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| Art on display at Louisiana State Penitantary's hobbycraft sale. (Photo: Courtesy The Angolite) |
Chances are, you've heard of Angola, The Louisiana State Penitentiary. It's the largest maximum security prison in the United States, and an Angola reference is a fixture in any film or television series based in the south, from True Detective to No Country for Old Men. Sprawling across 8,000 acres of farmland–once a plantation–it's named after the country in southern Africa where the former slaves that worked on its land came from. And, on one weekend in April and on every Sunday in October, it hosts the Angola Prison Rodeo, the longest continually-running prison rodeo in the country.
Thousands of visitors enter the prison complex to see the show and, last year, I was among them. However, bucking broncos don't interest me; I was there for the "Inmate Hobbycraft Sale," which runs alongside the rodeo. After a bag search more thorough than any I’ve ever experienced at the hands of the TSA, and a solemn promise to a security officer that I would not take photos, I entered the prison complex to peruse the wares. They were proudly arranged atop rows of tables; the shopping experience was complemented by a soundtrack of thrashing hooves and the roar of the rodeo crowd.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/inside-the-angola-prison-hobbycraft-sale-where-inmates-can-sell-their-creations?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=73e39fc821-Newsletter_1_18_20161_15_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-73e39fc821-59905913&ct=t(Newsletter_1_18_20161_15_2016)&mc_cid=73e39fc821&mc_eid=866176a63f
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