So Much More Than the Worst Thing

He was maybe 7 or 8 years old.

He stood in front of a wire grid filled with paintings. It was Friday, August 14, at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. The last event for the FROM WITHIN art show and fundraiser.

He said, “I can’t believe prisoners painted these.”

His dad was standing right next to him and he didn’t say anything.

I chimed in. “All of these men are so much more than the worst thing they have done. Right?”

That was the last real conversation I had at the FROM WITHIN art show. 3 months after it started, it ended with a kid telling me exactly what our society and culture had taught him.

The Art Show and Fundraiser

Last January I wrote about buying a painting called “Mother Earth” at a silent auction in Virginia.¹ It was created by someone who is incarcerated. I reached out to thank him. His name is Tremayne Seymour. That thank you note turned into a friendship.

And that friendship turned into something neither of us could have planned. A traveling show called FROM WITHIN, raising money for ArtVan, a Maine nonprofit that brings mobile art therapy to communities and people that can’t afford it.²

We opened at ReVision Energy in South Portland. Then Orange Bike Brewing in Portland. Then The Mix on Park Row in Brunswick, which is an art supply store. Then Reverie Coffee House. Then the library.

What I Kept Hearing

Over the course of the 3 months, a few hundred people saw the artwork. Almost every one of them said a version of the same thing.

“Wow. They’re so talented.”

I heard it so many times it started to sound like one long sentence. And I loved hearing it. It’s exactly what those men deserve to hear.

But sit with their surprise for a second.

You don’t say “wow” when something meets your expectations. You say it when something breaks them. Every single “wow” had a quiet assumption underneath it. That people in prison don’t make things this beautiful. That whatever talent is, it doesn’t live inside prison walls.

Then a young boy said the same thing without the filters of adulthood.

“I can’t believe prisoners painted these.”

He’d already learned what you “should” think about those behind prison walls. Likely not all at once. Little by little, piece by piece. He picked it up from movies and TV and the way adults talk about people who are locked up. He picked it up from a country that has decided some people don’t have value to add to society.

That’s what cultural conditioning looks like when you catch it early. It isn’t hate. He wasn’t being cruel. He was repeating what he’d absorbed, the way kids do.

His dad’s silence was part of it too. I don’t know the man, and I’m in no way calling him a bad father. I suspect he’s a great father. After all, he took his son to the library on a sunny summer afternoon and let him spend close to a half hour looking deeply at artwork created by men inside a prison.

But what you don’t say is often how this gets handed down. Not with words. With silence.

The Impact of the Show

In my opinion, the show was amazing, and unfortunately, the artists never got to see any of it.

3 months of people standing in front of their work saying “wow” out loud, and not one of them was there for a second of it.

I sent them photos. I wrote down what people said and passed it along. But it isn’t the same thing. It isn’t close.

These men made the art to help people on the outside. Then they had to sit inside while it happened without them. They couldn’t watch a face change. They couldn’t hear somebody’s voice shift halfway through a sentence.

They knew this going in, and they did it anyway. Because they understand the healing power of art, and they wanted to do everything they could to help others experience it.

When everything closed out, FROM WITHIN raised $1,500 for ArtVan.

That’s art supplies for 4 months of ArtVan programs. Roughly 400 people will use those supplies.

6 men inside a Virginia prison helped to put art supplies in the hands of 400 people in need, about 800 miles away in Maine.

ArtVan pulls up in a van and brings art therapy to kids and families at no cost. No fee, and no need to get yourself anywhere. They take out 2 big barriers that keep this kind of healing away from the people who need it most.

Follow the money for a second.

These men inside a prison paint to help with their own healing. They give their work away. And the money from it puts art programs in front of kids on the outside. Some of those kids might just be on the same path that led those men to Lawrenceville.

Healing downstream paying for healing upstream. If that’s not beautiful, then I don’t know what is.

It’s Over OR Is It Just Beginning

The show is over. FROM WITHIN isn’t. A show ends when the lights go out. A marketplace does not.

That’s the next chapter. Prints, shirts, mugs, and tote bags made from incarcerated artists’ original works. A marketplace enables more artists to be brought in. More art to get out in the world. More money moving toward healing, both inside prisons and in communities on the outside.

The beta version of the marketplace is open at heart-strong.org/from-within. I would love for you to look at what these men made. And if something grabs you, buying it helps us expand. More artists and more impact.

Right?

I’ve been thinking about my own answer to that boy for a few days.

“All of these men are so much more than the worst thing they have done. Right?”

I said it to a young boy, but I was really talking to his dad. And to myself. And probably to everyone reading this.

It’s a real question, not a rhetorical one. Agreeing with it is easy. Living like it’s true is a whole different thing, right?

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This Substack is a production of Heart-Strong, a nonprofit centered around a simple belief. The world works better, for everyone and everything in it, when more of us are pulled by love than controlled by fear. Our work is focused on making love cool again. And we know we can’t do it alone. We have an open invite for anyone curious about what that world could look like. Learn more at www.heart-strong.org.

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