M & M Paintings

SAN FRANCISCO - A convicted killer who sold postcard-sized paintings he created with dye from M&Ms chocolate candies and brushes fashioned from his hair was disciplined for running an unauthorized business out of his Pelican Bay cell.

While Donny Johnson has not profited from his art - all the money is being used to start a program for children of inmates - prison officials said he was wrongfully engaged in a business without the warden's permission.

Johnson, 46, has been locked up since 1980 for second-degree murder in a drug-related killing. In 1989, he was convicted of assaulting one guard and slashing the throat of another. He's now serving three life sentences in the most secure unit at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California, about 16 kilometres south of the Oregon border.

In the "prison within a prison," Johnson lives in an 2.4-by-3.6-metre concrete cell. Meals are pushed through a slot in the door. He talks to the occasional visitor on a telephone through thick plexiglass, but that's his only interaction with anyone.

To alleviate boredom and loneliness, Johnson turned to art and got the attention of Stephen Kurtz, a semiretired psychoanalyst who runs the non-profit Pelican Bay Prison Project and became a pen-pal with Johnson four years ago.

Kurtz said he found Johnson's short biography on a prison Web site and said he "sounded like someone I'd like to get to know."

When Johnson starting sending paintings to him in Mexico about a year ago, Kurtz said he and his wife, an artist, were stunned.

"We looked at these things and said, 'These are damn good,"' Kurtz said from his home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. When he learned how Johnson created his tiny abstract works, he was even more impressed.

Because he's not allowed to have any art materials in his cell, Johnson orders "supplies" from the prison commissary. Once a month, he buys 10 packs of M&Ms at 60 cents each. He then puts a few candies in small plastic jelly containers, adds water and soaks the candies. Johnson's "paint" is left behind. His brush is made of plastic wrap, foil and strands of his own hair. He then layers blank postcards with vibrant colours, shapes and spirals.

Renowned abstract artist Kenneth Noland saw Johnson's work in a New York Times article last month and was impressed, according to his studio manager, Sterling Robinson.

"Ken has always encouraged painters young and old who have talent," Robinson said. "Not only does this guy have talent, but he's done wondrous things with what he's got."

Kurtz organized a showing in Mexico last month where nearly 500 people packed into a gallery where a giant bowl of M&Ms greeted them at the entrance. Twenty paintings have sold at $500 US apiece, Kurtz said.

Sculptor Carol Ryan Deal and her husband bought one.

"It's abstract and traditional," she said from her studio in San Miguel de Allende. She said her painting features a Christ figure holding a cross in the centre, with slashes of orange, yellow and blood red in the background. "It has a sense of calmness and excitement at the same time."

People at the show called the work remarkable, she said. "This is not a prison artist. This is an artist who happens to be in prison."

Johnson's mother had no idea her son had any artistic talent. Now, it has become much more than a hobby. It's his refuge from the chaos and deprivation of prison life, his lifesaver.

"He just found an outlet for his energy," Helen Grimes, a Hayward nurse, said. "He says, 'When I paint I leave the room. . . . You just go into your own space and time.' It really helps him survive."

His lawyer, Charles Carbone said "There's a very large question mark over the legality and morality of what the department has done to punish an inmate for trying to better himself and better his community."