Human Powered Season 2, Episode 4 Transcript
"Art Against the Odds"
Joshua: My dad is an artist. He started making paintings in the eighties, when I was a kid. And we have a picture actually of me on a tiny canvas and then he's on this giant canvas next to me painting. He’s always encouraged me to make art.
Adam: Joshua Gresl is an artist. Before his time in prison, he was mostly a photographer and started when he was young.
Joshua: I started taking pictures when I was about seven years old. And then, eventually got some good equipment and pretty much always had a camera around me.
Adam: But when he went to prison, he had to make do with what he had. And what he often had was…nothing.
Joshua: I got sent up to Chippewa Falls Correctional Treatment Facility. A lot of prisons, they'll have like a hobby room or a place where you can go and make some artwork, but Chippewa doesn't have anything like that. You can buy paper and paints and stuff like that. But I didn't really have the money to be doing that. And so, I was just using, you know, anything I could find.
A lot of the stuff I made was considered contraband because I would use state property. Like I made stuff outta milk cartons
But you're not supposed to keep that. So I would get in trouble. So I kinda had to hide it. I call them art supplies, they call them garbage.
I've had so many pieces that I made while I was locked up taken by guards and destroyed, thrown away. So yeah, the pieces that I was able to actually sneak out are pretty…pretty important.
Adam: I'm Adam Carr and this is Human Powered, a podcast from Wisconsin Humanities and Field Noise Soundworks. Today on Human Powered, we’re talking to three artists who have made art inside and outside Wisconsin prisons, and the curator who brought all of their work together.
For some of the artists, art making was about survival, or rebellion, or processing past traumas — or all of these things together. What it wasn’t about was putting their work in an actual, fancy art gallery. And yet, that’s exactly what happened at Art Against the Odds, a gallery show co-curated by Debra Brehmer and Paul Salsieder.
Joining me, as always, is my co host, Dasha Kelly Hamilton.
Now Dasha, if you are making something and someone else finds it dangerous, you are probably making something that’s important.
Dasha: Probably something important… and contraband or garbage? But when we're talking about controlling your every movement, we have to call it contraband. He's a found artist. He is an object artist and hope that he allows himself to wear that. Not a guy who's using state property to make stuff that's not allowed. He's a found artist.
Adam: When was the last time you made something dangerous, Dasha?
Dasha: Every day. If I do it right every day. I wanna say, speaking of danger, I wanna go back to this exhibit. It felt like being brought behind the door of, you know, behind the curtain, slipping into Narnia, you know, I found this treasure trove and it was this, oh what's next? And you're flipping through these canvases. The three-dimensional structures, the sculptures, um, you're looking and going, what? That looks like. And how did they, this door actually moves and opens, so they made a whole castle out of like toilet paper rolls or something.
Adam: That’d be hard in a home studio!
Dasha: I don't care what class you took, this was some intention and a lot of talent. But what I was really excited about was you can see that yes, here in the skillset, in terms of craft there's a lot of talent on this canvas.
And then you look at the collection and this particular artist is definitely making a statement, is telling a story. This series of portraits is a conversation about celebrity. Um, these set of line drawings is a reflection on family. This kind of abstract thing with the candy wrappers, I'm not sure what it is, but man, it has all of my attention.
The same, inner dialogue you have going into any art exhibit. So I was in that space just excited about what it was going to feel like when their family came to see this. And even patrons who are gonna go to the exhibit because they go to any exhibit thinking, I'm gonna go and check out this exhibit because they feel that they're doing a kind thing and they're expecting the same way you go into your your kids' art show at the end of art camp. You're there because you're supportive. Not that you expect to be blown away by the talent or the craft or the work, and knowing that they're gonna be blown away by the talent and the craft and the work.
Adam: Mmmhmm
Dasha: It's just this, this experiential reminder of everything that we don't know, all the assumptions that we all hold about so many different things.
And the art was really, really good. You're thinking about, man, all of this talent, could be out in the world. Whatever their stories are, these pictures, these paintings, these sculptures made of milk cartons are a reminder of all of the life that are in these buildings and all of the neighbors and talents that we are missing out on.
Adam: Actually, I'm, I have a 3-year-old, so I don't go to gallery nights anymore, but when I used to go look at art, I think what I was always looking for, you'd see like one or two things that felt like that person had to make that.
Dasha: Mmm
Adam: And when Deb opened that door, it didn't even take a second to see every single one of these pieces had to be made. That's art
Dasha: And those are the pieces that resonate with us, when you're looking at a piece and you can tell, or you're hearing a piece and you can tell that that creator had to not because they were on a contract, but their soul had to produce that.
And that is absolutely what we saw in those art pieces.
Adam: And look, to go VERY BIG PICTURE here, art making is one of the things that makes us human. People make art outside of prison. So of course people make art inside of prison, even when it is very, very difficult.
People in prisons are cut off from their families, their communities, and in some cases their own feelings. Art making is one way to reach out and start to forge those connections again. But then there is the work of making this art visible to even more people. And that’s where Deb comes in.
Deb: I am Debra Brehmer. I'm the owner and director of Portrait Society Gallery and the Co-Curator of Art Against the Odds, the Wisconsin Prison Art Exhibition
Adam: For her whole career, Deb has been seeking out folks who aren’t traditionally in gallery shows.
Deb: One of my interests has always been really paying attention to who's being left out of the conversation, who doesn't get opportunities to show, and why.
But at one point I found myself kind of isolated in the third ward and thinking, you know, I'm not sure if I'm reaching into the Milwaukee community the way I would like.
Adam: And for those of you who aren’t from Milwaukee, the Third Ward is a destination on Gallery Night — all kinds of art galleries and art spaces, especially for well-resourced artists. So Deb started a nonprofit to connect beyond that scene. Her first project was a collaboration with House of Peace, an organization providing food and resources to people experiencing homelessness.
Deb: It was a weekly sketchbook drawing class and it was really a great project because it wasn't goal-oriented. It was more about forming relationships and building community, and also experiencing the powers of drawing and making art and how calming and centering that is.
Adam: And one thing that came up in conversation during that class, almost every week, was incarceration.
Deb: And it took me by surprise because what I realized, and perhaps this is a naive realization, but like just about everybody who came and sat at the table and drew in sketchbooks, had been touched by incarceration. Either they had been in prison, their families, and it was so normalized within the city demographic.
Adam: Around the same time, Deb discovered the artist M. Winston, who was — and still is — incarcerated.
Deb: I had developed a friendship with him and a pretty engaged relationship. And we were showing his work and taking it to an art fair in New York, and communicating on a at least weekly, if not twice weekly basis over several years. I came to understand how important making art was to M. Winston and how he had progressed in his art-making. It not only grounded him, but it created a sense of self-esteem and a purpose in life that he really wouldn't have had otherwise.
Adam: This made Deb wonder, how many more artists were out there working inside Wisconsin’s prisons. And how could she help share their work?
She decided to put out a call for artists to participate in a gallery show dedicated to currently or formerly incarcerated artists. She connected with Shannon Ross, the newsletter organizer that we met back in episode 3. She put a notice in his newsletter, The Community, which reaches over half of Wisconsin’s prison population–and even more on the outside.
Deb: And it said, if you're interested in possibly participating in this art show, write to us.
Adam: She had no idea what kind of response to expect
Deb: So we immediately started getting kind of an avalanche of letters.
And then they started sending us their work. And we never knew what we were getting. It's not like a normal jurying process where they could send us photographs of the work and we could say, yeah, I want that one, that one, and that one. You know, they had to send us their work from the prisons and we cannot send it back in. We can't give it back to them.
So they were trusting us and sending us, you know, maybe one of the best things that they've ever made that they love the most, and letting us, you know, take that and put that in the world and then, you know, had to have trust in us that we would treat it properly and, you know, take care of these things.
So that was, um, it was, it was eye-opening, how trusting everyone was and how willing they were to spend their money to get us this artwork
Adam: Deb ended up selecting 65 different artists for the show from a wide range of backgrounds working with a wide range of mediums.
And one of them was Joshua Gresl. His dad heard about the exhibit.
Deb: And he wrote to me and he said, well, my son Josh is in prison. And he described a little bit about what he was making and I was like, yeah, we're absolutely interested.
Joshua: And here are some milk monsters. Deb just brought out one of the boxes of milk monsters from the store room.
Adam: This is Joshua, from the beginning of the episode. When he was incarcerated, he started making, well, he calls them Milk Monsters.
Joshua: One of the times when I was in Milwaukee County jail, I was eating my lunch, um, you know, get these milk cartons with every meal. And I was looking, and I saw this little face in it.
Adam: I drank a lot of milk in school, growing up, and I don't know about you, but I vividly remember those two circles on some milk cartons…just looking like eyes…
Joshua: And so then I hid it, I tucked it in my pants and snuck it back to my cell. And I was just looking at it, just trying to, you know, figure out what to do. So I started tearing it a little bit and um, and I made this little creature, uh, almost like a little paper doll.
Adam: Joshua made these for years throughout his time in Wisconsin prisons.
Joshua: I've been locked up over the years in Wisconsin probably for over 20 years now, just going back to jail because of marijuana. And I would smoke weed throughout the years to deal with some of my mental health issues. I've been diagnosed with OCD and depression, anxiety…
Adam: And the Milk Monsters mark his time in the system.
Joshua: These purple ones, this one right here actually might be one of the first ones I made ever. Yeah, the pink Kemps milk cartons. Those were in Fond du Lac County jail.
Adam: These milk monsters helped Josh stay in a positive mental place.
Joshua: I had to pretty much do anything I could just to keep my sanity. So when I was locked up, mostly just to occupy my hands, occupy my mind and not go crazy in these little cells I would, you know, just do whatever kind of art I could.
Adam: I know Joshua has already said this, but like, used milk cartons, which are actual garbage, are considered “contraband” in prison. The logic goes they belong to the state and so inmates can’t have them, even if they are making them into art. So Joshua learned to make them quickly, in the bathroom.
Joshua: I would go to the last sink in there, so they wouldn't see me and I would just have a stash of milk cartons. I would wash 'em out and then try to tear 'em real quick. I got it down to about 45 seconds. I could tear it apart and just have the little basic one. A lot of times I would, use my teeth to tear certain parts of ‘em. And then, when I was doing that one time, I actually chipped a bottom tooth right here. I was ripping a milk monster and then boom, this little piece of my tooth comes off. Um, so I saved that and actually added my tooth to one of the milk monsters.
Adam: But even with his technique down, the guards would still find them from time to time.
Joshua: They would just come in and take these things that I spent a lot of time on and just throw 'em right in the garbage right in front of me. And they assign me extra duty where you gotta like sweep the halls or mop or all the kind of cleaning stuff or extra time you gotta spend in the kitchen working or, um, there's all these different kind of things that can make you do there.
Adam: Despite real consequences, Josh kept at it.
Joshua: I don't know if it was just my OCD, I had a compulsion to do it–I definitely did have a compulsion to do it. So it was part of that. But I think part of it was kind of just like, kind of trying to stick it to the man and saying that you know, I'm gonna keep doing this. I don't think it's wrong. I don't think it should be against the rules. So I'm gonna keep doing it. And it's art.
Adam: Joshua gives a personality to each milk monster, some simple, and some with meaningful origin stories.
Joshua: And then, yeah, this one I made while I was in, uh, Fond du Lac county jail, too. That one's very special. That one. When I was there another inmate started a fight. We were playing cards and then he got mad and punched me in the face, and so I restrained him so he couldn't hit me again. And then I ended up getting sent to the hole for it.
So after being there a few days, I get a letter from my dad telling me that one of my best friends passed away. And that was definitely my lowest point probably in my whole life. ‘Cause you know, I just, I read this letter and then I just yell out and fall on the floor and I'm crying that whole, that whole night. And so I was just stuck in this little cell with this horrible news and, you know, couldn't really talk to anybody. Luckily there was one guy in the, the cell next to mine named AJ. And we would just yell through the cracks at the door and, and have conversations.
And I was able to talk to him about Noel who passed away. AJ, he kind of encouraged me just to keep making artwork. And so this one here. Yeah, I drew on the back of a, a milk carton. I ripped it. So I kinda, it looked a little bit like a, a bug or something. So I kind of tore it a little more and made this little butterfly. And so I put stripes on his body and polka dots on the wings, and he's got little ears and frowny face. And for the antenna I used two apple stems. This one I had made in Noel's honor. And so this one is my most special milk monster. And I'm glad it could be included in, in the show. A lot of people like that one.
Adam: More after the break.
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Jessica: Hi, I’m Jessica Becker. I”m director of communications at Wisconsin Humanities. Here, we believe that every story matters and we respect the humanity in each individual. We know that mass incarceration and systemic injustice impacts Wisconsinites in every corner of the state. But we believe that the humanities can provide tools for healing, encourage productive conversation, and create pathways for people to thrive. We hope these episode broaden the dialogue around mass incarceration and ignite your thinking about the role of the humanities in prisons. Visit wisconsinhumanities.org to learn more and get involved.
{>>end midroll break<<}
Adam: At the end of the day, Joshua thinks that his contraband, his secret art practice, did more than anything else in prison to help him through his time. And he thinks that art in prisons should be encouraged — not punished.
Joshua: There should be more access to art. Um, 'cause it helped me a lot. You know, I was dealing with a lot of things while I was locked up and, and art helped me get through it. But most places don't take advantage of that. They call it corrections, can actually, you know, be more a part of that. I think every prison should have an art therapist in their prison because that would help a lot more than anything else they're trying to do in there.
Adam: This is something that we heard from every person we interviewed. Like John Tyson. In the Art Against the Odds Exhibit, John made a series of what he calls targets. They are circles inside other circles. At one point during his time inside, he made one every day for a year.
John: The targets were, because that's what people keep saying, there's a target on you, you know. They knew what you're doing because you're targeted because of this. And there's a lot of other things with the word target. How we target our victims, how we will go through all this, and then it just became almost overwhelming. And so I just started drawing them. And um, Deb has the only set of, of a whole year.
Adam: When you see all of the circles together, that’s a visual representation of a year of John’s life.
John: I didn't go to school and understand why is blue so important next to this color, whatever. So I don't know these kind of maneuvers, but I figured out my own maneuvers. And because I am being honest and I'm being, accountable I think that I'm, I'm getting that grace. And it does, it, it really, really does help.
I think therapy both mind therapy and art therapy, you're gonna see a big difference in people. You're gonna see a huge difference, and it's not gonna be this like kind of sweet thing where we're holding hands and running through the woods. It's not gonna be like that at all. It's going to be real, real stuff because people are gonna be, they're gonna want to do drawings about people they love getting killed or you know, how they got, you know, all of these things.
There's just, there's a lot of pain inside there. Just because we're in here does not mean we're not human. And it does not mean that we don't care and we don't love and we don't hurt.
Adam: “It doesn’t mean that we don’t care and we don’t love and we don’t hurt.” That’s it — that’s what this is about. It’s certainly true for Sarah Demerath, the third artist we’re going to meet today.
Sarah: When I started making art, it was in prison. I started drawing cards for my daughter to try to connect to a 4-year-old when she's away from her mother. And I'm, just trying to do things to where I can communicate with her. So I was drawing, like, cartoon cards.
Adam: Sarah had this box of cards in her office on the day we spoke to her.
Sarah: So these ones are some of 'em. “I love you more than cotton candy in all of candy land.” We always would say, “I love you more than cotton candy,” or, she loves bacon. So it'd be either “I love you more than cotton candy,” or, “I love you more than bacon.”
Oh, I would do little games, too. This one is like three folded-up pieces of paper. And it would say, “I love you,” or I would number things. I even did a scavenger hunt type thing in one of the envelopes for her. But yeah, these are just some of 'em,
Adam: So Sarah started making cute cards for her daughter with minions on them or whatever but she sees now was the beginning of a journey to process her own pain. Sarah grew up in the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, with her mom, and would visit her dad in Las Vegas in the summers. But as a young woman, she battled addiction.
Sarah: I struggled with heroin addiction for 16 years.
And when I moved to Vegas, I went there because I was running from me. I was thinking, oh, I'm gonna go to Vegas and get sober. My dad had, at the time, it was like 20 some years sober. and of course that's not what happens. It was a whole new world and that world ate me up and spit me out. I was incarcerated for the first time there. I was homeless for the first time while I was there.
On the flip side, there was this beautiful moments to it, too, because I did finally go to detox in Las Vegas. I got into my first relationship when I was sober with my daughter's dad and he was in recovery and I had my daughter sober in Las Vegas and we had a big baby shower in recovery. There was like 300 people there. I was 90 days sober and I felt like, I'm gonna do it, this time. I'm gonna stay sober. I didn't stay sober at that time, but I was fully immersed into recovery.
Adam: Sarah’s battle with addiction continued, and she ended up in prison in Wisconsin. Soon, other people noticed the cards she was making for her daughter. They wanted some for their own friends and family.
Sarah: So they would ask me, Hey, do you think you could draw me a card? And it helped me buy hygiene products and stamps so I could send more cards to my daughter.
And then once I got going and the more orders I had, I was just, that's all I did. I was doing so many cards for people to the point where each holiday that would come up, people would pre-order their cards for holidays. And I remember the first Valentine's Day that I was doing it, I was in Taycheedah, they had no room where new intakes are, so they put me in Max. And I had 60 orders, so I had 60 cards to make my first holiday. So it was pretty wild.
Adam: Because the prison where Sarah should have been sent was so overcrowded, she went instead to a maximum security prison. That means she was stuck in her room 23 hours a day. Working on those 60 cards gave her more than just something to barter.
Sarah: It helped me be able to cope with what was going on on the inside and then what was going on inside of my mind, inside of my, all my feelings and, and being away from family and just that being disconnected. It just helped me cope and really express the different stages of what I was going through.
Adam: Like Joshua, Sarah had to work within a system that provided almost no opportunities for what she was trying to create – but in spite of that people, were hungry for this stuff.
Sarah: There was no art programs or creative outlet type of programs like that. We had to make that ourselves. And so every Sunday we'd have craft corner and in that little craft corner, people would, oh, can I get a seat at the table? Because they would wanna do cards for their kids too. And we learned different ideas. We used to take the cotton out of the tampons and then use that to, we would rub it on chalk so that we could shade different things and use it almost like a paintbrush at times. I remember someone taking orange peel and getting like orange from the orange peel that didn't even have paint. We had to get very creative with things.
Adam: In prison, Sarah also started journaling, which helped her process her confinement and became the basis for her artwork moving forward.
Sarah: I really started journaling in prison because, again, they were overcrowded so I was in max and so a lot of that time was in 23 hour lockdown. So I had to do something because I really felt, at times, I felt like a caged animal. You know, I felt like if I didn't get that out creatively, somehow, um, for myself, it comes out in anger. And in my past in different county jails, I would get into physical fights and I would lash out on people and I looked back on that and it was just me not getting the help that I needed.
Adam: So when Sarah was released, she got a job at a recycling center but was living out of her car. Through the connections from a center where she now works, she found an apartment and got on solid ground. There wasn’t a lot of time for art at that point in her life.
Sarah: I didn't create art per se, I would say in the first six months because that was survival. And then once I had my apartment and I had a job and I had just a little bit of peace of mind, then I started looking on YouTube and I would go to the library and check out some books.
And would save up a little bit of money then make my way to the art store and, it was like, okay, I'll try this, this genre, or I would try this type of paint. So I started making these circular pieces with alcohol ink. It was this really weird substance where it was like I had a little bit of control, but it sometimes does its own thing.
I learned that, the black, if you put that on top of lighter colors, it would spread out almost like an eyeball being dilated and when I saw that, it was like, that's what I'm doing. That's what it is. That's what I need to do. I wanted to do something that had to do with my story. There were times where, through my addiction, the only thing that was recognizable to me was my eyes. I thought I would do pieces that looked like my eyes associated with that time.
Adam: Sarah showed us one of the pieces during our interview.
Sarah: This one I did…the inside almost looks like the sunset, living in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the sunsets. That was a time where I was still using, I was homeless but, those sunsets in Las Vegas are beautiful and I wanted to use that gold on the outside and I flamed it out because of how fiery my life was at that point.
I still get the feelings when I look at it, especially when I talk about it or we go into detail about what that was like. I definitely feel it, but before, the minute I would start thinking about my past, I would get this knot in my stomach and I wouldn't wanna go there. It was like, okay, well talk about it. Let's shut this off, done. Now I'm okay with feeling that and sitting in those feelings and reliving it for a little bit because I know that that's not what my life is today.
{>>music continues, transitional moment<<}
Adam: Sarah, Joshua, and John were three of the 65 artists featured in the Art Against the Odds exhibit, which officially opened at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, MIAD, in January 2023. Deb was a little nervous about it.
Deb: MIAD is a different kind of venue. It's an art school and you know, most people wouldn't just randomly go to an exhibition there. I was wondering like, you know, will, how many people will come, and will people overcome this small hurdle?
But opening night was just absolutely unbelievable. I honestly have never seen anything like this in the art world. At least in Wisconsin, in my life, it was packed with the most diverse audience you could imagine in the art world.
Adam: And all of the artists that were there told us how special this night was for them. Here’s John.
John: It was life-changing. It really was. When I had to stand in front of the targets and talk to, I think I talked to a reporter, it was really, really, really hard. 'Cause I try to have some composure, but I've never seen them up on a wall like that. And that many of 'em. And then just to be able to talk openly and honestly was, um. It wasn't hard, but it was hard. And so this whole show is just kind of, it's otherworldly. It really is.
Adam: And here’s Joshua.
Joshua: The first time I saw the show I was really just blown away. Not even just seeing my artwork, which, you know, I would never even have imagined it in that kind of setting. But just to see all these other artists. They'll call us inmate, they'll call us prisoner, they'll call us a lot of things. But, you know, through this show, you know, all these people are called artists now and some of their work is just, it is truly powerful. A lot of people just walking through the show, you know, just brought to tears, over what's represented in this work.
Adam: And the exhibit gave Sarah the opportunity to connect with her daughter in a completely new way.
Sarah: Art Against the Odds has been so impactful because when my daughter was younger, it was really hard to navigate what they were gonna tell her. She was four—she's not understanding that mom was incarcerated. So we were gonna have that conversation with her when I got out.
So my mom and Lila drove down from Michigan. At the time that we did this she was 12, she was about to be 13 and I didn't want her to see anything at the show that she didn't know. I didn't want her to be shocked. I didn't want there to be trauma. So I had a conversation with her before. About three hours before the show, I sat down with her and I was able to tell her pretty much everything. And it was the most beautiful interaction and I was able to make amends to her and let her know that the times that I wasn't there, it wasn't about not loving her.
And she understood it. And then when we got to the gallery — sorry I’m a big baby — when we got to the gallery, I have never seen her be so proud of me and, she's an artist and she was just as excited as me and she was like, “that's my mom.” And she's watching me do the interviews with the news and, and she was buzzing around the entire exhibit with this huge smile. Never in my life did I ever think that my art would be in a gallery, let alone my daughter and mom would be there with me to see it.
And it, it was beautiful.
Adam: So, I want to bring Dasha Kelly Hamilton back in here, because Dasha, we talk about humanities work in the carceral system, and there’s this term, justice-impacted. This is what we're talking about.
It's the child, and the 10 years that their parent is gone, and not just the absence, but the imagination or the absence of information about what's going on. In this exhibit allowed for a daughter to maybe work out probably a lot of feelings. And this was a chance for that mother to not be defined by that time.
Dasha: And that's a good point, especially with this particular story, how young the daughter was when she went away. You're still able to parent or be a parent, um, how you're able to parent. And there's so many other dynamics based on how often you're able to stay in touch with your kids and who and where are they. And then what are they told?
And for her, listening to her story, she had a lot of self-healing and stories that she was telling herself about herself, that she had the opportunity to work through. So that she's really able to stand in front of her child, in front of anyone, but stand in front of her child and have a conversation that's authentic.
And not necessarily from a space of defense, not coming from a space of stigma. And it's different from a confession. We are, in so much of this discussion, we're looking for, um, we want contrition. We want people to admit they're wrong and how they're gonna be better. And that's about their behavior. Yes. We don't want you to be doing whatever criminal thing that got you here, yes. But their being that maybe would've led to that behavior in the first place. The being, having the space to talk about how they be, this art gives 'em a chance to do that.
Adam: So, Dasha I actually bought an artwork from this show — the artist M Winston. I saw it and, I've been collecting in my living room different artworks from Milwaukee artists, a lot of them are studies for public artworks. They're different, it's kind of like I'm curating my living room. Thanks Glenna my wife, uh, for letting me do that.
And there is a spot in my space where these, these works of public artwork are next to a work by Della Wells that’s called America Still Hides My Land. And I saw exactly where this art, this painting needed to be. That's about two and a half inches by two and a half inches. It's tiny, but it's an imaginary landscape that a man made while imagining in a very powerful way, a plan for a future that may not be practical, but it's what he needed.
Dasha: And I love the language of imagining something that's possibly, possibly impractical, but when you imagine in a powerful way, you short circuit all of that logic. You short circuit doubt, you bypass what would, should and could, and you tap into what's really possible. Which is what you can imagine, what you can desire and what you can manifest.
And even though he may never have that land, that idea, that power to imagine it, is gonna be fuel for him for a long time. And now it's living on your wall.
Adam: Fuel for me too.
Dasha: Absolutely.
Adam: Since this exhibit opened in Milwaukee, it has also traveled to other galleries around Wisconsin, including Green Bay and Manitowoc. And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that putting on this show completely changed how Deb looks at the world.
Deb: The state of our politics, it's very easy to get kind of downtrodden and to start to dislike humanity. So, we do this show and we're working with, you know, the most marginalized populations, and working with this population, we came up against this absolute beautiful humanity. Like, not only the strength of these individuals to be resourceful and to survive and to be hopeful and to make these works of art.
But their family members and the kindness of the people who came to the exhibition, all of a sudden I was surrounded by people who, they just felt like really good people, like people who cared about all of these things in a meaningful way. And they were willing to give of themselves and time and money and they were willing to, like, open up this whole space of incarceration and prisons and whatever with an open mind and a curiosity and a, you know, the questioning of like, how can this be better?
And so I think I was taken aback by that, that it actually gave me hope.
Adam: And now, she’s thinking about how to sustain the project for the future.
Deb: So it can live on and it can function and the artists can get out of prison and they can come and they can see that there's, there's this place.
Adam: And the artists in the show have plans for the future, too. Joshua is opening up his own gallery in Milwaukee.
Josh: My friend Doug, who was a good friend of mine and my dad's, he had a studio, a photography and photo printing studio. But he had cancer and, he wasn't gonna be able to have the studio anymore.
So he put in a good word to the landlord, uh, so I was able to get a place and where, um, you know, there's a, there's a room in the back that's my bedroom and then, but it's set up like a commercial space. So I'm gonna continue having a photography studio there. And I'm also setting it up to have an art gallery. So it's gonna be called the Gresl Gallery.
Adam: He’s going to show some of his own work there, including new milk monsters. But he has also expanded the idea to include art made with other food production packaging that would otherwise go in a landfill.
And Sarah has gone back to where her art journey started: making cards for people.
Sarah: When I got released I knew that once I got stable, I wanted to do something to give back and to help people that were in similar situations like myself. That first Christmas, I thought, what if we send cards to the ladies in the facility that I was at? And so that year, my mom and I, I said, mom, let's write some cards and we'll send them into the, to the prison that I was at.
So we sent 50 and then the next year I'm like, what if we just try to send more? And so the next year it was like 150. But then the year after that, I got this crazy idea about what if it was possible, we send like a single card to every individual that's incarcerated in Wisconsin in the women's prison.
So I thought, okay, a single card to every woman in the Wisconsin prison system. So I'm looking up numbers and I'm like, oh, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I start spreading the word and I name the project Cards Behind Bars, and we did it. There was so many women that I was incarcerated with that wanted to get involved.
And we're sending out 4,100 cards this year and we just write all encouraging messages in each one of them. So I think that art sparked the ideas of not forgetting the ones that are still in and just knowing that everybody needs support. Everybody.
Adam: Human Powered is a podcast from Wisconsin Humanities and Field Noise Soundworks. It is produced by Craig Eley, Jade Isiri-Ramos, and Jen Rubin. Craig also edits and mixes the show. Executive producers are Dena Wortzel and Jessica Becker. Our voice recording engineer is Andrew Jambura at Silver City Studios.
The outro music is by the band, Upheaval, they were a prison band at the Waupan Correctional Institution in the 1970s.
Mass incarceration is a really complex topic. So I hope you will explore the extras on our Human Powered podcast episode pages. They shed more light on the people and projects that bring dignity and humanity to the problems in our carcel system.
Find more at Wisconsin Humanities dot org slash podcast. Thanks for listening to this episode of HUman Powered, Humanity Unlocked. If you like what you heard, share it with a friend.
I’m your host Adam Carr with the poetic Dasha Kelly Hamilton.
