Women Exposing Prison Through Art
Now on view at YBCA, plus 18 new stories + a call for pitches
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Thank you to everyone who attended the opening reception of The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The evening was filled with community, reflection, and engagement as attendees wrote messages of solidarity, listened to personal audio narratives, and moved through the interactive replica of a women’s prison room.
Co-curators Tomiekia Johnson and Chantell Jeanette Black called in from Central California Women's Facility at Chowchilla. Sharing their vision for the exhibition, they encouraged the audience to see beyond the labels of incarcerated women and recognize their full humanity. They invited people to read excerpts from Title 15—the arbitrary rulebook used to control incarcerated women—and to encounter the harsh reality of concrete blocks enclosing a cramped room meant to hold eight women. Audiences also took in Cedar Annenkovna’s mural, Flight to Freedom, an airbrushed piece spanning nearly an entire wall on three linen sheets.
Special shoutout to Isme Chavez for adding her experience to the prison room and curating the lockers to represent the socioeconomic hierarchy within women’s prisons. The opening weekend was made possible by the 10 currently and formerly incarcerated women who bravely chose to be vulnerable, exposing prison for all that it is and isn’t. Participating artists include Anna Ruiz, Cedar Annenkovna, Elizabeth Lozano, Giovanna “Gigi” Zepeda, Grace Ward, Jennifer Rhodes, Joanna Nixon, and Sarah Montoya.
We also wrapped Painting Ourselves Into Society at the Berkeley Art Center, closing out with inclusion and connection. Four artworks were placed in new homes.
The Only Door I Can Open will be on view until June 22nd—we invite you to experience this powerful exhibition and support women behind prison walls. Stay tuned for upcoming programming details.
On the writing side of things, EA writers and journalists covered a variety of topics: policies and procedures disguised as “for your own good,” violence within prisons, coping and joy in small things, book and film reviews, and a fictional story about smoking a spliff with a former Supreme Court justice. Thanks for reading and elevating our work among your communities. We’ll see you next month!
Our Latest Work
For Filter Mag1, Tony Vick wrote three stories this past month. The first is about how Tennessee prisons don’t expedite early release. But what about in an emergency? This is one family’s story of how the policy is affecting their lives. His second piece is about how in prison, a sex conviction is a target for assault. And his most recent piece is a reported essay about waiting for Tennessee to reform its felony murder rule.
For Film Comment Magazine2, Sara Kielly shares Prison Movie Wives’ Black Heart Movie Diary: Best of 2024. "The only respite for the Bedford Hills Movie Wives was to settle in, put aside the insanity of the world, and seek out solace on the silver screen."
Secret Santa helped me get through the holidays in prison, wrote Christopher Blackwell for The Appeal3. "Spending Christmas in prison and away from my family leaves me depressed. But, after the guys on my unit started a Secret Santa, I briefly felt a happiness that eluded me for years."
Phillip Vance Smith reported for Bolts4 that even after North Carolina lawmakers expanded the law for people seeking medical release from prison, eligibility remains highly limited. “As it stands, no individual or board is tasked with identifying eligible prisoners for medical release, meaning people must find a way to apply on their own.”
Phillip Vance Smith also wrote about the complex feelings around hoping for clemency and not getting it. For NC Newsline5, he reflects on the process and still feeling "overjoyed" that Governor Roy Cooper issued 34 pardons and 43 commutations, including commuting 15 death sentences to life without parole.
The latest from Robert Lee Williams is a profile of his friend Weemo for Inquest6. "A decade of victimization landed a Harlem kid in prison. More than three decades later, he has not allowed prison to define his life story."
Antoine Davis is back in Defector7 to provide an update on his fantasy football season: “As I explained in a previous article, fantasy football in prison provides a regular space to laugh, crack jokes, and feel ‘normal,’ an opportunity for bonding as well as a reminder of life on the outside.”
Another for Defector: Elizabeth Hawes shares what happens when she couldn't pee for a mandatory drug test in prison. “So now what?” The reply is matter-of-fact, as if I had asked for the time: “You’re going to segregation.”
Writing and artwork from Corey Devon Arthur is now up in Cannabis Now. "Take Two and Pass" is a fictional story about how a spliff in a jail cell with Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed a life.
Also from Corey Devon Arthur is a piece for Inquest about resisting against strip frisks, a common practice within the carceral state. "I’ve been strip-frisked so many times that my flesh feels like it has been snatched from my humanity."
D. Razor Babb's op-ed published in the Sacramento Bee, SLO Tribune, Modesto Bee, Fresno Bee + Merced Sun-Star. "Voters rejected the End Slavery in California Act, which would have ended forced labor in state prisons among incarcerated individuals like myself."
Kevin Light-Roth wrote a short, lyrical essay about what it’s like to spend months in solitary confinement for the Substack publication The Small Bow8. "You will begin to understand that recovery from solitary is an illusion."
The latest in our partnership with Black Lipstick9: E. Paris Whitfield reviews Christopher Zeischegg's THE MAGICIAN. "The Magician’s pages are saturated with sex and sex work, bloodletting, addiction, violence, voyeurism, masturbation, and religion..."
Ryan Moser writes for Philly Inquirer about brothers David and Damon Feldman — founders of Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) and Official Celebrity Boxing — and their focus on mental wellness.
From Carla J. Simmons for Prism10, how paternalism is used to oppress. "Policies and procedures enforced 'for our own good' undermine our autonomy and agency, perpetuate power imbalances, and ignore the root causes of criminal behavior."
At San Quentin, Steve Brooks writes for Local News Matters11 about a first-of-its-kind graduation for a storytelling program in which incarcerated individuals write letters, poetry and spoken word to create their narrative about the trauma that affected their lives growing up.
Artist Spotlight: Sarah Montoya
We are proud to kick off the year highlighting the art of Sarah Montoya—one the talented women EA works with at the Central California Women’s Facility. We began working with Sarah during the first iteration of The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art, which launched as a virtual exhibition with the Museum of the African Diaspora(MoAD) in 2023. Sarah’s elegant and meticulous drawings sparked the interest of visitors. One of two drawings were sold and the second drawing actually made its way to Australia, where it is currently touring as part of the exhibition Paperchained International.
For this second iteration of The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art at YBCA visitors get to experience Sarah’s foray into painting! With ambitious rigor Sarah created three new paintings exploring her relationship with her bed. Sarah reflects on this painting, A Light Within:
“I have grown while in prison, I can find peace within myself, and not just from the sky. Learning how to sit still and reflect on my life and my actions has helped me grow and I do a lot of that while on my bunk. I am the silhouetted girl sitting on top of her prison bunk, emitting peace from within depicted by the glitter.”
Inside/Outside Insights
UPDATE: The Dissenter wrote about the continued retaliation of incarcerated journalist Jeremy Busby, and included some of his latest reporting about the use of attack dogs inside his prison. He says Texas state prison staff are inappropriately denying him access to members of the press and refusing to restore his phone privileges.
CALL FOR PITCHES: For those of us who have been displaced, separated, or confined, home is not just a place—it is memory, survival, invention. For the second issue of The Center is Black, we invite writers who are currently incarcerated to explore the meaning of “home” from where they are now through poetry, essays, letters, and short fiction that speak to the many ways home is carried, lost, and remade. Consider these questions as you shape your response:
How has your understanding of home changed since your incarceration?
What does home feel like now? Is it a person, a ritual, a memory, a song, a dream?
How do you create home where you are? What objects, routines, or relationships bring you a sense of belonging?
If home is something that cannot be contained by walls, where does it live for you?
● Deadline: March 7th, 2025
● Format: Handwritten or typed submissions accepted
● Mail to: 158 Buffalo Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11213 ATTN: Sika Bonsu
● Or email: sika@weeksvillesociety.org
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Filter’s mission is to advocate through journalism for rational and compassionate approaches to drug use, drug policy, and human rights. They pay $300 per essay.
Founded in 1962, Film Comment Magazine features reviews and analysis of mainstream, art-house, and avant-garde filmmaking from around the world. They pay $300 per essay.
The Appeal covers criminal justice issues from a progressive lens and pays $1/word.
Bolts is a digital magazine that covers the nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up.
NC Newsline is a Raleigh-based nonpartisan, nonprofit newsroom dedicated to fearless reporting and hard-hitting commentary that shines a light on injustice and more.
Inquest is a forum for advancing bold ideas to end mass incarceration in the United States. They pay $250 per essay.
Defector is a new sports blog and media company. They pay $500 for an article.
New to Substack but publishing since 2018, The Small Bow This is mainly written and edited by A.J. Daulerio, and Edith Zimmerman always illustrates it.
Black Lipstick is a Substack publication featuring art and writing on makeup, mental health, mortality, queerness, sex, gender, nostalgia, pop culture, parenthood, weird dreams, dark thoughts, and everything else. They pay $150 per essay.
Prism is an independent, nonprofit newsroom led by and for people of color that launched the Right to Write Project to feature and pay incarcerated writers. They pay .50 per word.
Local News Matters is a nonprofit site bringing community coverage to the San Francisco Bay Area region so that the people, places and topics that deserve more attention get it.