Women’s prison inmates use art to fight for systemic changes

Chantell-Jeannette Black laments that, as an inmate, she is “100 percent exposed, under constant surveillance” and has no sense of privacy.

Tomiekia Johnson insists she’s imprisoned for an accidental homicide that wasn’t a crime and has been character assassinated. “I didn’t have a fighting chance in court,” she said.

Interviewed by phone, Black and Johnson are artists who use their creations as springboards for activism and co-curators of the exhibit “The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison Through Art and Poetry.” The display, which spotlights six artists and three poets, all serving time or recently paroled, will be on view immediately before and after Flyaway Productions’ apparatus-based dance performance “If I Give You My Sorrows” at Project Artaud in San Francisco from Oct. 6-15.

In addition, the collection, which can be viewed on the Museum of the African Diaspora’s website through March 3, 2024, is the subject of a panel discussion at the museum on Oct. 4.

Art in the exhibit was prompted by the question “how is your bed an antidote?” and based on the notion that beds are the only peaceful place about 2,200 inmates at the Central California Women’s Facility at Chowchilla (one of the world’s largest women’s prisons) can find —spots where they “can create the illusion of privacy,” according to the curators’ written statement.

“I Dream,” Black’s acrylic and sand (from the prison yard) painting, reflects missed time with her “precious daughter and family” and features a night sky that is hopeful, she says, “because no matter the distance between us, my daughter and I look up at the same stars every night.”

A strong believer in restorative justice, Black, 38, thinks it is possible, especially for some inmates whose parents sold them for sex or gave them drugs at a very young age.

Meanwhile, Johnson, 44, uses “wordart,” her term, for some of her writing because, she says, it “may not be poetry but may be poetic prose; not fitting in a traditional style, but out of the box.” She focuses on “racism, slavery, false imprisonment, religion, sports, trauma and restorative justice” in her messages.

Johnson, who says working on the exhibit made her feel “valued by people on the outside that I never felt valued before,” is dismayed that the pandemic halted visits from her family.

Anger permeates her poem “Hitting the Bar Ceiling: The Only Door I Can’t Open,” from which the exhibit’s title was taken. It stridently charges, without apparent validation, that “female inmates are getting pregnant, inmates are burying their unwanted fetuses in the ground, diseases are spreading.”

The exhibit, which was established in connection with Empowerment Avenue, a nonprofit formed in San Quentin aiming to “normalize the inclusion of incarcerated writers and artists in mainstream venues,” features artwork for sale ($50 to $250) by Black, Vegas Bray, Elizabeth Lozano, Sarah Montoya, Anna Ruiz and Crystal St. Mary.

Featured poets, in addition to Johnson, are Sydney Whalen and Lovelyocean Williams.

Black, who is Caucasian and has been confined for four years after being sentenced to 91-years-to-life, looks at the juxtaposition of dance with the exhibit “as hamburger and fries. It’s a match made in heaven, two different kinds of art…sort of cake with icing on it.”

Noting that CCWF prison cells house eight people even though they were designed for four, Black supports Empowerment Avenue’s mission to connect “people who were incarcerated with people in the free world, which is what we call the world outside prison, to help humanize us.”

Johnson, who is Black, has become a self-styled “jailhouse lawyer,” she says, not only dealing with her own appeal but helping other inmates legally. Regarding her situation, she says, “I got railroaded,” adding, “I’m a pawn for the system. My case was to further the district attorney’s career.”

She contends the system is rigged against people in the lower socio-economic category, saying, “The prosecution has every resource at their disposal when others have a public defender with very limited resources and too many caseloads. It’s not a fair game.”

Johnson, whose words are part of the musical score for the Flyaway Productions’ performance, has served 12½ years of a 50-years-to-life sentence and has a plea for commutation (accompanied by an online petition with 22,300 supportive signatures) on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Meanwhile, Whalen, a poet, says her style is greatly influenced by her experience as a homeless youth in Hawaii and the culture shock when she left. Another poet, Williams, who identifies as “non-binary trans man,” emphasizes that “although we are incarcerated, we do have hopes and dreams.”

Lozano, who’s been locked up 28 years, says she tries through her artwork to “bring awareness to my status as a 16-year-old that was sentenced to die in prison. I hope to bring more awareness to the long history of mass incarceration, the despair in marginalization.”

Montoya says, “The longer I spend here, the more I feel that I’ve become one with the brick and bars that hold me captive.”

And Bray writes of her art: “Although I may be physically imprisoned, my mind and soul are free to evolve, learn, grow and exist outside of these walls.”

Ruiz ponders her art in connection with dreams “of the day that we can run to our families, who are waiting for us outside.”

St. Mary is an outlier. For her, bed represents “a symptom of being depressed…a dangerous river with a vicious undercurrent that constantly threatens to drag me under.”

In contrast, in her artist’s statement, Johnson claims that “Art is power. Art is self-defense.”

Flyaway Productions’ “If I Give You My Sorrows” performances are Oct.6-Oct. 15 at Space 24 at Project Artaud, 401 Alabama St., San Francisco. For tickets, $25-$35 and free for systems-impacted people, visit flyawayproductions.com/upcoming.

To register for the panel discussion “Curating from the Inside: Women Exposing Prison through Art and Poetry” at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 4 at the Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St., S.F., visit moadsf.org.