that the arts increase self-esteem, reduce negative behavior and create a positive environment within facilities where our programs are offered.

ArtSpring maintains a faculty of fifteen artists, designers and practitioners. Through a collaborative process based in arts education, ArtSpring aids participants in their re-integration back to society while giving them the tools to help transform their lives, strengthen their communities and improve the natural environment.

Currently, ArtSpring is aligned with New World School of the Arts (NWSA), a conservatory for visual and performing arts in Miami, Florida. NWSA represents an educational partnership of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Miami Dade College and the University of Florida. As a result of this partnership, ArtSpring Artistic Director Leslie Neal serves as Project Director for Arts in Corrections at the University of Florida Center for the Arts in Healthcare Research and Education (CAHRE).

Arts in Community

ArtSpring is nationally recognized as one of several arts-based organizations providing an arts-based educational curriculum to underserved and institutionalized female adult and youthful offender populations. Programming has expanded to other juvenile and adult correctional institutions, residential facilities for girls in foster care, an adult residential substance abuse treatment facility, public school programs and local community centers.

ArtSpring believes in the power of art to transform individuals and communities. We believe that each individual is inherently creative and that social meaning and expression can be found in every community. ArtSpring Artist Facilitators work together with our program participants to offer specifically designed creative workshops that encourage participants to re-connect to their own creativity, explore their inner imagination and assist them in forming their own creative ideas.

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“…I walked into a group of people, of all races from many different backgrounds, who together had formed a family. I learned how to address my anger in positive ways. I learned how to lift my spirits by just changing the way I walked. Each exercise was a lesson on inner self and I was taught so may things without even realizing the lesson until it was pointed out to me…. I found a place where I could be human again. Where I could be myself and it was okay. I found a place where I could work on putting myself together and forget that I’m just a number. I’ve learned to cry again. I now have hope and faith in society where once I had none. If someone can volunteer to teach me and others the things I’ve learned and continue to learn, then I can truly believe that there is hope for me, as well as society, because one day I will be free again. I’ll become a part of society once more. And thanks to Inside Out I will be a better, healthier person.”

Kiki,
Homestead Correctional Institution,
Inside Out participant 2001