Interview with Rhonda Edwards

Karen Musgrave (KM): This is Karen Musgrave and I'm conducting a Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories interview with Ronda Edwards. Today's date is July 20, 2009. It is now 1:11 in the afternoon. We are at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Ohio. Rhonda thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. So let's start off by you telling me why you're here.

Rhonda Edwards (RE): I'm actually here for murder. That's why I'm here. Would you like to go for the quilt now? [laughs.]

KM: [laughs.] Sure. Tell me about your quilt "Visions."

RE: [leans over quilt, pointing to different areas and explains.] The thing is it starts from the top where I was, who I used to be on the streets, and I was full of dreadlocks. Half of me here was dead. I was dead in sin because my eyes were not focused on God. They were focused on money and what money could do for me. You know $750.00 is exactly why I'm here. Murder. Money. Money was all to me. I ended up doing what I had to do of protection. The royalty was over my head. My culture always 'Remember who you are. Remember you're black,' remember this, remember that, but I had a wild side to me, a cowboy in me. The streets and cowboy really mixed together. This right side of me- the BMW, the cars I drove. I was a homosexual woman at the time. I lived the gay life for 20 something years, so women was my thing. Drugs was my thing. This is the cities that I sold drugs in. All these places. I did most of my hustling inside of strip clubs with strippers. Guns, I had a thing for guns. My first time into the game of the wild, the street, was pimping women. I was taught from a friend whose sister of mine, older than me, and she had a crush on me. I didn't realize it, but she taught me how to sell her and put them in the strip show and the people wanted to have sex. The women thought that it was okay. I thought it was wrong, but money was the view. Satan does that thing to you. Satan is on my arm right here. The 666 is Satan. He had me in bondage. I mean I was so connected. I couldn't get away. God called me when I was in college on the streets. He told me to go to a biblical college and I was like, 'Biblical college? What? No, that's not for me.' I was going to become a mortician. I figured I could deal with that. I knew I had a vision of being in a pulpit. I didn't know exactly what I was doing. I said, 'Okay. I can still be gay and still work with the dead. They're not going to get on me for that.' But God said, 'Go to this college,' and I didn't get to go. I looked up and said, 'They are not going to accept me- one because I'm gay, two because I was doing the dirt that I'm doing. They're not going to accept me. Churches really don't accept my kind.' And so at that point in time I said like, 'Wow.' I heard this voice. I heard Him. He's calling my name. So I didn't go, but later on me and this person, they wronged me. The victim I'm here for. And I was walking around with a pistol on me. I was still attending church, but I walked inside a church with a gun on me. Right as I walk up them steps, I felt that voice again that said, 'You're going down. You're going to be punished now.' I said, 'Oh.' I felt it. I mean I didn't know the Holy Spirit so much then, but I knew I was going to be in trouble for this. I knew it was wrong. I'm here and God redeemed me. He's my redeemer. He came into the fire of hell for me and pulled me out. Jesus. This part of me inside the fire is Jesus walking out with me. I'm just holding on to Him.

When I first got to prison--I came to prison with a life sentence, 15 plus 3 plus life. When I came to prison, I was still grieving my father's death. Everything fell apart when my father passed away. I was grieving. Didn't know how to grieve. I had the people around me were homeless and had no money. I had no friends. I had no love. Everybody was grieving who was around me, family, so I was grieving and that is when I just had a breakdown to tell you the truth, and I guess if I would have known God then like I should have known Him, I wouldn't have had that breakdown. He would have been there to catch me and say this is okay. I came to prison and I got into a fight over a pack of cigarettes. I was grieving still. Don't get me wrong. I was in here. I was afraid. I was really afraid. If somebody says they come to prison for the first time is not afraid, they're lying. I was tough really bad, but I was really afraid. I walked in here and I didn't know. Women kept touching at me, trying to hit on me and grab on me. I'm thinking like, 'Uh-huh. No, no. I'm not going to take this.' I got into one fight, which was pretty bad. I ended up doing things to this girl that once again they said more than what I thought I did. I ended up doing the LC in the hole [LC stands for "Local Control" which is a disciplinary status. Offenders can be placed into a segregation status for up to 180 days for a serious rule violation or a chronic inability (repeated rule violations) to adjust to the rules and regulations. It is not an actual "hole."] and I did six months.

I just got on my knees. I asked my friend to help teach me how to pray. 'Teach me how to pray. I need to learn how to pray'. There is something bigger than this out here and I got on my knees and I prayed and I just prayed and I just prayed. Nothing felt like it was coming, so I fast and fast and I fast and I fast and the Lord kept bringing Psalms 51 to me in the middle of this prayer. I kept reading Psalms 51 and then at lunchtime, it was time for me to pray again and I was fasting. Psalms 51 opens up again and I said, 'What it is about this prayer that I need to know?' It seemed to be the only prayer in the Bible of a murder that had happened for a murder was David when he killed Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and I repented. But the thing is God tricked me into a covenant with Him. The covenant was that I would teach transgressors his ways all the time. Since I promised to teach transgressors his ways, he forgave me. I mean he forgave me for something that is unforgivable. I can't possibly bring back my victim's life. I can't possibly show the family what the love and what they're missing. If I could I would have a baby and give it to them, but it would not replace the person they had. God says, he says, 'I forgive you. I wholeheartedly just forgive you, forgive yourself.' I kept saying, 'What about the family?' He says, 'I'm willing to deal with this.' At the time when you feel afraid, you're sick, you're dead. I was dead and when you're dead the only dead things can produce is death, so I produced death with my death. The Savior, he became my Savior, my role, my shepherd. He became my shepherd and I didn't know exactly what was going on until I found myself balled up in that cell. I was just sitting there. He had a person named Sadie Walker. A girl who did not follow the word of God, teach me the word of God, and she still don't follow it. Therefore, he said, 'You can be like her, like the plant and the seeds that you throw on the rocks or in the good soil. You can grow or you can be like her and keep dying and burning up.' That scripture stuck with me so much because that and Psalms 51 christened me with hot salt, washed me with hot salt. Makes me white as snow. Makes me pure. And once I become pure, there is nothing--I can't allow nothing to defile me. I got out of the hole. I gave up women altogether.

When I got out, I got into a room with a lady, who was actually a gay woman. Her name was Retsy and what she ended up doing is that she was teaching me who to stay away from. The orange shirts. [the inmates at OPW where different color collars so the staff can easily tell if they are new, adjusted, troublemakers, etc.] She taught me that too. She said, 'Do not go around these people.' Everybody kept telling me in the past stay away from this crowd because this crowd will get you in more trouble. Me and her was getting close. I had her praying. We was working a study, studying the word of God, and Satan -- this young lady came against me and wanted to be in a relationship with me and I'm kind of fighting her off. She was very beautiful and I was like wow, no. I can't do this. I'm trying to focus on God. But I guess I had to go through a trial. Satan went to Heaven and said I want to challenge her like he did Job, and he moved me into a room with this young lady. I begged. I begged the people who had already been there. I knew I couldn't make a move because I had to get an LC. You can't move until six months to a year from being there. I said to my friend, 'Please get me out of here. Please get me out of here. I'm trying to fight this temptation,' and I ended up falling. I fell and once I fell, I was so tired again. When you're so tired again, you've got their demons and you've got your demons, and if you let the demons back in there, it's going to be seven times worse than what it was the first time. I was hooked on like another drug. Then that woman became my money and became my drug. She became everything, my life, and I had to go through misery again. Once you receive glory or God, the gifts of God, the spirit of peace and then you fall from that peace and go to something bad, it was just horrible. I'm stuck now. It was like, you can't get away because you've got a soul side because your spirit, your flesh is so weak and your spirit is so willing. I just could not get away until she left. I took a fast again. I want this homosexuality out of me. I got rid of it. By the grace of God, he allowed me to see something bigger and better.

When I was in the LC, he showed me that I would be a preacher. I didn't know that preaching-- I knew he wanted me to go to school, but I didn't know preaching was for me. I'm like okay. I'm being a preacher. I'm being a preacher. I'm going to be preacher. I get out, I go and try to get my green shirt and I start getting more positive things, but the churches kept kicking me out because I had a pink collar on. I can't do nothing with this pink collar, so I started doing Bible studies inside of cottage. I met a friend of mine who became my Barnabas who speaks like Paul and she goes out. The Holy Spirit is dead in me. I'm like I'm lost. What do I do here now Father? Now she [inaudible.]. He says, 'You go out there and you go next to this person. ' His Spirit told me before when my friend leave I'm going to be around you, so hopefully you'll accept me. I was afraid, because I was afraid to fall again.

This young lady, she took me in. Her name was Ms. Goff, Megan Goff, and she helped me with the word of God. She was the only woman inside this prison that I know of so far who has not hit on me sexually. Put me down for not wanting to be there and just loved me for just being me. This part of me, [pointing to her head on the quilt.] they cut my hair when I came to prison, but life started coming on me. When I got rid of the sin in my life, the Holy Spirit was floating over me. Over me, inside of me. This part is death. This part is life, but they gave me a life sentence. Life is how you live it. Now I have so much peace. Don't get me wrong, I would rather be somewhere else, but with God on my side and inside of me. He is teaching me everyday. Everyday I have a journey. Everyday I have a trial. Everyday I learn something new about God and his walk.

Culture. All my friends are Caucasian so far or Italian, but it's not by my choice. I tried my culture out here and they do nothing but try to suck me into the bad. I ain't saying that they all do that, but the ones I came across they try to make me sin or get me back into the lifestyle. Therefore, my culture is still there and I still have me and have this for the Lord. My cowboy belongs to the Lord now. I mean I will not--I turned my hate, my anger, my pain into love. If I can't love it, oh I can love it, anything is loveable now to me. I try to love everything possible that is going on in my life. The angel was there all the time. The angel was there when I got stuck up. I did dirt. Don't get me wrong. I had shotguns at my head and things that I've gone through, and I learned that the angel was always there to protect me.

My mother's prayer--they say mother's prayers don't work. Mother's prayers work because my mother, she was a praying mother. I should have been dead a thousand times. I wasn't no addict. Don't get me wrong, I can't tell you what lifestyle I led. I wasn't no drunk. I wasn't no--I mean I didn't do those things. I was afraid of those things so my fear has now changed. I'm afraid. I'm afraid to fall from the love for the Lord. I had to surrender inside that cell. I had to surrender inside of me. I had to scream out and call on God to protect me, just to love me, just to hold me, just to mold me. Everyday I praying for wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and just to Him to keep me and cover me with a double edge of protection. All of this now Christ is my first sight. Christ is the last thing I see when I go to sleep, the first thing that I wake up to. Life I do have, but now my life is different. It's not so hard for me. It's more peaceful.

The church has always been in my heart. I went to church when I was doing wrong, but now the church is my life. Christ is in my heart. Christ is me. If it is not about God, I really don't have nothing else to talk about. Even though I've gone to becoming a preacher, my calling became bigger. He said, 'You are an apostle.' I said, 'An apostle.' Now these are people who teach things, but he always said he would send me to learn the word of God. So people who was there for me to help me, helped teach me the word of God, now I'm teaching them the word of God because his Holy Spirit reside in me. I refuse to sell a pack of sugar if it will take my purity. I refuse to do anything that is going to take the pureness away from my heart and away from me that I can't do the work of God. I've got to have God flowing through me constantly. I apologize, what is your denomination?

KM: It doesn't matter. [laughs.]

RE: Okay. What I did is I live only for God in my life now and I wake up, I just walk. You can't talk me. He gave me too much wisdom with this. Once I think about Calvary and what he would do for me. I mean who cares what the people think if Christ is for you. Who can be against you? That is just the truth of it. Psalms 51 is so powerful to me. He had mercy on me. He bled out all my transgressions. It let me know that when I sinned against no one but God. No one. I acknowledged my transgressions. I acknowledged the things that happened. My sight is always on Him and I'm only for--the powerfulness part in this was when the strength within me, 'Do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore it to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Then I will teach transgressors, but it also says forgive me of the bloodguilt.' The bloodguilt was holding me down. Satan kept trying to hold me back from the things because I kept letting him bring up my childhood, bring up the things I did, and anything that is not of God is dead so I knew it was Satan.

Right now, I teach the girls even in basketball--I coach basketball here, is that we're about God. We're going to pray in and pray out. I don't want the cussing, but you are human. You'll don't have to live like that. I mean I can't make you live that away, but you are going to respect. All of our plays is about a woman of the Bible. Powerful. You learn these words, you learn these plays. And when it comes to you again, you're going to know about these women of the Bible. I can't teach you. I can't make you sit down and learn the Bible with me, but it's in the head of the person of the thing that is going on. You're going to learn something about God. I teach people about spiritual warfare and God through me has made me a leader about teaching about spiritual warfare and the demons that we battle. People would seem to think that the demons are just a story. It is not a story. It is the truth that we get attacked from jealousy to anything. The other side of this is Jesus Christ. People see Jesus differently. Everybody see Jesus their own color their own way. I really think his skin was brown, but in prison we don't receive the paint for that color, so I knew he was from the darker skin color, brown skin place. Therefore, I drew my Jesus the way I see Jesus. I painted this. It was my first oil painting. Everything that I do now, I tithe. I give to the Lord 10%. This is my first, but Jesus Christ is--I mean everything I did here I learned how to do here, sewing, stitching, everything. I learned how to do this just so I could do the quilt. I learned I mean everything. He sent me to another whole level in growth and I love that about God. I love it. I mean I'm so happy. This has made me proud because I wanted to give up a thousand times, but God said if you don't give up I will prosper you in everything you do. All I do is keep on moving and I won't give up. So that is it.

KM: Let me ask you some questions now. Did you plan this out ahead of time? Tell me your creative process. Tell me about the process of making this quilt. Did you draw it out? Did you sketch it out? Plan it in your head? Let it evolve? Just tell me about it.

RE: I draw moods now of myself. Anytime I draw something that I feel I draw myself. I just drew. What I planned out only was the face, the hair, and the arms, and right here I stopped. Everything else--because I wanted to give up like I said. Everything else I laid down at different times. As I fasted, the Holy Spirit would come into me. I had never painted anything without drawing first and I was afraid to and fear will take things from you. That is what Satan does. So I sketched these out and then I painted over this part. But then God said, 'Put down the pen. Put it away, and then do as I'm telling you to do.' I started drawing an angel. Did myself again of deliverance and then there was the dove because that is the Holy Spirit and then he tells me what to put inside. 'Put who you used to be right there, but this is who you are going to become in the end.' This is the vision. My vision before was just to be a big time dope dealer or lots of time. This was big in the life, but now it's bigger than that. You want to be big in me, and I said, 'But God every time I would sit down and I don't know what to do next,' and he didn't give me a roommate. I hadn't had a roommate for so many months until I got finished with this and turned this in did I get a roommate. Didn't get the one I wanted but you know. [laughs.] He is just like, 'I need you to be alone. I need you to deal with this and put it out there.' That is how I did it with the Holy Spirit.

KM: What was your favorite part?

RE: My favorite part?

KM: What did you like doing the best?

RE: I thought the dove was the most prettiest thing to me.

KM: You did a good job.

RE: Jesus was definitely a painful piece. My Chaplain had hurt me and something I dreaded painting. You learn in a Christian walk and walking with God even God's children aren't perfect. When I get hurt, I go to this. I go to God and I [inaudible.] for God and so. I know all His Holy Spirit was always around me. No matter what I do in life and did in life God has always been there.

KM: How did you feel when you found out that this was going to be at Sacred Threads?

RE: I didn't expect them to select it actually. I thought it was too much for the eye. I was happy because I'm doing other things for other people outside of the prison like drawing cars. I do watercolors for God, but I did this watercolor for this other company that they are selling to help people when they get out of prison to get them food and clothes and help a Bible study place, a place for God. I also was happy and excited. I told her I said, 'I'm going to do this.' I was so pumped up in the beginning, but this is a hard little task. It was very rough on the fingers. I cut myself a few times. This is creativity. It's amazing how people make quilts and how they do it. It is a lot of time.

KM: How long did it take you to make your quilt?

RE: I was right there on the deadline. [laughs.] Right to the deadline. It is because we did a lot of movement here. The prison has grown and changed over. We moved from place to place, so I didn't have time to sit down and just do it. I wasn't ready yet to face some of these things. I wasn't ready to see some of the things that the Lord has brought me through and so I had to sit in that cell alone and listen. I had to listen to a lot of worship music at the time. I had to cry. There is a lot of tears going with this. I cried a lot. It's what pushes you and God was just there letting me know 'I'm here with you, but I need you to show and get this out.' Everything that I've done in here in prison now is going outside the prison and telling everybody else about it. It's beautiful.

KM: You are very talented.

RE: This is not my best part. God has gifted me.

KM: What would you want someone to take away from looking at this?

RE: That no matter what you've done, no matter who you used to be. or who you are, you can change. People come to prison everyday and they come here and want to be the same person they was when they walked in. It is up to you. It is really up to you. You can live that life and be sick. I was sick there. Or you can be free. I'm still locked up, but I'm more free than some people outside of these gates. I just bless people daily and I say, 'God bless you.' I pray for the ones who are against me. Be free. God has forgiven us. All you've got to do is wholeheartedly repent and to ask Him to change you. I had to ask Him to change me. I went to the hospital and what they did, I kept getting dizzy. Every time I thought about women sexually, I kept getting dizzy. I thought I was going to throw up, got hot flashes, I sweat all over. I've been in and off this forum over 2 years trying to figure out why I'm sick. They found one so far. They said they found a cyst in my brain, nothing else. I'm just now thanking the Lord that he took the taste from me. It is like an alcoholic. He took the taste from me and I'm just so happy. People can't believe it, but it is gone. It is gone. I get sick if I think of it.

KM: Do you think you would like to make another quilt?

RE: I would love to make another quilt.

KM: What would your next one be?

RE: I really want to get some flowers. I love flowers, but I've never been able to make them happen. I would love to get into more patterns and I would lay it out different now. Probably more of a family. I've found friends here in prison. I never had friends at home. If it wasn't me buying them or my mother was buying them. She bought them clothes and things like that and now I have friends in my life that I don't have to buy. I have family here, too, and I have a family out there, outside of them gates who are going to do spiritual warfare that I'm helping. I like people to know the truth of God and know that there are some churches who say Satan is not real, but Satan is real and to tell them we are getting attacked daily, and if you are not getting attacked, you are already working for him.

KM: Has your family seen your quilt?

RE: No, not yet. My mother just came up here the other day. She hadn't been here for about nine months. She's been sick off and on. I told her it was coming home to her soon. I told her about you and you coming up and she was so happy. I prayed with them a lot though and they are just crying because I've changed completely.

KM: Have they embraced the change?

RE: They love it.

KM: Oh good.

RE: They love it because when you have a change in you that's for God, nothing but great things happen. You can do nothing but expect good things. Bad things come to the righteous that is correct, but when they come here, every visit somebody is thanking them that I'm in their lives. People sometimes I don't even know. I embrace people, the sick, the death, the everything and I let the Holy Spirit like I said lead me. He tells me what to do and what to say.

KM: A lot of people love your quilt.

RE: Thank you.

KM: They do. I know this for a fact because they've told me.

RE: I appreciate it.

KM: They love your quilt.

RE: Do they understand it like this?

KM: They will now. Now that you have your story.

RE: Right.

KM: Because you can tell something by just looking at a quilt, but if you go to the maker and you talk to the maker then you know the full story, which is why I do this.

RE: Okay. Yeah. That was definitely an eye opener for me.

KM: You had to write an essay [artist statement.]. How was writing the essay for you?

RE: The essay that you received was my first sermon that I'm going to do.

[her artist statement: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the Seraphim: each one had six wings with twain he covered his feet and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, holy, holy, holy is Sabaoth the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. And the house was filled with smoke. Then said I "woe is me!" for I am undone; because I am a wo-man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the Seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: and he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I; send me. Isaiah 6;1-8

He changed me, molded me, clothed me, and allowed me away out of hell fires, by washing me. He sent a sinner back to the sinners so they can see Christ inside of me. God kept the fight in me he just changed the purpose of it. He took my pain and hurt and turned it into love, joy, peace and gave me a job to renew the minds, and the brokenhearted.

A personal note from the quilter: Dreamer, miserable, sad, hurt, confused, Fatherless, sick, suicidal, homicidal, dead! I was blind and now I see, I was lost and now I'm found. Who am I? I'm a nobody, trying to tell everybody, about somebody, who will love anybody. I am a child of God.]

KM: Oh, very good.

RE: And there's been holy lips like the angel touches Isaiah's lips and tongue with coal and made him holy. God said, 'Who can I send?' He said, 'Here I am,' and it's like, 'You can send me now.' Every test I'm going through is a test I've been through on the streets so now that I'm burning, I'm like gold getting refined. Then you can just send me. I won't fail you. I won't fall. If I do, I'm going to get back up and repent for it, but you can send me, you can trust me. I'm a servant of the Lord. That is what I gave out because that meant so much to me. That is why I want to be so holy is just that. This is how my hair used to be. Every time I get into a change. Like in a prison, they cut it like this. [pointing to the side of herself on the quilt where her hair is short.] But then when a lady from the--I cut it off again because it was a new step in my life. Every time life starts over, it is like a Masorete [stumbles with pronunciation.] and an extension, a warning. Don't touch anything unclean. He cleans my head. Some of them in the Old Testament, they shaved their heads off. I wouldn't do it on purpose, but the God was making that happen for my new growth, my new life, and so I had to shave it again. It's now growing back. [touches her hair.] I love Him. I love God. Tell me you love God.

KM: What advice would you give somebody making your first quilt?

RE: One, don't give up. Two, everything looks rough and hard at the beginning. Everything is a challenge. Everything good is going to be a challenge for you. You can learn so much about yourself. Open yourself up because if you can't express yourself in your own work, then where else can you express yourself? I think that everything that you do when you express yourself should be tear-filled. You should feel tears. You should feel something about it because this right here, the Holy Spirit quilt, I released and I gained so much.

KM: What do you think makes a great quilt?

RE: Testimony. Truth. Not hiding back. It lets me look at my life and share my life. If we didn't have Martin Luther King's story, there wouldn't be no story of how it happened.

KM: What was your favorite part of making this? What part did you like the best?

RE: The end. I didn't know that I was going to be an apostle until I got finished with this.

KM: Ahh. Okay.

RE: I didn't know. I was a servant. I still need to be a servant. How can I serve even inside prison? But I tell you what, no matter where you are at, it is like do not, do not think that you have a decent place to start something. God wants you to start where you're at. If you don't start where you're at, you find an excuse not to do it at all. An apostle. The church. I didn't know. Nothing so powerful. Why me? Why me? Who am I to be anything but who I used to be? I mean people here, even people who don't know me, accuse me of being that person they didn't even know. You're right. I am a criminal. I am. I was, but I'm clean now. God has forgiven me. Once he has forgiven you, there is nothing anybody else will tell you and accuse you of.

KM: How is important is art to you?

RE: It is my sanity. I draw when I'm hurt. I don't draw too much if I'm happy and excited. I can draw, but it's more when I feel pain. I've got to be in a mood. I do a lot of my tithing with my drawings here. I do photos and to someone who can't afford something or wants to send something to their kids I will draw a photo, a picture of them or their kids and let them send it out and I say, 'Here you go. God bless you.' I try to tithe with that or give it to somebody who needs personals. Okay, here is a picture, give this to them, give them some soap and stuff. I can't afford it on my end because I don't receive. My family has their own struggles, so therefore I do what I can still for God inside of here. Put my hands to God. As a kid He showed me how not to give up. When I was growing up, I had 13 siblings in an efficiency with my auntie down in the city and we had no air conditioning. It was the middle of summer. We would sit in this efficiency or you could go outside, but I went to the library next door and got this Walt Disney book about this big. [shows a thick book with her hand.] I wish I could get another copy of that, but it was about this thick. It was so big, and I would sit there and I would study it and try to draw everything I could. Now a cartoon character is nothing to me. When I got older, I just started drawing things for my mother and showing her how much I love her. I would give gifts to show here that I loved her because I couldn't afford them. Art is very special.

KM: I think art can heal.

RE: Yes definitely. I have women in my cottage, I will get my own supplies out, and if they're going through something, a death, an anniversary of their sentencing, or their life, and I'll bring out my paint, my canvasses or watercolor paper. I say, 'Paint. Paint what you feel.' It's therapeutic, and if you can express it, title it, put a story behind it. Therefore, once you put a story behind it, you find out one what you feel, two what it felt like when it happened, and three where you have came from, how you've grown. I do that. I spend so much money on canvasses with the girls doing that before I was a pink shirt. I do it only a little now as a green shirt. It's definitely therapeutic. I sit there and just draw and paint and cry and listen to worship music. I just cry. Nobody never know what I'm doing in there because I'm in my own world at that point in time.

KM: It is a great quilt.

RE: Thank you.

KM: Very powerful.

RE: I appreciate it.

KM: Is there anything else you would like to share?

RE: Just stay prayed up. Depend on the Lord in everything that you do and he'll prosper us and you as well. Just let Him take you to different places and avenues. Pray for discernment in everything and sometimes maybe when you get to the people you will know what they've been through. This is not a rough place, but it is a rough, rough place to want to change, to want to grow. Things like this is therapeutic for the people. It helps out a whole lot. I've seen people who have been sentenced for a child getting killed, and even though they didn't do it, but being able to finally vent on something like this has helped them so much. Holding them as they cry in my arms. I've seen this in them. I saw don't give up. You don't want them to give up. Don't give up. Keep doing it, keep doing it. And they feel completely brand new when they are done and so happy. There's been a lady who actually went home early after she got the quilt done. Right when she got the quilt done, a week or two later they accepted her judicial and let her go home. This right here [talking about the quilt project.], I don't think Chaplain Burns is going to do it again, but it helps people. People who really want something different, it helps them.

KM: How did you feel when you got it done?

RE: Relieved. I was so excited. It was like I did it. I really did it. The last piece I did was sewing the edges on together, but I learned how to use one sewing machine, how to use a needle and thread, how to cut, how to write. I learned so much on this that I wouldn't trade that. I wouldn't give it back for another thing. Some people ask me about the past and my past is part of who I used to be, but I don't really know that person no more. I just don't know me. I didn't know who I was then. It let me know that God came here and got me, even if he had to sit me down here for a life sentence. I think if he would have gave me any other sentence I would have never woke up. I'm just thankful of who he made and what he is making.

KM: Keep making art.

RE: Definitely.

KM: Keep making art. That's my advice to you. Keep making art. Well, I want to thank you for taking time out and sharing with me and giving me your story. We will get it out into the world.

RE: Thank you.

KM: You are welcome. We are going to conclude our interview at 1:45 p.m.