this love has no door leading out
this love is like a wall...

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility , NY 2002
initial charges
Vehicular Manslaughter, Possession 7th degree, Felony Injection of a Narcotic, Needle Charge
Guilty plea

The Harrowing of Hell

Cole is very comfortable, his legs are in my lap he is lying across the bench seat in our new Ford F150. And I'm driving along too fast and i lose control and i can either slow down or turn the wheel. But Immediately i know its the wrong move and his last words to me are " jesus ! jen!" when i start losing control as soon as i turn the wheel- too sharp- flips car turns tumbles over and over glass flying and flying. Cole gone. Me hanging by the safety belt thinking if it would just stop spinning now i'd be okay over and over i say this to myself. Finally upside down in the grass the F150 comes still on its back on fire leaving wheels ruts all over the late summer grass. Even with Broken ribs and burns i go to look for Cole. He is bleeding out in the middle of the Taconic. I hold his hand- almost a year later the DA will ask me why i was touching his body when EMS arrived. As if i was yet a further agent in his demise; was there something sinister in the way i held him as he left the bonds of earth? This is the image that stays with me. It has taken permanent residence on the back of my eyelids. When you has already done the worst thing you can imagine doing to another human being you have the rest of your life to be more careful.
For Cole; my best friend, my partner, my accomplice- 1963-2001


above pics= Cole ; drawing 2009- charcoal/ink/arches

Grant Wood (American, 1892-1942)
Death on the Ridge Road, 1935

Sometimes this painting runs through my head and not My accident. For a minute there is no Death on the Taconic. It's here on Ridge Road. Art was always a framework in which i understood, classified and ordered all things. It is how i understood myself, my culture and my relationships. It was how i communicated. It was why i traveled. Every memory has a painting or an object. Jail was possible because of a large reservoir of paintings treasured in my memory. i would draw these repeatedly with whatever material was available. I learned that the vision and solitary pursuits of an artist may lift an inmate up above the daily struggles of the cellblock but it will not deliver you from it. There is to much violence, rage & hopelessness. It comes for everyone.

Before this did i really know what I was?

Nashua Street Jail, Boston Ma 2005.
possession, possession with intent, trafficking, conspiracy
guilty plea

The Waters of Contradiction

This is the cell where the artist surrendered.

i didn't give up heroin, it's warm life blood trickling through my veins. No here i gave up the jail cell, the effect of heroin and in doing so sadly heroin had to go too. Finally i said to myself "no mas" and for the first time i was unwilling to pay the consequences of my addiction. Could I kick it? On a slow day i put a needle in my arm fifteen times and i was still dope sick. But yes the days would slowly turn to months and so on, it has now been over three years clean. Bless.

picture: pencils/markers drawing photoshoped for blur effect printed on arches

mixed media,arches

Albany County Jail, NY 2001
Possession; possession with intent3rd degree

Nolo contendere

I danced myself right into the tomb

First Incarceration- I thought i was a cultural tourist, an artist. Like Burroughs, Blinky Palermo, Kurt Cobain, Bukowski. Surely i'm not a street addict. I had an excellent job thanks to Pratt. It was just another story to tell. I didn't know that trouble doesn't stop when you say stop.
This is the cell where the artist/addict was born (Each would fight for dominance and survival for years.) Many years later i still close my eyes and remember the sounds of the tier at night;sad singing, street rap, swearing. I keep with me the perfect symmetry of the lines, the compartmentalized life; like the food tray. It had the boxes of a Rothko, the lines of a Barnett Newman. Institutions combined shades of my old life; with the color and texture of the new. Though when you''re deep inside walls you despise it- sometimes from out here it has the nostalgia of golden days of no responsibility and freedom from dope sickness.

Van Gogh, Schiele

The Artists' Bedrooms

Following the tradition of artists painting their bedrooms, I've begun a new series of all the cells I've lived in both metaphorically and literally. The first cell i lived in was a painting. At age 22 the canvas resembled a box to me. When i was painting i imagined i was putting isolated elements in hermetically sealed boxes rather than on the surface of the canvas. It was really the beginning in a long line of cells...

i am the culprit here

Some of the material you see here will pertain to how i began to live in boxes, expect them, and ultimately find that they were of my own making. There will be bullets, guns, needles and car crashes, petty thievery, violence and hopelessness and restlessness, organs will fail, 911 will be called and other such accidents and calamities and things will absolutely not come together and people will die early deaths. However there is a hero in this story and a coward. I am both.