15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom

by Anthony Papa and Jennifer Wynn

Book Overview

One man's struggle with the War on Drugs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932595066
• ISBN13: 9781932595062
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Feral House
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The Urban Book Source

Anthony Papa, just one of the thousands of victims of the draconian drug laws that hit America in 1973, tells his tale of how he "painted his way to freedom." It is similar to Life on the Outside, by Jennifer Gonnerman, but unique in its first hand account. This is not your usual story of a notarized drug dealer from the streets serving his bid and coming home to stir up more trouble. This is a story of a family man who gets caught in the web of the penal system, but fights his way back to personal triumph. Commended by the likes of Russell Simmons, Susan Sarandon, and Jack Black, 15 to Life will have you singing its praises after the first few chapters.

Tremendous

Anthony Papa only took one risk to find the $500 he needed to pay rent so his family could live. Like being asked to do some landscaping for a friend, Papa was to deliver four and one half ounces of coke for some quick money and quick resolution to his financial crisis. The deal was a setup to break the fall of a dealer higher up in the hierarchy of the drug market and Papa endured the mandatory 15 year minimum in court. Thereafter Papa lived an ordinary story of acclimation to prison life as a first-time offender, as well as an extraordinary story of discovery of latent talent, and a strategic engagement of that talent to pursue his freedom. Through the pages we see the scant resources prisoners have for advocating for their freedom. We see those scant resources exhausted as Papa becomes a jailhouse lawyer creating appeals that are manhandled to his misfortune by outsider law firms. In the end, as the title suggests, it is the resource of art that prevails. Both as an occupation that allowed Papa to transcend his despair in the cell and the afflictions of civil bureaucracy. Papa wins his freedom through playing the ooh's and ah's of the art world and its media following. His builds his campaign for clemency from then governor George Pataki on the moral/aesthetic arguments that only his art is allowed to communicate. And `moral argument' ought not be confused with plastic sympathy. It is no puppy dog stare from a pet store window. Papa's story is a milieu of competitiveness and resigned cooperation with an inhuman system of power. Papa is forced to wile and trick a system to gain an advantage that should be afforded to him on the basis of human rights. Papa competes against many characters: lawyers, judges, dealers, other inmates, CO's, high society artists and critics. And the prize of this competition is not the fame associated with hanging portraits in galleries. That is just the means to the real finish line: the freedom those on the outside all readily take for granted. Papa literally paints for his life; it may well be the reason he paints ("I knew that participating in the show [at New York's Whitney Art Museum] was the break I had been waiting for. As I re-read the lines, they blurred into a single word: FREEDOM."). So art, the aesthetic realm all too often valued as transcendent of the hard truths of life, finds a very practical cause. Art's power is used for a very focused and determinate end: to sow a campaign for public opinion. Papa's sentence at Sing Sing faces the opposite direction Oscar Wilde experienced during his stay at Reading Gaol. Whereas Wilde was an aesthete whose genius was eroded by the toil of his imprisonment, Papa finds his genius because of the toil, because the normal argumentative paths to pursuing freedom (court appeals) in maximum security prisons ultimately don't exist in his favor. While Wilde may view art as those things that are unnecessary, Papa makes art (and maybe more precisely the o

Justice Gone Wrong - Fighting the Rockefeller Drug Laws

In 1985, Anthony Papa was a 29-year-old small business owner living in the Bronx with his wife and young daughter. Bills were mounting, rent was due and tensions were rising in his marriage when a gambling acquaintance stepped up and offered him a quick $500 to deliver a package. Papa had doubts and misgivings, but he accepted the proposal. The package Papa carried was full of cocaine and he delivered it directly into the hands of undercover cops. To make matters worse, this particular event came with an added twist; namely New York's Rockefeller drug laws, which mandate a 15-year-to-life sentence for the weight of the drugs Anthony had delivered. 15 to Life details how Papa transformed himself while in prison, from a convicted drug courier into an artist and later into an activist. The first 80+ pages cover his dealings with a shady lawyer, codefendants turning on him and his initiation into the jail system. Papa reinforces that what you see in the movies about prison life is not far from reality. Sex, violence, drugs, deals made and deals broken all take place on a regular basis behind the prison walls. 15 to Life takes a turn from prison narrative to survival tale when Papa realizes that he is going to serve a good deal of his sentence. Papa finds his inspiration to not give up when he sees a prisoner painting in his cell and becomes mesmerized by the act. A short while later, emerging from a three-day lockdown Papa has an epiphany as he looks around his cell. He considers the ten paintings he has completed and sees his freedom on the canvas. At this point Papa becomes committed to his art, realizing it is the only way he can survive prison. While Papa works on his art he starts to realize that his lawyer is not doing much to help him. While in the library studying his case, a prisoner tells him about the law that has sentenced him to 15 years to life. The Rockefeller drug laws state that a judge must impose a minimum sentence of 15 years to life to anyone convicted of selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of a controlled substance. Kingpin or first time bust, everyone receives the same minimum sentence. Papa now had another focus besides his art, his case and more specifically, the law that put him behind bars. Papa gets a break in September of 1993 when the Whitney Museum contacted Sing Sing about a show they would be putting together. The Whitney was looking for art by a murderer for their show. Papa saw an opportunity and pursued it, telling The Whitney that he was a convicted killer. In his mind the lie would expose his are and hopefully get him closer to freedom. After the Whitney show Papa received his first press exposure, an in depth piece in the Gannett Suburban Newspaper. An article in Prison Life magazine followed, then a NY Times letter to the editor penned by Papa in regard to the Rockefeller drug laws. Later, an Associated Press story that is printed in six New York newspapers follows. Papa welcomes