Stitching Time: Social Justice Collaboration Quilts Project and Give Me Life: CPA Prison Arts Program

Stitching Time features 12 quilts created by men who are incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison. These works of art, and accompanying recorded interviews, tell the story of a unique inside-outside quilt collaboration. The exhibition focuses our attention on the quilt creators, people often forgotten by society when discussing the history of the U.S. criminal justice system. Also on view in the gallery will be Give Me Life, a selection of works from women artists presently or formerly incarcerated at York Correctional Institution, a maximum security state prison in Niantic, CT, courtesy of Community Partners in Action (CPA). The CPA’s Prison Arts program was initiated in 1978 and is one of the longest-running projects of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1875, CPA is celebrating 150 years of working within the criminal justice system.

Image: Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore, Etienne, Mutulu Shakur, and Maureen Kelleher (quilt design); Maureen Kelleher (quilting), James Baldwin: Quote #3, 2019, mixed cotton blends. Lent by Maureen Kelleher, © Maureen Kelleher