Art by the incarcerated

why on earth would we begin this holiday show behind bars with nancy giles you're about to find out along route 1 in thomaston maine is a store filled with crafts bird houses and dollhouses salad bowls and sailing ships all made in maine state prisons we found the quality to be excellent ted and barbara wittmeyer have been shopping here for decades it's very nice that somebody who is perhaps in a place that he or she wishes she weren't still has the spirit to make something nice like that prison inmates have been making things in maine since the 1800s when selling sleighs and wagons helped defray costs today a whole range of crafts support the workshops in maine's maximum security prison in warren i mean i can't control everything that happens in prison nobody can but when i'm sitting at that computer designing something that's going to be lasered i'm not in prison i'm not there i am in focus on this that's going to bring somebody pleasure ron bubar was 24 when he began serving his time that was 33 years ago when i came to prison there wasn't computers i had to teach myself didn't even know how to turn them on so i taught myself how to do this stuff how did you learn that it's a lot of trial and error charlie jones came here when he was 20 sentenced to 75 years in a state where there is no parole in the workshops he discovered he had a talent for carving every time that i carved something i thought man how the hell am i going to do this but as you take one piece off and you start to see more then you just kind of go one of charlie's earlier projects was this golden eagle which he learned to carve from a book i just kind of went by that and tried to just duplicate it you just kind of went by that i have a um ability to endure monotony carving the feathers was kind of therapeutic i could just do it and once you can get a rhythm going it it's all right it's amazing the amount of talent that the residents have here more than 100 residents working here daily they do about 1.6 million dollars worth of work out of this facility that much they do randall liberty is commissioner of maine's department of corrections for people who might think lock the door and throw away the key why are they getting an opportunity to get training to be educated what would you say to them whatever side of the political spectrum you may be on there's a win here for everyone if you spend forty six thousand dollars a year to house someone in a correctional facility and they come back because they receive no programming to address the core reasons why they arrived here it's a stupid money one of maine's programs allows residents to earn a college degree the money for it was donated by doris buffett warren's sister who lived in rockland maine she gave us an initial two million dollar donation and that's the best money i've ever seen invested in anyone ron bubar is a graduate charlie jones is too the college program is noticeably magnificent noticeably magnificent yes when we used to walk the child you could hear people talking in the back about some ms-13 story they heard or the people in front of you talking about how they used to cook meth but now when you go to chow you might hear one of those conversations in front of you but behind you you hear somebody talking about their philosophy class or their history class the individuals that graduate have about a 5 return rate recidivism rate as opposed to a 60 to 65 percent nationally that means 95 percent of the people who go through this program don't go back that's correct when doris buffett died in 2020 charlie was asked if he could make something to honor her this is what charlie made a table with legs made of books on their spines the names of courses open to prison residents and the professors who teach them on the table a book telling doris buffett's story and a thank you note there's only so many opportunities you have in here to kind of like touch the world in portland maine this fall an exhibition of art by those serving time in maine prisons and this is what he really says part of a year-long project to shine a light on parts of prison life not often seen it's all from the heart that's what i like about this curator jan collins is assistant director of the maine prisoner advocacy coalition sometimes it's an expression of longing more than anything we have people who have used paper bags because that's the only thing they had to work with your eye sort of moves yes not just one co-curator olivia hodgstadt graduated from colby college with a degree in art history last year had you ever been in a prison before no no what was your perception before you went in just sort of images of like sweaty guys who work out maybe not friendly that's just not been true maybe they work out but what surprised me the most was how kind the people i met were respectful courteous you know i really believe that some of those guys are nicer than men that i've met outside one of the pieces a web of crochet work and as we were working with the artist on this he said you know what i really want is to write tags on each of the pieces like price tags but not price tags because i want to write the intent behind the art we want people to know that every person in here has a family on the outside that cares about them you know my brother's coming to see the show my daughter's gonna be here and you know we want them to see something they could be really proud of what do you think is the biggest misconception people have about people that are in prison i think that um their throwaways we have to ask ourselves um you know do we believe in redemption and i think that we all believe redemption when it applies to us when our reply applies to other people we're reluctant to do that for charlie jones the existential questions are deep and persistent i've been here for murder i got 75 years i've been in prison longer than i was alive when i committed my crime if i say to myself i want to fulfill the purpose of what the people who put me here intended for this to be what am i supposed to be doing when if anything would that purpose be fulfilled and for the people that you hurt what has to be done for them for those people to say okay i now see that that wasn't a monster that that was a stupid kid

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 77,309

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, inmates, main, state prison, art, behind bars, parole, creative expression, artwork, arts and crafts, sale, nancy giles, program, correctional facility

Id: 3bX_CW8VNVA

Length: 7min 26sec (446 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Fart_Elemental]

It's cool they're giving people things to do for their personal growth and mental wellness, but they should be making a LOT more money for what is essentially slave labor.

[u/seeclick8]

It’s actually a cool store.