In his 1967 essay “Place à l‘incivisme” Jean Debuffet writes: “It is natural that people deprived of occupation and pleasure are more inclined than others to make for themselves feasts for their own use by taking the route of an artistic activity.” Dr. Valérie Rousseau, curator at afamuseum, connects this notion to our current exhibition “The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists” explaining that “from this perspective, [the exhibition] offers a unique platform to explore common denominators among the works of mostly self-identified artists who drew while in a state of confinement.” . Featured here is a work by Martín Ramírez, an artist who after migrating to the U.S. from Mexico, worked on railroad and mining crews in California. In 1931, however, the Great Depression left Ramírez adrift and he was arrested for obscure reasons that may have been related to symptoms of mental illness. While hospitalized, Ramírez began to draw, creating composite paper surfaces on which he e...