Lawrence.com

There are so many times that we are lonely, sad, no family, hungry, human and pushed to our limits.

- Rosalinda Stout, a prisoner writing in response to a questionnaire sent by the Prison Poster Project

In the summer of 2004, the We Are Resisting conference was coming to Lawrence and it was expected to draw hundreds of activists from across the country. Chantel Guidry, who helped run the local chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross, a prison abolition network, was helping organize a prisoner art show to coincide with the conference.

Work was solicited from prisoners, word went around, and in the end more than 100 pieces were received for the exhibit, "Freedom Unbound: Art from within American Gulags."

Guidry was struck by the need these prisoners had to create art, the same as some people on the outside have this need, and the extraordinary means they would go to to fulfill it. What was most remarkable, Guidry says, was that many of the prisoners managed to send pieces from prisons where art was often considered contraband and no traditional supplies were available.

A man named Ricky Brown from Dooly State Prison in Georgia sent in drawings he'd made on cardboard. Ernest Martinez from the Eastham Unit in Lovelady, Texas, used aloe vera lotion, coffee grounds and pencil shavings on a canvas of 40-cent handkerchiefs made by prison labor.

"That was a big thing to me with the prisoner art show, seeing what people who had no resources were still able to do," she says. "People who still really needed to create."

Some go crazy and develop disorders they never had before. Some die. Some join gangs inside and do "missions" and never go home. Some go home and have lost their souls and conscience. For those of us who do survive, it is largely a measure of what we came with. Prison gives you nothing and it takes all you have in resources and skill to survive.

- Bode Suezle, in response to the questionnaire

The Prison Poster Project (coming through Lawrence on Sept. 21) has been going on for some five years now. The scope is wide, the group of people behind it is small, and it's far from complete.

The idea behind the project-a giant poster constructed of prisoner art-is to tell a story of prison life and its place in society in a way that can't be done in an essay, says one of the founders, Etta Cetera of Pittsburgh, Penn. It's not about intellectual persuasion but about touching the soul.

"The visual triggers are what make it a really good tool," she says. "Then you don't have to remember what chapter you read in a book."

Due to the idleness and lack of education effort (i.e., not allowing collegiate educational programs into the prisons - resulting from the elimination of the state pell grants) and the lack of respect and integrity from gatekeepers and administrators, many people are leaving prison asocial and ill-equipped to live productive lives.

- Robert King, in response to the questionnaire

The pieces they received were striking and sometimes surprising, not just in their artistic detail, but in the level thought that was behind them, says Andalusia Knoll of Philadelphia, one of the founders of the project.

One of the first pieces sent in, "Young and Old Cell" by Agusto Gallardo, depicts the progression of a juvenile locked away for life. A boy looks at a watch and sees the reflection of an old man. Behind him, an old man sits on his bed, forlorn, next to a wall full of pictures showing his son as a baby, playing baseball, graduating and starting a family of his own.

In both the written responses and the artwork, prisoners consistently placed themselves in the context of society in a way that people on the outside are often too distracted to see.

"The consciousness that exists among prisoners," Knoll says, "I don't think exists among many members of outside society."

Many, of course, sent in scathing critiques of prison life. They complained of poor medical services, which some attributed to private medical companies that contracted with the prisons doing the bare minimum to drive up profits. Others complained of abuse, unfair treatment and the difficulty of obtaining basic necessities (not to mention art materials).

Joe Zabick, one of the prisoners who submitted work for the project, relished the rare opportunity to share a slice of his prison experience with the outside world.

"When one pours their heart and thoughts out for public display, it is a gift," Zabick, who is now free, said by email, "a part of yourself that you are giving to people whom you may never see or meet."

The staff may not be corrupt, but the general culture is. Those who really have their heart in the right place have a rough time of it.

- David Kurtzman, in response to the questionnaire

When the project is finally complete, the next challenge will be how to package it in a way that will allow it to be spread from person to person.

The poster will be too massive for people to hang copies in their bedrooms. Cetera says the final product will probably take on a digital form. In Lawrence, they'll be showing a slideshow with more than 40 pieces of prisoners' artwork, narrated by transcriptions of their writings.

Guidry, who's helping with the event, says, "I think art is a really good way for people to realize that prisoners are humans. A lot of times the media presents all prisoners in this really stereotypical way. Over 2 million people are in prison, and that's a lot of dads and moms and brothers and sisters and friends and cousins."

Prison officials and staff makes it painfully clear that we are not like them. We are felons, and they are the law. It is hard to maintain a uniform perspective on "human" in here, because despite the laws and regulations, we are still seen as obscurely sub-human, stupid and of marginal value to society. Prisons don't have to be a place of cruelty if people will just get concerned for others.

- Anonymous response to the questionnaire »