Jesse Krimes’ new quilt imagines hope and possibility for incarcerated artists
'Riverside' is the artist's first collaboration with graduates of the Mural Arts Restorative Justice reentry program. The design will also become a large-scale mural in Spring Garden.
Artist Jesse Krimes vividly remembers watching his great-grandmother quilt when he was a kid in Lancaster. It was like entering a magical world unspooling within his family home: He describes seeing her amid a sea of colored threads, sewing and knitting beautiful creations for her loved ones by hand.
The comfort of that experience brought him back to the practice decades later, in 2020, when he was establishing himself as an emerging artist. He was released from prison in 2013, after spending almost six years in incarceration on charges of possession of drugs with intent to distribute.
While incarcerated, he had already created and smuggled out visual masterpieces, one of which was later purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His efforts made headlines and landed him in major exhibits in Paris and New York — but that didn’t distance him from the carceral system, it only made him dig in deeper.
Krimes was looking for ways to depict the overwhelming scale of mass incarceration in the U.S. that went beyond individual portraits, and quilting seemed like an opportunity.
“I started thinking about what it would look like to collaborate with people inside, and what materials would be best to do that. So over time, it became important to think about using quilts, because they have all the connotations of home and comfort — and the whole collaborative historical precedent of how quilts are made,” said Krimes, who lives in Pipersville.
“I wanted to capture their unique identity and presence, but also create spaces that show the viewer that people in prison are the same as people outside. Everyone has a home, everyone has a favorite chair, a favorite space, and it felt important to kind of showcase their presence.”
His ongoing series, Elegy Quilts, threads together fragments of fabric, clothing, and upholstery from currently and formerly incarcerated people across the country to create images of safe, domestic spaces that evoke a central person who is missing from home.
» READ MORE: Jesse Krimes walks us through the many hidden details in his "Rikers Quilt"
Each one “needs to have an absence where you can kind of feel that someone should be there,” he said.
A selection of Krimes’ quilts will be on display at Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop and Museum for an exhibit running May through Nov. 1. The show also debuts a new quilt that he made in collaboration with eight graduates of the Mural Arts Restorative Justice reentry program, in which he himself participated when he was first released from prison.
He found the experience so transformational and supportive for launching his career that he’s always wanted to give back.
Though he’s had two Elegy Quilts previously on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this new exhibit features works that have not yet been shown in the city.
The new quilt, Riverside, combines a series of individual quilts that each of the graduates made working with Krimes last year. The artwork marks his first time creating a quilt collaboratively with a group of artists. It will also become a large-scale mural in Spring Garden, scheduled to be unveiled at Triple Bottom Brewing on June 3.
“These are mostly like young adults and, in many instances, it’s kind of their first foray into the criminal legal system in different capacities…they’re young people who have their entire lives ahead of them,” said Krimes, who now runs the Brooklyn based Center for Art & Advocacy, which supports formerly incarcerated artists. “How do I create a project that encourages these young people to think about their future, the core parts of their identity, who they want to be? To have these conversations that are aspirational and forward-looking, rather than backward.”
To create the quilts, Krimes asks people to describe where they felt the most comfortable and safe at home — what’s the color, setting, and texture of that room? Instead of picturing faces, the quilts feature an animal who represents the person missing from that scene; selecting the animal is usually the most fun part of the process.
“So many people are like, ‘I’m a lion,’ ‘I’m an eagle,’ very common tropes, so I try to encourage them to really think about, like, ‘Who are you as a person? What are your core characteristics? What are the things that really capture the essence of who you are?’” he said.
He’s always wanted to have a permanent mural in Philadelphia, where he lived and worked for about 10 years. Krimes had previously worked on a Mural Arts project with artists who were formerly incarcerated at Graterford Prison; the mural went up on a halfway house in the city, but was eventually removed.
In Riverside, the central animal is an owl, perched on a bathtub across from a blossoming flower tree. It’s still reflective of incarceration, but also cultivates a sense of hope and possibility.
“I wanted to have more color and growth blooming…to create something that’s permanent and lasting [that] hopefully serves as a symbol of hope, and resilience and dignity,” said Krimes.
‘Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts’ runs May 1 through Nov. 1 at The Fabric Workshop and Museum, 1214 Arch St., Philadelphia, 215-561-8888 or fabricworkshopandmuseum.org.
