“Because I try to find the positive about, well, everything, this request brought quite a problem for me. I’ve been in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for 15 years: Bush, Obama, Trump, and currently Biden. I’ve experienced the amount of money I can make actually decrease, while our commissary prices have increased. Like many others I signed a plea deal, assuming it was the best way to go. If it was or wasn’t is up to debate, but that time has long passed. I’ve watched fellows release and come back, sometimes more than once. I’ve watched people (and ALL of us in here are still people) who probably didn’t deserve to leave, go home. Time cuts from changes in various laws. Some major.

A large percentage of Federal Prisoners are sex offenders, with grossly long sentneces, even for firs time offenders. We are not entitled to anything in prison nor from any of the fixes that people advocate for. It’s considered a violent crime and is lumped in with murders, kidnappers, and people who have used weapons in their crime, to name a few of the “violent offenses.”

Yet when Trump was President, he ended the closing of the private prisons (many of which were used for deportees) and then the First Step Act [happened]. The FSA impacted almost ½ of the BOP population and people were leaving in droves. Overcrowding was actually begging addressed, and for nearing 50% who are not eligible for FSA time cuts or benefits (and there are potentially a lot), we got out Good Conduct Time fixed. For us with a lot of time, it adds up. One week more GCT per year. A different year for me. I remember when it was signed by Trump and how even a CNN host (I wish I remembered who) was praising him for his doing so. I was not given the impression that it was a sure thing. That Trump was even instrumental in it passing.

In the past year I’ve felt the closing of private prisons directly as our population at this facility has become 80% of Spanish speaking countries. All sent from private prisons that were closed by Biden. There was hope of a decrease in population, but the BOP had to fill the beds.

So, as controversial, polarizing, and divisive as Trump was and can be, he’s the only President that did something that benefitted every federal inmate.

The style I picked was my fractured art. All the pieces make him up. All the bad stuff too. Much like all of us, it’s pieces of us. All the pieces make the whole. The actors, movie directors, all those people who created some great things, but did some grossly horrible stuff too. The musician whose music you might still really like, but…

That’s why I wrote the words around the portrait. I want the viewer to be bothered by the whole of it. The good. The bad. Forced to spend time looking at it close up to where you only see the colors, the lines (dare I say the beauty?) of it all. Yet, that’s him. That guy.

It’s somewhat how I feel people might think about me, and my art, and my past crimes.

This is not about glorifying Trump, nor the FSA. But as flawed as I believe it (they) are, it made a positive impact for every federal inmate.”