Ashley Hamilton, PhD, still remembers becoming completely obsessed with the musical Grease after her parents divorced when she was five years old.
Not just watching it. Directing it.
“At daycare,” she said, laughing. “How did I even know what directing was?”
Even then, she was drawn to storytelling, performance and the feeling of creating something with other people. These instincts would eventually shape the course of her life in ways she could never have expected.
Years later, after moving to New York City to pursue acting, that same pull toward storytelling and connection would lead her into a very different kind of work: teaching creative writing on Rikers Island.
Today, Ashley serves as executive director of Can Art Change the World Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by internationally acclaimed artist JR. She also oversees arts-based programming in correctional facilities across the country, helping to create opportunities for creative expression, connection, and community building among incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals.
An Unexpected Classroom
Growing up, Ashley was the artistic outlier in a family of business and finance professionals. After her parents divorced, her mother encouraged her interest in the arts, enrolling her in theater programs, dance classes and summer camps.
"I always found community through the arts," she said.
After earning her BFA in Acting from the University of Colorado, Ashley moved to New York City.
Like many young performers, she arrived expecting to pursue acting. Instead, a chance encounter introduced her to someone who was facilitating music programs in prisons. Intrigued, she asked if she could learn more.
"I had no connection to prison, no connection to jail," she said.
Still, something about the work resonated with her. She eventually landed a position teaching creative writing on Rikers Island at just 23 years old.
The experience changed the course of her career.
"The first time I went inside, I knew I had found what I was supposed to do," she said.
She saw firsthand how storytelling, writing, music, and creative expression helped people process experiences, build confidence, and connect with one another.
"I learned that it is an incredible way to help make sense of the world," she said.
A Growing Fascination
As you can imagine, the work is not easy.
Correctional facilities are environments defined by restrictions, routines, and limitations. Through writing, storytelling, theater, and music, she watched people process experiences, express emotions, and connect with one another in ways that often surprised her.
“I just became obsessed,” she said.
Determined to better understand what she was seeing firsthand, Ashley pursued graduate studies at New York University, earning both a master's degree and a doctorate in Educational Theatre while continuing to teach and facilitate arts programs in a wide range of settings.
Over the years, her work has expanded far beyond correctional facilities. She’s taught in public schools, shelters, psychiatric units, Alzheimer's communities, and programs in East Africa and India.
Along the way, she also became increasingly involved in prison arts programming and research, laying the foundation for the next phase of her career.
Building a Movement
After years of teaching and research, Ashley stepped into a larger leadership role as executive director of a Colorado-based prison arts nonprofit, where she spent nearly eight years helping expand access to arts programming for incarcerated individuals.
The role allowed her to think beyond individual workshops, focusing instead on how programs could create lasting impact. Under her leadership, the organization expanded its reach and secured major grants.
One of the most ambitious projects was If Light Closed Its Eyes, a verbatim documentary play created over two and a half years by more than 60 incarcerated artists at Sterling Correctional Facility.
Built from more than 100 interviews with incarcerated individuals, correctional staff, victims and survivors of harm, family members, attorneys, educators, elected officials, and others connected to the criminal justice system, the production explored both the complexities of the system and the humanity of the people within it.
Projects like these helped establish Ashley as a respected leader in the growing prison arts movement.
A Broader Perspective
Years spent working across the criminal justice system exposed Ashley to a wide range of perspectives and experiences, prompting deeper questions about accountability, harm, and what happens after someone serves a sentence.
“I believe very much in accountability,” she said. “The idea that we all create harm, and we have to be accountable to our harm.”
Years spent working in correctional settings also left her thinking about what happens after that accountability.
“Most people don't realize that 95% of people who go to prison in the U.S. come back,” she said. “Who do we want them to be?”
For Ashley, the question is ultimately about what happens when people return home. Her work, she said, is rooted in helping create the conditions for people to return to their communities in healthier and more productive ways.
A New Chapter
The work also brought Ashley to the attention of leaders throughout the prison arts community, including the team behind artist JR's large-scale prison initiatives.
Following a groundbreaking project at California's Tehachapi State Prison, members of JR's team reached out to Ashley for guidance as they explored ways to build and sustain a prison arts program beyond the initial installation.
What began as a consulting role soon evolved into a larger opportunity.
“It was really good timing,” she said.
Looking Ahead
One project in California has been especially meaningful.
After JR's original installation at Tehachapi, Ashley and her team worked to build something more lasting. Two men who participated in that first project have since been released from prison. Today, they return to the same prison where they were once incarcerated, helping facilitate programming for others.
Three weeks before our conversation, Ashley attended the graduation ceremony for a 12-week arts program led by the pair.
“The culminating performance piece was a group poem answering the question, ‘Can art change the world?’” she said. “And they all answered it. It was so powerful and so beautiful.”
Now, Ashley hopes to expand that model even further, creating pathways for participants to become facilitators, mentors, and leaders themselves.
There are also plans underway to bring programming to France and Brazil, creating opportunities to learn from correctional systems in other parts of the world.
Sixteen years after moving to New York to pursue acting, Ashley is still exploring what creativity can make possible — not only for the people who participate in the work, but increasingly for those who go on to lead it themselves.
