On the Count, a meditation on the prison industrial complex, the system of mass incarceration in the United States, 2025.

On the Count is a project that began when I moved to Indianapolis in 2022. Visits to see my son an hour east in Richmond took me down Keystone to I-70. At a time when Indy’s landscape was still unfamiliar, the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center on Keystone loomed large. It appeared like an unsettling fortress, hugging the lot’s perimeter. I wondered about systems of incarceration in my new home.

I consulted the data and learned there are approximately 49,000 people incarcerated in Indiana. I began making small forms in clay, one for every thousand persons incarcerated. I methodically pierced each one 1,000 times. When I finished 49 of these, I had them fired, and tied them together. The strand stretched almost twelve feet long.

I considered how the numbers might vary from state to state, and how federal policy affects each state’s data. I decided to complete a strand for each state and the District of Columbia to represent the almost 2 million people incarcerated in the United States. 

Upon finishing all 2000 pieces, I photographed them within view of several detention centers in Indiana, using the strands to write words that felt relevant to both systems of incarceration, and efforts toward abolition.

On the Count was made possible by the Power Plant Grant program of Big Car Collaborative funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Firing of the ceramic components, and exhibition support was generously provided by the Indy Art Center. 

On the Count, 2025, 1,938 pieces of hand-formed stoneware, sisal twine, reclaimed prison uniforms, cotton thread, wooden pallets, data from Prison Policy Initiative reports 2023-2035, 51 strands totaling 6,761 running inches, installation dimensions variable, installed in the Ruth Lilly Library at the Indy Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana.