SALEM -- A group of Oregon State Penitentiary inmates hopes to carve a one-of-a-kind healing garden out of a small space wedged between the massive prison yard and an imposing cellblock.

The effort, spearheaded by two prison clubs, the Asian Pacific Family Club and the Veterans Association, has been underway for about three years as inmates built a network of supporters and champions among prison administrators, staff, volunteers and their fellow inmates.

Their biggest booster: Hoichi Kurisu, the highly regarded landscape designer who supervised construction of the Portland Japanese Garden.

Kurisu, who owns Kurisu International, a landscape design company, has met with the group and offered to donate his time to design the garden, estimated to cost $180,000. Corrections officials have tentatively approved the garden -- which has been revised three times due to security concerns -- as long as inmates cover the costs and come up with a plan for caring for it.

According to the Oregon Department of Corrections, the men directly involved have spotless disciplinary records or been trouble-free for years. Most are serving long prison stints for violent crimes and sex crimes.

The men say the effort to create something beautiful on the grounds of Oregon’s lone maximum-security prison has given them a rare sense of purpose.

They’ve made multiple presentations to outside groups to generate funding for the project. So far, they’ve covered about half of the budget with grants and donations, including about $5,000 from inmates.

“We are attempting to do something in a place that can be a hopeless place or can seem like a hopeless place, but really all we have in here is hope,” said Johnny Cofer, 44, who is 18 years into a life sentence for murder. “We have to be willing to challenge ourselves to act on that hope even if it seems unlikely.

“That is why it’s important to try to do it,” he said.

Cofer said he and other organizers hope the daily experience of seeing the garden at the Salem prison will offer a respite from the inmate experience and make rehabilitation possible. The space -- in the same fenced-in grassy area as a veterans memorial -- is one inmates pass daily on their way to and from meals. Inmates also will be able to visit the garden, which will cover a space that's 85 feet by 55 feet, by appointment.

“The landscape in here, the environment in here is sterile, it’s stressful,” Cofer said. “Everything is hard. And you know, it kind of makes us feel like we need to be hard to survive in here too.”

Cofer said the project has encountered obstacles given the restrictive setting. Inmates don’t have internet access so they’ve had to depend on staff and their own families to research healing gardens. The design itself, which includes features like a koi pond and a wooden bridge, has undergone multiple security reviews so the project complies with rules about height and materials.

Through it all, prison officials have been surprisingly supportive, he said.

“Normally the culture of prisons is the keepers and the kept,” Cofer said. “That is not what is happening here at all. They have been absolutely supportive from the beginning.”

Melissa Michaux, an associate professor of politics at Willamette University, has helped connect the group to potential funding sources. Though advocates like Michaux thought the idea seemed implausible at first, the garden project has already generated grant dollars from groups like Social Justice Fund NW.

Michaux credited the men with sticking with the idea, saying they’re determined to be remembered for something other than what landed them in prison.

“They know they have committed harm, not only to victims but to their family members and the community,” she said. “This is a way to create something beautiful, to participate in something positive.”

Healing gardens are designed to engage visitors mentally, physically and spiritually, said Michiko Kurisu, Kurisu’s daughter.

The best examples offer a space to inmates “that allows them to almost get away from themselves.”

Kurisu, who was approached about the idea by an outside advocate for the Asian Pacific Family Club, said he’d never been in a prison before his first meeting with the men. He recalled how thrilled they were to discuss their ideas, their research on healing gardens and their determination to introduce elements of the natural world in an otherwise bleak environment.

“He’s really interested in the transformative quality of that experience in nature,” Michiko Kurisu said. “That is a big thing for these guys in prison; They are interested in transformation and reformation.”

-- Noelle Crombie

503-276-7184; @noellecrombie