The Monongalia Arts Center celebrated the opening of Justice & Art, a new exhibit featuring pieces from a man who spent 34 years wrongfully imprisoned, on Friday.
Lewis “Jim” Fogle of Indiana, PA was only 29 years old when he was falsely arrested for the murder of a local teenage girl. He was finally exonerated in August 2015 at 64 years old thanks in large part to the Innocence Project, which helped bring DNA evidence to light that cleared him of the crime. Throughout his incarceration, Fogle had one constant to help keep him sane: his artwork. It is now this artwork that will help fund his life as a free man.
The exhibit opened Friday, Sept. 9 with a closed reception at the MAC, and will be open to the general public from Monday, Sept. 12 through October 1 in the MAC’s Davis Gallery. The exhibit will display roughly 25 to 35 pieces, according to MAC Executive Director Ro Brooks, all of which will be for sale. All proceeds will go towards helping Fogle financially as he received no compensation from Pennsylvania upon his release.
The MAC also sold mugs from Crooked Creek Creations, an engraving company out of Indiana, PA, at the exhibit opening. All of the profits from the mugs, which feature a caricature likeness of Fogle designed by Fogle himself and the phrase “Support the Wrongfully Convicted,” were turned over to Fogle.
Kelly Ayers, Clinical Instructor at West Virginia University’s Department of Forensic and Investigative Science, is to thank for making these events possible. After seeing a story on Fogle by Pittsburgh journalist Mike Fuoco, she became angry at the injustice Fogle suffered and reached out to Fuoco for more information. Upon learning about Fogle’s artwork, Ayers developed the idea of an art exhibit to help him.
“I read the article, and it just hit something [in me],” Ayers said. “I felt like since we were in pretty close proximity, maybe there was something I could do. It might not be anything huge, but just to let him know that people care.”
In conjunction with Valena Beety, director of the Innocence Project at WVU, Ayers reached out to Brooks at the MAC to find a place to house the exhibit.
“I was very pleased that they contacted the community arts center to see if we would accept this exhibition and partner with them on making this happen,” Brooks said, “and I’m really happy that we were able to do it. Art has played such an important role in this man’s life through a really dark time, and it probably has been the light for him through all of that.”
During the exhibit opening, Fogle gave remarks confirming this sentiment. “If it wasn’t for painting in prison, I would have lost my mind,” he said. “I probably would have killed myself.”
Now Fogle has the chance to make something of a livelihood with what kept him alive. With only about $1500 left to his name and not even as much as an apology from the state that stole three decades of his life, he doesn’t have many other prospects.
“If you can’t find a job, can’t get Social Security, how are you supposed to survive?” he said, and added that he understands now why so many released inmates turn back to crime to make ends meet. “I think Pennsylvania throws you out there so you have to break the law and they can throw you back in prison and say, ‘look, we had him where he belongs. He doesn’t deserve any money.’”
Readjusting to life on the outside might not be easy, but Fogle is doing his best. “I can just do what I told the inmates [in prison]: Don’t give up. Keep on fighting,” he said. “You hit a little bit of a roadblock, a little bit of a problem, you stand on your feet and you keep on fighting.”
