A prisoner-made quilt,
auctioned off to benefit
the Central Missouri
Honor Flight organiza-
tion, went for $500
to Eugene Gruender,
a World War II veteran,
and Willa Smith, of
Sturgeon,
m o .
consecutive life sentences plus 15 years for second-degree mur-
der, armed criminal action and attempted robbery. In Kansas City,
m o ,
he was a gang leader and drug dealer. In the quilting room
he is the office clerk and administrative assistant. As I sat down
and took out my notebook—recorders and cameras are strictly
prohibited—I scanned the room: towers of cotton fabric and re-
cycled denim jeans lined its perimeter. Tw o large tables display-
ing a quilt in mid-construction occupied its center. Next to me,
I watched Starr lean over a yellow tackle box, unlock it and remove
a pair of small office scissors and a rotary cutting blade. Years be-
fore, he was the last person anyone would want manning a box full
of sharp objects. Today, after five years on the job, Starr is the
most trusted man in the quilting room.
“You come in the door with a criminal mind-set and you have
to separate yourself from that,” Starr said. “It’s a personal trans-
formation.” But he admits how tantalizing that tackle box full of
scissors is, and everyday he must shake off his criminal instinct all
over again. “It’s like being a recovering addict,” Starr said. “To
someone like me it’s more than a tackle box. It’s temptation.”
In a corner, Christopher Maldonado, 41, serving 22 years for
assault of a police officer, armed criminal action and endangering
the welfare of a child, used an X-Acto knife to cut a stencil. “I’m
using a dangerous weapon; they let me do that here,” he quipped.
Before prison there was culinary arts college in Providence,
RI,
and a successful career managing restaurants. Then came crack
cocaine. Today, Maldonado spends his days cutting fabric for the
quilts designed and made
b y
the prisoners at
JCCC.
Sitting at another table, Gerald Toahty, 47, serving life with the
possibility of parole for second-degree murder, smoothed out the
wrinkles on a finished quilt before folding it up and placing it care-
fully alongside a pile of others bound for charities like Backpacks
of Love, Boys and Girls Town, and Honor Flight—a nonprofit that
flies World War II veterans to their Washington,
DC,
memorial.
The quilts, constructed with donated fabric, average four by five
feet. They are simple and spare, a look true to the circumstances:
these men are self-taught. On one, a floral border frames two large
butterfly silhouettes; on another two teddy bears, a bunny and
a puppy pile into a yellow rowboat amid curling blue waves and
a starry sky. Bordering them are squares of light-blue plaid and
recycled denim. On a third, a traditional Fool’s Square block pat-
tern is punctuated with bits of red yarn. Sometimes they try new
techniques or a few scraps of brown corduroy—their masculine
touch. But the fact is these men have few privileges, and that ex-
tends to their creativity. Their job is to make quilts for foster
children and the elderly, not to practice their Log Cabin technique.
Giving back is expression enough, they say.
Toahty, who has a degree in business administration from Kansas
University, is the only experienced seamster of the bunch. He is
Native American, and with the skills passed down from his mother
and grandmother back in Oklahoma, Toahty is responsible for
sewing the fabric blocks together and closing quilts up once the
batting and yarning are done. “I can hand-sew my butt off,” he add-
ed, proudly.
Down the hall, Travis Canon, 31, serving life without possibility
of parole for robbery and first-degree murder, paints a picture of
the Missouri State Penitentiary—the former prison that held jc c c
inmates—onto a piece of fabric cut from a prison uniform. The
painting will eventually be sewn into a tribute quilt for the prison,
which opened in 1836. Larger specialty quilts are often made for
charity auctions and worthy causes. On one sewn last year, blocks
constructed with army uniforms donated by
JCCC
staff surrounded
a painting of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. This partnership, unheard
of in most prisons, fostered an unprecedented relationship be-
tween staff and inmates. “Their attitude changed completely,” one
correctional officer intetjected during an interview with inmates.
“It was inspiration to them to have that fabric.”
Also unusual is the camaraderie among the prisoners. Maldonado
and Canon are white, Starr is black and Toahty is full-blooded
Comanche. In prison culture their collaboration and friendship is>
The quilts are simple and spare,
a look true to the circumstances:
these men are self-taught.
june/julyio american craft 059
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