Darryl Downes

Darryl Downes

Interview transcript

Michael Premo, 27 interviews Darryl Downes, 57
12/29/07, 10:00, Harlem, NY
TRT: 2:20

Darryl Downes remembers discovering his talent while serving time in Sing Sing Prison.

D: In prison I started painting and drawing. And I can remember walking the yards and telling my homies, “Man I’m going to be an artist, yeah man.” They say, “Yeah, D, sure yeah right D.” I said, ” No man I’m going to be an artist man. This is what I want to do.”

And from that point on I painted everyday. And one of the things I really remember was that when I was in prison I read an article and it says you are measured by your time. That was very profound for me because even if I put one line on a canvas, at the end of the day I could say I did something and…

When I was leaving there was a white guard, I’ll never forget him. He had red hair and freckles, and he told me, he says, “You’ll back.” And I told him, I said “Don’t count on it.” Because I knew that I was going to art school, it was no doubt in my mind.

So when I got home I got the applications, I had to go down for an interview. I took my paintings down so they could see them, and about two, three weeks later I got the letter in the mail. It says you’ve been accepted, you have a full scholarship. It was just, I can’t even begin to describe how good a feeling it was to know that they saw a certain talent or a certain worth in me.

And I can remember walking into art school the first day and it was students already there waiting for the teacher to come up, but they were all white. And when I walked in all conversations among them stopped and they turned and they looked at me. And the expressions on their face was like, ‘What are you doing here?”

But I knew I wasn’t going to stop, I just finished doing 66 months in the penitentiary, so there was no way in the world you were going to run me out of art school, I was here to learn.

I remember I would walk to the subway station and I would have my drawing box, and the guys would be on the corner, guys I grew up with, they’d be on the corner, “Hey D what’s up? What’s up? Where you going?”

“I’m going, going to subway, I’m going to school man.”

“Okay.”

And I remember passing these guys, night after night and they still on that corner. And it was like they were standing still in time.

January 27, 1977 I left prison, never been back. Never. And, it is a blessing you know, it is a blessing.

New York, New York City, NYC, Harlem, prisons, artists, painting, painters, drawing, prisoners, African-Americans, Black-Americans, Blacks, Griot, careers, vocations, discoveries, education, art schools, students, classmates, perseverance, recidivism, inmates, prisons, incarceration, incarcerated, new beginnings, fresh starts, awakenings, overcoming odds