A-9100 My Breath to Catch / perspective views

1. Air vents / Stacey's cell

There are 6 vents on our ceiling. Only 1 blows circulated air into the room, the rest pull out. - Stacey Dyer, CCWF prison, California, 10/2025

2. Shapes after Ruby / My breath to catch

Now I want to comment on your other depictions. "My breath to catch" appears to me in the shape of a funnel with a cup attached. I liken it to how the body pulls in the air for our lungs to fill, to breathe. - Ruby Padgett, CIW prison, 02/20/2026

The things you wrote about your father being a carpenter blew my mind. When I saw that in your letter I thought “what magic is this”???? Somewhere, then, your father and I share an impulse to build things, make things, put things together. We share an interest in material and detail. And we understand the language of the blueprint (“From early on I saw him lay out the blueprints on the kitchen table”). It’s quite a special language which comes from a different place than words. It’s also the language of the man he was before the bottle.…

…Can I dare to make work which is truthful to me, regardless of whether it meets anyone else’s expectations or approval? I think to honour and learn from your courage, it means abandoning my conscious mind and working from the subconscious. People might say “what do CAD dream drawings really have to do with incarceration? Why????”. But you and your father invite me to not think too much about what others think.

I only know this: each drawing I make will be a prayer; a prayer that you be free to live with Lynda beyond the fences. I feel your yearning. Your misery is a shame on us all. No hope without action. 

(SK letter to Ruby Padgett W26787, who is serving LWOP sentence at CIW prison California. Ruby has been incarcerated for 40 years.)

Letter from Ruby to Sofia, 03/20/26