Thank God, I’m Home: First Meal is an exhibition by Julie Green, based on what wrongfully convicted people would want to eat first when they’re free again. At first, such a dark topic might seem very contrasting to the light, colorful images of retro or iconic food establishments, but that is what makes these paintings to impactful. These people have suffered for years, maybe decades for a crime they did not commit, but were convicted of due to failings in our criminal justice system. It is already known that the American prison system fails to reform inmates, but it is inhumane to treat even rightfully convicted criminals in the way our country does. After the discussion in our class at the viewing of the exhibition, it is not difficult to feel the pain of the incarcerated and their families traumatized by this system.
The first of Julie Green’s works in this exhibition that really stood out to me was the Burger, Fries and Ice Cream at Dairy Queen painting. In a reddish-pink color very reminiscent of the logo today, it was one of the first paintings I noticed. Some aspects that first struck me included the gold leaf around the Dairy Queen logo, and the retro look to the painting, with the older cars in front of the vintage-looking building. It wasn’t until I read the caption to the side that I noticed more details in the painting that correlated to the story of this exoneree. The feather in the logo, the patterns in the corner, the embroidered work “sundaes”, and the Native American buttons on the bottom left all contribute to both Ted Bradford and Julie Green’s stories.
Ted Bradford is a Native American man from Yakima County in Washington, who was convicted of Sexual Assault, Burglary, and Unlawful Entry in 1996. Although Bradford did not match the description the victim gave, and the fact that she did not identify him as her attacker, police believed his history of indecent exposure made him the prime suspect. Due to a clerical error at his work, his alibi that he had been working at the time fell through with only his wife’s intention to pick him up from work as proof. He served nine years in prison before being released on community supervision, and only when the Innocence Project Northwestern Clinic took up his case in 2002 was it proved with DNA evidence that Bradford was not the assailant. In February of 2010, his case was retried and he was acquitted.
It took almost 15 years for Bradford to be free from this charge, 9 of which he served in prison, stripped of basic human freedoms and rights. When he first was released, he wanted a burger, fries, and ice cream from Dairy Queen, a classic American fast food meal. In this painting, the older, retro version of Dairy Queen is shown, which is probably the one Bradford is thinking about since he doesn’t know how it has been changed in the years he spent in prison. This reminiscence is reflected in the way it is painted. These dripping lines and hazy look to parts of the painting give me a feeling of fading, like a dream or a memory. It feels like looking back on good memories, a “before”.
There are also parts of Julia Green in this piece too. From her childhood, she remembers playing “Indians and Cowboys” with her brother, where wearing a feather on a headband meant you were an Indian. She also incorporates the embroidery from her past with her moth, including the patterns on the corners, and the buttons, which tie the embroidery and Native American subject of the piece together. She also has an interesting amount of details in the word “Sundaes”. The first letter “s” is embroidered with red thread, and the letters “undae” are painted to match the first, with the last “s” having none of these distinguishers. At first glance, I did not notice these details, as the color of the thread matched the painted words, but reading the description, I questioned this choice. After asking Dr. Yoshimoto, she said that unfortunately, the description is all the info we have on this piece and that unfortunately there is no way to ever have more information on it. All we know is that it relates to the shooting of Native American headstone portraits in cemeteries, which in this red, dripping painting, reminds me of bleeding, maybe not literally, but of a community that suffers.
The second piece that interested me was Holding Orange for Jason Strong, one of the pieces we talked in-depth about in class. The striking story behind this painting is summarized in the first sentence of the description: “After 15 years in prison, Jason Strong mentions a waitress bringing a gift of an orange, holding it for 40 minutes, first orange in eight years.” It puts into perspective how much is taken from you when you’re convicted of a crime. It both raises questions about what life inside a prison is like and reminds us to appreciate the everyday things we have access to.
Knowing that Julie Green has created works based on imprisonment and important meals before, it’s easy to see the points she makes in these works. The fact that she was able to display this many wrongful imprisonments, which turns out to be a small portion of the thousands of wrongfully incarcerated people, speaks volumes of the state of our prison system, which thrives on using inmates are sources for free labor. Alex Villar in Interventionists chapter 2 mentions “...I would speculate that the viewer would be more inclined to evaluate the piece in relation to the other projects presented in the same screening than on its own,” which I think is similar to how Julie Green’s work gets more impactful considering how many more stories are in each painting around the exhibit. In the Interventionists Chapter 3, The Yes Men describe the limits on society due to capitalism; “No land on earth may be considered free, if freedom means to engage in activities that endanger the well-being of corporate enterprise. So long as, and only so long as, nations understand their place on earth as being in service of, and at the beck of, the driving forces of economics, so shall these nations be afforded a place at the right hand of power.” Although we recognize what is wrong with our prison system, it is unlikely that people in power will make any change as long as it is more profitable. Institute for Applied Autonomy in Chapter 2 elaborates, “Interventions change the behavior of a system in a way that the system is not prepared to deal with.” The current conditions of the incarcerated are unlikely to change without us intervening, and Julie Green helped bring awareness to this issue. Her works advocate for the treatment of convicts, guilty or innocent, and present them as more human than I’ve ever seen those imprisoned portrayed. Some of the paintings feature families, hometowns, and other parts of these people besides their criminal history. Both are important.
No comments:
Post a Comment