Master Ramsey-El (Tiffany Ann)
Master Ramsey-El, AKA Tiffany Ann, is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but has lived in Florida for the past 15 years. Although his body is in a cage, his mind is free to wander, wonder, and create.
He is the published author of a poetry memoir, Eye of the Storm: The The Times and Rhymes of Master Michael Ramsey, written while serving a life sentence in Federal prison for a crime he did not commit. He participates in Between the Lines, a series of collaborative art workshops by correspondence. His contributions will be exhibited in The Power of We, a large-scale public art exhibition, supported by We, Women Photo, that will travel across the U.S. to venues in Anchorage, Atlanta, Chicago, and New Orleans. He is a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, and participates in Between the Lines under the pseudonym Tiffany Ann, in honor of his sister who passed away in 2009.
Between the Lines Broadside:
Commissioned by Center for Book Arts 2021 Workspace Artist in Residence Rowan Renée for their Between the Lines project, this edition of 100 broadsides is a collaboration between NYC-based artist Faride Mereb and queer incarcerated artist Master Ramsey-El.
Mereb’s designed the broadside as a panoptic with Ramsey-El’s creative text running clockwise, and his interpretive text running counter-clockwise—as if in dialogue with himself. Below the text, Mereb recreated the stamp that was on the envelope containing Ramsey-El’s text, which resembles an anatomical diagram of an eye.All proceeds from this broadside—and the other five that are part of the series—directly benefit organizations supporting queer incarcerated artists.
