Artist In Residence Creates Portraits Of Reform At The District Attorney's Office
When I met him earlier this year, James "Yaya" Hough was surrounded by white buckets of blue and orange paint, working in the downtown Philadelphia studio that came — before coronavirus — along with the first-ever artist residency at the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. He was focused on one of his portraits of various lawyers, victims' rights advocates, judges and formerly incarcerated people now on display around the city in an exhibition called Points of Connection.
"I've been an artist since I was a child," Hough told in his hometown of Pittsburgh. "But unfortunately, I grew up in a very dysfunctional environment that led me, in the worst of ways, to become involved with crime and violence to the point where, by the time I was 17 years old, I was arrested, charged and convicted for killing a man, over justifiable."
