Based on the original John Haviland designs, Mary Jo Bole has recreated these hopper-style toilets using frosted blown glass and a dark colored polyurethane resin.  As they glow softly in the cells, lit only from an opening in the ceiling, one wonders what it was like when the doors were closed. 

     And it was those doors that posed one of Mary Jo’s biggest challenges.  She wanted to display information of the plumbing history of ESP and the general history of penal institution sanitation on the cell doors but ESP has very strict rules for maintaining the integrity of the site.   “It’s a historical site,” Mary Jo says, “You couldn’t move the dirt, you couldn’t take anything out.” 

     ESP wants the installations to work in conjunction with the deteriorating prison.  This is not an art gallery and according to their website “the building has virtually no running water, no climate control, and limited electrical service,” which posed another challenge for Mary Jo’s installation.  “I had to pick the cells with electrical outlets and I wanted them to be across from each other."