In the harsh and colorless confines of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, nine men hunkered down over an array of vibrant hues and used pencils, crayons, kindergarten scissors, cloth and milk jugs to create masks and a headdress, pencil drawings and wall hangings, shell necklaces and Gullah dolls. 

Michael Orrell, one of the incarcerated men, in a diary chronicling his art journey, thanked his “big sisters,” instructor Sally Lott McLellan and Kathy Neff of Oxford, a master quilter who joined the class in 2023 to assist with the sewing project.

“They are a God-send, in such a forsaken place due to stigmatization toward prisoners,” Orrell wrote.

“I am a prisoner, but I am free!”

McLellan, who used her art therapy skills as the class instructor, gained an entree into this world through the Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative. She and Neff led creative arts class workshops in Unit 30 and Unit 29 from November 2021 until June 2024. 

In a book “Intersections: Seeking Self at Parchman Prison,” published in November by VOX Press, McLellan wrote about how the class and volunteer work was a journey of self-discovery for her students and herself.

“I hope readers will understand the humanity found in volunteerism, the feel of stepping outside of oneself to share time with those who don’t get the attention or interest that those in the free world do. I believe incarcerated people need to be heard, to be acknowledged as fellow human beings,” she wrote in an email. 

“… A little bit of encouragement can go a long way for those who are deprived of it. And one’s gift to the incarcerated doesn’t have to be masterpiece work. It can be simple and still be very rewarding.” 

Studies have found that creative arts can support rehabilitation and better behavior during incarceration. Rehabilitation Through the Arts, which provides visual art, writing, theater, dance and music programs at 10 prisons in New York and one in California, reports that less than 3% of its participants return to prison compared to 60% of people nationwide within three years of release. 

Seeing her students as individuals

McLellan’s book is among several Vox Press has published over a decade, including four collections of writing by those incarcerated at Parchman. 

She has a bachelor’s degree from Millsaps College and qualified for a master’s degree program in art therapy at Mississippi University for Women, studying art and psychology. 

But instead of graduate school, at the age of 50 with her youngest child no longer at home, she joined AmeriCorps and moved to northwest Montana where she spent two years at a tribal college as a community service team leader. 

McLellan said she kept journals after each prison art class she taught, and she realized that it was how she processed “the joys and the accomplishments, the setbacks, the intense emotions, and the glitches within the system.”

She began to learn about  the incarcerated men as individuals, rather than seeing them as a collective. They can be easy to ignore, McLellan said, but  they have parents, children and grandchildren.

“They have to learn to survive in a place that robs them of their individuality,” she said.

She noticed how students in her classes learned skills, including listening and taking direction. Lively conversation came from a positive group setting, McLellan said. 

In the book, McLellan wrote about several of her students, most by first name or nicknames, but she singles out two by full name: Michael Orrell and Randy Jackson. 

Orrell, 57, was in the Mississippi Prison Writes Initiative writing class of the nonprofit organization’s executive director, Louis Bourgeois. McLellan said Orrell “doggedly pursued” the concept of an art class. 

Jackson, 52, another former creative writing student, “said from the beginning that he couldn’t produce anything more than stick figures but was willing to explore,” McLellan wrote. 

McLellan wrote that she never asked her students what landed them at Parchman but Jackson volunteered his history and what motivated him.

Jackson, serving life for murder from Madison County since 1999, “is devoted to his family,” she wrote, but won’t let them visit him because he doesn’t want them “to see him in prison surroundings.” Instead, he speaks with them by phone and Zoom only. 

Jackson completed his GED, became a GED tutor and took college courses provided by Mississippi Delta Community College as well as vocational training in auto mechanics and Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration,. He was active in the prison ministry programming and is in the book club provided by the Mississippi Humanities Council. 

McLellan said she learned a little about Jackon’s life before prison in an essay he wrote for the book club. 

In 1982 when he was 9 years old, a car driven by a white man ran Jackson over while he was walking home  from school. He said “the accident almost took my little life away.”

But by the age 13 he was having sex with an older woman, drinking and smoking marijuana.

By 14, even though he was still active in church, Jackson sold marijuana, was arrested and suspended from school for a year and then started selling cocaine. 

Jackson dropped out of school at 18. But by the time he was 21, he had purchased some land, had a mobile home, a tractor and two trucks for hauling logs. At 25, he was a father of four children.

What changed his life, McLellan wrote, is losing everything. In 1997, Jackson shot someone who assaulted him and received a life sentence. 

In his book club essay, he wrote: ‘My Message to Young Adults, I hope this will enlighten you all to stay away from  trouble and be much better than I was, and not make the same mistakes I have made … Because if God (can) change me from a troubled man I know God can and will change you . . . just believe, have faith, and never give up on your dreams.’” 

Using photographs McLellan had taken from an old cemetery for the students to draw from, Jackson said drawing the tombstone “caused him to think of the life he’d taken.”

‘How they chose to see themselves’

She remembers feeling “a dance of delight” in her head the first time a student said art class felt like therapy. McLellan said she’s gathered materials and come up with ideas to help those in her class relax and feel comfortable.

“Being creative represents a form of freedom,” she said. “One can be unbound and fearless. Happy, even.”

Orrell, who is serving 40 years from Monroe County for aggravated assault and sexual battery, wrote in the book about first being inspired to do art by tops from Coca-Cola plastic bottles and other circular containers he found.

Today he has over 60 different tops that have survived many shakedowns, Orrell wrote in “My Art Journey,” which McLellan includes in her book. 

“These circular objects from the  garbage are the backbone of my colored circle art,” he says. 

“I never dreamed my art would even exist much less be a conversation piece in the homes of others. …  I couldn’t have done it alone. My art has come into existence through hard work and focus. Those two things are just part of it when it’s your passion. In addition, my success came into real-time because of others who believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”

Using milk jugs cut in half, the class made masks. 

“What developed from that, what grew from all those gaudy and shiny things and those milk jugs was something miraculous,” McLellan wrote. “The students created self-portraits. Maybe they didn’t even recognize that was happening, but I could see it  clearly. … they were creating who they wanted to be, how they chose to see themselves.” 

One student known by the nickname “Twitch,” who is part Native American, wanted to make an Apache ceremonial headdress that required many feathers. McLellan saw how hard the man worked on the mask and fulfilled a personal desire to honor his ancestors. 

In spring 2022, with a grant from the Mississippi  Arts Commission, the group presented a show “Pictures from Parchman . . . We Are Here”. Many of the artworks were sold through an internet auction and the proceeds went to charities of the students’ choice or to their canteen account. 

Another project was tied to slavery.

They created necklaces with shells as the centerpiece, adorned with beads and natural elements as a way to honor “the sacred practice of creating beauty from gifts of nature as done by indigenous people,” McLellan wrote. Those necklaces were strung on a branch they called “Our Branch of Love and Peace.” 

To continue the arts of indigenous people, they made Yaya and Gullah dolls. Yaya dolls originate from Native American culture, while Gullah dolls are examples of the traditional West African dolls made by enslaved people in South Carolina. 

Wall hangings came next. She said the creative arts are liberating and allow the self to emerge, often subtly, because incarcerated people are not always quick to go into self-exploration. Instead, that kind of exploration can lead to a dark place. 

“What wasn’t subtle was how proud they felt with their finished works and even more so when the works were seen by a larger audience than our classes,” McLellan said. “It gave them pride and confidence.”
“Intersections: Seeking Self at Parchman” is available www.voxpress.org, on Amazon and at selected bookstores.