Courtroom

Visit any courtroom in the USA—they are open to the public—and you will find yourself surrounded by theater, politics, history, law, performance, drawing, and community. If you want to understand the community you live in, simply sit in a courtroom and pay attention. For several years, I have been sitting in on court cases making sketches in the tradition of courtroom artists, and writing down verbatim snippets of legal exchanges and conversations during the proceedings. I’ve observed lawyers, judges, witnesses, family members, jurors, stenographers, officers, and defendants as they all pass through the courtroom. My drawings and interviews have captured the range of experiences that can be found in any from people facing life-changing decisions to those simply going about their everyday work. The resulting images and text are a portrait of our criminal justice system and, by extension, a portrait of America—how the system treats its citizens and how we treat each other.