PRISON
October, 2019
18" x 14"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000663
Soon to be available, a single fold-away bunk, toilet, wash basin, desk with storage space along with a cabinet and shelf for storage.
This space comes with harsh conditions. It’s loud when you want it quiet. The people around you will gossip about you, shake your hand, eat your last piece of food and won't call for help if either you or your space is attacked.
But you can put down a rug, a yoga mat with a blue towel folded up on the blankets and make your chair a lazy boy. Fold up the bed and the cell turns into my bachelor pad, my chapel, my den of creativity, and my Pee Wee’s playhouse.
But now it is time to let someone else have the space and walk their path and hope it leads to…
August, 2019
18" x 14"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000656
Watching Nightline:
22 people shot and killed in El Paso Texas
13 hours later
9 people killed in Dayton Ohio
Tears threatening to breach my eyes; my heart feels full.
An infant lost both parents and if that isn't bad enough, his head is bruised and broken bones in his hands. Cracked ribs.
One of my neighbors below me yells out, “You see ole girl in the cut off shorts, that little ass is nice.” The gravity of the moment had the building unusually silent and this guy is cruising for tail. I turn my back on this world and embrace my love [my paintbrush]. The comfort of her arms accepts and soothes all my pain.
October, 2017
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000587
Inside this prison environment there are all sorts of people. It would be a betrayal of our intelligence to assume that individuals in any one group means that each of those people are exactly the same.
It would be unfair for a prisoner to say that all guards are unfeeling just as it would be equally incorrect to assume that prisoners are all one way.
For those of us trapped behind these walls, the experiences and perspectives are unique and specific to each individual.
For some, it is a religious retreat where they find the truth of their spiritual selves.
There are others who will be traumatized beyond repair by the normal conditions of confinement.
There are still others who will be inflamed past control over every injustice that takes place inside the walls.
And then there are some who can sit in the prison courtyard, surrounded by all of these energies, and fade into the pastel colors of the sky and take flight into the magic of seeing a bird take flight. I have never seen these birds in person before.
Yet I fly with them.
2017
24" x 18"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000551
“If indignities are not directly named, acknowledged and redressed, they take on an invisible energy of their own showing up in the form of obstacles.” A quote from Donna Hicks’ book, Dignity. I read the above words and I learned that because of the brain’s tremendous neuroplasticity, if we are exposed to a negative relationship (situation) for long periods of time, the exposure can actually reshape our brains.
I've endured the indignities of prison for 22 years. This experience has imprinted itself on my personality and my soul through the reshaping of my brain. In prison there are few things that rise above connection with a special woman. But we all dread that Dear Jon letter. “My publisher” (who published In Warm Blood: Prison & Privilege, Hurt & Heart by Judith Gwinn Adrian and DarRen Morris, HenschelHAUS) had recommended to Jon-Darren that I paint the cover of his book. As I read the sample readings, I thought of the environment that shapes “the brain” through indignities that formulate attitude and perception. I came away with a painting that shows a man trapped for infinity, trying to escape/avoid or evade the indignities of prison."
2016
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000515
I met Benny about 10 years ago. He came up to me one day and asked, “You YaYa’s son.” Yup! Man that’s my boy. How he doing…
He was the 3rd person I met that knew my father from prison since being in CCI. It was interesting that these people knew more about him than I did. And most was not shy in telling me how I was not like my father. I was constantly reminded I could not play basketball as good as he could. Each person told me this. For those people who think that you will automatically mellow out with age, Benny will prove you wrong. He has had just as many, and in some cases more, fights than young prisoners. In 2011 he was in seg for beating up a guy his cousin had beat up a few days earlier. Both were in seg. While in seg Benny had a confrontation with his roommate and had to be moved so they put him on the floor of the cell I was in. I had just gotten 180 days in seg for misuse of the telephone. One day as Benny slept, I sat writing my woman a letter and to describe to her the nature of the situation. There was an empty cell next door and one across the hall, yet they kept him on the floor. Less than 8 inches from his head were my feet and about 8 inches from his feet was the toilet. Less than ideal. But we made it work.
2015
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Cardboard
000464
I have heard of the urban war syndrome and I get that. But what do you call it when a 17-year-old boy comes to a maximum security prison for life? You cannot grasp the gravity of that. I don't have the words to describe the injustice and chaos I have faced, endured and overcome.
I have just turned 40. I am still in max. The weight of that, my grannies dying, my mom aging, my son growing up without me, my grand-babies knowin’ me as a face in a picture, the friends who have moved on, the girl friends who have married and have new families and kids of their own going on to college…all of this and I am here taking orders from an 18-year-old white kid that is 5’3” and 90 pounds.
December, 2015
24" x 18"
Acrylic on Cardboard
000462
When I was in solitary confinement this last time, I was across the hall from a man who is about 6’4”, 240 pounds of muscle. Yet he would shrink down into the persona of a child. He would carve these deep gaping wounds into his arm.
I would stand at my door and watch the exchange between this woman, about 5’1” and 120 pounds, as she spoke to this massive man behind that door. It was almost like watching Jessica Lang tame King Kong. She would get him to discuss all his personal issues through the steel door. We could all hear it.
Because of this kind of situation, some of the men refuse to talk to the head shrinks – out of fear of everyone knowing their business.
2015
18" x 14"
Acrylic on Stretched Canvas
000429
I was in solitary confinement and as we progress through the levels in the system, we are given more and more property (like radio or TV). I had reached stage 3 and was given my radio.
My radio is a Sangean WR 12, the King Kong of radios (at least of what we are allowed to have). I turned it on and every song was soul shaking sounds. I let my dreads down and pulled out my air guitar. As I rocked and swayed, it dawned on me. What if someone seen me. Given my personality, what would it look like to someone to see me in that cell dancing and singing?
Being in solitary confinement is tough mentally and emotionally. I’d count down the days to get my “stage 3” which meant I'd get my radio. Plug in and turn up. That first day everything sounded great. But I wondered what would me “rocking” out like that look like to you, so since I don't have a picture of you looking, I created it.
April 30, 2015
14" x 18"
Acrylic on Stretched Canvas
000411
In seg, nearly every time you see another person, it is when looking through a glass that is usually scratched up or peering through some sort of gate. Once a week the officer comes down the hall and opens all of the traps for a sheet exchange. We are to toss out our dirty sheets and get “clean” ones in exchange. It is one of the few times to see the person you are or have been talking to without some sort of obstruction so nearly everyone bends down to peer out at another human face.
2015
18" x 14"
Acrylic
000409
Years ago, I painted a painting that I titled Animal in a Cage. It was a painting of how I looked and felt after one of my many dust ups with the guards. They treated me like an animal and I felt like I was an animal. But what happens when a person gains insight and knowledge of self? I came into full understanding that I am a man and that it was not my natural state to be animal-like. Being placed in an unnatural situation produced an unnatural response. But having this knowledge was not freeing as I had thought it would be. It had an adverse effect. Because here I was a man, being treated with the regards of a child and less respect than an animal, so what did it profit me to know who and what I was if my payment was more subjugation to this animal? The more knowledge of self I gained, the louder it's mighty roar became and at times it is more comforting to turn my back to the light. Inside the animal there is no hiding. It knows my weakness. I feel naked.
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Illustration Panel
000392
Is there such a thing as sleep terror? The night can be rough at times.
January 22, 2013
6 1/2" x 5 1/2"
Acrylic on Cardboard
000274
When there are other noises or people talking I can't really distinguish words or sound. I'll hear a sound and know that it is a sound being made or someone is talking, but can't understand the words. But I've gotten used to that and under certain situations I can put it together from the shape the mouth is making and the sound….
As I was writing yesterday, a face popped up in the cell window and it was a guy that was sleepin’ on the floor in here not long ago (not enough bunks for everyone). I thought he said, “I'm movin’ in.” Later the officer said, I see you’re in the Easter spirit.
Confused? Why? Long story short it was not mandatory that this guy move in here. They were about to put him somewhere else. He didn't want to go there. They said if he found someone, they'll let him go there. I was being asked if he could move in but that is one of the drawbacks to my hearing. I did not catch that inflection in the voice that made it a question. So, now as I write this, he’s on the floor snoring.
In the cell, there is common space: sink, toilet, floor and desk. Nearly everyone adheres to the communal rules. When using the sink or toilet, leave it as you found it, clean. And always a courtesy flush for when flushing is essential.
Nothing is private. My own body is not private. The toilet is positioned so no matter if I take a piss or shit, I'm looked upon.
Adrian, Judith & DarRen Morris (2014) In Warm Blood: Prison & Privilege, Hurt & Heart, p. 189-190"
July 29, 2010
9" x 12"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000156
I resisted the suggestion of my cellmate to paint the fence and bars that separate me from this tree. The cage that contains me does not contain this beauty of nature and if the person looking at the painting did not know that they may think that the tree was caged in. The tree is free and I celebrate its freedom.
16" x 12"
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
000073
Having spent so much time in solitary confinement, I could feel my humanity eroding with the passing of each day. The pounding on the doors reverberated through my bones. The smell of sweat, blood, urine and feces mixed with the pungent odor of desperation. I began my time thinking what was wrong with these people. Soon I was being gassed. I was becoming the animal I was trained to be by the conditions of that environment. There were these moments, between fights with the guards, when the gas mixed with my own sweat caused the hatred that burned in my heart. I could feel it on my skin. Then the clouds would part and the hulk would recede and the broken humanity would peek through. In those moments I would feel tremendous despair.
This is reflective of my struggles to deal with segregation in prison. At times I didn't act like a human because I was not being treated like one. After one of many beatings (by the very people who were supposed to help me), I sat in that moment, gas still clinging to my body and burning. Cold and hungry, I sat on that concrete slab and wondered, would it ever end? Why had my life been a constant struggle since day one? See camera in upper left hand corner.
July 18, 2009
000038
Acrylic
I was in solitary confinement. I had not eaten in five days. I was on observation status. I could not imagine living my life like that for the rest of my days. I was about 24 at the time and made a very serious attempt to end my life. That’s how I ended up on observation status.
On that status they don't give regular food. They give this loaf that looks like and smells like a log of shit. I would not eat. They took all of my clothes. No sheet. No blanket. Not even a mattress. I drifted in and out of a long slumber, thirsty. My body was sore from the cold hard concrete.