Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, and Report for America
A quilt stitched by incarcerated Vermonters and Brattleboro community members will go on display this September after nearly a year of collaborative work designed to build connections across prison walls.
From September 2025 to April 2026, seven incarcerated quilters participated in a workshop led by Marie-Pierre Py, a restorative justice practitioner with Interaction: Youth Services & Restorative Justice. The workshop encouraged participants to design and piece together a quilt that incorporates personal experiences and stories.
The colorful quilt, 7 feet, 5 inches by 8 feet, 6 inches, features cyanotypes of flowers and leaves that weave through each individual quilter’s block. Its border is made up of the score for “Quilted Forest,” a piece of music composed by Alli Cooper-Ellis, a University of Vermont student who helped conduct research on life in the prison.
Incarcerated people who participated in the project weren’t made available for interviews. But one quilter’s artist statement said he chose symbols that illustrate his experience behind bars.
“From the very beginning, I knew I wanted to depict a ship coming home from a long, hard voyage. I’m ready to go home. And ready to find peace,” the statement says.
Py has been conducting support groups at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield for about three years. She realized that many men were interested in participating but felt intimidated by the idea of being vulnerable in a talking circle.
As a quilter herself, Py thought an art project would be the perfect way for the men to nonverbally express themselves.
“Working with your hands and making art is therapeutic. It’s a way to allow things to start moving, even if you don’t have words for them yet,” Py said.
Called “Fractured, Not Broken,” the quilt project is a partnership with the Prison Research and Innovation Network, which is collecting data on safety, transparency and accountability at the Springfield prison.
As part of the project, researchers at the University of Vermont have been conducting prison climate surveys. The results showed that approximately 85% of incarcerated people said they do not feel prepared for release, according to Abigail Crocker, director of UVM’s Justice Research Center.
“If you think about conditions people need to thrive, feeling like you’re part of community and the sense of belonging is one of them,” Crocker said.
Data points from the survey’s findings are stitched onto the back of the quilt along with cyanotype of a Margaret Wheatley poem called “Turning to One Another,” Crocker said.
Last month, Brattleboro locals participated in community stitch events where they added stitches and wrote messages in the quilt for the incarcerated men. More events are scheduled this month.
Py said that this part of the project aims to build awareness and relationships between people inside and outside prison walls.
Interaction volunteer Suzanne Ruse participated in the community stitch at July’s Gallery Walk and was especially moved when the mother of one of the incarcerated quilters “sat right down and started stitching,” she said.
“It was incredible. It was folks of every age there. And everybody sitting around this beautiful quilt and adding their piece to it,” Ruse said.
Katie Allaway, a longtime volunteer for Circles of Support and Accountability, or COSA, a support program for formerly incarcerated people, also attended the event. She said she stitched hearts onto the quilt as a symbol of love and support for the incarcerated quilters.
“I think for a very long time, our society in the United States has thought that healing injustice is something you do on your own,” Allaway said. “Participating in healing needs to be a community process.”
The completed quilt will be featured in an exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center from September 9 through November 1, with a celebration planned on October 15.
The exhibition will also feature audio components, including Cooper-Ellis’s song and “Redemption Road,” written by an incarcerated quilter whose refrain is featured on the quilt. The latter song was first performed at the prison in April by participants in a weekly music class. Another performance was recorded at Brattleboro’s Community Bible Chapel and performed by Mel Dawson of the Greater Falls Community Justice Center, Rev. Matt Miller and members of a peer-led COSA group in Brattleboro.
James Cashatt and Bob Havens, who are both on the Vermont sex offender registry and served time at Springfield prison, are part of the COSA group that helped record “Redemption Road” at the chapel. Havens accompanied the song with guitar.
Both Cashatt and Havens said they felt a strong connection with the song’s plaintive melody as well as the lyrics.
“I have regret about things that I did and questions about redemption, and that’s kind of what the song is about,” Havens said.
While the quilt project is meant to showcase the shared humanity between incarcerated people and the rest of society, both Cashatt and Havens acknowledged that some may struggle with that concept due to the nature of their crimes. But they said they hope the message comes through in the music.
“I pray that it does make us appear to be just as we are: human beings who are doing everything they can to become better than who they were,” Cashatt said.
After the exhibition at Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, Py, the organizer, said she hopes the quilt will be displayed at more venues and ultimately return to the prison’s visitor center.
Emily Rodin is an intern for UVM’s Community News Service through Report for America’s Local News Internship Program.