Art gallery inside of a shipping container highlights the need for women's prison reform

It's hard to imagine finding hope inside a steel cargo container. But Shirlye Grandy sees life and beauty in the metal box at Dix Park in Raleigh.

Grandy spent nearly six years at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women. Now, she is the public arts project coordinator for Arise Collective. This Raleigh nonprofit helps incarcerated women across the state.

Stitching Stories of Hope

Grandy told the N.C. Joint Reentry Council that her life changed in 2019. She joined a group of women at NCCIW who crocheted items. These items were sold to help parents bring their children to visit incarcerated loved ones.

Then, COVID-19 hit. Prison visits and classes stopped. Over 100 prisoners in Grandy's unit got the virus in one week.

"But what that did was it brought us together as sisters in incarceration," Grandy said. "It showed that we are determined, we have life, and we are not giving up."

The women formed H.A.T.S. — Handmade and Totally Special. Each week, they crocheted. Each colorful section of their quilt represented a year a woman served in prison.

Grandy crocheted six squares for her own sentence. "My friend Faye Brown, who passed away from COVID, had 40," Grandy shared.

The 25-foot-long prison quilt was finished before Mother's Day 2021. Other incarcerated women tied ribbons to the squares. These ribbons honored children left behind and family and friends lost while they were in prison.

The U.S. saw a 525% increase in incarcerated women between 1980 and 2021. This is about twice the rate for men, according to The Sentencing Project. Eighty percent of incarcerated women are mothers. Grandy lost her own mother while she was in prison.

Art for Awareness

Jennifer Jackson, CEO of Arise Collective, saw an opportunity. Two years later, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Mellon Foundation offered a grant. It was for public art that tells the stories of marginalized communities.

"There’s a community of people who have been touched by incarceration across our state that has been hidden," Jackson said. "We made a pitch that they consider this a community."

The foundations chose Arise and the Stitching Stories Quilt. They wanted it reimagined for the public.

Four artists — Carlos González García, David Wilson, Eliza Redmann, and Owens Daniels — spent three years on the project. They turned the crocheted quilt into a durable mosaic. It captures the lives of these often-forgotten women. On the opposite wall of the shipping container, a mirrored wall shows the original artists with the phrase, "We are you."

The art will be at Dix Park until September. Then, it will move to Wilmington.

This project also teaches the public about mass incarceration. It highlights the challenges people face after leaving prison.

Supporting Reentry

More than 18,000 people are released from North Carolina state prisons each year. Without support, 49% are rearrested within two years.

North Carolina is part of a national effort to lower the rearrest rate by 30% by 2030. The goal is to improve reentry services. These services help people find jobs, healthcare, and housing. Formerly incarcerated people are up to 10 times more likely to be homeless.

Grandy credits Arise Collective for helping her transition to a better life. This summer, she is giving tours of the Stitching Stories exhibit.

She told people at the All Faiths Chapel at Dix that she was proud of what her quilting sisters achieved. "In a space that could have been the most dangerous and disastrous and dark place, we created light and beauty," Grandy said.

Grandy will finish her master's program at Duke Divinity School later this year. She believes others who have served their time also deserve a second chance.

"None of that would be possible without good transition programs," Grandy noted. These programs offer places "where women like me who want to do something different with their life after incarceration have a place to go and grow and learn how to be a person again."