Mugshots A Story About Breaking Out And Breaking in

A celebration of perseverance, raw talent, and rehabilitation. Unlock the door and, inside, you will find a collection of outlaws and outsiders, the committed and the condemned. Look into their eyes. Follow the tunnel behind their dark pupils to a place of isolation, regret . . . and salvation. Read the cavernous lines and hard edges of their faces and experience the trials they endured. They are ex-convicts, drug addicts, and gang members who became physically or psychologically imprisoned and sentenced to a life on the fringes of society. Each one, in his own way and time, was stripped bare of his other beliefs and left alone with the only voice that could save him: his own. Each crossed a river of uncertainty and arrived at the still point within oneself to confront the choice of life or death. And each emerged victorious, with a renewed spirit and a burning desire never to return. Armed with will rather than weapons, the 26 artists portrayed here harnessed their aggressive energy and released it as creative expression. In the furnace of adversity, they fashioned themselves into poets and performers, and their bodies of work emerged from the intensity of their trials. Out of the mud grows the lotus. The stunning black-and-white photography of international fashion photographer Jonas Mohr is accompanied by the powerful words of those portrayed-stories artfully woven through the narrative command of author and filmmaker Jason Porath. The who's who of Mugshots includes: Antwone Fisher, Emilio Rivera, Ms. Toi, Coolio, Jerry Stahl, Kelly Minter, Louis Ippolito, Hubert Selby Jr., Seymour Cassel, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, Edward Bunker, Jake Labotz, and Stogie Kenyatta.Porath, Jason is the author of 'Mugshots A Story About Breaking Out And Breaking in', published 2006 under ISBN 9781932010084 and ISBN 1932010084.