Austin ABC is sharing a request from an incarcerated person in Texas. Miss Carrie is a transwoman who has started her own business behind prison walls designing rings. A photo of a couple of those rings can be viewed below. We wanted to share her message with others in case they are interested in helping her out. Until she is able to find a partner, if you would like to purchase a ring, please contact Austin ABC and we will put you in touch with her. She does not have any financial support and hopes to sell her jewelry so that she can afford things at commissary. Here is her message:
“I’ve been a lover of art all my life, working for awhile as a professional freelance photographer / photo journalist. About 3 years ago while sitting in my room doodling with a pen, I discovered a way to make rings from plastic tubing. I’ve been busy ever since. Business is grand but I need tiny patterns and have no one on the outside to help me. My kids are scattered hither and my parents and my only sibling are resting in the cemetery waiting for me to join them soon. I’m hoping not any time too soon, though. :p (hee! hee! hee!) My artwork is a very unique form of artwork you’ve probably never seen before in or out of prison. I am building a specialty jewelry business: Phantom Black Design Rings. I’m looking for a business partner in the free world, preferably a professional woman or transgender woman. A photo journalist would be grand. The business website would require a person skilled in photography, specifically macro-photography photographing small rings and ring patterns for display on the website. I would like to send a beautiful display box full of my rings for display at art shows and online but they would have to be covered up to prevent theft. I would need a safe way to display this box of rings. I am indigent and it is very depressing on store day. I need to find a partner, pen-pal, friend, business partner to help me get my art work displayed on internet and purchased out individually from the box. Each ring is a work in itself, taking 12-20 hours over several days to complete. I have no professional tools, I work with razor blades, etc. I’ve taken plastic and various forms of print media and constructed a complex form of artwork unique to this century. Never have rings of this sort existed until now.”