Meet Alberto Lule

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alberto Lule. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alberto, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

I many ways I was always an artist. It took me a very long to realize that I can reinvent my own perspective of myself. For many years as a teenager, I had convinced myself that all I would ever be was a criminal and a gang member. While serving a 14 year sentence in Calfornia prisons I realized I had the power to create my own identity, and not hold on to the identities which are created for us by systems of power over our lives. All of our lives not just criminals and prisoners. This power to reinvent yourself comes from within. I decided I was going to be a student and an artist while in prison. This seemed to be an impossible task while sitting in a prison cell, but move forward to today and I have obtained my bachelors degree in art from UCLA and my Masters Degree in Art from The Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I live in West Adams Los Angeles. I was incarcerated for 14 years, from 2002-2016. When I was released, I had one goal in mind which was to enroll at a community college. I knew the only thing that was going to help me not go back to prison was to go back to school. I stayed focused, with a positive attitude and optimism, and eventually I graduated as the commencement speaker for the graduating class of 2018. I was accepted as a transfer student to the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture. I use my own experinces and research to address the prison industrial complex in the United States. I make artworks that focus on incarceration but also the creativity within those carceral spaces. In June of 2024 I graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts from the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine.

At UCLA and UCI I was part of a student organization called The Underground Scholars Initiative, which focuses on the academic success of student which identify as being formerly incarcerated. At UCLA we would go into the Los Angeles Juvenile Facilty at Barry J. Nidorf in Sylmar. This experience inspired me to focus my artistic practice on developing ways in which I can help and support currently incarcerated students. While at UC Irvine I was awarded the prestigeous Public Impact Fellowship, which provided funding to develop a program at the Orange County Juvenile Hall, which we called The Underground Scholars Credible Messengers Program.

As a teaching artist, I have developed several art activities geared towards these spaces. The activities are focused on critical thinking with educational components. There are several elements that would make these workshops different from anything else. For example, there is the element of the instructor also having the same experiences as the students. These Art activities are coupled with the creative writing activities, as well as invited artists, educators, and professors. For many of these incarcerated adolecents, they have lived their entire lives hearing and believing that these identities associated with criminality and oppression is their entire identity, but we believe new identities can be achieved through activities led by Credible Messengers, shifting perspectives of themselves as gang members, criminals, and law breakers, to scholars, critical thinkers, and artists. Knowing we are formerly incarcerated changes the perspective and attitude in the room. To see us as someone who has shared the stresses of confinement creates a solidarity in the room amongst the participants. This also creates a stronger hope and outlook toward the possibilities of one day getting into college, possibly attending a UC or 4 year university.

Currently I am an adjunct professor, teaching Art coarses at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County. I am part of a program by San Diego State University that allows currently incarcerated students obtain a Bachelors Degree. I always told myself I would never go back to prison, and recently I am finding myself driving a long commute, back to prison! But this time it is for all the right reasons. I am very proud of these students who have risen up to the challenge of the work needed to obatina a Bachlors Degree even with all the obstacles and challenges that incarceration causes.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Do not ever take things personally in the professional world. This will only lead you to resentments and stresses which would have been easily avoided. You will encounter people who may be rude, cold, and pessimistic toward your goals. These are only distractions from your true aim towards achiving your dream.

In prison I realized that there are very few things in life that are 100% yours. One of these things is known as your word. If I was to tell you: you got my word that something will get handled, it meant that one way or another, that thing was going to get handled. Nobody can take your word from you, and only you can break it. The problem I discovered was that I was giving my word to people who did not deserve it. One day I chose to give myself my own word that I would get out and go to college. Another thing that is 100% yours is your education. Nobody can take that from you, you earn it and it stays with you, and you can keep building your life with it.

Do not get discouraged if your audience is failing to see the art at the moment. Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge of something amazing, it can take people a while to see it your way. If you give up first then the audience will give up with you, but as long as you keep working and you know you are working hard and you know you are onto something, eventaully your time will come, but do not ever be the first to give up.

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

Focusing on your strengths allow you to eventually standout with what you do well, but focusing on improving on the things that you know you have challenges with also allows for the opportunity to grow and experience things beyond your comfort level. Information isn’t knowledge, and knowledg isn’t wisdom. Knowledg can be achieved through researching information, but wisdom only happens through experience and must be earned. Living outside of your comfort levels allow you to experience and empathize with socio-economic issues such as expeiencing and appreciating art and other peoples cultures, as well as understanding very hot button issues like homelessness, drug addiction, and mass incarceration. Issues which are often demonized and dismissed in ways which reflect the general sentiment that they are seperate from our lives and are not our problem, and yet we all live in the same society. I believe that the general sentiment that these issues are not our problem is the problem.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.albertolule.com
• Instagram: @tierrabuenatattoos
• Facebook: westcoast credible messengers
• Linkedin: Alberto (Berto) Lule
• Other: IG: @uciundergroundscholars’
  IG: @bruin_undergroundscholars

Image Credits

Hiroshi Clark
@hiroshiclark