Welcome to Art Portal
We are a community of artists who participate in the Creative Arts Program at The Fortune Society, in New York City.
The Creative Arts at Fortune is more than a program — we are a community.
We align with radical hope and believe in the healing and transformative powers of imagination and creativity.
Since the organization’s inception more than half a century ago, Fortune has been committed to using the restorative capacities of art and art making to call for an end to mass incarceration in the United States, promote alternatives to incarceration, support successful reentry and help to realize possibilities for more just collective futures.
Workshops are offered five days a week in Music, Creative Writing, Acting, Drawing and more. All levels of experience are embraced. We share opportunities to perform and amplify work - on screen, canvas, the page or in direct collaboration with other artists and community partners throughout New York City and across the country.
Help us stock our Liberation Library!
We are excited and honored to be in partnership with Astoria Bookshop, a queer woman-owned, general-interest bookstore in the heart of Western Queens. As an extension of their mission to serve their diverse, vibrant community with books and through hosting events, our collaboration will the help Fortune's Creative Arts program fill the shelves of our Liberation Library. We believe that books are tools of liberation. We have curated a wishlist of titles that Fortune community members have requested. Please purchase a book as donation and help support our mission to inspire readers, one book at a time.
The Fortune Society
Founded in 1967, The Fortune Society’s vision is to foster a world where all who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated will thrive as positive, contributing members of society. We do this through a holistic, one-stop model of service provision.
Our continuum of care, informed and implemented by professionals with cultural backgrounds and life experiences similar to those of our participants, helps ensure their success. Fortune serves over 9,000 individuals in a typical year via five New York City locations: our service center in Long Island City, Queens and our housing facilities: the Fortune Academy (“the Castle”) and Castle Gardens in West Harlem, Freedom House in East Harlem and BronxPro in the South Bronx. Our program models are recognized both nationally and internationally for their quality and innovation.
What Participants Say
The community and the safe space created within allows me to go deeper into myself and my writing.
I feel safe and encouraged to explore new ways of expressing myself.
Writing was my hobby, now is my ritual.
This is my sacred space.
Photo credit: More Art/Manuel Molina Martagon.
The Creative Arts program at The Fortune Society is made possible thanks to the generosity and support of:
Anonymous
Creatives Rebuild New York
David and Catherine Eaton Skinner Dedalus Foundation
Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice
Nancy Friday Foundation
New York State Council on the Arts
Seedlings Foundation
SHS Foundation