For the past year, Marielena Ferrer-Harrington has worked with incarcerated women at the Ulster County jail in a pilot art program. What started as a way to give inmates a creative outlet, funded by an $8,000 grant from Arts Mid-Hudson, is now on view at Unison Arts in New Paltz, in a new exhibit called “Voices Unbound.”
“We want them to be comfortable working with images and with the language of visual art so that they can understand and also think about composition, about how to use different symbols or elements that they can put forward [for] whatever message or story they would like to tell,” said Ferrer-Harrington.
Each week, Ferrer-Harrington set up stations at white folding tables to help inmates explore their stories. Supplies were minimal: colored pencils, erasers, magazine photos, and safety scissors. But with prompts suggesting the women create storyboards, self-portraits, or collages, the results were abundant.
When asked about her favorite piece, Ferrer-Harrington points to a 16-frame storyboard.
“It's a story of migration, and how after months and months and months crossing through the infamous Darien Gap and being arrested at the border, and having gone through a lot of hardship, she found herself arrested,” she explained. “But also, we have her dreams. They're in Spanish because she's learning English. One of her dreams is to continue taking classes of English and to be out back with her children and her family and to know Miami and to, you know, enjoy things that life has to offer.”
All of the artists in “Voices Unbound” are anonymous, and that’s partly due to the nature of working in a jail: sometimes participants would only be there for a few days, while others could be there a few weeks. But being anonymous also allowed participants to tell stories they might not otherwise publicly share.
A similar freedom is on display in “I, Witness,” an exhibit alongside “Voices Unbound.” It’s by New Paltz’s Tona Wilson, a painter and book artist who spent years working as a Spanish interpreter within the court system, primarily in immigration. Due to the nature of her work, she was often unable to share details. But creating art provided her the right outlet to process what she’s seen.
“I'm not great as a portraitist, which is good,” Wilson laughs. “But gestures I can get, and I figure a gesture, anybody could have that gesture.”
Most of Wilson’s work consists of paintings inspired by her sketchbook drawings, with photos of her sketches next to the finished piece. She also has two books on display. One interactive book showcases the different uniforms you might see in a courthouse. Visitors can mix and match the black robes of judges, stilettos worn by lawyers, and the jumpsuits worn by inmates.
One painting depicts a case that was particularly upsetting for Wilson. It shows an immigrant being led out of the courtroom in handcuffs by a man in a suit, while two uniformed officers stand by. Wilson says the man had been in court for a separate case, not for an immigration hearing.
“I was sitting next to the defendant day after day after day after day, and you know, you translate for them all through the trial, and he was talking about how he was, when he got out, he was going to become a citizen, because he really wanted to vote. And when the verdict was going to come in, he was praying, but at the end of the trial, he was declared not guilty. And he was so happy, and his brother was coming to pick him up,” she explained. “We were heading outside of the courtroom, and there was this guy in the hallway, and he said, ‘I'm from immigration’ – at that time it wasn't ICE – and [he] took him into custody on a prior. He had a prior, probably, you know, like shoplifting or something. I mean, he was so happy one minute, and then boom.”
Wilson says the piece has new resonance amid the Trump administration’s deportation strategies. Still, the goal of both exhibits, say Wilson and Ferrer-Harrington, is to present the work – and the stories behind it – without judgment.
The program was also meant simply to give the women something fun to do. In one prompt, inmates worked together to draw a character without knowing what their partners were drawing, ending in a big reveal.
“It was like magic for them when we opened [the full picture], and they started laughing and then thinking of crazy stuff. And then they started telling stories about these creatures,” said Ferrer-Harrington
Ferrer-Harrington says she hopes to get another grant to keep the project going. She also wants to be able to follow up with women who have been released.
“It's been really, very, I don't know how to say, rewarding,” she says. “It's tough. But at the same time, it's very rewarding to see those small differences. You know, when you see in their eyes, they laugh. Sometimes they get too loud. Sometimes they are very beaten up. And it's hard to really try to raise the mood, but they always do something.”
The exhibit is on view at Unison Arts through August 2nd.