Tell us a little about the most important people in your life.
Our lives are so short, that who we share them with becomes of paramount importance. It’s strange to me that as time passes, it does so faster and faster the more of it we have under our skin. Moments leaving us are immortalized like distant starlight, by those who shine above the rest. She’s the sibling who stuck through thick and thing, beginning to end, throughout the hardest years of my life. He is the faithful Uncle who never gave up, while giving the ability to make good a second chance, when it arrives. It’s the librarian who gave lessons of compassion and fostered a courageous kindness and tendered y hardening heart. He is the rare friend of endless empathy and strength, listening and giving to others as they were his own. His is the light, in an otherwise dark place, a beacon to all. She is a muse a voice of poetry, sister to the moon and yet burns brighter than it. Hers it he kindred spirit that inspires and always a constant confidant. Sometimes, I don’t feel as it I deserve such wholesome, heartfelt, nourishing friends. Yet isn’t that what the grace of friendship is? Their grace is simply unmerited favor; one might not deserve it, but you’re getting it anyway! Friends are the family one chooses. There was a time where once I choose poorly and landed myself here, now I am rich beyond measure.
What do you spend most of your time doing?
You mean besides sit and stare, watching the warehouse paint peel? Because being lost in thought has become pastime, habit, and hobby for me. I’ll walk through my past, obsessively combination over it, not so much as that I might change it, but so that it never repeats itself. For years I punished myself for the crimes that landed me here. Then for years more, I defended myself from the flogging certain members of my family seemed all too willing to share. Now I obsess over the, “what ifs” and “what could be” due to a life squandered behind bars. I pine for possibilities more than likely lost before they were ever found.
So likewise, I escape to other lands and the world that hold them. I walk their shores, eat their food and meet their people. If I’m lucky, I can chronicle some of it. Yet all too often the lines between dimensions bleed, as realities are blurred from the lessons and lives livered therein.
So I try to focus on light, on what positive things there are, and build from there. There has already been enough darkness. I would be a bringer of brighter things.
“wild strawberry”
A granite sentinel watches
on carpet of moss
In spite and despite
of brick
and mortar
and boot
and claw
waiting while
a Defiant Nature
conspires
to be seen
growing reedy
like a weed with pride
with her crimson courage
She stubbornly stands
A bright spot
In a dark place
What do you see as your purpose now, and why?
Purpose is such an elusive thing that so many people seldom find their own true version. I am of the mind however, that purpose is malleable and like time, it changes on its own. Sometimes you have to be the change you want to see, in the name of a purpose. So I put myself out there, raw, vulnerable, in a naked truth. Before my fall, I had few resolutions. Sitting with little to do but reflect, I am at times consumed with trying to find a reason, something to make my time mean something behind a punitive measure. I am reminded that no one lives for themselves, and that we are all interconnected. It is in that spirit that my mission, for now, is for others. It is my time to give voice, to paint, and to stand stoically against a system of subjugation and debasement. Each gift I have been given could hold a thousand words, of through, sentiment and sensation. I would make it my aim that those gifts be held by others and foster a deeper understanding. When we feel, we empathize, we connect, we understand.
If you could help the average person out there understand one thing about prison and the criminal justice system, what would it be?
Don’t believe the bull. Life isn’t “Law and Order,” there is very little justice of “truth in sentencing” as the court is all too often purchased by the highest bidder. Prison is a purgatory. It is listless time of soul crushing tedium beset by hypocrisy, and callous resentment. They do not mean for our better, as their stance on correction and rehabilitation are a politician’s promise under a draconian measure. Only the very strong and dedicated can find the tools to make themselves better. Yet even then, the system is rigged to squash ideals, trounce on humanity, and deaden hearts in the name of safety and security. They would make second class citizens, drones of us all. It is by the light of a few bright individuals that others my see, and have hope. As one candle lights another, so too do I pass mine along to you.
Summer’s slow sun
springs over a greensward
of pastime and tradition
under mowed and unkempt
a diamond in the rough.
It’s carless caretakers
scythe circles, and unintentionally sculpt
good fortune to grow
in swaths of spheres
rounding all bases
infield;
a lucky diamond of clover.
And accidental beauty
in an ugly place.
What do you look forward to in the future?
I look forward to making my life felt, shared, and fulfilled. I look board to the days where I can enjoy my nieces company. I want to hug my sister tightly and for a while, just return to a simple time between siblings. I want to share in my brother’s laughter and witty or simple shenanigans. I want to have nourishing meals of food and thought with the family I choose. I’d like the time to talk about everything and nothing at all. I look forward to silence, to stillness, and to all the subtle blessings nature gives to us so freely. I want to hold her, whom ever she may be, with wordless whispers through a bond that transcends. I want to feel her heart beat its rhythm on my case, as mind kindles throughout her. Simple things, I want simply, life.
The hands on the clock wall point to a brighter hour. It is, after all, only a matter of time.
Woodland Winter Nymph
As I have sought to cross an ocean of words, despite their plenty, I all too often find myself lacking. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to speak. In those moments where my speech fails, art declares. It is a moment caught in a medium, worth a thousand words, sometimes more. It is an echo of heartstrings or a whisper of soul, an elusive concept held without definition. Yet to precious, to lose to the ether. I’ll pour it into my paints and pull it across my canvas. The experience is asking to a shared shaping of wills, as I myself am molded in those defining moments of creation.
Recently I came across an old dream and shred it with a friend. It was so similar to what meditations and inspirations we had each experience, that to not complete the process seemed a crime. Our conversation churned in my mind, images of another place and time, where magic and seasons were one and the same. A woodland winter nymph frolicked through the forest of my thoughts. Yet as winter took its icy hold there, the nymph froze mid-pose. Her supporting leg, strong as an oak, became a trunk rooting her to the ground. The nymph’s limbs stretched out as the branches of a tree, grasping for a pale sky. Ice formed on her there, and took to shape a crown on her refined head.
Incarceration cages more than just the body, and I would be free. For the hours I spend creating, in those times part of me is. Yet the powers that be all too often have a draconian direction locked in step with their punitive correction. Art and its creation is simply not a priority or a privilege openly encouraged. As such, access to simple staples of supply is limited at best. This necessity of mine became a source of innovation in and of itself.
However, fate it seems isn’t without its own sense of irony or art direction. I had a spirit of nature to embody so I took to recycle from wasteful natures. Our prison makes thirty-day temporary tags and custom license plates. During the manufacturing process, white-faced cardboard is used. The scrap from that utilitarian last is what I gathered from for my canvas. It would hold what I paint with perfectly.
Being that I felt this spirit of nature in a raw and primal way, to not embody her in the fullest seemed a tragedy. The answer was as simple as the ground I walked on, caught in the energy of our earth and locked above us in our sky. Along the track I walk, under a shadow of an armed guard tower, there is a patch of blood red ground. I knelt to scoop up what would be my inks, and stashed it away in a spare soap dish. There are often places that pool after any length of rain, and it is from them that I gathered my water to mix with my medium.
With the tools I had at hand, I took to task and painted warmth in winter. The woodland nymph danced on to the face of my creation with natural clay reds, and rusty earth tones. She poses there, eyes closed and waits for the thaw of spring. Other seasons will come in time. However sprint eludes me, as she playfully evades my gaze. It’s almost as if were I to see her full on, I would capture her with my sight and the woodland nymph would be free above all else. I suppose I have to learn to see without looking. Therefore, my journey continues, and the chronicling therein.