CAÑON CITY — Five tightly gridded wire cages are bolted to the floor in a semi-circle in the gym, and the inmates are brought in one at a time and placed in a cell.
This is a classroom at Supermax, the maximum-security prison at the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, about 35 miles west of Pueblo.
This is where volunteer Joanne Suther facilitated an art class where five men designed and created a project together.
Working with black tissue paper, magazine headlines and photos from the James Webb Space Telescope that Suther could pass through a small slot in their cells, the five men completed an uplifting collage called “A Free Universe.” Pieces of the work were slipped back through the slots to Suther, who assembled them at the direction of the men.
The inmates’ collective statement reads: “5 men in cages. Escape in a moment. And created together.”
“I always look at the art as being redemptive in their lives,” Suther said of her work with inmates. “I separate the criminal from the artist — I don’t know who they are, and I’m not trying to figure it out or look them up.”
The collage is now hanging in the Fremont Center for the Arts in Cañon City, along with more than 500 pieces of art created by about 50 Supermax inmates who have participated in Creative Arts Platform classes.
It’s the eighth year the art center has hosted the show, this year titled “Art in Isolation: Creating Space,” in a unique partnership with the CAP program at the prison. The show runs through Aug. 29.
“This is by far our biggest show of the year,” FCA Director Bobby Farris said of the annual prison art show. “It is the most attended and usually has the most sales. People from all around come to see the show.”
In the seven previous shows, the FCA has sold more than $80,000 worth of inmate art, with half of the money going to the FCA and half going to the artist. The artists’ shares are administered by the prison and generally are used for payments to their restitution accounts, art supplies and commissary items.
Any artwork that does not sell is returned to the inmate, who must mail it to family or friends at their own expense within 90 days or it is destroyed.
The show’s popularity was evident again this year as about 300 people attended the Aug. 1 opening and red stickers indicating a piece had been sold began to appear on works.
“I think first and foremost it’s just the curiosity that brings people in,” Farris said. “Kind of like that mystique — oh this is Supermax — that people are curious about.
“A lot of people connect to the art — they see something in it, and they’re amazed and stunned at the talent and the creativity.”
Prison art
Prison art programs have been around for decades and began to be formalized in the latter half of the 20th century, particularly in juvenile facilities and lower security state correctional facilities.
Inmates involved in art programs are less impulsive and have fewer incident reports and reduced recidivism, according to research cited in a paper about the newly-created Florida State University’s Institute for Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned.
It has helped inmates with substance abuse issues, brain injuries and anger management. And, many involved with such programs would argue, it provides a creative outlet and sense of humanity.
The 2018 First Step Act was enacted to help reform the federal criminal justice system, with a focus on rehabilitation and reducing excessive sentences and the rates of recidivism.
The Creative Arts Platform at Supermax had already started, and the First Step Act has provided impetus to keep it going and potentially expand it to other federal facilities.
“We are healing through creation of art, and we don’t limit what’s created,” Justin Reddick, a long-time artist and staff chaplain at USP Florence ADMAX (Supermax’s formal name), said during a public presentation Aug. 2 at Fremont Center for the Arts.
Reddick, who holds a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Colorado State University Pueblo, began working in the commissary at FCC Florence in 2012, and noticed the inmates’ artwork when he delivered products.
“Projects like pastel and watercolor drawings and hobby craft yarn work, all things they had to send home, per policy once completed through the recreation department,” he said in response to written questions. “It was only after we started CAP that they were able to sell and show the art to the public.”
Reddick transferred to a job as assistant to the prison chaplains and started developing the CAP program in 2016.
That is about the same time he entered the Master of Divinity-Chaplaincy Concentration program at Denver Seminary, receiving his degree in 2021. He was ordained through Catalyst Church in Cañon City, where he sometimes speed paints during worship.
When he was in his 20s, he discovered the healing benefits of art for himself and wanted to try a program for inmates, he said during the talk.
CAP became his passion project.
The program starts with classes on art history with the exploration of the style and techniques of famous artists. Then they work to discover what type of art they want to do, and finally they learn the business side of art — such as how to create a portfolio, how galleries and art shows work and how to market their work.
The first FCA show was in July 2018. There were only six people in the program, and they hadn’t produced enough art for a show so it was a hybrid affair — some inmate art and some by the instructors, Reddick and Pueblo artist Matte Refic (also known as Mat Taylor). And then it grew rapidly.
But this isn’t like most art shows.
“It takes radical openness for a show like this to happen,” he said of the FCA exhibit. “We try to create a space for that radical openness to happen.”
Some of the art is produced in class in the gym cells, and other pieces are done by inmates in their individual cells, where they are locked down 23 hours a day. Those 7- by-12-foot cells isolate the inmate — they can’t see or hear anyone else.
To bring that point home, this year’s show emphasized “creating space.” For example, one placard labeled Creating Landscape Space read: “For individuals whose daily existence is marked by limited views and restricted movement, the act of creating or engaging with landscape art offers a powerful means of escape and expansion.”
Others choose the liberation of abstract art or reconstructing their world through collages.
Any art that inmates wish to show publicly is inspected by intelligence officers to ensure there are no hidden messages or gang signs. About 98% of the artwork examined is permitted in the shows.
The partnerships
The art is then delivered to the Fremont Center for the Arts, where staff and volunteers slip the works into plastic sleeves, artists’ names are obscured, and the exhibit is hung on moveable walls that are stashed in a side room to get final approval from prison officials on a walk-through the day before the show opens.
The Fremont Center for the Arts moved to a new home on Main Street this year with more exhibit space and better lighting, and Farris said she thought the “figure-it-out-year” went well.
Reddick also has worked with the Museum of Colorado Prisons, a nonprofit museum adjacent to the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City.
In 2019, Refic worked with 12 federal inmates from lower security units in Florence to paint a mural in the basement of the museum.
“It was a big deal because they were allowed to come and paint this on site,” museum director Stacey Cline said. “We weren’t allowed to talk to the inmates at all. It’s their depiction of what the process of prison meant to them.”
The mural shows men in chains and then the chains being broken and their reunification with family and the world.
Refic, who has logged more than 1,000 hours as a volunteer teacher at FCC Florence, also has collaborated with Supermax inmates on murals in the prison — they designed them and he painted them.
“It is interesting that we can make collaborative projects with all the restrictions,” he said. “You’re in the most oppressed place in the United States, and you have to figure out how do you build community?”
Suther, too, found the restrictions daunting — but the completion of the collage collaboration was rewarding.
“It’s a very interesting way to teach with art materials,” said Suther, who has taught art for 50 years in public schools, junior college and at places like zoos. “It’s so restrictive in so many ways.
“But if I can create space with another person, that stays with me. I hope it stays with them.”
Like most artists, they crave feedback. They can’t attend the show, and usually have no idea who might have purchased their art.
This year, the FCA asked people attending the opening to write any comments they might have about particular pieces on slips of paper. The messages will be conveyed to the artists.
The show is often attended by friends and relatives of the artists, who might plan a visitation trip to coincide with the opening.
That happened in 2024, when members of Terry Nichols’ family came to the opening. Nichols has had art in several shows and word had slipped out about it, creating a dilemma for some.
The darker side
Supermax houses some of the most notorious federal prisoners in the system, including Nichols, a co-conspirator in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was sentenced in June 1998 directly to Supermax.
Most inmates who end up there are not notorious. About 95% of the population are sent from other federal facilities for repeated prison violence or escape attempts, according to a display at the prison museum. Most inmates are unknown to the general public.
After the first couple of FCA shows, they began covering the artists’ names for security reasons. If someone buys the art and it has been signed or if the signature is legible, they’ll see the name when they take it home.
Cline said she purchased four pieces of Nichols art in the past but then heard that people were trying to bring notoriety to his art online.
She said she will not display or sell the art through the museum gift shop, which carries inmate art purchased at the show. The museum also offers prints of some art works and carries a few other inmate-made objects, such as knit baby caps and blankets. The proceeds help fund the museum.
Nichols, who has several landscape paintings on display at the FCA show, grabbed a bit of attention earlier this year when the Oklahoman newspaper reported on court filings he had made seeking to get a greater cut from the sale of his art so he has more money for art supplies and Raisin Bran from the prison commissary. Nichols also suggested that sales of inmate art should not be capped at $300, according to federal court documents.
The documents show that as of August 2024, Nichols has paid $9,046 toward his $14.5 million restitution.
Nichols wrote in his motion that he expects to make $1,254 over next 12 months, and wanted restitution limited to 15% so he could spend $288 on art supplies, $265 on Raisin Bran, $240 on personal items; $120 on postage, email and legal copies, and $156 on alternatives to refined grains. That would leave about $188 for restitution.
Previously, a payment of $499 was taken under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, which Nichols says in his motion uses an arbitrary formula.
Because Supermax inmates generally have no work opportunities and must rely on family for support, Nichols argues that his painting income is essential, especially since his parents have both died.
“If there are no funds to buy art supplies there are no paintings to sell, thus no funds for restitution,” he wrote. “Also, if Mr. Nichols is suffering from daily chronic pain, etc., for lack of insoluble fiber in his daily diet there are no paintings to sell and again no funds for restitution.”
The government has opposed his motion; no ruling has been made.
David Gussak, a professor at Florida State University who will lead the Institute for Arts and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned, said the subject of how individuals react to prison art needs to be tackled.
“We as a society have a fascination for this type of work,” he said. “It’s a virtual rubber necking.”
Gussak, an art therapist who has worked in various prison settings and authored several books on the topic, met with inmates in the Supermax art program in 2018 and recounted that visit in the introduction to his book, “Art and Art Therapy with the Imprisoned: Re-Creating Identity.”
“The work that Justin Reddick does is terrific,” he said in an interview. “I went there (Supermax) because I needed their words — they captured the spirit of what creating art inside meant to them.
“That program (CAP) allows people to purchase the work, to validate their work — that is not done elsewhere.”
But he also has researched the world of murderabilia and the art of some of the most heinous serial killers. In some cases, he writes in “The Frenzied Dance of Art and Violence,” art was used to “perpetuate their wantonly destructive patterns.”
More often, though, prison art is therapeutic and provides a way for the public to see the humanity within the walls. In the case of Fremont Center for the Arts show, it also helps support the local art center, contributes to restitution and helps many inmates grow and prepare for a future outside the prison walls.
“We must balance the humanness to them and the exploitation that we find ourselves falling into,” Gussak said “Do I think we should champion the work of someone like Terry Nichols? No, I don’t think so.
“Would his work be recognized if not for his name — I don’t know.”
But, he said, it’s important to remember that there still is a market for art created by the most people who have done the most inhumane things, including Adolf Hitler.
“We are never going to get away from that,” he said, but an art show such as that at the FCA that doesn’t champion the criminal can have benefits to inmates and others.
“We don’t put that artwork out there to celebrate crime,” he said. “Restitution (money) comes from that — so that’s a benefit. If someone can benefit or the arts program can benefit, then we can champion all the other work that’s in there.”