A quilt project connecting community inside and outside prison walls

Fractured, Not Broken was designed, pieced, and painted by incarcerated participants in a quilting workshop held at Southern State Correctional Facility (SSCF) in Springfield, VT from September 2025 to April 2026.

The incarcerated quilters are: JA, DC, DF, QG, FN, JO and TR.*

Themes of transformation, redemption, resilience, and community connection echo throughout the piece.

The Prison Quilt Project’s goal was to provide a space for incarcerated Vermonters to reflect on and share their experience of incarceration, while also tapping into the healing and transformational power of telling their stories through art. As the project developed, it became important to expand the project to include the hands of the community that will welcome these incarcerated individuals home.

We invite you to join us in the hand-stitching of the quilt this summer.

The piecing of the quilt by incarcerated community members and the subsequent hand-quilting of the quilt by community members outside the prison both reference an essential function of Interaction’s restorative reentry programs: to foster relationships and thereby the successful reintegration of incarcerated community members into our community. 

The back of the quilt references the Vermont Prison Research and Innovation Network (PRIN) Prison Climate Surveys and Margaret Wheatley’s poem Turning to One Another, which captures the spirit of PRIN’s work at SSCF. 

The Prison Quilt Project was conceived and facilitated by artist and restorative justice practitioner Marie-Pierre Py of Interaction: Youth Services and Restorative Justice in partnership with PRIN. This project was made possible by the support of the Vermont Council for the Arts and by the University of Vermont’s Justice Research Center.

* A Vermont Department of Corrections policy prohibits the publishing of the names of incarcerated individuals who are charged with or have been convicted of violent crimes. This policy is designed to protect victims from being unexpectedly confronted with traumatic memories in public spaces while responsible parties are still serving their sentence. The full names of the artists will be made public following their release.