Lauren Justice
Brandy Blackwood, left, works on a mosaic at St. John’s Lutheran Church while organizers Julia Weaver, left center, Marcia Yapp, right center, and participant Dawn Hudson look on.
In a small room at St. John’s Lutheran Church on East Washington Avenue, Brandy Blackwood wields a small grinder, smoothing the edges of broken ceramic pieces on a large mosaic art project.
“I’ve only used a screwdriver before — nothing like this,” she says of the tool as she rounds off sharp points on the broken plates and cups. The 32-year-old mother of six hasn’t worked on a mosaic like this since her last high school art class. But she’s not here for a class.
Blackwood is one of a handful of women from the Dane County Jail work-release program who meet every Wednesday at the church to create public art as part of the Backyard Mosaic project.
Created in 2004, the project aims to bring women together to explore their spirituality and creativity in an atmosphere of sobriety, says co-facilitator Julia Weaver.
The women sign out of the jail as volunteers and “work with their hands and talk with each other,” says Weaver, who is also a jail chaplain. “It’s a safe place for them to share what they’re going through.”
Nurturing creativity is just one of the project’s goals. “We try really hard to connect them with the resources they need in the community,” such as help for addiction, mental illness and therapy, says Weaver.
The women also tackle other art projects, making vases, candleholders and decorative journals.
“We want to help the women stay out of jail and give them a place they feel normal after coming out of jail,” she says. “Art can heal. They come in, start working and some creative energy kicks in.”
The sessions are stress-free and inviting. “We’re a small group, and we work slowly,” says Weaver. “Almost all of the women tell me they aren’t artists when they first come in — and that doesn’t matter.”
It’s a popular program, with newcomers showing up almost every week. Others regularly stop coming because they’ve been released or moved. Those women often leave behind unfinished work, which others then complete.
The mosaic is being created as a gift for EVP Coffee on the east side, which provides free coffee for the group. The three-by-four-foot work reads: “Welcome to this refuge. Serving kindness, love and truth.” It will be installed this spring, and Weaver hopes to hold a fundraiser at EVP selling some of the women’s creations.
Previous projects include small mosaics inside and around the garden of St. John’s and a large mural at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church on the south side.
A loom was also recently donated, and Weaver hopes to teach women to make blankets with it.
Mosaics are a symbolic art form for the women, Weaver says. “With the mosaics, you’re taking all of these broken pieces and making something beautiful.”
For inmates like Blackwood, who is serving time for a drunk driving conviction, working on art at the church stands in stark contrast to doing time at the jail. “There’s nothing to do in there but watch TV,” she says. “And all of the conversations are loud and obnoxious.”
She also hopes to take what she’s learning at Backyard Mosaic home when she’s released in a couple of weeks.
“I think I can learn some things that my kids will like doing,” she says. “It would be good to do this with them.”
Number of women from Dane County Jail who are allowed out on work release: 32
Number of women who have worked with Backyard Mosaic since its founding in 2004: More than 200
Number of pieces used in current mosaic: Roughly 1,500
Hours of labor: More than 25
