ABOLITIONIST EXPRESSIONS
LET’S GET FREE PERMANENT COLLECTION
East Liberty Presbyterian Church
116 S Highland Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15206
September 22 – October 20, 2024
Gallery Hours – Sunday 12 – 2 and Wednesday 5:30 – 7:00
On Sunday, October 13, immediately after the 11 am Sanctuary Worship Service, please join us in the McKelvy Room for a panel presentation exploring the experience of incarceration from multiple perspectives. Light refreshments will be available. Panelists: Rev. Dr. Tami Hooker, Barbara Jewell, Rita Nordquist and etta cetera
Abolitionist Expressions presents the Let’s Get Free permanent art collection featuring art made by people in prison as well as artists in solidarity from outside of prison. It chronicles the current moment of abolitionists through drawings, paintings, prints, cross-stitch, banners, and poetry. The artworks explore personal stories that express political yearnings and aspirations for the future.
Let’s Get Free is a Pittsburgh-based organization working to end perpetual punishment and build a pathway out of prisons and back into our communities. Let’s Get Free accomplishes its goals through commutation reform, supporting successful possibilities for people formerly and currently incarcerated, and shifting to a culture of transformative justice. Over 73,000 people in Pennsylvania are currently incarcerated with 5,040 people sentenced to Death by Incarceration (also known as Life Without Parole). Let’s Get Free’s many activities, including its annual art show, is centered on the liberation of people behind bars.
Let’s Get Free’s permanent collection is an organizing tool bringing people together to reflect upon the conditions of prisons and their function in PA. The collection is meant to be borrowed and to travel, lifting the voice of people in prison and creating dialogue with audiences everywhere it goes. The collection has been gathered through the last five years of Let’s Get Free’s annual art show and over ten years collaborating with artists in prison. The biggest bulk of the work came from Let’s Get Free’s 2020 End Death By Incarceration themed exhibition. Let’s Get Free continues to add pieces to the collection.
We hope this exhibition will inspire you to action. Support people in prison by becoming a volunteer, writing letters to your local representative, or donating to Let’s Get Free.
Gallery Guide Quick Reference Front Room –
Long Wall
The Photos on this wall are from the Still Doing Life 22 lifers, 25 years later photography exhibit features portraits and interviews with 22 men and women incarcerated with life without parole in Pennsylvania at two points in time during their incarceration – mid-1990s and 2017. The exhibit is based on the 2022 book by the same name by Howard Zehr and Barb Toews. ‘
In 1996, Howard Zehr, a restorative justice activist and photographer, published Doing Life, a book of photo portraits of individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in Pennsylvania prisons. Twenty-five years later, Zehr revisited many of the same individuals and photographed them in the same poses. In Still Doing Life, Zehr and co-author Barb Toews present the two photos of each individual side by side.
The Still Doing Life exhibit is available to travel to your community for just the cost of shipping. For more information, contact Barb Toews, btoews@uw.edu.
3. Free Our Elders Banner by etta cetera, fabric, sequence, hotglue – This banner was made for car protests during covid. The long top and bottom can get slammed into car doors to keep it in place.
10. We Miss You Banner by etta cetera, fabric, sequence, hot glue – This banner was made for an altar for one of Let’s Get Free’s annual artshow.
Front Room – Thin Wall to Right of Long Wall
11. Touch by Bruce Bainbridge, 2023, acrylic on paper
12. The Children Are Rising Daughters #11 Cover by Marilyn Dobrolenski, 2024, acrylic on thick paper Let’s Get Free commissioned “Dobe” to make this piece for our Magazine.
Front Room – To left of big windows
13. Cyd Berger by Howard Zehr, photograph from Still Doing Life 22 lifers, 25 years later
14. Doors of Freedom, Cyd Berger, 2023, crossstitch
Front Room – To Right of Wall Text
15. This Time Is Killing Me, Duane Montney, 2020, graphite and charcoal
16. Self Portrait by Augustin Gallardo 2005, pencil
17. Life Without Parole by Augustin Gallardo 2005, pencil
18. Untitled, Benji Hill, 2024, pencil
19. Grow Where You Are Planted, Nichole Pariah Hollingsworth, 2020, pencil
20. Contumeliousby Anntonésa Woodard, Pen and pencil
2nd Room – Long Wall
25. Welcome Home Banner by etta cetera, fabric, sequence, hot glue This banner was made for Let’s Get Free’s art show themed: “Glow Home: Illuminating Relationship”
26. An Untimely Death, Shonda Walter, 2020, Ballpoint pen and manilla folder
27. Solidarity Builds Change by Charmaine Pfender, cardstock, color pencil and pens
28. Be Not Afraid of Change, Latosha Gross, 2020, cross stitch
29. Yellow Lake, Todd “Hyung Rae” Tarsell, 2017, digital print of acrylic painting on leaf
30. End Death by Incarceration, Angela Hellman, 2020, colored pencil and pen on manilla envelope
31. Love Each Other by Mark Loughney, ink, 2020 —Mark sent this while still incarcerated although he as been home now for several years.
32. Depression by Matt Mateo, 1999, acrylic
32. What We Lose by Elena House-Hay, 2020, watercolor
34. End Death by Incarceration by Ryan Weems Johnson, 2020, watercolor and pen.
35. BLM by Angela Hellman, 2020, colored pencil and pen
36. Bubblewrap Lockdown, Mark Loughney 2020, acrylic on canvas board
37. Wolf, Todd “Hyung Rae” Tarsell, 2017, digital print of acrylic painting on leaf
38. Who learns from this? By James Marschner, 2020, pen and pencil
39. Bird Free Cage by Marsha Scaggs, 2019, cross stitch
2nd Room – Back Wall Solidarity
21. Expansive Becoming by Meredith Maloney, 2020, watercolor
22. Palestine by Hedaya, 2023, fine art giclee print of watercolor
23. I’ll Never Swallow This Pill by Christine Lorenz, 2020, colorized digital print
24. I miss you from Sewn Greeting series by etta cetera, 2018, letters from a friend in prison, sierra club calendar.
25. We Are More Banner by Jenn Gooch, 2024, sewn for “We Are More” Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration rally in Harrisburg.
Gallery Guide – A Deeper Look
Front Room – Thin Wall to Right Long Wall
11. Touch by Bruce Bainbridge, 2023, acrylic on paper . Bruce has been in community with Let’s Get Free since 2018. Over the years he has created delightful sculptures out of popsicle sticks, a picnic table, a series of finger paintings and abstract art. This piece Touch won the LGF 2023 contest for the “Piece that embodies solidarity”
Bruce is also featured in Howard Zehr’s book Still doing Life: 22 Lifers 25 Years Later. This book is in our library and you can look up Bruce’s portrait. View a webinar with Howard Zehr about the book here.
Bruce is Still doing life at SCI-Phoenix.
12. The Children Are Rising Daughters #11 Cover by Marilyn Dobrolenski, 2024, acrylic on thick paper Let’s Get Free commissioned “Dobe” to make this piece for our Magazine.
Front Room – To left of big windows
13. Cyd Berger by Howard Zehr, photograph from Still Doing Life 22 lifers, 25 years later
14. Doors of Freedom, Cyd Berger, 2023, crossstitch – Cyd was recently denied Commutation for the 5th time. Cyd is a survivor of human trafficking, domestic violence, and she was not the lead actor in the violence that occurred, in fact she was not even in the room. She has spent over 40 years in prison.
Please listen to the youtube video created by Mary Dewitt with the voice of Cyd overlaid with Mary Dewitt painting her portrait.
Front Room – To Right of Wall Text
15. This Time Is Killing Me, Duane Montney, 2020, graphite and charcoal – This highly symbolic and conceptual piece came to us like many pieces of our permanent collection during the beginning of the pandemic for our show called, End Death by Incarceration. One must really study this piece to get all the references. You can see a nod to the corona virus at the top right with the grim reaper wearing a crown, his breath filled with the spheres of virus. He wears a key around his neck symbolizing freedom will only come to you in death. A giant clock is biting an aging woman’s back while eating legal motions and commutation applications. The word “Hope” is tattooed on the woman’s knuckles as she clenches the railing of her bed. Duane and etta have been collaborating on art projects for almost 15 years AND as of November 2023 Duane walked out of a Michigan prison after 30 years of a juvenile life sentence. Welcome home Duane! He has been collaborating with members of Let’s Get Free since 2005.
16. Self Portrait by Augustin Gallardo 2005, pencil
17. Life Without Parole by Augustin Gallardo 2005, pencil
This illustration and Augustin’s self portrait are all that is left of the Prison Poster Project. A five person artist collective who set out to create a teaching tool about the prison system, designed in collaboration with and illustrated by people in prison. You can see the zine that was created to accompany a series of artwork that was meant to be a slide show, complete with quotes from prisoners to accompany the narrative.The overall concept had a cross-section of a prison with different issues in each cell.
Augustin’s cell deals with the criminalization of youth as well as excessive sentencing that creates nursing homes in prisons across the country. In the reflection of a pocket watch a young boy in boot camp attire sees their reflection as an old man. An elder is seated on the bunk with the shadow of “life” between his feet. On the wall in the shadow of a cross, are pictures of generations of family growing up and changing without him.
Pennsylvania sentenced more juveniles to life without parole then anywhere else in the world. In 2016 the practice of sentencing teenagers under 18 to life sentences was found unconstitutional and many of our friends have since been released. You can see Paulette Carrington in one of the videos.
In 2005 Augustin was incarcerated in Corcoran, California. We have looked for him over the years but have never been able to find. Let’s hope that means he is free! Alixa Garcia, Naima Pennimen, Eric Ruin, Andalusia Knoll and etta cetera made up the outside team.
18. Untitled, Benji Hill, 2024, pencil
Benji responded to the prompt, what do you want people on the outside to know about prison? Referring to his piece Benji writes, “it has a prisoner sitting in a chair – you see him from the back, kind of caddy-corner, he’s half in a cell, and half in a mountainous wilderness with grass and it’s basically how prisoners are in jail but emotionally live on the outside n dream as well.
19. Grow Where You Are Planted, Nichole Pariah Hollingsworth, 2020, pencil. I dedicate my piece to my best friend “50” here at FCI-Aliceville. She is the definition of growing where you’re planted and has bloomed into a beautiful woman despite her circumstances. Nichole was released from Aliceville late last year! Stay Free Nichole!
20.Contumelious by Anntonésa Woodard, Pen and pencil Who Holds the Key to Your Heart?
Look closely at this tender pencil drawing. Can you see the light streaming through the bar? A key is hanging from a wall, a heart locked in a cage, but who locked up the heart? Is the key in reach of the woman? Who locked up her heart? What is keeping her from unlocking the cage of her heart?
This poem came alongside the drawing:
Darkness
overtakes me
Can’t see
Eyes swollen shut
From blows of anger and fear
That one of these days I’m gonna leave
How did I get here?
Day after day?
Just can’t be pleased!
Always on bended knee
Begging for forgiveness for everything!
Sick of your so-called heart-felt sorry’s
Promising me you’d
Never do it again
LIES!!
That’s the one thing you do well
I’ve taken your crap
Time after time
I am so sick of you!
What I really need to do is say
“Forget you, go to hell!” But I can’t
Because I LOVE you!
2nd Room – Long Wall
25. Welcome Home Banner by etta cetera, fabric, sequence, hot glue This banner was made for Let’s Get Free’s art show themed: “Glow Home: Illuminating Relationship”
26. An Untimely Death, Shonda Walter, 2020, Ballpoint pen and manilla folder
Shonda writes: “To tell you the truth I really struggle with the thought of entering the contest and everyone around me was scrambling to submit work and honestly, I’ve been at odds with my skill level and didn’t feel like i had the ability to produce anything worthy. So i thought about it and while sketching a tattoo for someone a light hit me and I was all in. This is what I’ve felt like my 17 years in prison. I survived death row to still be crushed by the sands of time of a life sentence without parole.”
Shonda is serving a life sentence at SCI Muncy, one of the two women’s prisons in Pennsylvania.
27. Solidarity Builds Change by Charmaine Pfender, cardstock, color pencil and pens
Artist statement: “The Woman & Trans prisoners feel the empathy from all the groups that fight, along side of LGF with the same agenda, to see us released from prison. But these groups also work with us to make sure our needs are being met while in prison. And because we are included in the work, we feel a part of our growth and the change it is bringing about.
The Truth in this drawing is shown in the action of driving our flag into the DOC until it cracks & begins to bloom Change. Obviously, Solidarity is shown that many groups & hands of groups are on that flag forcing the DOC to listen to our Collective Voices. The cracks & flag itself created bloomage in the action of cracking the rock.
I have a little bit of history with the Iwo Jima statue. My great grandmother Susan Burke worked in Pittsburgh welding (a regular Rosie the riveter) for the government. It was during the war when women had to work these male jobs (back then). She was building all the parts to build ships. Her proudest moment was that the flag that was raised by the real men in Iwo Jima that the statue was create from, came from a ship she built. So I always think of that statue and how it takes even the most unlikeliest people to play a role in a historic event. I guess that is what came to mind when coming up with this concept for LGF. No matter how small your part, if we work together we can achieve great things, like cracking the stone that is the DOC.”
Charmaine was one of the co-founders of Let’s Get Free and is on our Prison Advisory Board
28. Be Not Afraid of Change, Latosha Gross, 2020, cross stitch
This profound cross stitch came to Let’s Get Free after the deadline of our Glow Home. this was the beginning. Latosha has participated in every art show since, winning the prize for her beaded embroidered cross stitch in 2022. It titled Empathy is the Seed.
Latosha is serving a life sentence at SCI Cambridge Springs.
29. Yellow Lake, Todd “Hyung Rae” Tarsell, 2017, digital print of acrylic painting on leaf
30. End Death by Incarceration, Angela Hellman, 2020, colored pencil and pen on manilla envelope
Hello my name is Angela Hellman. I’m 33 and currently incarcerated @ SCI Muncy. Art has been a huge piece of my sanity as I’ve spent several years of my life imprisoned, both as a juvenile and most of my adulthood. It’s my escape. My passion for both art and poetry come from unspeakable pain and often loneliness, but I find that I’m at my best while at my worst. While I may not be a victim of life behind bars, I still feel an obligation to myself and others to speak up and fight for what is right…
Just because I’m not waking in those shoes don’t mean I haven’t felt them out for size.
This piece speaks for itself as a woman with a life sentence visits with her daughter and grandchild sick and immobile but still forced to spend her final days of life talking through glass without the comfort of physical contact.
31. Love Each Other by Mark Loughney, ink, 2020 —Mark sent this while still incarcerated
Although he as been home now for several years. call these little striped characters Botflies. They’re pupae…and they represent a transitional life stage. Their black and white stripes are indicative of a prisoner, but they seem to have an innate bouncy joyfulness that seems ready to bust out of their shiny chitinous exoskeleton. Prison is a land of repetition and regimentation, so I’ve depicted that in my paintings by organizing my Botflies into rows and columns. – Loughney
Mark is a prolific artist and was featured in the Marking Time Exhibition.
32. Depression by Matt Mateo, 1999, acrylic
Matt Matteo is known across the PA prison system for his amazing art skill. He has been out of prison for sometime. Alan and etta discovered three of Matt’s paintings at the Green Beacon gallery in Greensburg, PA and have been looking for Matt ever since. If you know him, please connect us.
32. What We Lose by Elena House-Hay, 2020, watercolor
Elena writes: My piece is about the hardships that women experience in prison. We are challenged and depleted in mind, body, and spirit, sometimes by those who are tasked with taking care of us. The building represents the DOC and the industrial factory of flesh that it is. The text in the windows comes from common phrases I’ve heard from nurses, guards, and other staff. I chose the words because they are both invalidating and routine. The hand and words outside the building represent the experience of outside family as they witness the process of incarceration. Lastly, the cold claws reaching out of the building are symbolic of the heartless ingress and egress to and from the system that has left many people feeling as though their flesh and life has been stripped away. The purple skin tone is meant to make the figures universally relatable.
Elena is an incarcerated artist in Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on madness, systemic repression, and the promise of abolition. She works in tandem with PeoplesHub, Let’s Get Free, and various prison advocacy zines and newsletters. Elena is committed to drawing attention to the flaws of the prison-industrial complex and to the humanity of those held in state-sponsored captivity.
Elena has an instagram account: @elenahousehey
34. End Death by Incarceration by Ryan Weems Johnson, 2020, watercolor and pen.
35. BLM by Angela Hellman, 2020, colored pencil and pen
36. Bubblewrap Lockdown, Mark Loughney 2020, acrylic on canvas board
Mark writes: I call these little striped characters Botflies. They’re pupae…and they represent a transitional life stage. Their black and white stripes are indicative of a prisoner, but they seem to have an innate bouncy joyfulness that seems ready to bust out of their shiny chitinous exoskeleton. Prison is a land of repetition and regimentation, so I’ve depicted that in my paintings by organizing my Botflies into rows and columns. – Loughney
Mark has this amazing project called the Prison Portrait Project this article by the Marshall Project is how etta learned about Mark when he was still in prison.. Mark is also featured in and on the cover of Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Nicole Fleetwood Mark got out two summer of 2022! Stay Free Mark!
Loughney Art – Instagram
37. Wolf, Todd “Hyung Rae” Tarsell, 2017, digital print of acrylic painting on leaf
Hyung-Rae also known as TR is famous for his incredible paintings on leaves that fly across the fences into his reach. He calls them his contraband series. You can read more about TR on Let’s Get Free’s Prison Advisors page. TR is among the over 5,100 sentenced to die in PA’s prison with a Life Without Parole sentence. TR has an Instagram page: @toddhyungraetarselli
38. Who learns from this? By James Marschner, 2020, pen and pencil
39. Bird Free Cage by Marsha Scaggs, 2019, cross stitch
Marsha Scaggs made this crosstitch as a present for Let’s Get Free. etta loves how the birds are outside the cage. She can’t get enough of an empty cage. Marsha is on Let’s Get Free’s prison advisory board and was unjustly denied her plea for commutation of a life sentence in 2023.
2nd Room – Back Wall Solidarity
21. Expansive Becoming by Meredith Maloney, 2020, watercolor.
“We are not what we have done. We are who we have become” — Sheena King
Meredith writes: This quote by Sheena King inspired my painting. The capacity we have for growth and rebirth is a gift and guides our evolution as human beings. Death by incarceration strips people of being able to give back and denies the world the love and light of those who are sentenced.
22. Palestine by Hedaya, 2023, fine art giclee print of watercolor
Hedaya writes: “The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.” – James Baldwin
As artists we have a role to reveal the truth through our art. To show the world as it is and be a voice for the voiceless. To speak from the heart to the heart.
All proceeds from this print were donated to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund to aid the victims in Gaza.
23. I’ll Never Swallow This Pill by Christine Lorenz, 2020, colorized digital print
This illustration is called I’ll Never Swallow This Pill. It’s a colorized version of an illustration commissioned for the anthology Life Sentences: Writings from Inside an American Prison, written by participants in the Elsinore Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice, published last year by Belt Publishing. The words come from Oscar Brown, who was at the time incarcerated at SCI Pittsburgh (which you can see in shadow form in the illustration). The entire essay is in the book, and it begins: “I will never throw in the towel and be consumed by this incarceration. I told myself that if I get convicted they can have my body but never my mind or spirit.”
This colorized version is dated 2020, dimensions variable, print available for donation to Let’s Get Free! by contacting me at lorenzc@comcast.net.
24. I miss you from Sewn Greeting series by etta cetera, 2018, letters from a friend in prison, sierra club calendar.
This was part of an installation called Sewn Greetings for the Letters and Liberation Show in 2018.There are twenty three different greetings sewn onto old calendar images. Our permanent collection has eight.
In many cases the letters used to create the phrase were directly from the person who signed off their missives in the sentiment shown. Sewing support from Emily Cross, Miriam Greenberg, Leslie Stem and Alina del Pino. Thanks also to Randy Francisco for old calendars.
25. We Are More Banner by Jenn Gooch, 2024, sewn for “We Are More” Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration rally in Harrisburg.