Alexander developed the Prison Creative Arts Project through the university. As part of an undergraduate course that provides a thorough training ground, students go into 20 different prisons and juvenile facilities, as well as some of the poorest high schools in Detroit, to hold art workshops.

About the same time, Summers and his fledging church community decided to focus on outreach to people in prison through Bible study groups. Over the years, the two men have shared the challenges of their prison work, as well as the similarities. They describe this work as some of the richest experiences of their lives—and they find ample evidence of hope and healing.

Founded in 1990, the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) facilitates the creation of original works of art in Michigan prisons, juvenile facilities and urban high schools. The project opens creative spaces where they don’t easily exist. Working in teams of two or three, PCAP members facilitate and participate fully in workshops where vulnerability, risk, and improvisation lead to discovery. The emphasis is on creative writing, including plays that are performed, visual art, dance and music. Everyone who enters the workshop space is respected, believed in, supported and challenged.

The PCAP program is operated through the university and involves at least three faculty, three full-time staff, a large advisory board, and between 24-50 students each semester. After taking one of three courses that provide a training ground, students continue their involvement as volunteers, and many eventually become PCAP associates and then mentor and train other students. Some PCAP students have chosen a life of service in various fields based on the experience.

In the process of participating in the workshops, the incarcerated can begin to see themselves as creative human beings, as artists. They can risk forming relationships, which are dangerous otherwise. They develop inner support and grow.

One artist told Alexander, “It’s a kind of forgiveness; I’m being welcomed back into the world.”

Through his work in prison Bible study, and collaborating with PCAP, Summers also witnesses this growth.

“Among the incarcerated, there are some very rigid ideas about Christianity,” he said. “Through art, many of those issues can be side-stepped, and people can get in touch with their emotions and imaginations to survive and transcend their circumstances.

“It’s some of my favorite art,” Summers said, “And it changes my reading of the Bible. A lot of the Bible was written by people in prison. Reading it with the incarcerated changes your perspective.”

In addition, there is tremendous value in this project to the students who participate, and to the community members who attend the art shows. Church of the Incarnation held an art show and auction on December 9.

The art hits you in the face. Seeing the full breadth of the artist’s humanity and diversity challenges the damaging idea that there are good people and bad people. And once that happenes, one can no longer just forget—as is too often the case with the incarcerated.

[Merilynne Rush is a member of St. Andrew’s, Ann Arbor. For more information on the Prison Creative Arts Project, see HERE.]