Installation Shots from ‘Portraits and Pixels’

When friends call and ask if you’d like to mount a show in a brewery, there’s only one answer.

University Beyond Bars was putting on a prison art fundraiser at Machine House Brewery in Georgetown, Seattle. I was invited to curate some prison photography. I selected five photographers from Washington State that have made work in Washington State prisons and juvenile detention centers.

The only issue with the space was that IT IS A BREWERY. A beer-making space is set up for a different type of cultures.

The UBB students’ prison art (paintings and illustrations) went up front of house. The space for the photographs was the warehouse. Upon arrival on Friday afternoon, the ground floor and mezzanine boasted fork lift truck, pallets of malt and barley, industrial fridges, old lockers, busted furniture, spare fixtures, lamps, chairs, bikes and other inconvenient objects.

So I went to work. And I loved it. Painting and drilling is a nice tonic to desk-laptopping.

This is pretty much what the space looked like when we finished. (Note the clear floorspace.) When I say we, I mean me and some amazing peeps who swept, nailed, primed, sweat and hung prints and frames. Big thanks to Bill the Brewer, UBB‘s very own Stacey Reeh, and Joe.

Uber-thanks to Bettina Hansen who went without a shower and worked right through until the doors opened on Saturday night to get everything spiffy.

Here’s Cheryl Hanna-Truscott’s work Protective Custody.

These are the first two prints of 16 in Cheryl’s series.

Three of the five photographers’ work was mounted straight onto boards that doubled as screens to hide all the junk alongside the walk-in refrigerator.

That beard on the right is Matt Mills McKnight.

Bettina sporting the DIY-casual fashions, next to the photographs she made for the Seattle Times of The Freehold Theater’s Engaged Theater Program at MSU, Monroe, Washington.

Steve Davis peeking into the walk-in.

Erika Schultz and Tim Matsui.

More of Cheryl‘s.

Intern Sam, Kat and I.

Images 9-16 of Cheryl’s work.

I even painted the bathroom door.

Signs were made. Bottom steps were marked.

On Thursday, Steve Davis had given me some work prints to look over for a future project we are planning. They images were made by boys at Maple Lane juvenile detention center and have never been published. Strong, haunting and expressive. I decided to tack them up on a single wall in the old, emptied-out machine-house office.

Looking in to the office from the gantry at the top of the stairs.

UBB co-founder, Gary Idleburg, speaks to a video crew making a piece about perceptions of prisoners and the importance of art as communication.

One large print from Remann Hall (left) and work prints made by boys incarcerated at Maple Lane, Centralia, WA in the early 2000s.

On the mezzanine level, six portraits from 1998 by Steve Davis.

Large prints of pinhole photographs made by the girls of Remann Hall, Tacoma, WA.

A frame …

… for a frame.

The fluorescent lights were actually pretty good for showing off the work.

Portraits & Pixels: Photography in Washington State Prisons remains open for three more weekends. Until August 10th. The brewery is only open Friday 3-7pm, and Saturday and Sundays 12-7pm.