The Cross

The Cross, 1950’s

Woven cigarette boxes

Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, Louisiana

Perhaps evoking religious reflection, this Christian icon of the Latin Cross was created from discarded Camel and Winston cigarette packages. The artisan used open or depressed spaces organized around a central diamond to anchor his design. Diamond squares bearing the letters “STON.” re-state the cross pattern. And finally, an outer border composed of camel ‘rear leg’ motifs completes the scheme.. Careful design choices are evident throughout, as demonstrated by the thoughtful creation of sunburst patterns at the extreme ends of all four arms of the cross.

Commonly called Angola, the prison was built on the site of an earlier slave plantation of the same name. Both recall Angola in western central Africa from which many enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas. In 1880, Confederate States of American Major Samuel James purchased the land that had been Angola Plantation and launched a business housing and managing inmates of the State. The practice of sentencing principally black men to hard labor in private industries and on farms for minor or no infractions at all was widespread throughout the post-Civil War south.