Save the date for a series of events surrounding Let’s Get Free 7th art show and fundraiser. We’re planning art demos, gallery tours, and a panel discussion with international political prisoners.
The show will be on display at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
The deadline is coming up to submit your art and poems! Let’s Get Free’s 7th Art Show is a fundraiser, a contest for artists and poets in prison, and a month-long occasion for creative communal gatherings and artistic celebration. Get excited!
This year’s theme:
This Is Me
How can art help you express the complex parts of yourself, your world, and your experience? How does our unjust carceral system impact you? How can justice transform the way we see ourselves and others?
The show will open in November of 2024 at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Call for visual art and poems from artists on both sides of the prison walls
This year’s theme:
This Is Me
How can art help you express the complex parts of yourself, your world, and your experience? How does our unjust carceral system impact you? How can justice transform the way we see ourselves and others?
Let’s Get Free invites artists and poets to create work that represents you. This year’s theme was suggested by Sheená King, who is on our prison advisory board. Our committee chose this theme because knowing each other, and letting ourselves be known, is part of how we build and strengthen our movements.
The theme is expansive; it can be interpreted many different ways. Whether you choose a realistic, surreal, abstract, or other approach, this year’s art show focuses on space for sharing ourselves with each other. “Let’s Get Free” is a call to all of us, to get free together. Because no one is free until all of us are free.
Let’s Get Free’s 7th 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. By submitting artwork and poems you are consenting to allow us to post and use your artwork to raise awareness on different platforms. We will credit you and share any posts we make with you! Any art that is not auctioned will be saved and sold in our “cash and carry” store the following year.
This is a contest. This year we are hosting a contest solely for artists and poets in prison. We consider all art from people outside of prison an offering of solidarity in support of the movement to end mass incarceration.
The show will open in November of 2024 at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, in the Garfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
Let’s Get Free’s Creative Resistance committee has been busy, and we’ve got TWO big updates about art shows!
Our permanent art collection will be on view at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater lobby gallery in Pittsburgh, Thursday, February 29 – Saturday, June 8. There will be an opening reception.
We’ve announced the theme for our 7th annual art show and fundraiser: This Is Me. The submission deadline is August 1, 2024.
Visit creative-resistance.org for all the details, including:
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
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.
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
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.
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
Our 4th annual art show is going virtual!! Please join us for our online opening on August 7th at 7pm. We will take you on a virtual tour of the End Death By Incarceration Art Show which is also a contest!!
There are two categories – Artists in Prison and Artists in Solidarity. 6 prizes for each category! Top prize $500. We need you to vote for these People’s Choice Awards!! So far 17 artists in each category have submitted artwork, which means over 30 new original pieces of ART!!!
Nicole Fleetwood who recently published Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration will pass through from 7:30 to 8pm and we will also be graced with one of our favorite artists James Yaya Hough!
In addition to the virtual tour you will hear from participating artists including from one of our long time friends on the inside Todd ‘Hyung Rae’ Tarselli talking about his submission he made from instant coffee – a portrait of a man in solitary confinement.
Life Cycles Toward Freedom August Event Series Overview (All events will have live closed captioning and will be lived streamed on youtube. The films are 35 minutes total.)
Goal: To raise awareness about death by incarceration, particularly uplifting the experiences of women and trans people sentenced to life without parole in Pennsylvania.
Note: Death by Incarceration [DBI] is another way saying Life Without Parole [LWOP]
Theme: We have surveyed all the women and trans lifers in PA serving DBI that we know of, and over 50 people responded. They have sent slogans, messages to the public and ideas for you to use. When you sign up for the contest you will have access to this information to help you in the creation of your art.
We have identified the following topics that we particularly want to uplift, you are encouraged to create your art with one of these focuses in mind: Aging in Prison, Commutation, Compassionate/Medical Release, Restorative Justice, Redemption & Resilience, Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence as it relates to DBI and Crime & Safety. Resources on these topics are here
Who can enter? Anyone can enter. There will be two categories, one for artists in prison and one for artists in solidarity. You can enter more than one piece. Please fill out this form to enter. To sign up an artist you know in prison, fill out their information on the form and we will send them a contest packet.
What is the medium? 2-D images preferred. Painting, drawing, watercolor, screenprint, digital graphic, cross stitch.
What is the size? No bigger than 25” inches by 21” No smaller than 8.5” by 11” Portrait or Vertical orientation is preferred but not mandatory.
What’s in it for you? All contest submissions will be shown at Boom Concepts for the entire month of August in Pittsburgh, with the show opening on Friday August 7th, 2020 (potentially additional shows) All participants will receive documentation from the show. Potential prize money. With your consent, your image may end up in a newspaper ad, as a poster or on a city bus. You will be generating awareness about an important cause. We are not planning to sell the art at this time.
When: Contest submissions due by June 30th. (Running late? Contact us)
Mail artwork to: Let’s Get Free – 460 Melwood Ave. #300 Pittsburgh, PA 15213
There is no entry fee. Artists incarcerated in Pennsylvania can be reimbursed for postage cost to mail art.
People’s Choice Cash Prize: There will be two categories: Artists in Prison and Artists in Solidarity. 6 prizes in each category.
1st Place:$500
2nd Place: $250
3rd Place: $100
Honorable Mention: $50 (3 recipients for each category)
Judging: The contest will be judged by the public the entire month of the show. All participants will be notified within a month.
Public Service Announcements: Let’s Get Free will draw from all the entries to pick out designs for the public graphic campaign. This campaign could take the form of posters, bus or newspaper advertisements. In other words, you don’t have to be a Public Choice winner for your art to get turned into an ad.
Contest Organizers: This contest is part of a multi-media public education campaign called Life Cycles Toward Freedom, a collaboration between Let’s Get Free and the Women’s Lifer Resume Project.
Questions? Contact: letsgetfreepa@gmail.com
Contest website: Life Cycles Toward Freedom
