Artsramble Archive

Pelican BayState Prison is one of the most notorious and dangerous high-level security prisons in the country. It is a dangerous place to serve time for prisoners and guards alike, as it is controlled, in a way, by both the prison officials and the gangs themselves.

Donny Johnson, 46, has been locked up since 1980 for second-degree murder in a drug-related killing. In 1989, he was convicted of assaulting one guard and slashing the throat of another. He's now serving life without parole in the most secure unit in an 8 by 12 foot concrete cell in solitary confinement.

He spends his time reading Joseph Campbell and books on twentieth-century painting. In fact, Johnson turned to art, inventing his materials out of M&Ms, water and paintbrushes made from his own hair. Postcards served as canvas. Art materials in high security prisons are contraband. He started sending these to Steven Kurtz, who is a semi-retired psychologist living in the art-colony city of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.

"We looked at these things and said, 'These are damn good,"' Kurtz said. When he learned how Johnson created his tiny abstract works, he was even more impressed.

Johnson's work is being shown at the YAM Gallery in San Miguel, with the help of Kurtz. Nearly 500 people packed into a gallery where a giant bowl of M&Ms greeted them at the entrance. Twenty paintings have sold at $500 apiece, Kurtz said.

Since that time, the warden at Pelican Bay has sought to punish Mr. Johnson for his illegal use of materials and this unsancioned activity. Mr. Johnson has not profited from his work even with the sales. The proceeds are sent to a program benefitting the children of inmates.

"He just found an outlet for his energy," Helen Grimes, a Hayward nurse, said. "He says, 'When I paint I leave the room. … You just go into your own space and time.' It really helps him survive."

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