EAST MADISON — Michael Halle is serving federal prison time for running a methamphetamine operation at his home in Franklin County last summer.
Elizabeth Mikotowitz, formerly of Bangor, is in federal prison for three years for bath salts trafficking.
What the two inmates have in common is that they are both artists and both spent time awaiting trial on their federal charges at the Somerset County Jail in East Madison. What each of them left behind at the jail are lasting images, say county officials — painted murals on the jail walls that give warmth to an otherwise drab, pale existence.
And give meaning to time spent behind bars that might otherwise be wasted.
“Because they are artistic — there’s no correlation between that and criminal behavior or dealing drugs,” Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster said. “Federal inmates can’t leave the facility, so to have something to do here we take advantage of their abilities and their willingness to do it. They don’t have to sit in their cell. They’re able to be productive while they’re institutionalized here.”
Halle, 46, painted a 10-by-6-foot American flag that appears to be waving in the breeze in the corridor inside the entry to the cell block area. The flag, completed over a period of a couple of weeks earlier this month, is bordered with seals representing the nation’s armed services.
Mikotowitz, 26, helped finish the work begun in 2013 by another female inmate who painted Maine’s county seals along one of the corridors. She also painted nature scenes in the county jail’s no-contact visiting room. Each of the four scenes has a painted border resembling a wooden frame.
“The flag and the symbols indicate that we care about our veterans,” Lancaster said. “If we can make those cement walls look good, it might have a calming effect. There’s value to art.”
The jailhouse artwork was started in 2013 when murals depicting Somerset County towns on a 2010 bicentennial quilt were painted on the walls as a way for inmates to find some satisfaction during their time behind bars.
One of the jail artists, Sydney Duff, then 21, a federal prisoner awaiting sentencing for twice robbing the Rite Aid pharmacy in Newport with her boyfriend in 2012, told jail officials that she wanted copies of the murals she painted for her portfolio. Jail Compliance Officer Sean Maguire copied 18 of the images painted by Duff and made them into 4-by-6-inch pictures for her photo album before she went to a federal prison on a three-to-five-year sentence.
Maguire got the idea to turn the pictures into postcards, a process he said Thursday is nearing completion with the arrival of computers at the jail, which can generate the postcard images.
“It’s still on the books. We’ve got to purchase the printer,” Maguire said. “We haven’t had the computers set up for inmates to use to do the editing of the images. That is now in place. The computer lab has been upgraded, and we’ll have the printer by the end of the month.”
Once completed, the postcards will be sent to Somerset County towns for sale and will be available on the county website. County commissioners approved the sale of the postcards in November 2013.
“A lot of these inmates have talent, if they could redirect their energies to positive things,” Lancaster said. “When you have them in a controlled environment, they refocus their energies and it becomes productive.”
Other murals inside the jail include inspirational windows on the wall in the jail’s chapel and a Maine coastal scene that stretches some 30 feet down one of the corridors.
Lancaster said the American flag mural was completed just recentl. Halle was sentenced to serve 2 1/2 years in federal prison and left the Somerset County jail Jan. 12. Lancaster said the artist-in-residence program will continue at the jail for as long as inmates are willing to participate.
“There are always discussions to talk about enhancing the environment,” he said. “Art is important.”
Doug Harlow — 612-2367
Twitter: @Doug_Harlow
Comments are no longer available on this story