Exhibition Statement
Oklahoma has the highest rate of female incarceration in the United States. While this statistic is well known, it doesn’t reveal the individuality and experiences of the women who inhabit the state’s prisons. Poetic Justice seeks to rectify this by emphasizing the voices of incarcerated women through restorative and transformative workshops in writing, drama, and art. In the summer of 2019, teaching artists with Poetic Justice spent eight weeks working with the women of the Mabel Bassett Correctional Facility in McLoud, OK. Through this process, the student artists worked with a variety of materials and techniques to develop their own art practice. Many of them found the process deeply therapeutic and used their newfound access to instruction and materials to explore their experiences of incarceration and trauma—the creative outlet helped them express their humanity. In the words of artist Laura Amelia (Amy) Watkins-Hannon, “by showing our work to the public, the women of Poetic Justice are telling the world that they believe we are worth more than the color we wear…this has made me feel like a person and not
just a number.”
