Rendering Mass Incarceration:
An Interview With
ARTS
LEONARD JEFFERSON
“The Eagle Flies Everyday In My Part Of America” by Leonard Jefferson
Reprinted with permission of the artist.
Saraphina Forman: How did you get started in art? Leonard Jefferson: We painted in kindergarten. I just liked it and I stuck with it. SF: When did you start making art once you were incarcerated? LJ: As soon as I could get access to the materials. They had an arts program inside the prison, in the maximum security building where I was in 1974. I had a flute, and I was able to obtain some materials to produce art. They taught classes, but the instructor was only there for like an hour or so. So basically what they did was they would show you a technique and they would provide the materials for you to work with.
DESIGN RI CHOI
SF: What is your artistic process like? What makes you start a piece? LJ: Generally something that attracts my attention. A lot of times, it’s things that are happening socially. I might see an image of something and say, “I would like to reproduce that,” to try to sharpen my skills. Can I paint that? Can I make it look right? SF: Is your process fast or slow? LJ: Pretty much everything slow. Like I say, I have two speeds: slow and slower. SF: Who do you imagine as an audience for your pieces? Do you make art for yourself?
TEXT SARAPHINA FORMAN
LJ: Pretty much I make it for myself. SF: Did you have any collaborators in prison? Was there any sort of artist community? LJ: There were people who, just like me, were in prison. And they took advantage of the access to materials and they painted and they drew. There was a studio only when the instructor was there. So that would be like an hour or maybe two every week when we would all get together. SF: And then otherwise, would you just work— LJ: Isolated in the cell. SF: You mentioned magazines that you would draw from. What other art inspiration was coming in from the outside?
03
THE COLLEGE HILL INDEPENDENT
Born in Pittsburgh, Leonard Jefferson is a Providence-based artist who survived almost 40 years behind bars in PA and the Adult Correctional Institute (ACI) in Cranston. In 2019, the state Supreme Court overruled the life without parole sentence, which had been imposed unlawfully, and Jefferson was released from the ACI. Jefferson is a lifelong, self-taught artist working in a variety of 2D media. His art frequently depicts people and incorporates text and political messages. Jefferson was prolific throughout his incarceration, despite his art being confiscated multiple times. He has been featured in exhibits both while in prison and afterwards, including at the RISD Museum, University of Pittsburgh’s Images Exhibition (where he received the Blue Ribbon award), Pittsburgh’s Federal Reserve Bank, the Human Rights Coalition of Philadelphia, the Black Biennial at RISD this past spring, and “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Incarceration” at Brown last fall. In this interview, Jefferson talks about his artistic process, creating in spite of surveillance, and the role of art in social movements.
LJ: The outside inspiration I got was sometimes things that I saw on television. And from National Geographic.
SF: Your art was labeled as “racial art” and seized at one point. Could you just talk about that and what it felt like to have your art surveilled?
SF: Did being an artist affect your interpersonal relations at all? Did it set you apart from other people in prison?
LJ: Yeah, that is exactly how I see it, and that’s exactly what it is. They have to as a security matter keep you from, let’s say, ‘causing chaos’ in the prison, they have to pay close attention to what they hear people talking about and what they see people doing. I’ve been told by many different correctional officers that my artwork was racist. And I don’t think that it is racist. If you see a person watch other people fight, that doesn’t make him violent, that simply makes him an observer of violence. And the artwork that I produce is not racist, it’s just a reflection of what I am seeing. The person who lives on a farm, who’s constantly exposed to nature, trees, birds, and meadows, that’s what he would paint. But being a person of color who is continually under attack for that color and just reporting on that does not make me racist. Actually, I don’t think that there is such a thing as a black race or a white race or a yellow race or a red race or any color you name. That’s not a race. The race is the human race.
LJ: It set me apart because I was into what I was into, and I can’t carry on with the other stuff when I’m trying to concentrate on the canvas and paper. SF: How many hours a day would you work on art? LJ: Sometimes zero. Sometimes 12, 15. SF: Could you talk more about the materials you had? LJ: I had oil paints. And I didn’t actually start working with the ball points in Rhode Island in prison. I started doing that in the 1990s when I was in prison in PA, ‘cause I could not get access to canvas paints. SF: The paints were given at the ACI? LJ: Yes, in the seventies, in the eighties. The jail then was quite different from what it is now. You were able to have access to greater things. I built some silkscreens there. I had all the chemicals I needed. Now, you’re not allowed to have anything flammable. I actually had X-Acto knives; the jail was quite different back then. They had like a woodworking shop, they were making furniture. One guy was making mirrors. I was doing silk screens, and I’d etch the glass on the mirrors that he was making. SF: Did you just keep all of your art in your cell? I imagine that filled up the whole space. LJ: Yeah, the cell was small. Everything was confined. SF: Were you able to have any outside exhibitions while you were incarcerated? LJ: I had an exhibition at RISD in the early eighties, and also at the Providence Public Library. The director of the Arts and Corrections program, Ms. Roberta Richmond, was connected with the Rhode Island Council of Arts and she made all that possible.
SF: How many times was your art taken away? And how did you go about getting it back? LJ: Every time something was confiscated, I managed to get it back. When I was locked up in PA was the first time something was confiscated from me, and it had to be in the early 2000s because one of the things that was complicated for me was a portrait of Osama bin Laden. And they didn’t like that. And another one was something that I called “Sista-Matized,” which is in there on the wall and also in the book. SF: Yeah, I think I saw that one. Wait, they didn’t like the Bin Laden one, ‘cause, was it like supporting him or something? Or like, they just didn’t agree. LJ: They just didn’t like it. There is no set standard that a correctional officer uses when they come into your cell to determine what is acceptable. They just go from however they feel—‘I don’t like this, so I’m going to take it.’ I had a guy come into my cell one time and I had a metal watch band. And this guy, he just said, ‘oh, this is mine.’ And he was going to take it, keep it. And I had to argue with him to get it back. But with the Bin Laden thing and the “Sista-Matized” in PA, I had to go to court. And the court made the Department of Corrections give me