Students organize a MacCormick 'Art in Prison' display at WSH

Cornell undergraduates Sarah Agudo '03, left, and Harriet Antczak '04, who taught art classes at the MacCormick Secure Facility in Brooktondale, a prison for youthful offenders, present work done by inmates, at the Willard Straight Hall art gallery. The two students helped organize the exhibit, which is on view through Saturday, Nov. 1. Robert Barker/University Photography

By Linda Myers

The ivy-covered brick and stone buildings that dot Cornell's expansive quadrangles stand in sharp contrast to a stark, oddly shaped building with razor-wire trim in Brooktondale, only 15 minutes by car from campus.

Fifty-two young men, ages 14 to 21, live at the MacCormick Secure Facility, one of New York state's four maximum security structures for young people. Most are black, poor and from large cities. They are here because they have committed violent crimes. Tried as adults under harsh new laws, they are being held until they have served their sentences or can be released on parole or, for the unluckiest, are old enough to be transferred to adult prisons. Because they are never permitted to leave the facility, none will get see their own artwork in the exhibition "Art in Prison" in the Willard Straight Hall art gallery on campus through Saturday, Nov. 1.

Sarah Agudo, a senior majoring in human development, was at first daunted by the rigid rules that define the facility. Along with friends Stefan Roesch, a graduate student in computer graphics, and Harriet Antczak, a senior English major, Agudo helped conduct art classes at MacCormick in a service-learning project and organized the art exhibit. The goal was to help residents feel less like pariahs and more a part of the human race, "to allow them to give back to the communities they have taken from," said Agudo.

Antczak got involved at MacCormick several years ago as part of the Cornell Companions program, run through the College of Veterinary Medicine, which connects pets with people in restricted facilities. She went on to teach writing classes at MacCormick and at another area prison. Agudo and Roesch began teaching rock climbing last year at MacCormick, which has a small climbing wall. The students also have done one-on-one mentoring and organized a basketball shoot-off in which residents raised more than $300 for local AIDS Work.

Spending time at MacCormick isn't easy, said Agudo. "It's emotionally draining," and, before she got to know the staff and residents, even seemed intimidating, she said. But ultimately volunteering there became such a rewarding experience that she has found it hard to stay away. "Being able to give people the attention they deserve when they don't think they are worth anything" is priceless, said Agudo. "It made me feel I had another dimension."

Learning how to detach, to not attempt to solve the inmates' problems, took time. "You can't tell them that it will be all right, because it won't be," Agudo said. One boy she mentored initially took his anger out on her: "He switched moods quickly and would say the meanest things, like, 'Stop pretending you care.'" Later they became friends.

"[Residents] are wary as they try to figure out what motivates you," said Agudo. "But perseverance is the only skill you need to help. Eventually seeing them shine with the realization that you are there for them for the long-haul is the most gratifying experience I've had." She is now training to help residents discuss with their parole boards how they they'll organize their lives and stay out of trouble once they are released.

On display in the Straight are drawings, paintings, collages and writings by MacCormick residents and a book of illustrated poems by them that was produced by Lynn Andersen, director of the Durland Alternatives Library at Cornell. The collages, in particular, which are made with magazine cutouts, reflect a fascination with glossy imagery from popular culture -- basketball stars, beautiful women -- as well as money and what it can buy -- jewelry, cool clothes and fast cars. The distance between the young men in prison and such objects of desire is sobering to take in.

Gang influence, Antczak said, is one reason residents ended up in a prison as well as why so many get sent back after release. To gain greater understanding, she took a course on prisons (taught by Cornell government Professor Mary Katzenstein) and is independently studying gang culture.

Marjorie Olds, Cornell J.D. '76, a judge with an area drug treatment court who is head of the facility's advisory board, observed that more young black males in New York state are in jail, on parole or otherwise under the thumb of the criminal justice system than in college, and at a greater cost. But the community can help prevent recidivism by "not forgetting these kids," said Olds, citing others at Cornell who have been involved at MacCormick, among them Duane Chapman, Gail Holst-Warhaft, Kenneth McClane, Nancy Cook and other faculty, as well as staff and students, who have tutored and offered classes in math, science, music-making, poetry, Spanish and law.

This year Meg Elliott and Jessica Evett-Miller brought OMNI (objects and their makers: new insights) kits from Cornell's Johnson Museum to MacCormick. Residents got to handle such art objects as Native American masks and carved wooden keys from Mali. "They really responded to them," said Elliott.

"It's something you can't forget," said Agudo of her time at MacCormick. She plans to enroll in law school after graduation, pursue alternatives to incarceration and, along with Antczak, influence juvenile justice policy. "I'm going to continue this work, wherever I go," she said.

A Cornell Council for the Arts grant funded the "Art in Prison" exhibition.