Reforming Arts

Reforming Arts Reforming Arts co-creates a caring community by teaching the whole person, body-spirit-mind through our Creative Becoming theatre classes.

With a spirit of exploration, we create a world of play, build courageous community and foster narrative change. The roots of Reforming Arts began in 2009 with one woman teaching one theatre class at one prison. In 2010 it became one woman teaching two theatre classes at two prisons and then two women teaching two classes and then back to one when Metro State Women’s Prison closed. Along the way,

our executive director, Wende Ballew researched the history of criminal justice in the United States, prison theatre programs, and prison education programs. What she found was a nugget of hope, called education, buried within a disturbing history of punitive measures that profits a small group of stakeholders. She also found women who longed to learn, who wanted to be challenged, and wanted more for themselves than their current environment. Thus, Reforming Arts was born. Officially founded as a Georgia nonprofit corporation in 2010, Reforming Arts has grown from one woman teaching one class to an organization that provides quality arts and humanities higher education classes to over forty students each quarter. In a short time, we went from a couple of concerned individuals to a growing movement of artists, educators, and citizens who are impacting the lives of imprisoned women and giving them the tools to change their lives.

11/06/2024

This morning I’m thinking about Reid who lives at Lee Arrendale State Prison and has a full beard but is constantly called their deadname by the staff and officers even though they are supposed refer to people as “inmate” and their last name. Reid receives hormone treatment because people sued for their rights, not because a Democrat understood and sympathized with transgender rights.

I’m thinking of Gina who would go into a rage while reading or watching A Handmaid’s Tale because she could not imagine people like me submitting so easily. Her disbelief was not that Christians and men could be so horrible, it was that I would give up (she did not have the same perception of other volunteers, just me). It turns out she is right. I will not submit and it is driving me a little bit crazy. I do want to run though. I want to run. I want some ease. I want to be able to help these people and loved ones of incarcerated people and I also want to be able to pay my mortgage.

I am very afraid and hurt and I am not okay. I’ll probably lash out in anger soon and I hope y’all with treat me with compassion when I do.

Reforming Arts is beginning new classes for people who are non-binary in October. Sign up and share!
09/30/2024

Reforming Arts is beginning new classes for people who are non-binary in October. Sign up and share!

Intra-active theatre-based class for nonbinary folks. We will collectively heal, build community, learn, and creatively dismantle binaries. | 10.17.2024

Reforming Arts is offering new classes for people who have been impacted by mass incarceration and gender binaries. Sign...
09/30/2024

Reforming Arts is offering new classes for people who have been impacted by mass incarceration and gender binaries. Sign up and share!

Intra-active theatre-based class for loved ones of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people. We will collectively heal, build community, learn, a… | 10.16.2024

Friends, we need your support today.
08/27/2024

Friends, we need your support today.

Friends, Time is running out, and we urgently need your support. For the past two years, Reforming Arts has analyzed our research and integrated our findings into new, evidence-based classes designed to teach the whole person—spirit, body, and mind- and create narrative change. This process has b...

Friends, we need your support today. Please give generously.https://mailchi.mp/8df031c5ceeb/urgent-we-need-you
08/26/2024

Friends, we need your support today. Please give generously.

https://mailchi.mp/8df031c5ceeb/urgent-we-need-you

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Come hear Wend on Thursday!
07/23/2024

Come hear Wend on Thursday!

We launched our Creative Becoming teacher training today. It looks like we had lots of fun. Would you like to join us?
03/16/2024

We launched our Creative Becoming teacher training today. It looks like we had lots of fun. Would you like to join us?

Address

900 Murphy Avenue SW
Atlanta, GA
30310

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