After Decades on Death Row, Gary Tyler Tells His Story Through Quilts

Gary Tyler, 67, is a fiber artist living and working in Los Angeles. His memoir, Stitching Freedom, was published in 2025.

Quilting is how I tell stories, many of which are drawn from my time on death row. Convict Poker depicts a popular event at the Angola Prison Rodeo in Louisiana — a group of inmates play poker at a red plastic table while being charged by an angry 3,000-pound bull. The last man at the table when the bull crashes into it wins $500. I saw guys get mauled, paralyzed and mortally wounded at those rodeos.

My self-portrait Captivity is inspired by a photo of me standing against a brick wall in jail a few months after I’d been arrested. I stitched it in black and white. I wanted to show that I’d become immersed in the wall, overwhelmed by the forces controlling my life.

“I recalled my grandmother making blankets and my mother sewing dresses, creating something new in the world,” says Tyler, who made quilts to raise money for the prison’s hospice program.

Gregg Segal

I was 16 when I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. A protest against school integration had turned violent, and a 13-year-old white boy was shot to death. I was convicted of murder and sentenced to death based on coerced witness testimony that was later recanted. Though my case was the subject of international outcry, I spent 42 years in prison in Louisiana. In the end, my sentence was deemed to be unjust by the U.S. Supreme Court, and I was released in 2016.

Early on, I was bitter and angry. But seeing how this had destroyed other guys in prison, I vowed to channel that negativity into something positive. I gained strength from others who’d endured horrendous conditions but never lost hope, like Nelson Mandela.

So I was one of the first hospice volunteers at Angola. When I went to prison as a teenager, many older guys became like family to me. When they fell ill and faced the end of life, they chose me to care for them. It was a gift and an honor — and it made me whole again.

To raise money for the hospice program, we made quilts. I was reluctant at first; quilting wasn’t manly. But I recalled my grandmother making blankets and my mother sewing dresses, creating something new in the world.

As long as I was in prison, I had to rely on lawyers, journalists and activists to speak for me. Now that I’m free, I’m able to speak for myself and stitch stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told.

We all have a story to tell. You just have to figure out how to tell yours, so it won’t be forgotten.

Tyler creates quilts to tell his story “so it won’t be forgotten.”

Gregg Segal