Artist Talk with Valentino Dixon

Speaking about the remarkable way he wielded the power of drawing by producing detailed renderings of golf courses as a way to cope with prison life and gain back his freedom, artist Valentino Dixon hosted a talk at The Drawing Center in conjunction with the exhibition The Pencil Is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists.

After receiving a devastating prison sentence of thirty-eight-and-a-half years to life, Dixon used drawing as a coping mechanism and, ultimately, as a pathway to freedom from incarceration. Dixon's vibrant drawings of detailed golf courses made with colored pencils garnered publicity from the magazine Golf Digest, and fatefully, a group of Georgetown University undergraduates who worked to reopen his case which led to his release in 2018. Today, Dixon is a practicing artist and an advocate for sentencing reform.

This conversation with Valentino Dixon was recorded on Tuesday, November 19, 2019. It was moderated by Duncan Tomlin, a curatorial research intern for the exhibition, and includes an audience Q&A.

Duncan Tomlin: ... so without further ado, I want to introduce Valentino Dixon.

Valentino Dixon: He called me a living legend. Not yet, Duncan, not yet. Everybody in here or most of you guys in here should know my story. I spent 27 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit. Some say I drew myself out of prison, because I drew up to 10 hours a day, every day for the last 20 years of my incarceration. Even though eight witnesses cleared me to crime and the person who committed the crime confessed to the crime, all of this evidence was disregarded. I didn't have the money to afford a lawyer, attorney because the system is not designed or equipped to give the poor person a fair trial.

And my uncle, after seven years, he sent me some art supplies. He said, "You need to start drawing." And I hadn't drawn for the first seven years of my incarceration. So he was trying to motivate me. And I says "I don't think I have the talent anymore." And he says, "You still have the talent, it's not going to go anywhere. You need to get started." And he said, "You could possibly draw yourself out of prison." So he kind of planted the seed. And so I got started eventually, and I started drawing every day up to 10 hours a day, and I became known as the artist in Attica.

After so many years, the staff became aware of who I was and familiar with me. So in comes the warden, he comes by my cell, he says, "Valentino, could you draw my favorite golf hole?" And I'm like, "I'm a black dude from the hood, get out of here." Like, please. I mean, what, are you trying to set me up? Because in prison you have to be careful, because you never know how people are going to perceive you or take things. But anyway, I didn't want to tell [inaudible 00:02:28] guy, no. So indiscreetly I got the picture from him, I drew his golf hole. Even though other inmates were walking by, and says, "Who you're drawing a golf hole? What's going on here?" And they said, "It looks cool."

So that was a shocker, because you got other inmates that's never golf like me, and they're saying that this golf hole looks cool, and it just gave me motivation. But I still thought that this is it. This is over with. So another inmate comes and he says, "You need to draw some more golf holes." I'm like, "Man, get out of here." And he brings me some old golf digest magazines. Still, I let them sit in my cell for about a month or two before I decided to just start looking through them and picking what I thought was the beautiful golf holes because not all golf holes in my opinion is beautiful, right? Some of them is like really dusty and ... So I ended up picking out the ones that I thought was cool. He said I could throw them out when I'm done with the magazines. And that was the first step.

The next step is that I procrastinated for maybe another month or two before I got started. And once I got started, I never stopped. I started drawing golf holes every day. And after about six months I had accumulated maybe 40 drawings. And then I started reading the columns in the Golf Digest Magazine. And one of the columns said Golf Saved My Life by Max Adler. So each month Max would profile a story of someone that was going through some type of challenge or obstacle in life or something traumatic, and he would write about how golf made them feel better, or how golf was saving their spirit, or their soul, or their life.

And I started to correlate that with my circumstance, okay? So I took one of the drawings, and I wrote Max a three or four-page letter, explaining what happened to me. And immediately he wrote back, and says, "I want to come near and visit you," which was a shocker to all of us, because I shared the letter with everybody in the prison. Here comes the Golf Digest in Attica. They've never been inside a prison before.

So Max comes to the prison, interviews me. In July 2012, I appeared in the Golf Digest Magazine, a three-page article, which led to a golf channel interview, which was nominated for Emmy Award in 2014. Okay. However, I still remained in prison. The good thing about this interview, is it shed light on my wrongful conviction, and the prosecutor agreed to an interview arrogantly fully knowing that he ignored eight witnesses in the confession, he agreed to this interview. And he was asked about all the evidence that prove that I didn't commit the crime. And he was asked that, "Are you sure you got the right man in prison?" So he says, "I'm only human, I could have made a mistake here." Now, I'm thinking, that's it, I'm going home.

Still it takes five more years for the system to get it right. And even then, it wasn't until Georgetown University got involved. And the students, once again, asked the prosecutor, who agreed to another interview, about forensic evidence that cleared me to crime. See, right after the shooting occurred, I ran to my car, jumped in my car, and drove off, and I was pulled over by the police. They told me if I fired a weapon, that they would know, because they took my clothes, they took my car, and they tested me for powder residue, okay? Even though eight witnesses came forward and told them I was innocent, that wasn't enough. Even though I passed two polygraphs, that wasn't enough.

So finally, during this interview, the students asked this prosecutor about this forensic evidence. And he simply said, "Oh, yeah, we tested it, and everything came back that it was clean." Okay. We have a problem here because you never turned over this evidence, you withheld it for 27 years. And that is what got me out of prison.

So my uncle was right in the sense that, it was the artwork that helped free me, okay? And I didn't know in which form it would come because I designed greeting cards for 15 years. And that was my vision and my dream, was to start a greeting card company. And we know that it takes money to fight the system, so I said, I'm going to design these cards every day, and I'm going to get somebody's attention on the outside, and I'm going to raise enough money to get out of prison. And that's what kept me going. But it was the golf art that put me in a spotlight and put attention on my case.

So my message now is, is that not only do I go around the country and in the world speaking about prison reform and how we can make the system more freer, just, and equal, but to inspire people, to let them know that anything you're going through in life, any obstacle, any challenge, no matter how hard it may get, or seem that you can overcome that, because I don't know how I made it out of Attica, 6 by 8 cell, 27 years, drawing every day, and it was nothing but the grace of God that got me through it.

And so, if you guys have any questions for me, I'm here, just ask the way. And don't be ashamed or feel any type of way, you can ask me anything, from A to Z, it doesn't matter. Anybody?

DT: Okay.
Audience Member: Hello?
VD: Hello.
Audience Member: Hi.
VD: Hi.
Audience Member: I feel like my voice is loud enough.
DT: Okay.
Audience Member: Okay. I was wondering if you had any experience with art materials being considered contraband while you were at Attica. And if so, how did you or people you knew deal with that?

Valentino Dixon: Okay. Well, 90% of everything that should be allowed was considered contraband, okay? And for me, there were so many restrictions on painting materials. For example, we could not have oil paint, but we could have acrylic. We were only allowed four brushes or something like that, okay? We could have the canvas paper but we couldn't stretch it on the wood, okay?

So, when my uncle sent me those color pencils, it worked out just fine because even though it took me many, many years, I started to develop a style that allow my drawings to look like a painting. So, that became the goal. And I respect the pencil more because it's so strenuous, there's no shortcuts. Whereas, and if I paint a tree, I can do it real quick, and I'm done with the tree. Drawing, I might be there five hours on this tree. So I like to take the power away from the system, away from the guards. And with the pencils and the paper, I didn't have any restrictions, I had whatever I want and didn't have to deal with anything. So this is what I did, I stuck with the pencils, and didn't have to worry about all of the restrictions.

I've seen so many people get disappointed. You go to the package room, you think you're going to get everything, and they get just tossed into to the side, "Can't have this, can't have that, no, can't have that." Who wants to go through that? It's so depressing. You had a question, John?

Audience Member: Well, there's a couple. One, first of all, I wanted to commend you for the person that you are, because I've gotten to know you over the last few months, and you are an exceptional person, as well as an exceptional talent.

Valentino Dixon: Thank you.

Audience Member: So I commend you for that.

Valentino Dixon: I think you're awesome too.

Audience Member: Thank you. The thing that strikes me about your artwork, and I was curious, is the lighting. I don't know if many of you have seen Valentino's work, but the lighting on these golf holes is spectacular. Is there some unique way in which you are able to get those kinds of lighting effects with the drawings that you've made.

Valentino Dixon: Well, what I do is I draw the entire golf hole, which takes about four or five different greens, because I layer each color on top of each other, okay? Then I go in and I take my eraser, and I start erasing some of the color out. Then I put my sun in the spot where I erased that, and then I go and clean that up, so I kind of create the sunlight through my eraser. I don't know if that makes sense.

Audience Member: But there's one other thing. Would you tell the people about your foundation?

Valentino Dixon: Oh, I'm glad you said that because I never mentioned my foundation. One-on-one, I do, but not in front of crowds. Okay. I have a foundation called The Art of Freedom, and it focuses on the wrongfully convicted and sentencing reform, because we have some of the most harsh successive sentencing laws in the world, which is why we have over 2.3 million people that's incarcerated because the sentencing guidelines are too excessive and it violates the eighth amendment to the constitution against cruel and unusual punishment.

I'll give you a couple of examples. I just visited a guy about a month ago, who was given a 20-year sentence. And right now he has 47 years in prison because the parole board refused to release him. He's met all the requirements, but they refuse to release this guy. The list goes on and on. It's just so many cases. For example, China has a population eight times our size, but only have a million prisoners, okay? Norway has a re-entry rate of 20%, ours is 77%, okay? It's a revolving door, and statistically, it's a numbers game, okay, because it's a lot of jobs invested, opportunities and human lives are at stake. However, the economics, and Martin Luther King said it best, people who are victims of spiritual and intellectual blindness, they know not what they do. That those slave owners who owned slaves were not necessarily evil people. He said they were blinded by greed.

And what you see now in this system is that it's all about private companies and investments over people, minorities in general. Even though it's affecting everybody now, if you are poor, then you are going to get the short end of the stick. That's just how it go. It doesn't even matter Black, White. It doesn't matter now. If you are poor, you're going to get the short end of the stick.

Everybody deserves the same care, compassion, concern, okay? And my goal is for people to mobilize, to come together, to get the attention of Congress, and put Congress in the position that we start this dialogue and that we actually pass some laws that's going to rid our country of mass incarceration.

I was asked a question, and I hate to use race as an issue, but I want everybody in this room to imagine something, imagine a young black man going off to college and landing great jobs and young white men going off to prison. You can't imagine it because it wouldn't happen. And if it did happen, it would be a national emergency, the problem would get fixed, okay?

Now, I come from a place where it's, Inner City, is so much hopelessness. And I thought it was a bad before I left, it's even worse now, okay? The lack of jobs, opportunities, the economic devastation. It's shameful. And Martin Luther King said it best, that the only way that you can fix this problem is to allocate government funding, whether it's housing, schooling, and to provide jobs in the inner city. And you'll get a different result if you do.

Valentino Dixon: Anybody else?

Audience Member: Can you explain a little bit more about the discretion that they used when the warden came to you and asked you to do that and what that meant.

Valentino Dixon: Well, first off...Yes, say the last thing.

Audience Member: [inaudible 00:16:46] golf holes, glad you did, and how did that come about? [inaudible 00:16:48].

Valentino Dixon: Right. Well, it was dangerous for me to draw a golf hole for the warden in the first place, okay?

Yeah, right, because I had 20 years in, people respected me. So they might not have liked the decision, but they respected me in the prison. The inmates respected me, so they left me alone, and then they came to like the drawings, they came to like the golf stuff, okay? And that opened up the door because in my case, without the publicity of the Golf Digest, the golf channel, associated press that came later on, I would still be sitting in the jail cell. No ifs, ands or buts about it, because it became political. Anytime you have eight witnesses in the confession and this stuff is being ignored. Then I found out later on that the jury foreman went to the judge right after the verdict and said, "Your Honor, I don't feel right about this. Something's not right here." This person was interviewed by our city newspaper. He said that the judge told him to go home, "Don't worry about it. You did the right thing," okay?

And so I was doomed, but it was always some type of hope or some type of ... it was always something lingering in my brain, like it's going to be all right, you just keep drawing. I read about 800 books in prison, so I read about so many people's struggles, whether it was the Holocaust, slavery, history, wars, it doesn't matter. People go through some really hardships, okay? So I said, you know what, this is your hardship. This is what you're going to have to overcome. You're going to have to hang in there as long as possible.

And I have friends that committed suicide in prison. Not everybody make it out of there. But I just told myself, okay, this is the test to your human spirit, your willpower, let's see what you're made of. Take your pain, and your frustration out on this pencil and this paper. You know what I'm saying? And that's what I did. I just said, you know what, I'm just going to draw, and I'm gonna study, and I'm just going to stay focused. Appeals get denied, I got to wait another five years before I can get anything into the courtroom. So I'm glad that I did hang in there because I wouldn't be sitting before you guys right here today.

Duncan Tomlin: Yeah.

Audience Member: If I could get back to something that you said early in your talk?

Valentino Dixon: Yes.

Duncan Tomlin: Hold on second. You got a mic?

Valentino Dixon: No, he's loud enough. I can hear him.

Audience Member: I'll try to speak so that everybody can ... Early on you said your uncle encouraged you to start drawing a few years into your sentence.

Valentino Dixon: Right.

Audience Member: And that your talent wouldn't go anywhere.

Valentino Dixon: Right.

Audience Member: Did you have artistic training before the event that caused you to be in prison, did you got to school for it?

Valentino Dixon: I started drawing at around three-years-old, okay

Audience Member: Okay.

Valentino Dixon: So my grammar school teacher recognized what she thought was talent in me. And in the 8th grade she got me put into performing arts high school, where I went all the way to the 12th grade. And I did have some formal training through high school and through my grammar school teacher.

Audience Member: Okay.

Valentino Dixon: Yes. But then I went a period without drawing for seven years any type of artwork.

Audience Member: So that was around the end of high school is when ...

Valentino Dixon: Well, yeah, actually, I was arrested in 21. I was 21 when I was arrested.

Audience Member: Okay.

Audience Member: So many questions.

Valentino Dixon: Just ask away.

Audience Member:Answer whatever you wish. Do you now play golf?

Valentino Dixon: Sure. I'm terrible. [crosstalk 00:20:53]. I tried it three times, I'm awful.

Audience Member: Do you stare at golf fields then?

Valentino Dixon: Do I stare at them?

Audience Member: Yeah, now you can see the real thing instead of-

Valentino Dixon: Well, actually I've visited three golf holes that I drew while in prison never knowing that I would will ever visit them. Actually play golf on these three holes, one in Mexico, Augusta, where I went to the ... I was invited to the Augusta Tournament, where I told Tiger Woods he was going to win before he won. I got it on my phone. I had him in a corner. I said, "I'm going to get a picture with Tiger. We're going to try to arrange it." So I'm supposed to be happy with a picture not me. Like, I need to have a conversation with Tiger. I got him on a one-on-one, and we're talking. I said, "Tiger, you're going to win the Masters." He said, "I'm going to try my best." I says, "No, you're going to win." You know what I'm saying? He looks at his agent and he says, "Yeah, I like this guy." So he won.

Audience Member: Then, finally, you have remarkable tenor and poise despite all the wrong that's happened to you. How do you keep maintaining that beautiful strength? I would imagine some people would keep going back to dark places, or regret, or anger. How do you reconcile all of that?

Valentino Dixon: It definitely wasn't easy, okay? So words can't describe how hard it was, okay? At the end of the day, I asked myself this question one night, okay, what kind of legacy do you want to leave in this life? Do you want it to end in this prison cell, or do you want to fight for your freedom, get out, and make something of yourself? Okay. And it's been so many people who have went through so many horrific situations like I just explained a little while ago. Okay. This is what life is about, you don't know what type of test is going to be ... that you're going to have to go through. You don't know what it is. You don't get to decide. Everybody in this room is going to go through something, has already been through something, okay? The question is, are you going to come out of it victorious, with a strong spirit, or are you going to allow it to eat you alive and kill you?

Valentino Dixon: One of the things I wasn't gonna allow to happen was, I wanted my soul to kind of turn a certain type of way in prison. But the older guy says, "No, you don't want to do that." He says, "You help make a balance in here." Because somebody has stole my sneakers and my Walkman out in my cell one day, and I was just so mad about that. I went on a visit, and they stole my sneakers and my Walkman. And I'm like, you know what, because I was always a nice guy, I said, "I'm not going to be nice to none of these assholes in here no more. I'm fucking tired of this, everything." Excuse my language. And I said, "You know what, I'm going to get a knife. And I'm just going to wait for one of these assholes." And he was like, "No. You help keep a balance in prison. I don't ever want you to go to this side over here. Stay right where you at as a person." And he made me think.

And I thought about it, and I said, he's right, I'm not going to allow this place to turn to me to an animal. I'm not going to allow that. And this is why I'm the way I am. I'm not going to allow the DA's office, or the police, or the detectives to turn me into some mean, mad, bitter, angry guy. I'm always smiling all the time. I'm not going to let nobody take that away from me.

My mom was a different story. She's mad all the time. I'm her only kid. I was arrested on her birthday. She lost all her 27 birthdays, she wouldn't celebrate them. And she says that she can't get past what happened here. So I pretty much have enough joy for the both of us.

Valentino Dixon: Yes.

Audience Member: Okay. You mentioned you got representation through a law clinic, and I was wondering sort of how you got paired up with them, and then sort of future lessons about whether it's exculpatory evidence, or sentencing issues, or being denied over and over for parole. What can those sorts of programs be doing better, and making themselves more accessible to folks?

Valentino Dixon: Well, Georgetown didn't represent me, okay? What happened was this, I had an attorney, family and friends helped raise $15,000, okay, because they want to file for clemency for me, even though I didn't want clemency, okay? And the crazy thing is I had been working on my own case too. I got 27 years in, I had to study the law. I had to know what's going on here. And I was really good at writing briefs and stuff like that, and factual, really getting right down to the important parts, because sometimes, working on your own legal case, it becomes emotional, okay? You can't use that language with the courts, because forget about it, you could have the issue, and you could blow it.

Valentino Dixon: And it's hard to tell a guy that has 20 years in or 15 years in. These guys, a lot of times, they may know more than some lawyers, okay? But because they're emotionally involved, 90% of the time they screw up their own case. Okay. So it was important for me to know these things. It was important for me to learn something new every day to really have an open mind about everything. What are my weaknesses, what are my strengths? Okay. I can write a great factual of ... Nobody can write the facts the way I can about my case, okay? But it's the lawyer that's going to take this knowledge and put it together in a legal argument, and use the language that the court is going to respect, okay? Because if I write it out, some anger is going to be in there, there's going to be a read between the lines, and say, we're going to deny this. Even if you have the law to support it, we're going to deny it. Who's going to do anything about it?

Valentino Dixon: And this is what people are faced with in our system. So I ended up hiring this lawyer, named Donald Thomson. He brings on a guy named Alan Rosenthal, okay? Donald Thomson is out of Rochester, New York, and Alan is out of Syracuse, New York. So the two of them coming together, they come to visit me. They say, "We want to try two things. We're going to file for a clemency and a pardon. And then we're going to be working on a 440 motion in just the case it gets denied." Okay.

Valentino Dixon: So I get a call from ... Well, I didn't get a call. My mom got a call from Georgetown, okay? Now, during my 27 years, I had 7 attorneys representing me during that 27 years, okay? And I was able to make three-way calls, which was illegal, but I didn't care, because I'm fighting for my freedom. So I could either, I could have got a keep lock misbehavior report from making these three-way calls. So my mom would make these three-way calls for me. I said, "Hey, we got three numbers to call today." I'm calling law firms all over the country. I'm trying to get somebody's attention.

Valentino Dixon: And finally, once the Golf Digest came out, I got attorney's, I'm not going to say his name, attorney's attention out of New York City. He said, "Oh, I love this case. I want this case." Big attorney now. Year go by, he doesn't do anything, files nothing. Two years go by, he doesn't do anything. I'm used to this now. Okay.

Audience Member: Did you pay him Valentino.

Valentino Dixon: I didn't pay him, he took it pro bono.

Audience Member: Okay.

Valentino Dixon: But I developed a relationship with his paralegal because he never was really available, but the paralegal was. So me and the paralegal, we really hit it off. And, I called one day and the paralegal was gone, okay, he left the office. And I was surprised because I thought that the paralegal ... The first thing I thought was the paralegal says I can't be around this type of nonsense here. And this paralegal goes on to become an adjunct professor at Georgetown. Okay.

Valentino Dixon: And when he was in a good position, he reached, he called my mom, and he says we just chose Valentino's case as the class project, okay? So the students at the time decided that they wanted to do a documentary. And I said, "Great. Start with the DA's office." But the lawyer I hired, he says, "No, I don't want to interview the DA's office." I says, "No, we're going to interview the DA's office." And then we went through that for like a week long, and forth

And I know that he's a great lawyer, a good attorney, but there was the politics side of it, okay? And even great lawyers have to kind of stay in their place to a certain extent. Otherwise, either get chastised by the court or get blackballed by the system. That's just how it is, okay?

But I went over, I wanted these students to interview this attorney, and that turned out to be the best thing because, of course, they discovered that they withheld the forensics evidence for 27 years through this interview, okay? So what was the rest of your-

Audience Member: That was with the prosecutor?

Valentino Dixon: Yes, that was with the prosecutor who prosecuted me, yes. Anybody else?

Audience Member: Why was [inaudible 00:31:06]?

Valentino Dixon: Well, the law states that a prosecutor has a duty and the obligation to seek the truth, not just the conviction, okay? However, in any field in life, I don't care what it is, it could a doctor, it could be a cab driver, you're going to have bad apples, you're going to have bad people in these positions. Not to say that all prosecutors are bad, because that's not the truth.

And when you come across a bad prosecutor, that one that wants to win at all costs, this is how you have these wrongful convictions. And then the evidence is there but is buried, okay, and people protect each other's careers. So you would think that once the truth is known or brought out that it's a no-brainer, let's fix this. But the problem is, is that when you have bad apples, the bad apples say, "Nope, we're not going to fix it, we're going to bury it." This is why you have guys doing 10, 20, 30 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. The evidence was there all along, but it was buried because of politics, and egos, and careers, and different things like that.

Audience Member:Thank you. So my question is related to the one that she asked earlier. You've acknowledged multiple times the unfortunate reality that it took some institutional attention. In your case, it was Golf Digest Magazine that brought about ... I mean, and then there were nice people like the paralegal that you mentioned-

Valentino Dixon: Right.

Audience Member: ... but really, it took some institutional attention to get the gears moving.

Valentino Dixon: Right.

Audience Member: So my question is this, in your time and what you've observed, I'm going to assume that was a rare thing, but why do you think that is so rare in a age where supposedly so many of these institutions are out looking to do good, and they find places to do good. But in this particular instance, call it charitable investment, what do you think are the barriers to that?

Valentino Dixon: Well, the thing is this, I wrote all the innocent projects across the country, okay? And the problem is that they get so many letters, and they're understaffed, they don't have the funding to take on everybody's case. So of course, I was angry with them. But now I understand that they can't take on everybody's case. It's impossible. There's not enough money and enough staff to fight all of these wonderful convicting cases, because first, you have to investigate the case, to find out if there's validity, or if it has substance, or if it has the evidence to prove that the person did not commit the crime. We have a lot of people claiming that they were innocent. Some of them are and a lot of them not. That's just the reality of life. And so it's like waiting in line for a organ or something like that.

Valentino Dixon: Yes.

Audience Member: I think it's extraordinary that you made drawings that are so light and filled with light while you were making them in your circumstance.

Valentino Dixon: Right.

Audience Member: Did you ever have any impulse to try to depict the event the right way in a way to, I don't know, rectify the wrong reading, and this is a visual way.

Valentino Dixon: Well, what I've seen in prison, there's a lot of great artists is in prison. And Tim Kurtz is one of them. He spent eight years in prison. Right, Tim? Yeah. However, and this has nothing to do with Tim, a lot of artists in prison draw what they feel, what's going on with them. And I've seen a lot of those drawings, whether it was guy in a cell holding bars, or some type of dark, or imaginary image. I never wanted to be that type of artist. No matter what I was going through or what I was feeling, I always wanted light to be something that radiated in my work.

Valentino Dixon: Anybody else? Yeah.

Audience Member: Just curious, who you find inspiring as an artist, or a musician, or who inspires you to do what you're doing?

Valentino Dixon: You know what, Jean-Michel Basquiat, you ever heard of him?

Audience Member: Sure.

Valentino Dixon: Okay. I read about him, and he kind of inspired me because he was a black kid from New York, and he went through his challenges, and struggles, and we all know how his life ended. And so he was somebody that I looked up to, however, I didn't want my life to end the way his did. I wanted to end on a positive note. Yeah.

Audience Member: Back to your foundation for a moment.

Valentino Dixon: The Art of Freedom.

Audience Member: The Art of Freedom?

Valentino Dixon: Yes.

Audience Member: So how does that come about? Are you released, and you have this idea to form a foundation?

Valentino Dixon: Yes, definitely.

Audience Member: Or did that door ... How did you do that just for that?

Valentino Dixon: Well, my foundation is based in Florida. There's reasons in Florida because I don't have to pay no State taxes, okay? Right. The minute that I got out, people started writing and messaging me about wrongful convictions. "My brother's wrongfully convicted, or my cousin's wrongfully convicted." So I found my ... So right now I might write eight letters a week to inmates, okay? About seven of them can call me on my phone, and I've mailed packages out to inmates. This is every week.

Valentino Dixon: So I could identify a case that deserves that second look, okay, because of my experience. But how can I help a person that deserves help if I don't have any money, okay, if I can't hire an attorney? I know several great attorneys, they all need money because they have bills to pay. So this is where my foundation comes in. And I can say, I believe this case, and this case, and this case, not only warrants an investigation, but we're going to pay for the investigation, and we're going to pay for the attorneys to represent these three people, okay?

But the main thing that I require is that each and every one of those people take a polygraph test, okay? And they take a polygraph test by Daniel Rubicon, the guy that does the Steve Wilkos Show, okay? He's one of the most qualified in our country. You're not going to pass his test unless you're telling the truth. And his test is like three-hours long and he really takes you through the whole scientific ...

And usually an individual if they're not really innocent, they'll make up an excuse right away. They'll say something. "Well, I don't think that's a good idea because, and ..." Now you know, nope, take that person off the list. Or if there's DNA involved, and what a lot of people don't know, is that with most innocence projects, you have to pay for the testing of the DNA.

Audience Member: [inaudible 00:39:24].

Valentino Dixon: But you know what I'm talking about, right, John? Yeah, that's great.

Audience Member: [crosstalk 00:39:27].

Valentino Dixon: Yeah, right. And a lot of people think that, oh, you got the innocence projects helping you and everything is paid for. No, families have had to raise thousands of dollars to get testing of the DNA. That's why John said not his. So it takes money.

Valentino Dixon: You had a question though? Okay.

Audience Member: So do you have any thoughts on how programs that bring art into prisons can be most effective?

Valentino Dixon: Oh, yeah. Well, art therapy is a very important because as we know, art allowed me to transform myself, it strengthened my spirit, because prison is a dark place, and it's designed to break your spirit. Okay. So art did the opposite for me. Once, again, we need funding for art supplies, and we would have to mandate that each prison gets on board for such a project, okay. Because if you have an administration inside of prison that says, "No, we're not bringing that here in our prison." However, the governor's office in each State says, "No, you're going to have this, and this is good for them." That can be the only way that we can get it done.

It first has to be a law or a bill that comes down, that's passed, and then some type of federal funding is allocated to each prison, because definitely, we have the talent there and you'll have a ton of teachers that could give this course. I taught about four or five guys how to draw when I was there, and you can just see how these people's spirits change right before your eyes.

Audience Member: So most people who've spent time inside, they really do anything that they can to really put that experience behind them. I mean, that's just true for most everybody.

Valentino Dixon: Yeah.

Audience Member: And it's just so unique in that you've been able to take this experience to really do the hard work of uplifting so many who really are in dire straits out there right now.

Audience Member: And really thinking of that, holding that in one pocket, in terms of your art, and perhaps what you're creating, if you create art in the future, or what you're working on now, and what ... it's so linked to that experience you've had in the past. Do you feel that if you were to continue the work, if you were to ... do you think you'd be able to, do you think that's something that you want to move beyond? Do you see perhaps, maybe moving to a different stage in terms of what kinds of pieces you might do in the future?

Valentino Dixon: Well, if you look at my art, you would never know that it was done in the six by eight cell. That's number one. You don't know unless you hear the story, unless I tell you. Okay. So I never wanted to be the prison artist. I didn't want you to look at my work and say, "Oh, yeah, that was done in prison." In fact, most people, when they look at my art they say like, take the black pieces off [inaudible 00:43:22] off the table, you're going to think this is a guy is a Caucasian artist. You look the golf stuff, you don't think a black dude would do that, come on. You know what I'm saying? And that's just reality, right?

Okay. All right. However, because I did so much time there, and I've seen a lot of guys leave prison, a lot of guys that I had hope for. I mean, these guys, you will listen to them speak, they were educated, and they acquired degrees in prison, and they're going to chase the system. These guys gave us hope, but none of them that I knew went home and did anything, okay? So before I was leaving, the guys were like, "You know, you're our only hope, don't you? Nobody else is going to do this, but you."

So it's so many places I could be right now. I could be up on the beach somewhere and laying up. I meet so many people that offered me, "Come to our lake house. It's available for you. We'll fly you down here. Come to Vegas," all this stuff. Now, I meet a lot of people, and 99% of it I turn down because I have a different focus, okay? And there's no way that my soul is going to rest until we change the system significantly, okay?

We really change it, where it is fair, and like I said, just, and equal, until then I'm not going to rest. But I'm also not going to sit and just continue to have this dialogue, like we have these dialogues all the time. I'm going to get out there, and I have a strategy, and bring people together, all these prisons rights organizations, the families of the incarcerated, and millions of people who want to say enough is enough, laws need to be changed right now, okay? And I don't mean some little bill that's not going to really do anything. I don't care about 200 people being given clemency, or I hear about, " Oh, some 50 people just got pardoned." I care less about that. That's a joke, okay?

I know over 9,000 people in New York State alone is over the age of 65. These guys are blind, glaucoma, health issues, no threat to society, done their time, but they still can't go home. That's not right. Where's the humanity, where's the heart? Where's your heart, okay? And all of us should have the gene for compassion, care, concerns, sympathy, empathy, forgiveness. Not that I'm saying people shouldn't be punished, but the sentences given in America, is far exceeds that punishment, okay, in comparison to other countries. And we're supposed to be the example of the world. And for some reason, whether it was slavery, whether it was Jim Crow Laws, or was mass incarceration, we're always behind, okay? So, no, I'm not going to rest until I'm satisfied with what's going on with the system, and that significant change is made.

Valentino Dixon: Anybody? Yeah.

Audience Member: I don't know if you're familiar with Dwayne Betts, he wrote a book called Felon. He also served time, and then went on to successfully go to Yale Law School, and then when he tried to apply for his bar certification in Connecticut, they questioned his moral character to practice law, even though he graduated at Yale Law School. So leaving jail, and even if you did your time, and even though you've gone on to do great things, people still question you, and put barriers up.

And I had the privilege of hearing him speak and he said, "Part of the problem is when people talk about the incarceration problem, people start with the wrong dialogue, and we have to change the focus, and change the way we talk about it." And you seem to be very well-versed in that. How would you recommend we recruit allies, people who do not know how to talk about this? How do we start the dialogue with somebody who is completely naive to the situation?

Valentino Dixon: Well, first is this, you have to get the American people to understand what prison reform means. You don't get the American people on board, forget about it, people's like, "When we get out of here, we don't want to hear about this, I'm going to work, I'm not thinking about prison reform, and none of that other stuff." Okay. That's number one. The message has to be simple and clear. It has to be very clear for people to get it. Okay.

I just lost my train of thought. I had something that I really wanted to share just now. Okay, my brain is just always going everywhere. Repeat that one more time. You said something that really made me-

Audience Member: How do we recruit allies who are naive to this conversation?

Valentino Dixon: Right, right. Okay.

Audience Member: I'm in particular thinking about perhaps some of my relatives who live in the Midwest, and they live in rural communities, this is not a huge thing on their radar. And when I try to approach them to it, it's just such a big thing to introduce them to.

Valentino Dixon: Well it starts with ... I still I'm trying to get this thought back, okay? But it starts with those that do understand, those that do understand have to come together, have to be unified, okay? Because if people don't come together and unify then everybody's scattered around. When I see these rallies in New York, I see 50 people picketing or whatever at the capital. No, we need 5,000 people there. And somebody has to come along and say, "Listen people, put down the egos, I know you belong to this group here. Is this the name of your group, organization, class?" We have to come together. And then the families of incarcerated have to get involved because this is your loved one that's in prison. You just can't have the activists doing all the hard work. We need to do ...

Once I get started, I'm going to have the platform. I have a show that I've been working on, my show called Draw And Talk With Me. Okay. And everybody knows, most of us remember the Bob Ross, one of the guy, Bob Ross, with the Afro, he's painting on TV. Okay. So when I was in prison, I said, "I want to do a modern Bob Ross when I get out of prison, and however, I want to do a modern Bob Ross, but I want to bring on people and teach them how to draw. Okay. Then I want to have a dialogue on social issues in America," okay?

So I'm meeting all of these people, billionaires, sports athletes, I'm at the MBA, I'm over here, I'm speaking at Georgetown, I'm meeting this person. So now I started kind of recruiting people and say, "Hey, you want to come on my show, it's Draw And Talk With Me, I'm going to teach you how to draw something. And then we're going to have a dialogue about prison reform and social issues. I ask you about your career or something you're trying to do right now, promote whatever." And at the end of the show, we take the drawings, whatever I teach you how to draw, you take it, and then you auction it off to your favorite charity, whatever, give them an incentive.

So, so far I've got seven shows done. I haven't released any. Hall of Fame, Quarterback, Ronde Barber, Temporary Buccaneers, Jan Stephenson, Hall of Fame, Golfer, Business Owner, Dated Donald Trump, is going to be a good episode with ... Dated Donald Trump, I couldn't wait to ask her the question like, "You had a lot of controversy surrounding you. Can you tell us something about Donald Trump that the world don't know?" And this is where it gets cut off because you got to see the episode in order to know. You know what I'm saying?

So then I switch it up and I've went to Inner City Youth Community Center for Troubled Kids, I teach them how to draw a butterfly, okay? And then in the show I say, "You know what? I talked to you guys ... " I taught 30 of them. Some of them had attitudes, but I got them to draw this butterfly. I say, "You know why I chose the butterfly?" He says, "No." I say, "It's because the butterfly starts off as a caterpillar, then it forms into this beautiful creature that flies, and is able to fly away." And I said, "All of you in this class, no matter what type of struggles you're going through, or challenges and obstacles, you're going to go to through many ..." I said, "But if you hang in there, you're going to formulate, and become this beautiful butterfly whose going to be able to conquer anything and accomplish anything in the world."

So next week I'm doing a show. I'm teaching some group of people that has Parkinson's, okay? And I've done it show with 60 school teachers in Buffalo, where I taught them how to draw a leaf, a fall leaf. [inaudible 00:52:32] show the fall leaf because we didn't have fall in Buffalo, we are straight to winter. But the show with the teachers is very important, because I had about 20 questions I wanted to ask them while we're drawing, about how we can change the conditions of the school system? How safe do they feel with the gun problems in the school, and blah, blah, blah, a whole bunch of different questions, so that we can try to figure out what we need to do.

I'm all about solution. I'm all about, we identify the problem, we come up with a solution, and we get going, okay? I almost got that thought back just now and it just slipped me. Oh, yeah. But, if it come to me, I'm going to come back to you. Okay. And I know people try to ... because I'm going too long, you guys are ready to go and end it or what? Okay. All right. Okay.

Audience Member: How is working [inaudible 00:53:24].

Valentino Dixon: How I? Say it again?

Audience Member: Are you still working [crosstalk 00:53:29]?

Valentino Dixon: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I have a bare room with an easel now, because for all those years I drew on a little board. All these drawings I have done on the little drawing board. And so, I stay with my mother, which is driving me crazy. And I have a room with this nice big easel, something I always wanted, the drawing board easel, and I have good lighting now, no distractions, nobody's bothering me. So I have put in 10-hour day since I've been out. I drew this huge humongous picture for Georgetown, 1000 windows of their building. I've done a lot of commission pieces, of course, guys want their favorite golf course drawings and stuff like that done.

So I have to say same intensity, the same dedication as I had when I was in the prison cell. The only thing different is I'm doing a lot of traveling, and that kind of hinders me. Even though I did a drawing on a plane, I was able to ... then I got it done. But, yeah, I don't want to lose that, maybe when I get about 70, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Then I'll just be done. I might have arthritis, I won't be able to draw no more. But, yeah, that's it? Yes. Okay. Two more.

Audience Member: Hi.

Valentino Dixon: Hi.

Audience Member: Thank you first. Thank you so much for being here.

Valentino Dixon: Thank you. Thank you for coming.

Audience Member: You're more than welcome. I have a kind of a slightly different question that has to do with your art practice.

Valentino Dixon: Okay.

Audience Member: Drawing 10 hours a day is a long time. People work ... We don't even have a 10-hour work day, it's a lot of ... I mean, it kind of a good job if you work maybe 8 hours and then that's about it. But 10 hours is a long time to be drawing every day.

Valentino Dixon: I just split my time up. Because I also had a prison job, I was cutting hair for a few hours.

Audience Member: Okay, okay.

Valentino Dixon: And the good thing for me is that the officers are so lazy, they never want to open a barbershop. So I was just called, "Dixon, no barbershop today." "All right, no problem." And I go back and I can put my time in. So what I would do is, I would get up at 5:30 in the morning, getting in three hours or whatever. Then I had an afternoon session, then I had an evening session. And at the end of the day, I got my 10 hours. But this allowed me to push myself.

Audience Member: Well, I wanted to ask you, did you learn things about your body, and breathing, and your hands, and how to relax under difficult conditions of being incarcerated, but still wanting to be able to produce your art, but learn how to take care of yourself at the same time? Did you learn, or did you discover kinds of techniques that would allow you to do that?

Valentino Dixon: Well, no, I didn't do any yoga if that's what you want to know. But I did workout for about an hour every day, five days a week. I did stretch in the morning. Okay. I did pray a lot. When you observe the world, and you pay attention to everything, I was living out here with you guys. I was never really in the jail. And the only time I was in the jail was when a problem occurred, and the guys needed my advice on something, because I was like the Black Dr. Phil, they used to call me in there. And I was able to draw and talk with these guys. This is why my show is Draw And Talk With Me, because I can sit here and draw and still talk at the same time, and just help people out. People just wanted somebody to listen to them when they had an issue or a problem.
And then I started public speaking inside the prison, and I was never good at this type of thing right here, trust me. I was so shy, all my life I was shy, and I'm the only child. But the conditions of the prison started getting so bad that I had to speak out about things with the younger guys, the gang banging and the craziness that was going on in prison. And I had developed a heart, it didn't matter who you were or how tough you were, or whatever, I'm going to speak to you, and I'm going to come to you even if it's dangerous. And I'm going to start a dialogue with you and try to give you something to think about.
And I used to tell guys, "We have options, you have options." A lot of times people don't think they have options. "You have options, and that right now you have to decide that the day that they release you, are you going to be an asset to society or a burden to society. So far, you guys are all burdens." And they used to be mad at me. I was like, "You guys are burdened to society." And they'd be like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like, "Dude, people ain't even safe with y'all out there. You know what I'm saying? Your neighborhoods shouldn't feel like they're in a prison because you're on the street, and you're just acting like a fool. You think that's cool?" This is how I used to talk to them. But for me, I grew into that person in stages. I hadn't had that courage when I first went in. I was too scared to even say anything basically.

Valentino Dixon: Yes, John.

Audience Member: I wanted to ask you, you went in 1991?

Valentino Dixon: Yes. 21-years-old.

Audience Member: You were divorced from the rest of the world for 27 years, until September 2018?

Valentino Dixon: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Audience Member: The world has changed so dramatically. How did you adjust to all the changes when you walked out on that September day, last year?

Valentino Dixon: John, are you kidding me? Let me say this. I didn't have to adjust to nothing. There were no adjustments for me, because I lived on the outside with you guys. I'm able to read the magazines. We got TVs in there, I can see everything that's going on in the world. Technology wise, I knew a phone, I wanted everything, okay? I was not going to be stuck in 1991, okay? And I knew more than most people that was living out here, because if you don't pay attention, it doesn't matter if you're out here or not. It doesn't matter if you've never been to prison, if you don't pay attention to what's going on in the world, okay?

I made it my business to pay attention, and to take notes, and to store the information, I ask questions. I didn't care who it was, whether it was an inmate, whether it was a guard, "Oh, you just came from society?" "Oh, yeah, well, blah, blah, blah." "Tell me everything that just happened in the last five years out there, all the progress with technology, blah, blah, blah." So I was a student, I'm a student right now. So walking out, I knew exactly what to expect.

The one thing that really ... There's only one thing that bothered me because everybody's on their phone, there is no communication, people with people. People don't want to talk to you, they don't want to look at you. And if you say hi to too many people, they're going to look at you like you crazy, like, what's this dude saying hi for, any of that type of stuff. So that kind of hurt my feelings, because now I had to adjust to that. And I had to adjust to that now, if I don't get direct eye contact with somebody, I don't even look at them, because you would think you crazy, like why ... you know what I'm saying? You can't really be friendly like that.

But if somebody looks at me and kind of ... they give me that body language, that they're friendly enough that you can say hi to, then I'm going to do it all day long. They're going to get all of me. But if they're in a lot of people's not that way, they don't want you to say anything to them because they feel, what are you trying to ... pickpocket me, or you're trying to con me out or something, or it is just a scam or something? Why are you approaching me or saying anything to me?

And because I do a lot of traveling in the airport, and a ton of airports, I'm always traveling, and this is what I observed. And it was just kind of heartbreaking, like what the hell is going on here? Everybody's into themselves, nobody even cares about each other. I'm just watching, and everybody's ... you know what I'm saying? "Don't even look at me. I'm just trying to get to where I need to get to."

And I had one experience and I shared this in Andrew [inaudible 01:01:51], at his gallery, and I'm going to share it again today. So I get this iPhone 7. And I'm in New York, and I need to download the Uber app because I need to catch Uber to the airport. If someone could get Uber it'd be a little cheaper, I've got my credit card, but I don't know how to download the app because had only had the phone a week maybe, so I don't know how to download the app. And my daughter had downloaded the apps that I had on there.

So, I'm in the middle of the Hilton, I'm in the lobby, and there's people walking back and forth. So I'm like, who can I pick? Okay, it looked like a guy that I did time with. "Hey, dude, can I have a word with you?" "All right. Yeah." I say, "Hey, man, I need a favor." He said, "What's going on?" He was annoyed that I stopped him, because we are in New York City. He said, "What's going on?" I says, "I need you to do a favor, man. I need you to download the Uber app for me on my phone." He says, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Right?

So I start laughing. You know, me, I keep smile on my face. So I'm like, "Yeah, I'm serious, man." He says, "No, are you fucking kidding me?" He was annoyed. He said, "Am I may being punked?” He said it, he's looked up, he said, "Am I not being punked?" I says, "No, man." I says, "No, man, I spent 27 years in prison, man, for crime I didn't commit. I just got out, and been out of a couple of weeks, or whatever." And he's says, "Come on, guy, you don't even look old enough to do 27 years. What are you talking about?" I said, "No, seriously." Because I did The Day Show, I said, "Here, man, Google my name right quick. I did interviews, you're going to see me in The Day Show, and," blah, blah, blah. So he does it.

Audience Member: [inaudible 01:03:39].

Valentino Dixon: He said, "Holy shit." He said, "Wow." He says, "Man, how are you smiling?" He said, "I wouldn't be smiling if I did 27 years in prison for a crime ..." He said, "Why are you smiling, man?" I said, "Man, this is my spirit, man. I'm not going to let prison destroy that." He's looking at me. He said, "Man, I'll do anything for you." He does that. Hold on, I give him my credit card numbers. I don't know, no better, like, "Take my credit card numbers." You know what I'm saying? You can steal all my money. You know what I'm saying?

And he looks at me, he's like, "Man, can I have a hug?" He gave me a hug. He says, "Man, you changed my life." Yeah. He said, "You changed my life." It really touched me. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah.

Anybody else? One more question. Nope, that's it? All right. Thanks. One more?

Audience Member: [inaudible 01:04:37] what's next?

Valentino Dixon: Huh?

Audience Member: Outside your foundation, what's your next goal?

Valentino Dixon: Well, my goal is, the show is important because it gives me a bigger platform, okay? And I'm already speaking to a producer at NBC, so they're excited about this show, okay. And even if they don't take it, I was going to stream it on YouTube or whatever. And I already got a ton of people just lining up to come on my show, and I'm promoting this all by myself. People love the concept of it, and they want to come draw with me, so that's the beautiful thing. And then it's not just celebrities, it's just anybody. I plan ongoing to a homeless shelter and doing Draw And Talk With Me in there, everywhere.

So the goal is not going to change. The goal is prison reform, to bring awareness to the American people in a way that they've never heard it before. Okay? And that's what pushes me to achieve something that has never been achievable. That's the goal, it's not going to change. I don't see any reason to have any other goal other than the prison reform, making some money for my show, of course, taking care of my family. And then focusing on Inner city issues and stuff like that, trying to build community centers, and learning centers for these kids in the Inner city that has nothing to do after they get out of school, but to get into trouble, a lot of them. So, yeah, that's the goal. Just keep the fire, keep pushing.

Oh, that was the question. You said something about, I don't remember the exact question. But let me just say this, it was the obstacle that you said. And obstacles is what moved me. Okay, so if you shut me down. You said something about somebody being shut down, this guy. Okay, now I know now. The guy that... He became a lawyer?

Audience Member: He went Yale law school.

Valentino Dixon: Got you.

Audience Member: [inaudible 01:06:56].

Valentino Dixon: There you go, there you go. You prove that by your actions, of course. Okay. There's no other way to prove to anybody anything, but by the things that you do. I could say anything out of my mouth that means nothing. Unless I'm going to follow it up with action. Do the right thing, at the right time, at the right places, then you get it done that way.

Valentino Dixon: So, okay. yeah. All right. Thanks everybody. I appreciate you.

Audience Member: Thank you so much.

Duncan Tomlin: [inaudible 01:07:45] prince.

Valentino Dixon: Okay.

Audience Member: We want everybody to come, please, look at Valentino's work. They're for sale. The larger prints are $200, and the other ones are $100. Please come look at the work. And thank you, Valentino, so much.