Prison Inmates Paint With the Brush of Hope : 3 Orange County Instructors Nurse Their Students Along

With a critical eye, Gail Tomura surveys a painting of a woman cradling two children. She asks the artist for his brush and, taking it, adds highlights--here, to the woman’s hair, and there, to one child’s face.

Earl Humphrey watches and nods as Tomura’s strokes create the desired effect. When she returns the brush, he mimics her movements, his face a mask of concentration. In front of easels scattered throughout the room are other men, equally intent, recreating scenes of snowy Vermont, a chapel in a wooded glen, a marlin thrashing in the waves off the coast of Baja.

A radio plays softly--sometimes classical music, sometimes jazz--the sound broken only by Tomura’s words of encouragement and the occasional scooting of a chair. The pace is slow and measured, the atmosphere relaxed.

Tomura imposes only one rule: No crumpling in her classroom. Crumpling a canvas will get you tossed out, though the men joke that the penalty is “60 days.” These men know the meaning of time, and 60 days passes slowly.

The men are inmates at the California Institution for Men, or CIM, in Chino. For them, art class is a privilege, something they look forward to. “They really enjoy and make use of the time they have in class. That’s one of the reasons I like working out there,” says Tomura, who lives in Fullerton.

“There are certain challenges I don’t find with my community college classes,” she concedes.

“Before I teach them anything--about brush strokes or values, shading--I have to teach them patience, perseverance, that you can only get to step 10, a finished painting, by completing steps one through nine.”

Many of the men and women housed behind the sensor fences and guard towers have a history of trying to jump from one directly to 10, and of frustration and impatience, of giving up. Tomura sees “crumpling” as copping out in lieu of instant gratification. She tries to break such habits.

“If I can get them to stick with a painting, they show themselves that they have ability. And if they have the ability to paint, maybe they have the ability to do a lot more,” she observes.

Tomura has taught at the minimum-security prison once a week for nearly two years. Her first assignment for the inmates is to copy the work of a master painter. “I have them pick something that the world has already said is ‘good,’ and try to copy it.

“I give them a lot of help because I want their paintings, especially the first, to be a success . . . even if I have to do 75% of the work myself. I know if they finish it and choose to do another, I’ll only have to do 50% of the work on that one, and pretty soon, they’re on their own, they’re confident.”

Getting the students to that level of confidence and independence is Tomura’s main goal. It’s an objective usually reached more quickly in the monotype workshops, led for the past four years by fellow Orange County artists Jonde Northcutt and Nick Capaci at the nearby California Institution for Women, or CIW, a maximum-security prison where sentences range from a year to life.

With monotypes, an art form that blends printmaking, painting and drawing, results are almost immediate. While an inmate’s first painting may take weeks or even months to complete, a daylong workshop can result in three or four monotypes.

To encourage creative growth, Northcutt and Capaci, who are from Santa Ana, instill a simple precept: There are no mistakes--no rights and no wrongs.

“Let your ‘mistakes’ work for you,” Capaci tells the women. “If something happens that you didn’t plan on, work with it, let it lead you down another path. Take that accidental path and see where it goes.”

Life without mistakes is new for the inmates, and the difference is not lost on them.

“I felt so completely inadequate that first day,” a woman serving a life sentence recalls. “But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want anyone to know. My defense mechanisms made me say I could do it, but inside I was saying, ‘I can’t.’ It was so hard.”

“But you did it,” notes Marge Tanner, a fellow inmate. “Nick and Jonde were there to help you, but you did it.”

Tanner’s hesitant friend, who has asked to remain anonymous, smiles. “I was so excited when it came out. It felt so good. I couldn’t believe I could make something pretty, something that someone would like.”

Tomura, Capaci and Northcutt have learned that most of the inmates have a narrow view of art and an even narrower view of themselves.

“Their drawing in school didn’t look like a horse, or whatever, and so they think they can’t draw. No one ever told them that a horse didn’t have to look a certain way,” Northcutt says. “They’ve learned they’re not creative, not capable. We try to teach them that they are.”

“I like my work to be tight, neat, clean,” says a woman who has served about half her life at CIW. “Nick and Jonde made me see that I could loosen up, that I didn’t have to be perfect. And that I could take an everyday object and use it in art--or see art in the everyday object. That’s neat. That’s special.”

“When I step into this room, it’s like I’m in a whole other world. I forget all about the yard and what goes on there,” says Bob Boatman, an inmate at CIM, a gray-haired former machinist who favors small-town settings.

“You don’t want to get involved with that,” he adds, gesturing to the yard and its weightlifters and handball players. “When you’re painting, it’s peaceful. You almost forget you’re here.”

Artworks turned out in the classes--landscapes of Zion and Yosemite national parks, depictions of the Wild West--hang in public offices throughout the state, while murals and posters, some with anti-drug or anti-gang messages, are seen in schools, hospitals and libraries.

“It’s a way of giving something back to the community,” says Tom Skelly, CIM’s art-program coordinator. “I think people feel better supporting the program if they know the guys are giving something back. And the guys like to do something positive.”

“I think it’s a good thing,” Earl Humphrey says during a break from painting. “We just did a mural for (Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center). I’d like to visit there someday when I’m out and see what it looks like up on the wall. I feel good knowing we did something for those sick children. And their parents and the doctors and nurses.”

The program is not without its critics. People often bristle upon finding out that the inmates are learning to paint or write rather than moving rocks from one pile to another or making license plates.

“I tell my friends what I do and a lot of them get upset,” says CIM Correctional Officer Ben Thall, who oversees the art classes. “They say, ‘I pay tax dollars to put (criminals) away, not give them art lessons.’

“But I see the benefits, and I explain that. I pay taxes, too, and I’m pretty critical of how my money’s spent. The program works or I wouldn’t support it. I wouldn’t ask to be a part of it.”

The statewide program costs about $1 million a year, according to Susan Hill, director of Arts-Reach, the nonprofit organization hired by the state to provide programs at nine prisons. Studies show that inmates who participate in the program have a lower rate of recidivism and fewer behavioral problems than those who don’t.

“There are lots of extenuating circumstances, such as, it may be the inmates the program attracts have a more favorable prognosis, but I feel the art program has a real positive effect,” says James Carlson, state Arts-in-Corrections manager.

“We’re not the solution, but we’re part of the solution,” Hill says. “Time has shown us that people engaged in the program have higher self-esteem and self-discipline. I can’t say all of them have the best job skills, but they’ve certainly learned to think things through, to solve problems rationally, to cooperate and to understand achievement.”

The inmates say they have little hope of learning to cope with life outside without first being taught the problem-solving skills and discipline provided by the art program.

“Some people--including other inmates--just miss the whole point,” says Ron Johnson, a participant in CIM’s video art program. “We have to be responsible for our equipment, for ourselves. I firmly believe that if you give a person the chance to experience this, to really put his heart into it, he won’t return (to prison). You feel useful, and a lot of people don’t always feel that way.”

Those convinced of the program’s success want to see it expanded. In addition to offering more programs to more people, Skelly would like to sell the inmates’ artwork, dividing the proceeds among the artists, the art program and a victims’ aid organization. Meanwhile, he and other artists have tried to obtain grants or other means for inmates to continue their work after parole.

Rehabilitation is a major part of the program, along with trying to expand the inmates’ awareness and knowledge of art.

“The way I look at it, these people could be out in a matter of months. They could move in next door,” says Northcutt, gesturing to the neat, clipped lawns of her Santa Ana neighborhood. “I feel better knowing I’ve taught someone to patiently solve a problem, to think about the cause and effect. Even, to think about the beauty in the world.”

Though statistics and pie charts are needed to convince critics, attitudes impress those who work with the inmates. “The success shows itself in abstract ways,” Tomura says. She points to one man who has been working on a single canvas since September. “That’s a long time. Just the fact he hasn’t given up is evidence that the program works. He knows it’ll come if he keeps at it. He’s seen that in the paintings done by the guys around him. He’s working through the steps.”

Her enthusiasm is mirrored in the proud smiles flashed by Capaci and Northcutt as they show slides of the women’s work at CIW. “You really see them grow, as artists and as people,” Northcutt says. “They find some part of themselves they never knew existed. They find a positive outlet, a positive expression, for all their feelings and emotions. That’s what keeps us going back.”

Back at his easel at the CIM, Earl Humphrey works diligently to bring mother and children “to life.” The canvas, which a week before had been a somber and monochromatic brown, is now bright and full of color.

“That was just the base,” he explains to a visitor. “You build on that to get the color you want.” Tomura is out of earshot, but surely his comments would make her proud.

That, and no crumpling.