Latest / The Real News Podcast / Transcending a 3x11 Cell: The Creative Genius of Cuong “Mike” Tran

Transcript

Transcending a 3x11 Cell: The Creative Genius of Cuong “Mike” Tran · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I'm your host,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Master Musa. Joining me today is artist Mike Tran, whose
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: work was recently featured at the American Visionary Art Museum
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in Baltimore. We'll be discussing the evolution of his artwork
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and his experience being incarcerated at the California Men's Colony.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me, Mike.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Master. Thank you for having me here. Appreciate this.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I just want to let our audience know that you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: just recently released your book, You had your sentence commuted
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: by the governor of California, and you're in the transition
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: house right now.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, I am. Yeah, I was released less than four
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: months ago, actually.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, good, good, good. And it's an honor to have
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: you here. Thank you.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We was talking off camera, but I hope our audience,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: when they look at this particular interview, they get a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: broad perspective of how we change ourselves and not at
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the encouragement of, the system, but it's something that we
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: look at ourselves. And then when we look into ourselves,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: how we come out. Introduce yourself to our audience and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: share a bit about your upbringing, your family, and how
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: your artwork practice first began.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: My parents are immigrants from Vietnam. They came here in
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: 1975 at the tail end of the war. I was
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: born in 1980. My parents came here You know, leaving
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: a war-torn country and trying to provide for their family
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and their children. And, you know, I was blessed to
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: be able to be born and raised in America. You know,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: it is the land of opportunity, especially compared to where
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: my parents came from. You know, I grew up and
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: they did the best that they possibly could. And I
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: do know that. There was also a lot of traumas
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: that they brought forward from their own lives. You know,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and that included what they believed was discipline. I do
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: know now that, you know, it traumatized me in a
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: lot of ways.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: And, you know, again, they brought what they knew, what
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: was given unto them. And, yeah, there was a lot
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of abuse in my household. I've done a lot of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: work on that, coming to terms with that. I was
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: sexually molested and raped many, many times over by relatives.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: The areas that I lived in, most of the children
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: didn't look like I was normally one of one. So
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I grew up with a lot of questions about why
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: my name is what it is, why my eyes are small.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Did I eat dogs? You know, this was a lot
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: of the upbringing that, you know, put a lot of
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: shame into me and made me question about, you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: really what was wrong with me. And I didn't have
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: a strong sense of identity. At home, I'm Vietnamese. And
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: at school and in public, I'm American. So, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: there was a conflict between cultures, Eastern upbringing, Western upbringing. Yeah,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: it caused a lot of confusion for me growing up.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: How did that influence your upbringing? How did that influence
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: your artwork?
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: It influenced my artwork. So years later, I started drawing
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: when I was around five. And I was pretty good
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: at it. And I remember telling my mom, hey, I
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: want to be an artist. And she's like, yeah, you're
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: not going to be an artist. You're going to be
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer, and most likely
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: you're going to be a doctor. So it was something
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: like my artistic skill was, you know, in me. And
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: it didn't actually come back out until I came to prison.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: And by then, art, you know, became a vehicle for
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: me to express a lot of my pain.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: In every guy, right?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I did 48 years in prison.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: And in terms like I've been around a lot of artists,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: some of them self-taught for the most part. Talk about
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: how essential your artwork was or is to healing for
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: incarcerated people.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so as you know, and maybe a lot of
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: our audience knows as well, that being incarcerated, our voices
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: are taken away. That there's a risk of, if I'm
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: going to say something controversial, there's a risk of infraction.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: You know, why your freedom might be taken away, there's retribution.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So for me, art was a way to literally have
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: my voice heard without having, you know, certain words. So
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: some days are very frustrating, and I'm going to paint
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: how I feel. I'm going to build how I feel.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: And that's, to me, safe. There's nothing in my artwork
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: that when you look at it, it says, oh, it's controversial.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It's political. It's not overtly there. So it's a safe
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: mechanism for me to express the hurt, the disappointment, and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the pain, and the feelings of being incarcerated and helpless.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Let's look at some of your techniques and your tools.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: When I first seen some of the sculptures, right, and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it took me back to one of the prisons I
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: was in, they sold popsicles. Yeah. So the popsicle sticks,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: guys would, like, be walking around the yard, they, like,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: collecting them, or, you know, they got trying to buy them.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Whatever they're doing, you know, they're trying to get a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: surplus of popsicles because they're making jewelry boxes.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: So one guy... He took it a step further by
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: making planes. So one thing he made, he made a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: space shuttle. And they didn't give him no exact knife.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: He didn't have no carving tool. He took the razors
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: from the pencil sharpeners, took that. That's what he used
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: to mill it down. Got somebody smoking some sandpaper. So
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: he got the space shuttle. He got the space shuttle.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: He done got it, painted it. Guy's sitting up in
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: his room. They come to shake down. They know who
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: he is, so they see all his stuff. They were like,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: they stood in the cell for 15 minutes. They was
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in awe at the detail of the work. We talk
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: about the sculpture. Talk about some of the materials, how
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: you got the materials, and what gave you the creativity
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to look in that direction.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's interesting that you say about jewelry boxes,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: because when I first came in, I went to, you know,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: maximum security. And I started seeing people finding whatever they
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: could find, you know, just digging in the trash and
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: super creative. And I'm blown away by that. And I
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: was inspired to, you know, create my own figurines after
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: seeing people make jewelry boxes. To me, it was about
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: creating an expression of myself. So I started finding, you know,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: we used to have these lunch boxes that our lunch
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: would come in. I found glue. I found, you know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: floor wax.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: And, you know, I.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Can buy all this stuff on the line, right?
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Whenever I would find the bars of space soap,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I would shave that down and turn that into,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: you know, clay. Put a little Kool-Aid in there for
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: coloring and pretty much anything that I could find. I mean,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: if the CEOs threw away a burrito wrapper, that was
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: aluminum foil. I could turn that, you know, it was
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: a lot of digging and, you know, it was in
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: a way when I reflected back to it, me defying
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the odds by saying, well, you can't create your voice
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: is not being heard. Well, I'm going to create. And,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: you know, over the years, I have had things confiscated
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: or shaked down. So I've had things taken away because
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: it was nice and with no recourse. You know, there's
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: nothing I can say or do about it. Right. So
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: continuing to build was my way of saying, you know what,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to keep going.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: The theme, some of the themes of your work, because
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you had to transform. You know, you have multiple in
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: terms of, and we're still on the sculpture. We're getting
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to the art mediums as we unpack. But talk about someone,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: because when you're dealing with 3D, three-dimensional imagery, it's a difference.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: You've got, if your.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Medium is pastel, and the value that you create to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: your work, give it depth and give it realism, what
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: they call photorealism, as you well know.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: But when you're dealing with 3D, and.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You look at your work, where did you get, because
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you don't have the... the ability to like Google, let
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: me Google Transformer. What inspired you in terms of how
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: did you come about your inspiration to do the different
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: type of sculptures that you did outside of the normal sculptures?
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I started sculpting
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: around 2016. It was years later. Did I really remember
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: that I used to make my own toys? And then
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: my dad, because we were poor, We were not well
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: off at all. And my dad would actually make, you know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: cut cardboard boxes out, draw a tank on there. It
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: was flat. And that's what we played with. And I'm like, wow.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: You know, I actually was paying homage to Pops, you know,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: years later. And you're right. We don't have, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Internet or Google or anything like that. So a lot
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: of my process was trial and error. I would cut
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: a piece of cardboard out. Oh, that didn't work. Well,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: let me try another piece. The themes behind my 3D sculptures,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: it has a lot to do with oppression. And the
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: storylines that I make for my sculptures deals around them
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: fighting a greater force that's oppressing them. Now, it's not
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: always clear in the series who the actual oppressor is.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: It has to do a lot with my spirit being
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: channeled through the art. and saying, this is how I
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: feel right now. And that's what really inspired me to
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: do the work, to do the 3D sculptures. It's taking
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: something on paper and making it into a 3D progress.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's like I'm making miniature versions of myself.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And talk about the picture, A Free World. That's one
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: of your pieces. And it seems to have a political
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: overtone associated with it.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Talk about that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So that was for Let's Get Free based out
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania. They had a call for art for a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: picture of free world. And that was a theme. And
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: I had this little picture in like a Time magazine
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: or something. And it was in China where there was
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: white police fighting against protesters. And my thought is, what
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: if people, the powers that be, used their force and
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: power to fight for love. What would that look like?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: So imagine a free world where all those weapons, where
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: people were, you know, shooting tear gas in the group.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: What if they were shooting water? What if they were,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: you know, had hearts on their shields? All that effort
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: put into oppression. What if that was put into love
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: and connection? And that's why I drew little symbolisms on
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: the shield and on the hat. and on the helmets,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: because I want to show, like, that much force put
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: into empathy could change the world.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And you got, and as you well know, you have, like,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Emory Douglas. Emory Douglas did all the artwork for the
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Black Panther Party.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Then you had, I don't remember the artist's name that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: did all the artwork for Muhammad Speaks, but all their
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: work was political and had a political overtone. in the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Nation of Islam all their artwork was around depicting white
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: people as the devil because that was their messaging in
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the Black Panther Party they had a cross Emory did
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a cross section of work around the breakfast program police
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: elders etc. Talk about your particular piece of inconvenient truth.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: That seems also to have a political overtones. Talk about,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: because you said earlier that, you know, that you don't
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: harbor no particular political perspective as it relates overall to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: your artwork. You know, whatever the mood is, that's where
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you're going to go. But talk about, have you been
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: influenced by the political landscape of the country in some
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of your pieces?
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: And if so, how?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I took a sociology class is when
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I first started to learn about, you know, the rates
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: of missing and murdered indigenous women, um, native women that were,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: you know, disappearing off of, uh, native lands. Um, that
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: was news to me and that the rate of it.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: And so I started to see images of protest of
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: indigenous women protesting with the red, um, uh, handprint over
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: their face. Um, And I started to think about the
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: whole concept of being voiceless, whether a person is unhoused,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: whether they're in addiction, whether they're a person of color,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: a woman, an indigenous woman, and the incarcerated people. I
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: started to see the intersectionality of all of us collectively
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: as people who are oppressed and unheard and voiceless. And
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: for me, that piece was a two-for-one. It was, you know,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I wanted to bring awareness to or three for one, really,
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: about women in general, about women being oppressed, about Native
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: women being oppressed, and about people, minority groups, and other
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: oppressed groups. So that one was, you know, inspired by,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: you know, political landscape, political undertone for that one.
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In terms of the exhibit, and so you was
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: allowed to come to Baltimore.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: So you could interact with people and answer a lot
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: of questions pertaining to it. Talk about that. How did
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: that feel?
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Because coming out, did you envision, you know, the prison
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: population is your best critics.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: If you whack, you whack.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: It's as simple as that.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: If you got a nice hand, you get making a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: lot of jailhouse money.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: You got a nice hand.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: How overwhelming was it when you got the response that
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you got based on This is something that you're doing
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: to like maintain your humanity. The artists speak a different
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: language altogether. And then you got people that you mentor.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But how did it feel when you got out and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: was able to get this exhibit and the response you had?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I felt like an imposter at first, to be honest.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I felt like I didn't belong there as if I
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: still have to identify by my number. That I'm not
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: on the same playing field. I am not equal to
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: the rest of these people. I'm less than. And, you know,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: the people at the American Visionary Arts Museum really validated
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: my humanity. They saw me for the art. They know
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: my past story. Nobody judged me. And it started more
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: and more as I was having the conversation there, it
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: started to sink in that I do belong now. I'm
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: not an imposter. It's just starting more. And every day
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: there are still moments where I still feel that, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: four months out. Like I still have to tell people
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: my identification. Right.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, it sank in. It was a
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: big part of me transitioning back into society. I am
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: on equal footing as every other man and woman out here.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You know, my worth is inherent. And I had forgotten
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: that inside.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: What led to Governor Newsom commuting your sentence? And talk
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: about when you got out, what that felt like. Because
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: I know when I got out, once I got in
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the car with my family and we coming back down
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: the road and they got food for me and they
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: give me a cell phone. I don't know how to
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: operate and all the numbers programming. But it ain't really
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like clicked that I'm out. Because I'm not, I'm on
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the road. Once I got into my sister's house, that's
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: when it came down on me that I'm finally, I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: ain't got to worry about like locking in at one
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: o'clock or counting. I ain't got to worry about, you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: standing up for count if I'm on solitary. I ain't
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: got to worry about them shaking down and we being
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: locked down for like a month waiting for them to
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: finish doing what they doing. And might be at the last,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: might be the last building to get searched. And, you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that whole month of that, you know, tell our audience
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: how it felt when you got out so.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: They can they can they can experience your freedom.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that. I like that question. Governor Newsom,
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I filed for a commutation six years ago
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: in 2019. And, you know, I wasn't accepted at the
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: time and I pretty much forgot about it. But since
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: that time, I actually trained to become a certified drug
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: and alcohol counselor. Well, inside the prison I was at,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: I had a training program and I worked as a
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: counselor for about four years before I put inside running groups.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: I was able to run a lot of self-help groups
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: for the fellow incarcerated folks, groups as you know, addressing
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: childhood sexual trauma, anger management. And I became a part
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: of the community there at the last institution that I
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: was at. I was able to, you know, do the
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: training program, do a lot of digging and introspection, answering
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: the questions, why? Why did I do what I do?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: Why did I think what I think? Why did I
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: believe what I believe? And I was able to look at, challenge,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and really replace a lot of the core beliefs that
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I've had, things that I've adopted along the way. So
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: these things were demonstrated through my work. through my dedication
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: to my job. I had really good, you know, commendations
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: from my supervisors who were great. They actually saw me
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: and my hard work. And I believe all those things
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: factored in. And, you know, yeah, factored into the governor's decision.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, talk about, and talk about when you got the
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: word and you first stepped out, how did it feel
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to ask part two of the question
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: after you answer that.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It felt surreal, of course. I went to a Denny's.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: It was my first place that I got out. Thankfully,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the gentleman that picked me up did 27 years himself.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: So he you know, was able to really, he was
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: at Bonafide, one of the services, re-entry services here in
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: the Bay Area in California. Super empathetic, super supportive. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: you know what? I got out, I went to Denny's
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, I don't belong here. Everyone knows. I'm
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: wearing street clothes. I'm like, everybody knows I'm supposed to
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: be in a uniform right now. Yeah. It was a
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: lot of things, you know, and through the months, it
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: was like a constant back and forth between, you know,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I don't, this is not real. And also finding my voice,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: like the decision making process. Like you said, the ability
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: to make a choice. I get to make a choice.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: I get to take my time in a store and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: not be rushed to a canteen line.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I get to stand close to people. I don't
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: have to say, hey, excuse me, behind you, walking. And,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: you know, I get to just exist in this world.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I'm just another person. People don't know. And if they know,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: they don't care that I was a person.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So going forward, looking ahead, and what are your plans
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: going forward? What do you envision for yourself? And what
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: do you want, for lack of a better word, what
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: do you want to have the land settled? in terms
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of what you want to do and where you want
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to go?
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: You know what? My heart still resides with the men
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: and women, my brothers and sisters that are still inside.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: I'm working on developing curriculum right now to bring back
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: into prison settings. I'm working on an art exhibit. I'm
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: applying for a grant right now through the Center of
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Art and Advocacy. Because I want to put on a
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: show where men and women from inside can create their
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: own self-portrait. I would be the curator for that. But
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I want them to also tell me their life story,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: their name, their sentence, and their entire life story. Because
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I feel that it's something that's swept under the rug. That,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: you know what, you can see the people, you know
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: people are hurting. The problem is society asks, what's wrong
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: with you instead of what happened?
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: And so next to every portrait that these men and
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: women create, I want to put their life story, not
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: just artist so-and-so does this. I want people to read
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: their entire bio, how traumatized they were as children, to
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: really paint these men and women as humans and as
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: victims themselves. You know, crime doesn't just grow up. Addiction
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: doesn't come out of a vacuum. But that story is
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: not told enough. So I want my artwork to start
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: representing the people, humans that are still inside.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Mike. And you know what?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: You're out of the bars today because you, and we
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: try to get in this space rather than the bars.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: It's a social construction.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: We try to open the door for people to amplify
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: their voices around social issues. But I think this particular
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: episode for me, and I hope I always had the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: same takeaway, is about humanity.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And, you know, like, you got a medium that you do.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: You got a skill. So no matter what, if you
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: didn't do the drug counseling, your skill level allow you
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: to go places. You know, you can perfect it. You
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: can go, I'm going to go to college and become a,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: get a degree in art.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: So now I can talk the language as well as
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: do the work.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: But in this regard, you showing our audience that despite everything,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you was able to hold on to your humanity.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And being able to hold on to your humanity and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: your sense of humanity, it allowed you to stay in
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a space that validated your humanity.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Because we've both.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Been in this environment where we've seen people that, you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the light's out in their eyes.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: They don't have no hope. And they don't have no purpose.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: And where they at is where they at. Yep. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: their reputation precedes them. Not because of, you know, your
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: lack of strength, but because it's a recognition that this
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: person has given up and no longer look at humanity.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: But for you, and I want our audience, I hope
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: our audience take this away, is that this is what
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: this is about. The artwork, but it allows you to
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: evolve and to be able to get in touch with humanity,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: despite all the problems, despite all the transgressions against you.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: It's easy.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: It's easy for us. Like I said, I did 48.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: It's easy for us to come out and be bitter.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: No, it's not hard. That's not like, it's not hard.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: We can, you know, we can, we can like click,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I remember they ain't let me out
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of my cell and then I'm on the street. I'm
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: standing in line. I ain't standing in line. I'm getting
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: in front of the line. I don't care what they say.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Anybody say anything to me, I'm on the street now.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: I'll get with them, right? Versus I'm in commissary line.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I've been standing there all day long. Here come the bullies.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: They come in and get in the front of the line.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: And I just want to get my commissary. As you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: close out, you got the last word. What you want
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to tell our audience about yourself or your work? And
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: more importantly, what your plans are, how you look at
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: yourself and helping out our brothers and sisters that are
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: back because we don't leave nobody behind.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I do agree with you
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: about the bitterness part of it is that it can
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: be tempting. It can feel for me like, you know what, man,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I was wrong. They took my art. You know, having
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: resentment in my heart is not going to help the
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: people outside. What drives me is that I have been
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: changed by the system in some ways for the worse,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: in some ways for the better. And I get to
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: choose which side comes out, how I respond. And so
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: a part of the artwork for me is helping to
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: create that bridge to ask this question for myself and
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: other artists, whether it's spoken word, theater, whatever form is,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: how can society reconcile a monster with beauty? I want
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: people to ask that question. When you see a painting
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: of a Mona Lisa done on a lunch box, How
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: can a person be convicted of a crime also create this?
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: It scrambles people's minds to be able to understand that.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: The most prolific writers and poets are from inside prison.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: But how can that be when he's so-and-so, when she's
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: this and that? So as art, as I want to
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: bring it into the public view for myself, it's an
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: expression of myself. in terms of the system, is I
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: want people to start asking themselves those questions. How do
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: you reconcile the two? How does that work? And it
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: starts to generate, in my mind, it starts to generate
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: a different conversation. Wow, this art is great. What about
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: the person behind the art? What about the person behind
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: the poetry? Remember the people first. Start humanizing people, looking past,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: not past their crimes, looking at them in spite of
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: their criminal past.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not our worst mistake.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: We're not our worst mistake. We're not our worst day.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: There's more to every human being. It's too convenient to
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: just put things under a rug, you know, call people convicts, prisoners, inmates.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: It's convenient. It hurts when people start looking at the
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: truth behind that, the humanity behind the criminal action, because
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: it requires people to, you know, change everything they knew
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: about the system and even about themselves. So I hope
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: art for me is it starts to generate that conversation.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It starts to provide this glimpse of humanity and love
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: and hurt and pain with every man and woman inside.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: If it starts with art, then so be it. You know,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: it has to start somewhere. Because, again, the question is
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: what happened, not what's wrong.