Ritchie Weatherspoon, 37, incarcerated for 19 years, is a self-taught prison artist who states that four years ago, "when I began to lose hope, I found art." Of his work, he says, "If it were not for friends...and the wonderful people who believed in what I could not see, I would not be!" Weatherspoon is thankful to be able to exhibit his work and "to speak to you through my vision. Without art I would be just another prison number, a silenced voice behind prison walls."

Weatherspoon works in soft pastel. His We Too Sing America By Langston Hughes (2004) "symbolizes the meaning of the late great African American poet Langston Hughes' poem titled 'We Too Sing America'- because no matter how...divided we are...or different we are ..., we are all Americans."