Beyond The Walls: From Cell to Sacred

Photo courtesy of the Vatican

As an Uplift WV member and artist,  Idle is one of the lead curators of Inside→OUT: incARceraTion, a traveling exhibit that fosters community conversations and education on mass incarceration and the need for community-driven, supportive reentry in West Virginia and across the nation. This might seem unexpected, as Idle is incarcerated at Mount Olive Correctional Facility, serving a life-without-mercy sentence. He views his work as an opportunity for restitution — to repair the harm he has caused and to help create the world he needed as a child.

Growing up in poverty, homelessness, and foster care in Appalachia, Idle searched for belonging. Unfortunately, he fell in with a group that committed a crime, leading to a short prison sentence. During that time, unhealed trauma led to more tragedy: an altercation that took another man's life.

Idle relays that at the sentencing, whatever was left to be broken in him broke when the judge told him, "There has never been anything good about you, and you will never be outside these walls again." Idle returned to his cell, shattered. Full of remorse, he sat on his bed and decided that if he couldn't think of one good thing about himself, the judge was right — and he would take his own life. He sat in that darkness, on the edge of giving up, until one thought stopped him: he was good at art.

That day, he committed himself to using his art to help create the world he had needed but never found. He had heard about people at House of Hagar Catholic Worker in Wheeling, West Virginia — parishioners at the Cathedral of St. Joseph — who were working with the poor and unhoused. He sent them a piece addressing homelessness, and a relationship began that would change not just his life, but many others.

House of Hagar's nonprofit, HoH-Share Inc., had recently received a USCCB Catholic Campaign for Human Development grant to launch Uplift WV, a project using Catholic Social Teaching to empower people with lived experience of poverty to address root causes and create social change. One of the first steps was hosting a listening session to identify what members saw as the most significant issues binding people to poverty. Director Kate Marshall expected housing or transportation to top the list. Both made the top five — but incarceration came in at number one, having touched every person or family in the room.

The group quickly got to work discussing how they would engage the community on the tough, often stigmatizing issue of mass incarceration and reentry. Then they recalled how storytelling and art had helped address homelessness issues by humanizing those experiencing them. The Uplift WV members thought art would be a way forward … and they literally had an “in.” They contacted Idle, and he quickly became a Uplift WV member helping curate the traveling art exhibit called “inside—->OUT:incARceration.” His work addresses the many issues that lead and surround incarceration, homelessness, child abuse, human trafficking, poverty, and trauma, always rooted in seeking the dignity of the human person. He also helps facilitate other incarcerated artists' contributions to the exhibit. The exhibit has been seen by thousands and has traveled throughout WV and four other states. 

If that were the whole story, it would already be remarkable. But it continued.

One day, Kate received an unexpected package from Idle: a pencil drawing of St. Joseph's Cathedral, rendered on a piece of found cardboard. A note explained that he drew it as a gesture of gratitude for the relationships, love, and community he had found, and to honor the faith that propelled them. The drawing is almost entirely in pencil — except for one small gold cross on the roof  that is above the tabernacle inside the cathedral. It was a detail Idle had no way of knowing, as he had never been inside. He simply felt inspired to add it. Deeply moved, Kate placed the picture in their office.

At the end of 2025, Kate received a call from St. Joseph's Cathedral. The Pastoral Associate, Tyler, explained that the cathedral's 100th anniversary was approaching, and he was traveling to Rome to meet Pope Leo. Knowing that she worked with many artists, he asked if something could be made as a gift to commemorate the occasion. Kate told him nothing needed to be made — she already had something. Tyler loved the idea and said it was exactly the meaningful item he was looking for.

In January 2026, Pope Leo was presented with a framed drawing of St. Joseph's Cathedral — made by a man serving a life-without-mercy sentence in the hills of West Virginia, on a piece of cardboard, with a single gold cross he placed there by faith alone.

Idle says that through his work with Uplift WV, his co-curation of Inside→OUT: incARceraTion, and his partnership with those who carry his art beyond the prison walls, he could look that judge in the eyes with deep sincerity and say he was wrong. There is good in him, and he has found a way to put it into the world. However, he never imagined it would reach inside the Vatican walls and into the hands of the Pope.

Idle is helping us understand the depths of God's mercy — not just what it means to help someone carry their cross, but also to help carry their goodness. He, Uplift WV, and its members remind us that Catholic Social Teaching is alive, relevant, and capable of bringing God's merciful love to places none of us could have predicted.

(For the sake of privacy, the artist's pseudonym Idle has been used in this story)

Artwork by IDLE