Category: Art & Storytelling

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Art & Storytelling Events News

Picture A Free World Art Show is open!

Visit creative-resistance.org for all the details, including:

Full list of events

Online gallery

Art auction site

Alongside our art show, this is our second year including poetry. 70 poets from the inside have submitted poems! A booklet of poems will be available for free at the show, and you can read them online here.

Art as a tool for liberation has been a central element of Let’s Get Free’s work since its inception. The art shows have steadily built advocacy for the release of deserving individuals from Pennsylvania state prisons and have created conversations and collaborations that invite meaningful reciprocity between the prison walls. 

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Contact: etta cetera: 443-603-6964 
Press Release
Email: letsgetfreepa@letsgetfreepa
Website: creative-resistance.org and letsgetfree.info

Categories
Art & Storytelling Events News

Picture A Free World Art Show Opens July 7th@ Concept Art Gallery

A bright blue sky with clouds is painted in the background. The profile of a woman with black skin is featured prominently on the left. With an intense and deep gaze she is looking off into the distance. The text is alternating orange and white and reads "Featuring 60 artists from prison and 30 artists in solidarity with ending mass incarceration. Picture A Free World Lets Get Free's sixth art show. Opening an auction July 7, 2020 3:49 PM Show runs July 5-29 concept art gallery, 1031 S. Braddock Ave., Regent Square

Let’s Get Free teams up with Concept Art Gallery  in Regent Square, for a new exhibit called Picture A Free World. Art will help us imagine, strategize, and continue our movements for freedom. 

Over 60 artists from prison and 30 artists in solidarity have created work across various mediums, including cross stitching, paintings, sculpture, and photography that all considers the question: What is a free world for you, and for others?

There are over 100 pieces of art up for auction benefiting the work of this local prison advocacy group. The auction starts on July 7th and will last three weeks until Monday July 24th at 8pm. People can bid in person at the gallery or online from home. All money raised supports the work of Let’s Get Free. 

Add Opening to Google Calendar

First time participant from Colorado, Cedar Mortenson submits an illustration with colored pencils that connects issues of forgiveness, environmental justice, and ending gun violence.  

An illustration with a golden background drawn with colored pencils, that kind of glitter. A woman with the head job is sitting facing her side, reading a book surrounding her in an oval is text in different languages. It says Picture A Free World 🗝 no gun violence. There is a gun honeycomb butterflies ships sparkly diamonds, floating around this woman with a city in the background kind of like a halo.

She writes, “I recognize the inherent right to life for all living creation. We exist in tandem with each other and every other living thing. I used gold leaf paper befitting a golden, free world, and my color choice is a tribute to all beautiful tones of brown behind bars from cream, to mahogany. I used multiple languages because the message is universal/ Education is liberation. Everyday I become more and more free.”

Zhi Kai Vanderford is incarcerated in a women’s prison in Minnesota and has served close to four decades behind the walls. This is his second year participating in our show. Zhi Kai considers his art “protest art” and is consistently thought provoking.  

“I had a hard time encompassing all that freedom would mean to me. For example, this is a no touch facility, so I haven’t had a hug in 5 years. I will be having a visit soon and remedy that. But the concept is not easily quantifiable, to be able to go to a door and open it, a fridge, a night time sky, petting animals, etc. So I sent you my first piece called ‘self-inflicted injury’ as incarceration is my fault. In my work, I have sewn my eyes and mouth shut but in my mind’s eye I see my potential life.” 

Month long event series includes: 

🌟July 7th Friday 4 – 9 pm Opening & Auction Kick Off

Auction closes Monday July 24th 8pm. Online and in person auction. Food, Drink, Cheap Art Sale, Quilt Raffle & more.

🌟July 8th Saturday  2pm  Amachi Pittsburgh 

Performance by the Amachi Pittsburgh Ambassadors

🌟July 21st Friday 5-7:30 Dorothy Burge 

Quiltivism Presentation starts at 6:30 

🌟July 22nd Saturday 2 – 3:30pm – Art, Imagination and Liberation Panel Discussion @ Carnegie Museum of Art

🌟July 23 Sunday 2 – 5pm – Artmaking w/ Dorothy
Quilt inspired Message Making with Dorothy Burge

In partnership with the Carnegie Museum of Art, the weekend of July 21 will be action packed! Friday night starts off with an artist talk by Chicago based quiltivist, Dorothy Burge. Dorothy is a fabric and multimedia artist and community activist who uses her quilt portraits in tandem with movements to end police brutality and criminal injustice. 

Saturday’s panel – Art, Imagination and Liberation will feature Mariame Kaba, Nicole Fleetwood and Dorothy Burge in conversation. This event will take place in person at the Carnegie Museum of Art with online options. 

Full list of Events, Auction/Contest Info and Online Gallery is available HERE

Alongside our virtual art show, this is our second year including poetry. 70 poets from the inside have submitted poems! A booklet of poems will be available for free at the show. 

Art as a tool for liberation has been a central element of Let’s Get Free’s work since its inception. The art shows have steadily built advocacy for the release of deserving individuals from Pennsylvania state prisons and have created conversations and collaborations that invite meaningful reciprocity between the prison walls. 

###

Contact: etta cetera: 443-603-6964 
Press Release
Email: letsgetfreepa@letsgetfreepa
Website: creative-resistance.org and letsgetfree.info

Categories
Art & Storytelling Events

Across the Walls Screening

Join us for a screening of Across the Walls followed by discussion: 2nd Chances Keep Us Safer 

February 18, 2pm -4pm, Saturday

Carnegie Museum of Art Theater
4400 Forbes Avenue | Pittsburgh, PA 

Access Notes: Wheelchair accessible. Captions on film. Wear a mask. This event is Free. 

Black and White photo of Paulette and Avis sitting on a couch in a living room. They are turned toward each other in mid conversation.

2nd Chances Keep Us Safer – Film and Panel Discussion

Long prison sentences are not keeping us safe! Join us for a big screen viewing of Across the Walls A film featuring Avis Lee and Paulette Carrington were released from life sentences after each serving over 40 years. This panel following the film will invite you to consider how second chances can actually make our communities safer, more loving and collectively thriving.  Hear the stories of people who are doing just that, returning citizens who are building pathways home for the people they left behind and what impact they’re making for us all. 

Speakers: 

Ricky Olds, Executive Director of the House of Life

Richard Garland, Executive Director of ReImagine Reentry 

Terri Minor Spencer founder of Colorful Backgrounds EXPO 

Across the Walls: 20 minutes
Filmed and Edited by Njaimeh Njie

Film Screening 2 – 2:20pm

Panel Discussion 2:30- 3:30pm

Reception with Light Refreshments – 3:30- 4pm

Across the Walls is a documentary film that offers an intimate glimpse into the experiences of women sentenced to life in prison without parole in the state of Pennsylvania. After decades of activism and community building, recently Avis Lee and Paulette Carrington were released from life sentences after each serving over 40 years. As they adjust to life outside, they’ve kept their focus on organizing to end life without parole, and helping the women they left inside be released. 


The film stages a conversation between Avis and Paulette on the outside, and five women who are still on the inside. Using interviews, found footage, and landscape cinematography, the film assembles a story about the women’s interior lives, against the backdrop of spaces they’ve inhabited and spaces they’ve been taken away from. Never straying from the women’s points of view, Across the Walls is a meditation on memory, and manifestations for a free future.

Categories
Art & Storytelling Events

Submit art and poetry for Let’s Get Free’s next art show by February 1, 2023

Two hands are patting down the earth as young seedlings grow under a moon. The colors fade from darkblue to green in the foreground and orange to pink in the background. Text reads "Call For Art" and "Picture a Free World"
artwork by Devon Cohen

Call for Visual Art and Poems from artists on both sides of the prison walls

This year’s theme: Picture a Free World

Pierre Pinson, member of Let’s Get Free’s Prison Advisory Board, offered this theme. The theme is expansive. It can be interpreted many different ways and can connect to work you have already made or inspire new work. Picturing a Free World is an act of imagination in itself, and it will take creativity for us to get there. Art will help us imagine, to strategize and to continue our movements for freedom. What is a free world for you, for others? Perhaps it is literally being released from prison, maybe you consider system wide changes that would promote mass liberation, maybe you depict a small detail of what it looks like to feel or be free. What is your definition of Freedom? From what are you trying to free yourself? How are you trying to get free? 

Submission Deadline:
February 1, 2023

Get the details

The show will open in July of 2023 at Concept Gallery in Regent Square Neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Categories
Art & Storytelling

Let’s Get Free Permanent Art Collection

Over the years, LGF has gathered art from our annual art shows and from years of collaborating with artists in prison.The biggest bulk of our art came from our 2020 End Death By Incarceration themed art show. We’re continuing to add pieces.

Now, we’re making some of this art available to be borrowed as a collection! The Let’s Get Free Permanent Collection can be borrowed to give voice to people in prison and create dialogue wherever it may be. You can borrow one piece, several pieces or the whole collection.

To see the art and learn more about borrowing, visit the Permanent Collection on our Creative Resistance site.

Screenshot of art gallery images from LGF permanent collection, click through to the collection page for individual image descriptors
A sample of the art in the Permanent Collection
Categories
Art & Storytelling Events News

Empathy Art Show Opens November 19th

beneath the arteries. A yellow sunflower with healthy green leaves is growing up from the center of the heart. Tan roots emanate from the bottom of the heart stretching down. Blood drips from the main artery and some of the roots. The painting background is black with a white and grayish oval under laying the image of heart-brain-flower. TEXT Reads “ Let’s Get Free’s 5th annual art show for Abolition. Empathy is the seed, truth is the water, solidarity is the bloomage,. Featuring artist on both sides of the prison walls. November 19 through December 19. Brew House 711 S. 21st St. Pgh, PA 15203 creative-resistance.org”

We are enthusiastic to announce Let’s Get Free’s 5th annual art show featuring artists and poets in and outside of prison. This year’s show is themed EMPATHY is the seed, TRUTH is the water, SOLIDARITY is the bloomage, and will be presented in person at the Brew House Gallery as well as on-line. The show will open Friday November 19 from 6:00-9:00 pm, and will run through December 19.

Harmony by Marilyn Dobrolenski

This year’s show features 34 artists in prison and 29 artists in solidarity expressing a range of media, from watercolor to cross stitch to sculpture. First-time participant Marilyn Dobrolenski submitted a beautiful piece entitled “Harmony,” which features a lush and verdant wetland scene with water lilies, done in acrylic paint. Marilyn turned 69 this year and is one of over 70 women serving a life sentence over the age of 65. #LetGrandmaGo

A painting of a multifaceted device with parts that exist in two different environments, one above ground and one below ground. Above ground has a blue-gray background and shows a circular antenna with a plaque that reads “Truth single and eternal alive in glory”. Below ground, which has a brown and green background, the device is made up of wires, pipes, and two hearts with gears. Water passes in a cycle between the two hearts. Two plaques read: “One heart pumps the other”, and “And the vital many”.
Elena House-Hay

Elena House-Hay submitted a thought provoking piece of a mechanized device that is exploring ideas about “truth.” Elena shares: “Being an artist in prison functions to make art my hard earned salvation. It is restorative, unshakable hope. If my art can be free – of prison, depression, and fear – so can I. And that is the promise, the lure, and the most ambitious expression I can seek.”

A large transgender symbol fading from light blue to pink and outlined in blue is on top of a bright background of crisp rainbow stripes (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). Inside of the transgender symbol are stylized cartoon images of 12 different people’s faces and torsos, most of whom are black but representing a range of skin tones. The people show a range of gender presentations and styles.
Tranzcending by Kal – El

Kal-El, one of 5 transgender artists participating from prison,  shares a vibrant painting that celebrates the existence of many genders. The experience of trans people in prison is often left out of conversations about mass incarceration. In our efforts to create less distance between the prison walls, Empathy is the Seed uplifts marginalized voices who can teach a lot about what is needed to build a more just world. Kal-El, currently serving a life sentence, discusses his experience of being an artist: “I see color when I listen to music or feel emotions. I thought everyone had this ability. I never knew that I could put those colors on to a canvas and people could see what I was feeling that day. Sharing these feelings verbally is difficult. A painting, to me, is like telling someone when I’m sad, mad, etc..” 

Alongside our virtual art show, this is our first year including poetry. Over 40 poets from the inside have sent in poems! Look forward to at least one poetry reading during the show. Other events include: 

  • Art Opening and Auction Begins! Friday November 19, 6:00-9:00 pm – Brew House, 711 21st Street, South Side of Pittsburgh
  • Gallery Hours: November 19 – December 19, Thursdays 2:00-7:00 pm, Fridays & Saturdays 11:00-4:00 pm at the Brew House
  • The Sacred Ground Collective transformative justice event series: Thursdays December 2, 9, & 16th, Three virtual workshops including an intro to transformative justice practice 
  • Holiday Market: Saturday and Sunday December 18 and 19, 11 – 3 pm
On the left is a series of six pieces of featured in the show. The top left has a colorful depiction of mechanized hearts with pipes and steam, a watercolor of two people watching the video and the light of the video projector is casing a ray, then the face of an aging man painted with coffee, next is a papercut of a crab carrying a sea urchin, then an agave plant growing behind the prison fence, and a watercolor of a woman wearing glasses and a rainbow colored mask and earrings holding a bouquet of flowers. TEXT READS: “Let’s get free presents empathy is the seed, truth is the water, Solidarity is the Bloomage Art show opening. Friday November 19 6 to 9 PM Brew House 711 S. 21st St. southside. Auction begins, DJ, art sale, please mask up”

Full list of Events, Auction/Contest Info and Online Gallery will be available at creative-resistance.org

The Art Auction begins on opening night and runs through December 10th. People can bid in person at the gallery or online. Winners will be able to pick up their art on December 19th or schedule pick up at a later time. All money raised supports the work of Let’s Get Free. Money will be used in printing and shipping for our newsletter and Daughter’s magazine, copious postage needs, direct support for people coming home, like driving lessons and art supply scholarships for people on the inside. There will be a series of limited edition prints available to people who sign up to become monthly sustainers. 

Art as a tool for liberation has been a central element of Let’s Get Free’s work since its inception, and its annual art shows have steadily built advocacy for the release of deserving individuals from Pennsylvania state prisons and have created conversations and collaborations that invite meaningful reciprocity between the prison walls. 

Two large open hands are cupped holding some seeds in their palms. The seeds are brown with white stripes defining them. The word “Empathy” is spelled out across the seeds, one letter on a seed. The skin tone of these hands are a bit ambiguous; the palms could be a person of any race though the highlighting around the edges suggest someone of African descent. The background is a deep dark blue and in the right corner is a yellow signature of the artist “Van 21” TEXT READS: Gallery hours. Brew House 711 S. 21st St. southside. November 20 to December 19. Thursday 2 to 7 PM Friday and Saturday 11 to4 PM
Painting by Darrell Van Mastrigt

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Contact: etta cetera: letstgetfreepa(at)gmail.com

Website: creative-resistance.org and letsgetfree.info

Categories
Art & Storytelling News

Call for Artists: Empathy is the Seed 

Let’s Get Free’s 5th Annual Art Show 
Featuring artists on both sides of the walls

Call for Art and Poems 

This art show is open to people currently in prison and people on the outside.This year’s show will have both online and in person elements. Select pieces will be shown in the physical gallery. All entries will be entered into the contest. 

This year’s theme: Empathy is the Seed, Truth is the Water, Solidarity is the Bloomage 

This is a recipe we think is crucial to shifting our world from the paradigm of punishment to that of healing. 

Empathy: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Truth: the quality or state of being in accordance with fact or reality Solidarity: unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group. Bloomage: The blossoms or bloom of a plant or area taken collectively.

Submissions: 
We love receiving artwork connected to the theme.

Visual Art: All mediums welcome, no size restrictions. Illustrations, collage, paintings, sculpture, charcoal, textiles, cross stitch, sculpture, blankets…   

Poetry: We’re adding poetry to our art show this year! This is a new addition to our annual art show so our process is unfolding. We welcome your poems. 

Deadline to Submit Art: August 30, 2021
Art Show Sign Up Form

The show will open in mid November and have in person and online elements. Feel free to reach out if you can’t make the deadline. 

Send Art and Poems To: Let’s Get Free: 460 Melwood Ave #300, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213:

Please include: Title, Medium and artists statement 

Digital Only pieces will not be accepted this year, If you are an outside digital artist please send us a physical copy of your art to be considered in the contest. 

Let’s Get Free’s 5th Annual Art Show is a fundraiser. By submitting art or poems to the show you are consenting for your art to be auctioned and sold to raise money to support Let’s Get Free. 

This is a contest. Like last year, there will be two contest categories: Artists on the Inside and Artists on the Outside.The contest categories and prizes will be a little different this year than last year if you participated in that show.

Prizes for Artists/Poets on the Inside

Visual Art Prizes
Piece that best expresses Empathy: $100
Piece that best expresses Solidarity: $100
Piece that best expresses Truth: $100
Piece that best ties the theme all together: $100
Best use of materials $100
Best Textile: $100
People’s Choice Award: $100

Poetry Prizes

Poem that best ties the theme all together: $100
People’s Choice Award: $100

Prizes for Artists/Poets on the Outside

Visual Artists in Solidarity Prizes

Piece that best ties the theme all together: $100
People’s Choice Award: $100

Poets in Solidarity Prizes

Poem that best ties the theme all together: $100
People’s Choice Award: $100

Scholarships for Art Supplies: If you are incarcerated and participated in our contest last year or any of our previous art shows, you are eligible for an art supply scholarship if you are planning to participate in this year’s show. Please write for more details. There is a limited number of scholarships with priority to women and trans prisoners. 

T H A N K Y O U

Deadline to Submit Art: August 30, 2021
Art Show Sign Up Form

Categories
Art & Storytelling Take Action

Monthly Donor Drive and Print Sale

Our goal is to sign up 25 new monthly donors in the month of December. Whaddya say? Can you chip in a little a month to support people in prison in PA.

Monthly sustainers are a critical part of community organizing and help us gather unrestricted funds. This money is used for: direct assistance to people in prison and returning citizens (hard to write a grant for that) stamps, printing newsletters and commutation kits, speaker stipends as well as transportation costs to visit prisons, the state capitol and faraway meetings and conferences. 

As of December 2020 we have 34 persistent givers making everything we do possible!!
They are donating at levels of $5 up to $30 a month!

Your $5 a month becomes $60 over the year.
Your $10 a month becomes $120 over the year.
Your $20 a month becomes $240 over the year.
Your $25 a month becomes $300 over the year.
Your $30 a month becomes $360 over the year.

If you sign up to be a monthly sustainer giving at least $10 a month in December, you can get a free print! If you are already a sustainer and want to up your giving by $5 a month you get a print too! After you sign up, we will email you to get your print order and shipping or Pittsburgh pick up details. You can view all the print options by looking at the print sale website below.

Become a Monthly Sustainer
Visit the Print Sale
Categories
Art & Storytelling Events Take Action

Yes on Commutation! Week Of Events

Week of Events to Support Fair Commutation and People in Prison
Virtual Gallery Tours of the End Death by Incarceration Art Contest:
Sundays in August August 23 and 30th
at 11am, 12pm & 1pm EST – 30 minutes

Zoom Link for gallery tour at Our Link Tree

Contact to set up ASL or plan a specific group tour that fits your schedule. [letsgetfreepa@gmail.com]

Write letters of support to the 22 Commutation Applicants
Tuesday August 24 – 9am

This Tuesday morning, Letters from Home will be dedicated to sending messages of support to the people waiting for their hearings on September 4th. You can try to imagine how emotionally full this time of waiting can be. If you can’t make the 9am zoom gathering you can access the spreadsheet here. You can find a tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that says “commutation”. Zoom Link for Letters from Home at our Link Tree

The Final August Premiere of the Life Cycles Toward Freedom Films featuring Stanley Mitchell and Saleem Holbrook
Tuesday August 25th from 7 – 8:30 EST.
Register here.

Featuring 3 new short films and special guests Stanley Mitchell and Robert Saleem Holbrook. If you have already seen the films tune in around 7:45 to see the 10 minute film about the Unger Ruling in Maryland which led to the release of 260 aging people with life sentences in 2012. Stanley was one of the people released 12 years ago.

If you don’t want to register and enter our zoom room, the events will be live streamed on our youtube channel

Yes on Commutation Rally
Thursday August 27th 9am City County Bldg – Pittsburgh

Join members of Let’s Get Free and the Dignity Act Now!Collective Pittsburgh in supporting applicants coming before the PA board of pardons on September 4th. Avis Lee, co creator of Let’s Get Free, is finally coming before the Board of Pardons after 40 years in prison. This is her 6th attempt at commutation! Because of COVID 19 these hearings will be held virtually and we will be unable to show the court support in the way we would ordinarily if allowed to enter the hearing.

Outside Film Screening and Social Distance Hang
Sunday August 30th – 7 – 8:30pm
Register Here (not necessary but helpful)
We are gonna social distance and wear masks 🙂

400 Roup Ave. In the parklet behind the Aldi in friendship.

Bring your own chair. Bring your own food 🙂 We will have fresh juice and beverages and snacks and bug spray! We will also have t-shirts for sale! We will screen the life cycles movies and more. Movies start at 8:30. Katina, a good friend of Tameka Flowers is coming all the way from Greensburg to talk about Tameka who is featured in one of the films. Rain date the following Sunday – September 6th.

Yay! Facebook Event

More action steps to take on the Life Cycles Toward Freedom Website

Categories
Art & Storytelling Events

Film Screenings & Art Show

Join us on August 18th!

[Image Description: Naomin Blount and Brandon Flood are pictured at the top and bottom of the is graphic which revelas only thier eyes and noses. The center of the graphic has event information which is listed below]

Tuesday August 18th from 7 – 8:30 EST. Featuring 3 new short films and special guests Naomi Blount and Brandon Flood. If you don’t want to register and enter our zoom room, the events will be live streamed on our youtube channel

Register for August 18th Film Screening

This Screening is endorsed by: Re/Creation, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, ALC Courtwatch, Families for Justice as Healing, Three Rivers Community Foundation, Amistad Law Project, End Solitary Santa Cruz County [CA, USA], California Coalition for Women Prisoners, College and Community Fellowship, Human Rights Coalition Fed-Up!, Women of Color Global Women’s Strike, The Philadelphia Justice Project for Women and Girls, Reconstruction Inc, Pittsburghers for Public Transit and Islamic Communication Network.

Virtual Tours of the End Death by Incarceration Art Gallery

[Image description: This announcement for the gallery show is spelled out in mint green refrigerator magnets on a black fridge.There are bright yellow and purple flowers off to the left. A photograph of a painting of an anatomical heart is stuck to the fridge with a magnet. ]

Sundays in August
August 23rd and 30th
at 11am, 12pm & 1pm EST
30 minutes

Take 30 minutes of your day to view some of the 63 pieces of art submitted to our art show including 18 artists creating from prison and 27 artists working in solidarity.

Contact to set up ASL or plan a specific tour that fits your schedule. [letsgetfreepa@gmail.com]

Zoom Link for gallery tour at our Link Tree
https://linktr.ee/womeninprison

[Bright purple, pink red and orange make up the water color portrait of a women breaking apart bluish grey bars with the quote, ” Second Chances are first choices for Redemption” – Kristen Edmundson, Kristen is currently serving Life Without Parole at SCI-Muncy. Artwork by Morgan Overton