THIS IS ABOUT A STOLEN PAINTING
American Holocaust
Here's THE story about this painting. Let me set it up so you can visualize exactly what happened.
Right before you enter the Recreation Yard at FCI Three Rivers Prison there is a door on the left, it is a hallway into the Psychology Department. A couple steps past that door is a fence and a metal detector which all prisoners must pass through to go out to the Rec Yard. After you pass through this metal detector there is a door on the left, this door will allow you to enter the inside recreation area. Once in there you will see exercise bikes, steppers and such. On the right of this large room you will see a bunch of windows and a door to the leather craft area. Directly in front of you are more windows and a door which allows you to pass into the art room. To the left is a very short hallway with a door at the end; this door has windows which allow you to see the inside hallway of Psychology. As you look through this window and into this hallway, there are three paintings hanging on the wall; they were painted by prisoners; a very long time ago.
I spent the majority of my time in the art room, painting. I also saw those three paintings in the psychology hallway, everyday; I often wondered who painted them. After I had been there, at FCI Three Rivers, for about eight years or so, the man in charge of the Recreation Department, asked me if I would consider painting three replacement paintings for the Psychology hallway. In truth, they were copies of other artist work seen in magazines; they were not original pieces and this is basically a disrespect of the original artists and, unethical. I told him I'd think about it.
At this point in my life I had already begun to post writing about the American Justice System, a system I consider corrupt. I have been known to call it Satanic and I stand on that. This is not the place to debate this, if you want to read my thoughts on the matter you can do so on this site, just go to the Home Key and click on, "American Holocaust".
I took a couple of weeks to decide whether to paint those paintings or not. Reason? Well, a painting takes a hell of a lot of work ...three paintings, that is a big commitment. In favor to doing this was that I really liked my Guard Boss and all of the guards who worked the Recreation Department, very fair people, men and women alike. All decent folks. Plus, I was actually flattered that he would ask. BUT!! I hated to paint three paintings that would not belong to me, that belonged to the prison system. I thought long and hard about it. Then one day I had an epiphany. What if I painted something beautiful, but with hidden messages, messages about the evil perpetuated on people by laws of this country and its goiter, prison. Yes!! I thought. I'll paint something that is actually political in nature, something by us, for us. And it will be seen by US!!
The first one I did was of 10 or 12 (can't remember right off) men in prison uniforms with a shirt-tag that has three numbers on it. Each of those numbers indicate a state from which that man was arrested. Me, my # is 76603-079, 079 is the part of Texas where I was first arrested. Each of those shirt numbers indicate a place ... all over the country. And that is the point, the message of this painting; that the prison system does not care whether you come from a red state or a blue state. In this painting you will see that I painted men of all different races and ages, some are actually men I know. Some are made up. But if you look at the right hand corner of this painting you will see one figure that is different, he is wearing a black suit and dark glasses, he represents the Government. If you look closely at his glasses you will see that I have discreetly painted ( $ ) dollar signs reflecting in his lenses. The prison system is big business, a money maker ... a lot of our past and present politicians have made fortunes from the prison industry. You will also notive the back of my head, looking, of course at the painting. I loved this painting and had been secretly conspiring to take it. I must say, when I saw this painting framed and on the wall ... I greatly coveted it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Hmm. A wise person would, upon knowing that this painting is hanging on the walls of a prison, would look at the picture of this painting and then wonder, how I, a prisoner, could have an actual photo of it. And that my friend, is the story in the story! :) You're going to love it.
After nine plus years at FCI Three Rivers, I was snatched up and thrown in the hole for four months and then transferred to FCI Hazelton, West Virginia; very far away from my family. Lucky for me I had been conspiring on how to take this painting and had mentioned it to one of the other cons, however, because I was so abruptly pulled off the yard, I had no time to figure out how to snatch this painting.
One day while in West Virginia I was talking to a friend by phone, when she tells me that she had received one of my paintings in the mail. I was befuddled, I had not sent any paintings to her. Which one, I ask? When she described it, I was stunned. How did this happen? It wasn't until I arrived at FCI Bastrop, three years later, that I found out that one of my friends, had been released. I sent him a letter to congratulate him. He answered in kind and he asked, "Did your friend get that painting we sent her". There was no need to ask which one. I simply wrote back, "Yes, how did you do that?" He explained to me that lots of guys at Three Rivers were upset about the way I had been treated, him most especially and they wanted to do something for me, to protest my treatment. So he incorporated the help of other cons, they found a painting that would fit the frame holding mine, exchanged this painting with mine and sent mine out. Now that is some real live prison shit!! excuse my lingo. So, to you inquisitive types, the answer to your question is, I have a photo of that painting because I (hypothetically, lol) have it! :) Of course, cops will read this, so I will confess now that this event is a fabrication for entertainment purposes; wouldn't want the Feds to try and give another life sentence for harboring stolen goods.
Now that I know that you're interested enough to have read this far I will tell you about the other two paintings still hanging on the walls of FCI Three Rivers.
Like I told you, I wanted to paint something that reflected what I see as the suppression of, mainly poor folks, by the United States Justice System. So the second painting I did was this. As you look at it from the front, on the left you will see, I think, six figures. The one on the extreme left is of a child of maybe 12 years, he is handcuffed, he is scared and he is looking at you. Next to him is the same child at maybe 20 years of age, he is handcuffed. Next to him, from left to right is the same man at around 30 years of age, he is handcuffed. Next to him is the same man at about 50, he is handcuffed. These men are looking at you. Then there is a space between them and off to the right is an old man hunched over and using a cane for support, he is turned sideways and looking back at the others figures. This is what you see when you take a brief look. It appears to be an old man looking back at his life. What it really means is this: we start locking kids up as teenagers which put them into the cycle of prison from which they can never recover. But this is not all. If you look really close you will see that these men are standing on a hill of bodies; a Holocaust of dead bodies; an illustration of those who have lived and died behind bars, people who have been trapped into the revolving cycle of out in-justice system. It is a beautiful piece of work that took several months to create.
The third of the paintings is a take off on one that is on this site for you to see; the one where the Virgin De Guadalupe is in the center of a group of prisoners walking in a circle. The idea for this painting came from a Vincent Van Gogh painting called "Prisoner Walk". When I first saw a photo of Van Gogh's painting, I fell in love with it. He had captured something that only someone who had experienced it could have painted and it struck me like a sledge hammer! So I decided to paint my own version of it, using the same prisoners as he used but wit them wearing the tan uniforms of Federal Prisoners ... then I added the belt-chain handcuffs and the ankle-chains they use on us now. Once that was done I wanted something more ... I thought about it and decided that there could be no better message I could send to my captors and to the unfortunate than to say ... you are not forgotten ... or as the cons say, "only God can judge me". The difference between the two paintings is that the second one, the Three Rivers painting, is a lot prettier. I mean that it is a lot more colorful. In the painting on this site I stayed with the Van Gogh motif; the walls of bricks in the background. On the Three Rivers painting I still put the bricks there but I add a huge aura coming off The Virgin covering a lot of the background. This aura is painted in white, yellow and turquois giving it a beautiful feel. In addition to this, the virgin herself, she is painted with a look love on her face and love in my heart.
Her face, is my daughters.
So, to those of you interested: hanging on the walls of the Psychology Department at FCI Three Rivers are TWO, lol, paintings that I believe will one day be worth a lot of money ... hmmm. You know what I'm thinking :)
#Stolen Painting. God bless criminal thinking, lol
5-23-26