Work By Incarcerated Artists Featured In New Colorado Festival

<p>(Stephanie Wolf/CPR News)</p>
<p>Inmates in the LEAD With Comics program at the Boulder County Jail learn art and literacy skills.</p>

A lecture hall in northwest Denver will be the venue for a new art festival this weekend -- and all of the artwork is by inmates.

The first-ever Colorado Prison Arts Festival runs tomorrow through Sunday in Regis University’s Mountain View Room, and includes visual arts, music, poetry and dance. According to organizers, the goal is to “lend a voice -- outside the prison wall -- to incarcerated men, women and youth.”

The event also features presentations from artists and organizations around the country working with inmates, including Colorado’s Chained Voices Project, Words Beyond Bars, and poet and professor Wayne Gilbert.