'Art inside is healing': 'Between the Lines' aims to humanize the incarcerated through artwork

Sep. 22—Toilet paper, tissue and cigarette wrappers.

Prison inmates use the items most of us toss to create art.

Open at the Museum of International Folk Art, "Between the Lines" aims to humanize the incarcerated through a blend of 200 pieces of artwork, multimedia pieces and community events. The exhibit will hang through Sept. 2, 2025.

Rooted in the resilience, ingenuity and creativity of the artists, the exhibit highlights how the arts can serve as a catalyst for healing, rehabilitation and change.

It all started in 2017 at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Co-curator Patricia Sigala was teaching an art workshop.

"We decided to build that relationship and I knew we had a small prison art collection," she said.

The show consists of works from the museum's collection, as well as pieces from the Penitentiary of New Mexico Inmate Craftsmanship and Trades Fair, local artists, teachers and prisoner's rights organization.

"Prison art is made of whatever is at hand," said co-curator Chloe Accardi.

In making painted handkerchiefs or "paños," inmates often strip bedsheets and pillowcases and draw on them with a pen without the shell.

"There's a whole creative economy," Accardi said. "Friends would save cigarette packs or trade for gum wrappings."

Some create toilet papier-mâché, like China's Zhao Auzia.

Auzia traveled on the ship Golden Venture, which ran aground in New York in 1993. He and his fellow immigrants were detained at the York County Prison in Pennsylvania for nearly four years. They created folded-paper sculptures as gifts for their pro bono lawyers. Auzia chose the eagle as a symbol of freedom and the hope for a prosperous life in the United States.

In 1978, an unnamed artist from Santiago, Chile, created an arpillera (fabric collage) with the quote "Everywhere every man has the right to be recognized as a human being before the law" in Spanish, a reference to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Sammy Vigil created a bracelet from Camel cigarette papers, plastic and string at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. In 1991, Herman Sena made a piano jewelry box with elaborate carving from matchsticks, velvet, paint, glue and varnish, also at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. A woman crafted roses from tissue paper to sell or trade. Carlos Cervantes created picture frames from folded paper.

"The artists creating these works learn from each other as a means of survival," Sigala said.

The impetus for their creativity may spring from boredom, healing, personal expression or resistance.

"I knew someone in a halfway house that learned to weave rosaries in the Santa Fe jail," Sigala said.

"Art inside is healing," she added. "It gives them agency over their lives. But a lot of art is done in their cells and undercover; they may be using something they shouldn't be.

"It passes time," Accardi continued. "It's something to focus on. A lot of these pieces take weeks."