Post by Ann Northrup
Riverside Prison, Ann Northrup's mural at the early stages (beige wall with white tornado shape in the middle).
In 2005, already a seasoned muralist, I was offered a drawing class inside Riverside Correctional Facility, the women’s prison in Northeast Philadelphia, and the opportunity to paint the first outdoor prison mural. I jumped at the chance to see first-hand this usually off-limits underside of our many-tiered society. Beyond curiosity, I hoped to do some good, having strong feelings reinforced by years of teaching, that ordinary people have extraordinary talents, and it’s great to see them discover their own worth. Since then, I have been involved with prison work in one way or another.
When I began this project it was striking how problematic it was for me and the prison bureaucracy to adapt to each other. Teaching art in a prison is essentially subversive for two reasons. First, it is impossible to run class without bringing in a bunch of tools usually considered contraband because of their potential as weapons (even the simplest art tool, a pencil, is quite sharp). Secondly, special activities are a privilege that has to be earned, and life is pretty boring on the inside. Students are chosen for good behavior, rather than art interest or talent. Any volunteers who do make their way in are likely to be looking for amusement rather than edification. That said, the directors and staff seemed really want to make this work, and to be human, in a place where there is a rule for everything, and they’re all a result of some past disaster.
Homework from a student at Riverside
I began my work at RCF with a drawing class. Due to an administrative glitch, there was no class list when I arrived at the prison to teach . However, as I sat in the education area, I saw a young woman I had met before, when Jane Golden and I had come to the prison to do a mural slide show. One of the guards at the time had taken names of people who would like to work on a mural, including this woman, and I believed that those volunteers would be my class. The guard helped me find them and call them to the classroom. It took 3 weeks for the prison managers to understand what was going on. At that point, the guard was transfered to another area, and I was called in for a special investigation by top staff. I did not defend myself, but did try to make sure that my girls were not punished for my mistake, and could continue class.
More homework from one of Northrup's students at Riverside
The mural imagery I came up with, in consultation with my class, was similarly subversive. The large, clean, minimalist cast-concrete outside wall of RCF, with its window-slits looked to me like an impenetrable cliff. I thought perhaps the mural could show this cliff literally opening up into a pathway, with the women prisoners walking out to meet their loved ones, and moving from a difficult, wintry landscape to springtime and flowers. One of the more eloquent of my students commented, “We’re coming out of the wilderness into a whole new world!” My hope was that people would see the flowers at the bottom and the glowing sky at the top as metaphors of things we all want: hope for the future and the sweetness of freedom.
Ann Northrup and inmate artists at Riverside Correctional Facility celebrate the dedication of Going Home, the mural on which they collaborated. Photo by Clem Murray for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
However, Leon King, the Commissioner of prisons at the time, was very positive, and commented that “I drive by & look at it every morning, just to remind myself of what my job really is about.” He meant that his job was to rehabilitate people and send them back to their families. The present commissioner, Louis Giorla, said something similar, “ I hope the progress we are making with the Mural Arts Program continues for a long time, at least until we can close the prisons!” In other words, they both believe that art programs have the potential to turn around people’s lives, on the inside and on the outside.
Finished mural at Riverside.
Other people’s comments on the mural were various: One health worker blurted out: "I know just what this is about! It's about freedom". Yet one of the doctors commented “Well you know it’s not like that for most of them. They get out and come right back.” It’s certainly not a Hallmark card situation, and I hope the mural does not seem to say that. However, in the words of one prison official, the usual rate of return to prison is 85%, but “Mural Arts is the best non-recidivism program we have! No one who has completed your class has come back to prison (now no longer true).”
This is part one of a two-part story.
See more work by prisoner artists
Outsiders Art from the Inside
Lincoln Financial Mural Arts Center
Thomas Eakins House
1727-29 Mount Vernon Street
215-685-0750
info@muralarts.org
--Ann Northrup is an artist, teacher, muralist and contributor to artblog. See her new Mississippi River paintings in her upcoming show at Cerulean Arts opening Friday, Feb. 27.
