Monday, March 27, 2006

Sing Sing tonight turned as usual into another discussion about how corrupt it all is. I went to the art supply store and got all the stuff to begin our projects and I brought it all the way to the prison, just to be told that it was going to have to stay at the front because I didn't have a gate clearance- even though I called Katherine earlier and she said it would be fine because its part of my teaching materials. Officer Wright was such a fucking motherfucker about it! He said," Look, how many times do I have to tell you, that you need to get a gate clearance for anything that isn't books." And he just went on and on from there. So when I got to class and told them, at first, they tried to do something about it, seeing which officers might be able to make a call or something, but to no avail. So we just went ahead and started the class- and they were saying that I should generally be very careful about leaving anything with the guards – because they said, "they are like us." ! Meaning- criminals--- I guess. So funny, I was reading about Tristan Tzara and other Dadaists on the way out to Sing Sing, and their fascination with criminals and even becoming criminals—but never really going completely into it. Anyhow, J said that his daughter asked him if he got the strawberry cheesecake she sent him- and he said, no, and he went to go give an officer a pounding, and the female officer who had stolen and ate it paid him in cash for doing that…

J asked me if I thought that pornography could be art, and I said that I think it is important and has existed for as long as there has been civilization. I guess that's a pretty political answer. J said that he thought that there certainly was some pictures that were very nice—and beautiful- and I said that artists have been fascinated with the body also throughout history and in all cultures from what I could tell. Sometimes I feel like I am just a lugnut of a teacher.

They worked on making thumbnail sketches of drawings for me to show to Fischer for his approval of the show- and for the most part I felt that these were not their most challenging works- for themselves, but rather "classics"- in a kind of prison way- and I guess its totally understandable because they are going to be presenting them and they want to impress. Juan is doing something that is pretty interesting- he's making a kind of circular drawing of a forest that you can see from all sides..

I also brought some pictures in of work by David Hammonds and my friends Nancy deHoll and Brian Wondergem. Salam thought Nancy's photographs looked like they were done in the 70's- and I explained a bit about Brian's process working with found objects. I left the work with the men and I hope that they look a bit more at them.

Jn also had this essay I gave him about Yoko Ono and it was all highlighted up, and he revealed to me that what he wrote called, "the Unknown Artist" he wrote before he read about Yoko's work, but that she also was referred to as the unknown artist in the essay.

God, J said that his daughter was 4 when he came in and now she's 25 and she was nervous when she was last visiting him and drawing on a piece of paper, and J was so amazed that she could actually draw. He was really delighted about that. But all I could think of was jeez, he's been in prison 21 years… I can't believe that. Leaving today I had to remember, wow, I'm just leaving- walking out- and these guys are not leaving at all--- as always, they are inside there. Completely locked in… its hard to get my head around that.