Worlds Of Grey And Of Colour

Ah, that was like a whole bloody rainbow

In the middle of the fuckin’ jail

You know

Like I say

Only see grey walls

And only go to an empty yard

And then one day they said,

“Oh, art class if anyone’s interested in art.”

I was like, ‘Fuck yeah!’

Put my hand up

So I’d teach drawing

In kind of like the way drawing’s been taught

For the last hundred years

And at the end of three months

The course ended

I said to them, um,

“What’d you think?”

And one of them just said,

“It was a load of shit.”

So I just went back in the next week

And said, “Well, if that was a load of shit, what do you want?”

And they said, “Okay. We’ll tell you.”

“We will tell you what we want help with

And we’ll tell you

What kind of materials we need to do it with.”

And I went, “Cool.”

So, they’d say,

“How do I draw this?

How do I do that?

How do I fix this problem?”

They were both really enthusiastic

And, like, happy to be there

And you know,

Just bubbling with art

And like, um,

They were so impressed

With what we were doing

‘Cause you know

We’ve got all the time in the world

I had a connection with a lot of people

But the skinheads as a group

Were quite a strong connection for me

Because they were very dedicated to their art

And they really gave each other a hard time

“Nah, that’s not good enough – do that again.”

So, they really pushed each other to improve their art

He is naming all the styles that I’m doing

And so that gave me a name to call them as well

He loved our passion for the art

‘Cause he could see how enthusiastic we were

And we were excited to see anything new there

The skinheads

You know

Are very much influenced by Clockwork Orange

Their dress

You know

Their boots

And their bowler hats

And all that sort of stuff

Some of them were Christchurch skinheads

So, I kind of knew

You know

The dark side of what was going on

And their world was full of knives

And pills

And needles

And stuff like that

They drew and painted a lot of needles

You didn’t have the internet then

Or fuckin’ too much of a library

You know

You might get a Women’s Day

Or some crappy magazine like that

Find something interesting

That’s worth drawing or copying

I organised an exhibition in a café

They were all, like, really keen

Up until the artwork left their hands

And went into my hands

And then they became very different

And they were like,

“If I don’t get this back, you’re fucked.”

And, “If you damage this work, you’re fucked.”

Really threatening

Really threatening!

I didn’t realise it was gonna be like this

You know

That here I am exhibiting this in a café

And I’ve gotta go back

And answer to these guys if it does

And I was freaking out

People were either in there getting upset

Or pissed off

Or fuckin’ sad

Or whatever

Or they’re creating

I was always kind of creating stuff

You know

It’s how you use your time

When you’re there

I wanted to use it

Constructively

Positively

For me

Not the system

I draw my own art and pictures

And kind of do what I could for me

Or my friends

If the wall wasn’t there

That’s the view you would have seen

Paint the walls

As if they weren’t there

By the time we finished that one

The guys were going,

“We want to do something else.”

You know

So the next mural was looking at their heritage

Their whakapapa

Storytelling about journeys

Of where they came from

And how they came to be here

And stuff like that

Then we got onto the fourth mural

And my style of teaching

Was very much an enabling kind of process

So, if the guys want to do something

I go, “Cool. Let’s see how we can do it.”

And sometimes that involved

Imagery that might be offensive to other people

My philosophy was, ‘Let’s work through that

Let’s not suppress it

Let’s just work with it

And work through it

And see how we go.’

And they started painting stuff

That was very close to gang imagery

On the fourth mural

And that’s when the shit hit the fan

It was like,

‘Ooh, you’ve gone a bit too far there!’

It’s just a tape recorder

Needles

BIC pen

Basically

And a toothbrush

One day they said to me,

“We need, um, some of those special self-propelling pencils for drawing.”

Press and the little lead comes out

“Okay.”

So I went and bought some

And the next time gave them to them and, “Cool.”

The motor spins round like that

The inside of a BIC pen

You chop it off

Put it down there

Then another needle down here

And that creates a loop

A couple of weeks later

I went in and they

They picked me up

And took me into a little room

And pulled out this pencil

Which was attached to an old tape cassette player

Like those little portable cassette players

And the pencil

And the cassette player together

Made a tattoo gun

And they were gonna

They were gonna tattoo me

And then you put the inside of the BIC pen down here

With a hole in it

And that connects like that

And then you have the rod going down there

With the fine needle point

Then they said,

“Oh, we’re just kidding with you.”

And then that was it

It was all over

Yeah, I had a lot of fun with them

And the more they got to know me

The more violent they became towards me

So, in the beginning they were like

They wouldn’t talk to me

If they did, they called me ‘Mister’

And, whenever I’d say something to ‘em

They would do what Jacinda calls the ‘Gisborne wave’

Like they’d go

That was it

That’s all you got

The more they got to know me

The more violent they were towards me

So, I’d walk in

They’d say, “Gidday!” BOOF!

So, they made it very clear to me that I was skinny white trash

But that was okay after a while

It seemed to me

That they saw the necessity

Of having these connections with each other

Because there was a lot of things happening between them

A lot of deals going down

And all that sort of, like

There was business as usual going on

So, they had no problems

Mixing with each other in my classroom

And I had all the gangs there

All at once

Every so often

Shit would happen

And then there’d be a

A big stoush

And then it would calm down

And everything would be fine

And then something else would happen

There was one

Where they actually stole a chisel

Out of my art materials box

Which was a cardboard box

Completely insecure

But that’s what I took in

And that’s what I took out

And someone got stabbed with it

Yeah

Tattooing is a perishable art

Once it’s gone

It’s gone forever

Unless it’s recorded

It disappears

I saw the human side of these guys

Like, they might have been violent and

But you just saw them as human beings

And you just saw their soft sides after a while

They’re really vulnerable and soft

That’s how I saw them

And, their kind of aggressive, violent sides

Were constructed from their past experiences

A person with a tattoo

Can go off

And be a murderer

Or a rapist

Or a president

Or fuckin’

You know

Tennis player

Whatever

They create their own history

Daily

So it’s so diverse and um

All-encompassing, really

It’s um, yeah

A great subject

So, I just relied on relationship-building

Once I had a relationship with these guys

There was a loyalty

The bond started to form really well

And then

After four years or whatever

I got a fulltime job working at Hutt Valley Polytech

When I told them I was leaving

That was like

That was scary

‘Cause they were like,

“Fuck you. You’ve let us down.”

They just wanna do what they wanna do

And they’ve got ideas

You go in there and say, “Let’s help you,”

You get a completely different response

That’s the fundamental change that hasn’t happened in prisons

It’s like, ‘Let’s help you

Rather than punish you

Or try and change you

Let’s work with you.’

There’s just so much public opinion

Against treating inmates with respect and honour

Enabling them in their lives

It’s not gonna happen

They’re left with nothing to do

But if you went in there

“Cool, let’s do something.”

You know

“What are your ideas?”

Wow

‘Cause they are passionate about stuff

They’ve got ideas

And they’ll follow through

They really will

It’s all blocked off with brick walls

So you look at grey walls

When I got out of there

To go for, um, a talk on, um

Getting released or whatever

They took you outside the prison

And walked you round the side

And when I walked around the side

I didn’t realise

I hadn’t seen nothing but concrete

For like nine months or something

So when you’ve seen the grass

It was just overwhelming green

I had yellow-tinted glasses

And they were making the green look really live and bright

And it was so lush

It just looked incredible

Didn’t realise you’d miss grass

You know