Inmate's free expression

Jailed artist finds outlet for creativity behind bars in detention center

Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Inmate Wesley Bullock stands next to the Incredible Hulk and sheriff's office badge he painted on the walls of the Charles County jail guards' weight room. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

To inmate Wesley Bullock, the outstretched eagle he painted on the wall of his jail cell represents freedom.

Beneath the bird's wings, three figures travel down a road that winds its way across the cinder block wall and ends at the landscape's horizon. The first person is crawling, the second is stooping and the most distant figure is walking with both arms raised.

Although he's painted multiple murals inside the Charles County jail, Bullock could describe in detail how he painted this one. "I started with the outline of the road. I laid down the darker layers first, and the yellow in the road I did last," said Bullock, a 37-year-old wearing waist-length dreadlocks and black Converse sneakers.

A lot of Bullock's adult life has been spent in jails, in places robbed of color by dingy jumpsuits and blank cells. It's a fact detention center guards find hard to reconcile with his talent.

"You don't want him to be here," said officer Ryan Taylor, who works in the jail's classification and treatment unit, adding that he could see Bullock making a living from his artwork. "We have to get him to believe it."

Taylor came up with the idea to paint a mural in a jail transition program classroom. "We starting asking around and heard, ‘This guy in the back is really good,'" Taylor said.

The "guy in the back" turned out to be Bullock, an inmate serving 18 months on a drug offense.

Taylor and Sgt. Tracy Williams, supervisor of the classification and treatment unit, had the idea they wanted goals and values of the transition program depicted in the classroom. However, Bullock supplied the imagination, drawing a house, a Bible and a check for a "lotta dollars" sprouting from a bed of black-eyed susans.

"He was done so fast, I was like, ‘Wow, let's do one in the hallway,'" Taylor said.

Which is where Bullock spent about two weeks painting during through the midnight shift, when fewer inmates walk the halls.

The finished three-part Southern Maryland mural showed a farm, a buck deer and forest and a great blue heron wading through a dark, swirling wetland.

Taylor and Williams were wowed by the unexpected talent of one of their inmates.

"Every day I couldn't wait to come in and see what he'd done over the night. … For 15 or 20 minutes we would just stand there and look," Williams said.

Since the Southern Maryland scene, Bullock has painted four more murals in the jail, including one of his favorites that shows the Incredible Hulk with muscles bursting out of a sheriff's office uniform. Bullock said he's particularly proud of the Hulk-size officer's shield depicted next to the superhero.

Sitting behind a table within view of the Southern Maryland mural, Bullock was soft-spoken and articulate when describing how he feels about the projects.

"Most artists, all they want is for someone to see their work. That's a big honor to say, ‘You can put something on my wall,'" Bullock said.

The officers hope the painting will be rehabilitative for Bullock and help him gain confidence in his ability.

"He gets to do something no other inmate gets to do," Taylor said. "All of us see his talent and we don't want him to come back."

Bullock seemed to have a pretty good idea why he's set apart and what the officers are thinking.

"They probably say, ‘Oh man, he's got all this talent.' But you've got a lot of talented guys back here," he said, waving his hands over his shoulder.

And the immediate rewards offered by drugs have at times waylaid Bullock's artistic efforts.

As a kid growing up in Brandywine, Bullock's parents saw his potential. He said he started drawing when he got sent to his room, sketching "souped up" cars and monsters to pass the time.

The efforts didn't go unnoticed.

"We picked up a lot of his doodles that we've kept," said his father, Herbert Bullock.

During high school, Wesley Bullock used his powers of artistry for the bad, earning laughs from his classmates by drawing spoofs of their art teacher.

In perhaps a testament to Bullock's talent, the very same Gwynn Park High School teacher encouraged him to submit one of his sketches to a competition.

The pencil drawing of a pumpkin in three or four stages of decay won second place and earned Bullock a partial scholarship to a Baltimore college, but he doesn't remember which one.

"I messed that up," he said quietly.

Around that time, Bullock said he started getting arrested. He had been mixing with some of the wrong people and began to deal and use drugs. Bullock described the world he found himself entering as an "illusion."

"You would see the instant reward, but you didn't see the flip-side," he said, giving his history of substance abuse. "It's an illusion, but when you're young, you get caught up in it. If it was way over to the left or to the right of you, maybe you wouldn't. But it's right in front of you."

His father said Wesley Bullock's unreciprocated loyalty to his friends led him to drug involvement.

"When a person is young, they are influenced by whoever they are around," Herbert Bullock said.

Whether he was hooked by false hopes or sticking by his friends, the result was the same: over a period of four years, Bullock was charged with drug distribution three times.

"You go in front of the judge, and he gives you your sentence and you're like, ‘How am I supposed to do that?'" he said. "I started to rely on my art."

While he was at the Eastern Correctional Institute serving one of his sentences, Bullock started sketching portraits of inmates, selling them for $25 to $50 apiece. And the pictures weren't just lifelike, they were better.

For those frustrated by inability to grow facial hair, Bullock would draw on a beard, and sometimes he'd splice inmates together with their faraway families.

"I was the prehistoric Photoshop," he said.

His behind-the-bars business flourished; while most inmates were only allowed two cartons of cigarettes, Bullock said he was able to amass a whole drawer full of them.

"I made more money in jail those two years between '97 and '98 than I did in the four years I spent at home from 2001," he said. "I had a captive customer base, and I didn't have to advertise. Word spreads easily between three housing units."

When Bullock got out, selling his talent was a little harder.

He said he didn't have a way to advertise his art, and tried hustling handmade cards in front of stores, but that "didn't exactly pay the bills."

Next, Bullock joined a business venture with a friend and started designing custom T-shirts. While the company gained some clients, it didn't generate enough money to fully support him.

Then, in 2006, Bullock was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia. He pleaded guilty to the marijuana charge, and a judge sentenced him to a year and a half in prison.

This time in jail, Bullock's artwork is on display for all to see.

"Wesley Bullock and the beautiful art that he produces are indicative of the talents and abilities of every inmate in the detention center," said John Lewis, the jail's chaplain.

Although he said he doesn't know when he will get out of jail and doesn't really worry about it, Bullock is scheduled for release in April. He said he plans to get back into the business with his friend and maybe one day take up photography.

Herbert Bullock said when his son gets out of jail next year, there will be a sense of urgency. "I've already told him there is no other route except to dedicate himself to what he loves to do, which is art. … Now, time is wasted. Now it's imperative he break those ties [with his friends] and concentrated on himself."

Until his release from jail, Wesley Bullock said he'll continue to think about what brought him there. And of course, he'll keep drawing, using his only sanctioned tool, which looks something like a pen or a five-inch stick of ink covered in a thin sheath of rubber.

Somehow, his sketches still look pretty amazing.

"You should see me with a magic marker," he said.

brodgers@somdnews.com