I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember.  It’s hard to say when I first picked up a paintbrush or pencil, but it seems I was born with the eye of an artist as well as an affinity for fine arts and a knack for drawing and painting.  All throughout my childhood, I constantly doodled in notebooks as I sketched fantasy creatures, comic book caricatures, portraits, and re-creations of my favorite superheroes.  Art was (is) a release for me.  As a child, I drew and painted all the time because it gave me a boundless means to express myself.  And the more I explored the creative process of drawing and painting, the more I realized I might possess a gift that needed to be honed.

 

But it wasn’t until I landed in prison that I began to seriously pursue art.

 

I had just turned eighteen when I was sent to prison for the first time.  A ten year prison term is what I earned for my role in a string of armed robberies.  While serving my prison sentence, I met a person that changed my life forever.

 

Mr. John P. Sherman is his name.  A fellow prisoner serving a life sentence, he’s a short, middle-aged, balding black man.  Only wisdom and uplifting words leave his lips.  And Mr. Sherman had already been incarcerated going on twenty straight years when I first met him at Limon Correctional Facility.

 

Despite his circumstance, he was still remarkably one of the most talented, respectful, humble, optimistic, and selfless individuals I’d ever met.  Always quiet, serene and in a pensive state, he spent his days and nights at Limon studying art, drawing, and painting some of the most amazing art I’ve seen.  Mr. Sherman was a master of his craft.  As such, he was the prison’s designated painter, and was constantly commissioned by prison guards and prisoners to do large paintings and murals.  He won a couple national art contests, and he had artwork in museums and various art galleries throughout the country.  Art was Mr. Sherman’s life.   It was the way he escaped prison’s walls.

Every chance I could, I would sit and visit with Mr. Sherman in the prison paint shop.  While I’d sit and watch my mentor paint and draw, we’d discuss philosophy and the key principles and cannons of painting and drawing.  Before long, Mr. Sherman inspired me to not only try to become the best human being I could, but also to try to become an art master.  I wanted to be able to do everything my art mentor could do.  I wanted the ability to draw and paint photo-realistic images of anything my mind could conceive, and the ability to precisely draw and paint anything my eyes could see.  In all, I desired to one day be respected and praised like some of the great fine artist I admire most – Da Vinci, Duer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Royo, Booth, Sherman.

 

So my quest began.  Since 2003 – since I first met Mr. John P. Sherman – I’ve been devoted to perfecting my craft.  As spurred by my art mentor, the brunt of my days and time incarcerated are spent studying the cornerstones of art, be it color theory, drawing, painting, composition, perspective, and the nature of light and shadow.  Every day I can be found hunched over a desk or standing before a canvass, as I hone my pencil hatches and brushstrokes and further train my artistic skills.  And regardless of how much my artistic skills may evolve, regardless of how much some of my artwork may be touted and praised, I remind myself to remain as humble, disciplined to my craft, and selfless as Mr. Sherman.  Every day, I remind myself there’s always room for improvement (in every aspect of life) and, most importantly, I remind myself I’m still very much a student of my craft and have a long way to go before I even begin to master my craft.

 

Until I do, I will presume to consider myself a student of fine art.  I’m simply an artistic and searching soul that’s constantly striving to be more and one who’s forever grateful to people like Mr. Sherman (someone who helped me realize one of my purposes and a God-given gift).  Now here I emerge a thirty year old aspiring artist who’s driven by pain and inspired by love, and what I most desire to capture and portray on my canvasses is life’s complexities and paradoxes.  I want my art, whether it’s some fantasy realm I’ve painted or a simple still life I’ve drawn, to be inspirational, touching, controversial, and thought-provoking – a means for people to see various truths.

 

So much can be expressed through fine art.  It’s a limitless form of expression.  A blank canvass has no barriers but the boundaries existing in an artist’s mind.  Hence, a fine artist has absolute freedom when they paint or draw, and the freedom to tell whatever story they’d like or the freedom to construct whatever world they can imagine.

 

Because of this, I will never let my passion for fine art die.  Through art I find freedom.  Through art I’m reminded that nothing is impossible.  Through art I’m reminded of the unlimited human potential and that thought is the seed from which reality blooms.  Thus, until the day I die, I intend to use my various canvasses as windows to my soul.  The images I paint and draw are the world through my eyes.  They’re my perspective.  They’re my visions and dreams.

 

Sean J. Marshall