Artist Jim Dessicino's grandmother, whose parents had immigrated to the U.S. from the Adriatic Coast of Italy, had always told him she didn't speak Italian. So he was understandably confused when he moved into her old house in New Jersey in 2016 and found heaps of old family documents, including letters addressed to his grandmother written in Italian.

Those letters were just the start of the spark of inspiration that led Dessicino to create the exhibit Without Papers, a series of sculptures, paintings, and drawings, currently on display at Cuesta College's Harold J. Miossi Gallery.