Transforming Women's Lives Through Art in Prison

What if women in prison could tap into their past and change their future? What if art could turn pain into beauty?

Create: New Beginnings® is a series of restorative art workshops designed for women in prison, jails, and reentry facilities. Rooted in scripture and the core values of the Prison Fellowship Academy®, this program empowers women to acknowledge critical emotions and develop self-awareness through the lens of artistic expression. Through individual and collaborative artwork, participants experience a sense of community, restoration, and purpose as they work in harmony alongside volunteers and prison staff.

Create: New Beginnings includes 10 hands-on workshops that create a peaceful atmosphere through melodic music and art activities, allowing a safe space for women to open up and know they are not alone. Women are reassured and challenged by the scriptures and discussion woven throughout each workshop.

Today, Create: New Beginnings is active in eight states and growing. More than 800 women living in prison have participated in the restorative art workshops.

Learn More

In-Prison Workshops

Women living in prison often feel isolated and alone. In general, they have much less communication with one another and fewer visitations with their families and spouses than men living in prison. We quickly began to realize that Create: New Beginnings would provide the safe space they need to discuss topics that are often taboo in prison culture, such as sources of shame and self-doubt. Create: New Beginnings also emphasizes the importance of healthy relationships and creates an environment where women can be open and vulnerable with one another.

LEARN MORE VOLUNTEER

Inside/Outside Masks: Vulnerability

By identifying the difference between what we show people on the outside versus how we feel on the inside, participants will create inside-outside masks while exploring the topic of vulnerability.

Stress Painting: Forgiveness

Participants write a letter to someone they need to forgive or receive forgiveness from and turn it into a painting, whereby they are encouraged to let go of bitterness and begin the journey of forgiveness.

Collaborative Hand Art: Reconciliation

While thinking critically about a specific relationship, participants trace their hands and use colored pencils to create a representation of where they are in the process of reconciliation.

House of Emotions: Emotions

Participants reflect on their current emotional state, identifying both positive and negative emotions to create a ‘house of emotions’ using colored pencil.

Your Story: Empathy

Through group sharing, participants will practice communicating openly and deeply while giving positive feedback that emphasizes compassion, patience, and appreciation for one another, ultimately using acrylic paint to create a storyboard of an experience that someone shared amongst the group.

My Profile: Shame

Through the creation of self-portraits, participants will explore and share their own experiences with shame and its causes.

Doodles: Self-Doubt

By identifying areas of personal self-doubt participants will learn to silence their inner critic, allowing them to be as creative as they were designed to be by God.

My Roots: Pride

Participants will explore healthy and unhealthy pride, and the difference between pride vs. humility, ultimately using painting techniques to create a tree of their own life in order to let go of unhealthy pride.

Still Life Flower: Accountability

Participants will work through a specific time their own actions have hurt someone while exploring the topic of accountability and the importance of being personally accountable, ultimately creating an ‘accountability flower’ still-life using watercolor and acrylic paints.

Walking Through the Valley: Courage

By exposing their fears and reflecting on an experience where they have faced fear, participants will create a mountain peak and valley scene with watercolor to represent their personal journey.

Virtual Workshops

Create: New Beginnings^® workshops guide incarcerated women to recognize, name, and move through their emotions—even the most difficult ones—using art. And prisoners aren’t the only ones who benefit from this approach. Take few minutes to reflect on Scripture, and try these calming art exercises based on Create: New Beginnings in-prison workshops. Use the button below to register for the next live workshop!

"I have never discussed my abuse much before, but I realize through this art that I have been in this dark place all these years. Doing this art project has helped me to see that I can be in a better place, a brighter place, and that’s what I want to work towards."

- Program Participant, Minnesota

"I recognized that I hold on to a lot of unforgiveness. It was kind of hard, and kind of scary to look at that, but I see that is necessary if I want to be better"

- Program Participant, California