"Man in an empty cell"

Museum-quality giclée Epson matte paper

My name is Oscar Rodriguez, currently house at the ADX here at Florence, CO… A lifer… Honestly…I don’t consider myself an artist. Not yet… I got o much to learn. But, I’ll get there. See, where I am from…Art doesn’t exist. At least, I was blind to what art was (and still is!)… Art found me here at the ADX. I am serious! I used to trace cartoons for my loved ones… But a Lee Hammond book changed my life… Long story short…I started freehanding my drawings. This was just a start… One day I saw something that changed my life. A friend gave me a pastel painting for my mother. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was beautiful. I promised myself that one day I’ll be that good… But first… I needed to buy some colors to learn about colors… This is when a commissary staff member saw one of my drawings and well…He started talking about all these artists I knew nothing about. He asked me if I was interested in taking an Art class. Long story short…He’s the CAP program coordinator (Creative Art Platform). Once a week… We learned about art. From history to doing our own projects. See, there is no contact here so we did everything in cages… But we got to use brushes…canvas boards…things I’ve never used. So this painting is called “Once upon a CAP” because I can’t use Acrylics in my cell… No brushes…Nothing like that. It’s all a security concern. But I can still use pastels  Color pencils, graphite, oil pastels… So I am grateful… So yeah! Thanks to everyone involved in the CAP program. “As you can see, these are acrylic tubes that we were able to use once upon a time… I was the creator… the beginning and the end. The sketched out parts… It’s a representation of my struggles with the acrylics… I made more of a mess than anything. Just like my life. But for a moment… All I could see was my own universe in that blank canvas… The little soft pastel is because that’s me. I love pastels… The little abstract seen, it’s a newsstand in Downtown Los Angeles… The street light and steam coming out of the manhole… Only a few people walking around early in the morning. But, I remember that NEWSTAND was always busy… But the first time I saw a big beautiful piece of art… Was up in a building in Downtown LA.  I just want to show my gratitude to my family for supporting me… My BFF and well…I want to thank you CAP! “Art gave me a purpose in life”.