Encourage Your Incarcerated Loved One to Cultivate Creativity

All my life, I have loved to create, craft, and make beautiful projects that would often surprise even me when they were done. I love projects, I loved the process, I was grateful for the value it added to my life and the joy it brought to others. My mom always told me I was an artist, and I believed her. My mother is an artist and my daughter as well. We have a lot of wonderful memories that involve creating something beautiful and I can always retrieve happiness thinking about them. Coming to prison, I thought that part of my life was just not going to exist while I was here. Already engulfed in the feelings of failure, when I thought my creative side couldn’t come along with me, I was devastated. I think I mourned the death of the artist inside of me. Walking through the prison doors, you can’t help but to lose your sense of community, lifestyle, and your day to day life overall seems destroyed. Being in a hurry can murder your creativity and coming to prison slows life down to a glacial pace, and so it makes sense that I was completely wrong, creativity runs rampant here. If you have a loved one incarcerated, encourage them to seek out all the possibilities to be creative right where they are. Encourage them to learn a new craft or rekindle an old one, anything to resurrect that part of their identity they didn’t want to lose, their creativity. Adding creativity back into your life while incarcerated can turn a prison sentence into a journey with new shiny possibilities and passion. Most importantly, encourage your loved one to notice the value in the time they have. Here are some stories from my experience.

I love to paint and just thinking about it makes me smile. When I was little, I would paint with my mom and I remember her always running around in a paint shirt and having a brush in her hand. She passed the baton to me and then I passed it to my daughter. My daughter and I turned part of our garage into our studio where we would paint and create. We would watch you tube to come up with new ideas and new projects like making tutus, bows, etc. We even saw someone doing spray paint art at a street fair and we were so fascinated we went home, figured it out, and made some magical pictures. Coming to prison, I just thought I was going to have to let go of all that and braced myself to just live disappointed. Then one day a friend mentioned that she painted on the weekend. You would have thought I saw a unicorn. As adventurous and outgoing as I am, and I somehow missed the memo on an art room here. She asked me to start painting on the weekends and it became a ritual. She had a paint locker with everything I would possibly need to create. It was glorious and I am so grateful for her generosity of allowing me to just go crazy. That little room is still my happy place and the place that resurrected my creative side.

My friend has gone home but blessed me by bequeathing all her art supplies and her art locker. She had been in prison a long time and had collected some cool things and basically passed me a little hobby lobby. Before she left, she sat down and went through the catalogs we can order from and helped me with the process of ordering and showed me the products she recommended. This was a wealth of knowledge because it is not easy ordering art supplies from a picture in a catalog. Of course, my loved ones weren’t in that little locker, but I get to continue what I have loved for most of my life and it brings me happiness and I am so grateful for this blessing.

Crochet and knitting are this crazy phenomenon that recently seems more like a virus that has taken over. It seems like every day another person has fallen under the spell and they just can’t stop. I will admit I tried it, but I know, it’s just not for me. I do have a ball at work and my friend starts a little circle and I make a stitch or 20 here and there and eventually when she gets sick of me leaving it lie around all the time, she turns into a jewelry bag. It’s a joint effort and I’m totally ok with that. Even though it stresses me out and makes me crazy, my friends amaze me at what their talents and sometimes I just want to join them, just not fully commit. They sit down and make the coolest things. Blankets, hats, unicorn coats for little kids, you name it and they make it happen. They take pictures and graft them and make some unbelievable blankets. I have one friend that went from never doing any projects to busting out crazy, awesome, huge blankets. I look like a stalker because I am always walking by looking into her room to see the progress she makes or see what she is working on next. Now she teaches others and I love to watch. With loving patience, she creates a new crocheting addict, and with each person that is turned, the yarn line at commissary grows. You see you can’t just run to Hobby Lobby and grab some yarn. Here you must put in your order for no more than 12 skeins (a yarn ball/roll thingy) and you can only purchase once a month. It’s a real big deal.

I love to see the groups of gals come together and work on projects, share patterns, and give advice and be willing to help at a moment’s notice. These ladies are truly a tribe and an exclusive group, and they are awesome! As I am writing this, I am watching a crochet class through the window. Not like a peeping Tom, but the room is just next to my table with a large glass window. What I see are 10 people gathered around a table with yarn all over it learning new stitches and enjoying the company of others. They are loving this hobby! They are laughing, smiling and full of joy. Right now, these ladies are not in prison, they are just humans having a good time connecting with one another and bringing value to each other’s lives. This will go on for hours and I know because they are in the art room I use too. These classes used to annoy me because I felt they were in my way. Now I enjoy watching and seeing a tribe come together while I write. It inspires me. The party will continue back in the unit too. Ladies that have years of experience will be right there helping all the newbies along the way. One of my friends went to school in Mexico to learn the trade and is extremely helpful and creative. Where would this possibly happen in the real world? It would be like a neighborhood coming together to perfect an amazing craft.

My Bunkie and I are real busy people. We work jobs that keep us busy all day. Then at night she is either singing in the choir or working out with me, and the weekend we are playing volleyball or whatever sport is going on. So, I was shocked to come home and see her sitting in a nest of yarn on her bed fully committed to crocheting a blanket. I asked why she had lost her mind and her response melted my heart. She had just recently had her first video visit with her children and she wanted to be able to send them things, things that she made and poured her heart and love into the process of making, a blanket of love, if you will. It’s like watching someone meditate with a constant peaceful smile on her face. She makes each stitch beaming with love and hope and is truly creating something magic. This is her way of spending time on her kids, because right now she can’t be with them. The good news is if she gets stuck or has a problem, she will only have to walk less than 30 foot to have all the help she could possibly need. The amount of experience in our hall alone is remarkable.

Then there are the beading folks… This is the other popular hobby here and what they create is fabulous as well. They work diligently for hours, days, and weeks making things that take some serious talent. Most people can pick up crocheting if they really want to, but beading is a different animal. It truly is not for everyone. This is something I would never even try, but I sure do appreciate their work these ladies do.

Periodically I send packages to my mom and daughter with beaded jewelry my friends make. I may not make them, but it makes me happy to send them because I know they will love them.

Night after night I sit next to one of my friends here and as I write, she beads. Anything that can be beaded, she makes it, and everything is custom. Beaded pens, bracelets, all kind of jewelry, and everything turns out like it came from a store. I asked her how she got started and what made her want to begin. She said six years ago she sat at a table with some ladies and all they did was bead, and so it began… All these years later, as a veteran beader, she engages with anyone that wants to learn and takes the initiative to teach classes as well as helping everyone one on one. She teaches a variety of techniques and is more generous than she should be with her own personal beads. She has taught over 100 ladies to bead, and really it’s probably more like 100's.

She has brought value and beauty to people’s lives and makes amazing creations for people like me to send home to loved ones. All I must do is come to her with an idea of what I want, normally with a terrible explanation of me babbling on making hand gestures that make no sense, and she will make it happen. Often, way better than what I imagined. My friend had no idea she had skills like this or the potential to get to the level she is today. People that have left here and gone home still contact her for orders for her jewelry, that is how cool her creations are. Even being out in the big wide world, people still come back to her for her work. She dreams about beading and wakes up with a new idea, she lives and breathes her craft, and it is impressive. My friend is truly a leader in this crazy beading tribe that continues to grow and bring value to more and more lives. I doubt she will ever truly appreciate what a blessing she is to so many people and the impact she has made in the lives of a lot of these people that look to her to lead the way. When she leaves, it will just not be the same.

The beading ladies have scheduled classes lead by my friend that I love to watch, as well. I would be afraid to be in this class because I know I would be the one to knock all the beads off the table, but I like to watch them through the window. They engage with each other and have a wonderful time. It’s like seeing a little joy factory going on when I look through the window.

Another great friend of mine can do pretty much anything. She hasn’t done much creating for the past 30 years because she had a family to tend to and a full-time job in the medical field. The only thing she had to show for

creativity was some scrap booking projects. Now she has the time and she is impressive. Most people do art to hustle it, not her, she only does things for her closest friends and is quick to tell anyone else no. She only creates out of passion and refuses to blend that with anything to overwhelm her. What she does covers a large spectrum of art and here is just a small list: painting cups, making custom decorations for birthdays/parties/holidays, and wrapping presents with a special kind of flare. She makes all my cards for my family and friends. I just tell her what is going on and some of my ideas if I have any and then she makes something perfect for the occasion. For the Christmas play she took a little picture of my mini donkey (yes, I had a mini donkey) and created a life size donkey that looked just like him out of cardboard. With a lot of begging I was able to talk her into making my crown and sword complete with jewels for my role as King David in less than a week notice. Overall, she can pretty much do everything. Making her friends happy makes her happy.

In conclusion, don’t let your loved one sit around being board out of their skull, encourage them to get out of their comfort zone, network a bit, find a group and embrace their emotions and discomfort and get creative. If your loved one is already talented, encourage them to get involved and teach others the skills they know. I believe happiness and connection are ranked right up there with water and air, and there are many of us that have been down through it when it comes to betrayal, so connecting with strangers can be hard. There is no magic snake oil to take away the pain and make everything better but cultivating creativity can be an excellent way to find your tribe. Being incarcerated I have been overwhelmed at the thought of lost opportunity, but the reality is I am surrounded by teachers with a lot of time to teach. Just like my mom telling me I was an artist, so I thought I was, I believe this is the kind of encouragement that is imperative to success. I refuse to sleepwalk through prison and I still have the power to decide the changes I make in myself, and I will do it with passion.