Jerry Metcalf tells the touching story of an inmate living in a Michigan prison managed to develop a college art course for prisoners across the country.
When I think of scholarship funds, my mind naturally springs towards titans like Ford, Kennedy, or Rockefeller. Yet, every morning when I exit my cell here at Thumb Correctional Facility, I walk past the founder of the Levitt Fund, Christopher A Levitt (Instagram.com/c.levitt2023), one of the most talented artists I’ve ever encountered in prison.
Back in 2019, while attending long-distance college studies through Adams State University, Christopher realized he needed credits for classes Adams State didn’t offer, and that led him to Colorado State Pueblo’s Extended Studies program, which is run by a dedicated group of folks willing to go the extra mile for those in need, even if those in need happen to reside in a state or federal prison.
While studying for his psychology college degree, Christopher took every art course for prisoners that CSUP’s extended studies department offered. Yet, like most people in prison dedicated to self-rehabilitation, he hungered for more. So he asked the school if they would develop a new art course for him. Shortly thereafter, ART 397 was conceived by graduate student Meg Olsen with the sole purpose of teaching Christopher, and only Christopher, more about art.
At the time, CSUP had no idea Meg Olsen’s collaboration with Mr. Levitt would lead to much more than just the one class, but they’re certainly happy with the unexpected results.
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A year went by, Christopher Levitt gobbled up all he could learn through ART 397. He also developed a friendship with Meg Olsen. Wishing to help others in similar situations, but not really knowing how to go about it, Christopher approached Colorado State Pueblo’s Extended Studies program with the idea of offering a college art course for ALL incarcerated individuals across the United States.
ART 141 was a course already available to CSUP’s regular campus students, but with a little tweaking by Christopher and Meg, it was converted into a correspondence format for prisoners. Now incarcerated individuals have the chance to take a college art class through the mail.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of convicts (mostly poor, inner city minorities) aren’t imprisoned because they or their families can afford college, so Christopher was faced with another dilemma: How to help those poor, incarcerated folks pay their tuition?
Christopher is no Ford, or Kennedy, or Rockefeller, at least not financially (or ethnically), but he is rich in ingenuity, tenacity, and artistic ability, so he applied all three. He asked CSUP if they’d create a scholarship in his name, then use some of his art, through a fundraising art show, to fund the scholarship.
The Chris Levitt scholarship was born.
I asked Chris what CSUP’s help meant to him, and he handed me one of the school’s fliers, which read: “As an incarcerated artist, I was cut off from the art world, a castaway adrift on an easel in an endless ocean… I was found by the incredible staff of CSU Pueblo’s Extended Studies. They rescued me from the water and gave me a place to grow.”
This is such a wonderful story, I just had to write about it. But it also left me wondering why a man imprisoned in Michigan had been forced to seek help all the way out in the Colorado? Why would any convict have to seek help so far from his or her home state? Why aren’t all state-funded colleges across our great nation (the “Land of the Free”) offering such art classes to their state prison populations?
Being an artist myself, I understand the importance of art when it comes to rehabilitating humans who are mentally, spiritually, and emotionally broken. We’ve all heard the saying, “hurt people hurt people.” It’s taught in every college in America, liberal and non-liberal alike.
Yet what everybody fails to mention is that hurt people can be fixed. And art therapy is one of the best and cheapest ways to go about repairing those broken souls.
Again, like Mr. Levitt, I ought to know. Art saved my life.
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