MyTimeToBlog
I've spent decades roaming the Virginia prison system and made more friends than I could ever count because of it. That's why when I saw one of my closest friends stroll into the housing unit I was housed in, I lost my mind. We embraced like those two adorable kids after COVID-19 had everybody self-isolating. Yeah, it was that powerful of a reunion.
The moment we broke from each other's embrace, it was like old times. We're immediately catching up on family, and the prisons we've been to. His art came up as well, and man oh man, this brother could draw.
When we were together, I spent money on top of money for his artwork. His artistic talents were legendary, and I mean that. He made Jesus Christ's robe out of biblical verses, and he had the graveyard scene with every horror character from the past fifty years on different motorcycles. This guy did so many unique pieces of art that the Department of Corrections shipped him to Nottoway Correction Center to paint murals in the new reentry housing units.
I was in awe of that, because when we were at Sussex One Correction Center, he did this enormous mural for the Veterans' housing unit. I'm talking about an aircraft carrier that rivaled the one in the first two Avengers movies. He even placed an RIP to his twin brother on an F-16's wing.
Now, once the nostalgia wore off, we had a meat and potato talk; getting our forks deep into each other. I shared that I'm done with the games and that my main focus was my writing. I even reminded him of how he verbally punched me in my face when he said this: "As talented as I am, my artwork can't get out past these walls, your novels never will either." I told him he hurt me when he said that, but also motivated me to push myself to make my dreams come true. I revealed that I had published a couple of novels, had a blog, and a monthly spot for my articles to be read on Death Row Soul Collective. He looked at me and said, "That sounds like me saying something negative like that."
He looked off into the distance, then shared that he did that to a lot of people. He trusted those close to him, and they hurt him over and over. His son. His brother. His daughter. Even those he became close with while incarcerated. They took his artwork and sat on it, and as someone with extraordinary talent, that broke him.
We took a seat and began diving deeper into his life. In ten years, he finished his comic book. One I read only the first few pages of, but it never saw the light of day. It, like the majority of his work, gathered dust in his footlocker. He didn't even do portraits anymore, because the men in prison were more interested in buying drugs than artwork.
The more we talked, the more I saw a man become depressed. That hurt me, because he reminded me of a frustrated painter named Van Gogh, the artist who sliced off his own ear because nobody appreciated his artwork. I'm looking at my friend that way, and that made me open up about my battles with getting my novels into someone's hands beyond these prison walls as well. That's where our conversation shifted.
You see, my friend has also been dealing with the death of his twin brother. He didn't like looking at a mirror because every time he did, he saw his twin. I couldn't even imagine something like that, but he has. He also couldn't get past his artwork never garnering the notoriety he begged, if not pleaded for.
I felt as he did when I relied on unscrupulous people who promised me one thing, but delivered nothing. Now, when that occurred, I pivoted. It worked, but him, he didn't. He continued for years, sending his babies (what he called his artwork) to his son. His flesh and blood, and what's sad is that his son pawned them off as if they were his own pieces of art.
Ten years I hadn't seen my friend, and in under an hour, I'm damn near in tears hearing his story. We looked at each other, and I shared that I would help him out. Ironically, I had previous dealings with an artist who wanted assistance with their art. I offered them a book.
This book was called The Sentences That Create Us. In those pages, writers, screenwriters, and artists had a platform to showcase their talents. Something that yesteryear's incarcerated hadn't had. Now here's the wild part: my friend couldn't see the pages, because his eyesight deteriorated over the years, and the glasses he needed were being shipped to him from his previous facility. So again, I'm helping him by reading from the pages in the book.
I did all I could to help him, but I also placed an order for him to draw a Marvel Comics character for the cover art for a novel I wrote. His talent would make the cover art amazing, and showed him that I'm a happy consumer with a few dollars to send his way.
If you're a fan of art, go to m.duenas_artwork. Art is his passion, and I'm asking for your help to get the word out--and I'm serious, the comic book he completed will blow a lot of what Marvel Comics--this is sacrilegious on my part because I love their comics--has done in the past few years. So check him out, and see for yourself...and if I'm right, you'll become a fan of his artwork as well, and hopefully introduce him to someone who can give him a platform.