'Paint Me a Road Out of Here': Abolition Through Art

A free screening of Paint Me a Road Out of Here (2024) was held at the Getty Museum this past week. Co-presented by the Getty Research Institute and Crenshaw Dairy Mart, the event permitted me and other lucky LA locals to attend in the presence of director Catherine Gund and executive producer Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter. The wistfully-titled documentary explores the lives of Faith Ringgold, a painter, and Baxter herself, a multimedia artist. Although their careers spanned different decades and mediums, they are tied together by a common location: Rikers Island. If you are unfamiliar with Rikers like I was, it is an infamous New York prison complex with a long history of violence and abuse.

Ringgold, Faith (1971). For the Women’s House [painting]. Image courtesy of NWMA.

The film begins in 1971 when Ringgold, a Harlem native, is commissioned to paint a piece for the women’s center within the complex. After thoughtful interviews with the incarcerated women, Ringgold created and donated For the Women’s House (1971). The large oil painting depicts free women, not only in the sense of a life after release, but conceptual liberation for all women in American society. The women in her painting are seen working male-dominated jobs, such as police officers, doctors and professional athletes. Although these are not impossible feats in today’s world, they were pipe dreams just fifty years ago. For the Women’s House imagined a brighter future for all women, but in the years that followed, the painting would face major obstacles.

Paint Me a Road Out of Here nonlinearly counterweighs Ringgold’s story with Baxter’s. A Philadelphia native, Baxter began her art career after a seven-month incarceration period in 2007. She was not held on Rikers Island (her connection to For the Women’s House and Ringgold comes later), but the Riverside Correctional Facility. While serving time, Baxter was nine months pregnant and endured a 43-hour labor, all while shackled to her hospital bed. The traumatic experience led her to create Ain’t I a Woman, a documentary/rap music video inspired by the Sojourner Truth poem, and she continued to advocate for women inmates by creating a mural for Riverside. Her art piece displayed affirmations for the women living there to look toward a better future, much like Ringgold’s painting.

In the ‘90s, For the Women’s House went missing. The building it was displayed in was converted into a men’s center, and the women were moved to the Rose M. Singer Center. With the massive upheaval, no one seemed to notice or care where the painting went — save for a single corrections officer. She scoured the building until she reached the staff kitchen, noticing that a section of the white wall seemed to protrude. For the Women’s House had been white-washed over with interior paint during renovations. 

After two years of bureaucratic heel dragging, the painting was restored, reinstalled with a plexiglass shield, and moved to a corridor in the Singer Center. Now, the artwork could only be viewed in transient moments with an officer escort. What once was an inspirational touchstone was now hidden — not dissimilar to how the women of the Singer Center were locked away from society.

For a brief time, the painting was displayed at the Brooklyn Museum as a temporary exhibit. Ultimately, it was returned to the Singer Center, and the film compares these conflicting homes. Paint Me a Road Out of Here proposes that museums and prisons are opposing ends to the same connotative spectrum. While one building highlights what a community should value, the other dehumanizes the people who do not follow these values. One uplifts, and the other demoralizes. Through art, Ringgold and Baxter explored these concepts, and both centered the fight for Black empowerment. Not only was their art a conduit of abolitionist thought, but the art itself broke free from the broken system it depicts.

In 2021, For the Women’s House found its rightful home back in the Brooklyn Museum. There were many reasons that Ringgold wanted her painting moved, from proper preservation to the fact that inmates couldn’t freely view it. The final nail in the coffin was New York’s decision to shut down Rikers by 2027. Although cooperative, the city didn’t have a clear answer what the painting's fate would be if it stayed in their custody. After decades of mishandling, the artwork is now on display for an audience that matches its cultural significance. New York’s Department of Corrections commissioned Baxter for a similar artwork but “stalled on the project for over a year.” To avoid putting herself and any participants through the same situation, Baxter has since backed out, stating that “they just want to make violence look pretty.” In spite of this, the link still led to Ringgold and Baxter connecting before Ringgold’s death in 2024, making for a heartfelt scene in the documentary.

Paint Me a Road Out of Here ends with a harrowing montage of women before and after their release from prison. In an instant, the audience sees how incarceration drains a person of their identity. Throughout the film, Baxter herself shares how the government failed her when she became a ward of the state at age 12 due to her mother’s mental health issues. It was all left to her to rebuild a life after incarceration, but she did it, and achieved some major accolades along the way. 

The abuse Baxter faced in prison is a product of numerous systems that undervalue Black communities and their contributions. Her experience alone could be its own documentary. It is a powerful paradigm that an inanimate object like For the Women’s House could be used to embody the abuse that people, especially Black women, face in America’s prison systems.

Visit Paint Me a Road Out of Here’s website to learn more about their campaign against mass incarceration.

- Grace