Jesse Krimes: Elegy Quilts

A black claw-foot bathtub fills one quilt, a barn owl perched on its rim beside a bright tree and a dark green drape. That's Riverside, pieced together from collages by eight young Philadelphians recently released from detention, and it is also the design for the new mural at 990 Spring Garden Street.

Krimes, who served six years in prison, builds each Elegy Quilt from antique quilts and clothing donated by incarcerated people and their families. By letter and phone, he asked them about the rooms they remember and the animal they identify with. You walk into the gallery and find their answers: empty chairs, a red pay phone, a crib with a rocking horse, animals standing in for people. No one is named, on the quilts or in the wall text. Krimes wants viewers to think "but for the grace of God it could have been them."

It's one gallery on the first floor, free with a suggested $10 donation, and it closes on November 1.