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 prisons, 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 10 simple art workshops, participants look to the past for understanding—and look forward to a new beginning.
Led by two to three volunteers, each two-hour workshop guides up to 30 participants through a biblically based group discussion, using art as a tool to explore topics like vulnerability, shame, emotions, pride, empathy, and forgiveness.
Since 2019, Create: New Beginnings has engaged 140 volunteers and Prison Fellowship staff to serve more than 2,400 women. Currently active in 20 states from Alaska to Florida, the program has 50 active workshops reaching more than 800 women each week. We have also partnered with the Salvation Army and are active in 10 of their Adult Rehabilitation Centers.
Most recently, Prison Fellowship partnered with Tyndale House Publishing to make Create: New Beginnings available to women outside of prison. The book is now available for purchase. Learn more about it here.
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.
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.
"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
READ MORE ABOUT CREATE: NEW BEGINNINGS
Create: New Beginnings is giving prisoners—and Prison Fellowship staff—a chance to experience God’s provision.
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Create: New Beginnings, Prison Fellowship's unique restorative art program for incarcerated women, celebrates a graduation in Oklahoma.
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The Create: New Beginnings workshop brings restoration behind bars through the healing power of art and community.
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