It was 1981 or so, I was a cop, a young one, with about 6 years on……….
I was also a cop who had a few issues with drinking and general wildness
Adding to that, I was political even back then, in a mostly white suburban town in New Jersey.
Having come from an African American activist home setting, I mean it was the 1970’s, I was militant and vocal. The Newark riots and the Plainfield riots were still freak in most cops’ minds. This was not now, their were all of these black and Latin faces in blue. There were still cities in Union County with out black police officers. My department had about 6 counting me in a force of about 60.
We had more black cops for some reason than department that were twice our size,
Having said that one day I was drawing off the pigs using a Black Panther magazine as reference, the nest day I was a cop……………it was a confusing time for me and mine.
And most time I felt more black than blue but I worked with it……….
Still I am proud to have been a cop and wouldn’t give up the experience the knowledge and the maturity that it now provided me for the world.
Ok so here I was………
Big, black strong and loud as hell I was so sure of every thing………
Upon reflection the beauty of aging is just the opposite I know how much now I don’t know
And I am satisfied with not knowing every thing
In fact I love the fact that less and less matters
Anyway
.God if I could just go back and change a few things,
I would have been Chief …….but that was not to be my fate
The artist and rebel in me always interfered with the process of assimilation.
Hell I am retired and still feel like an outsider …………..
Anyway, the early 1980’s
I bounced back from a downward slide into drinking hell
And made so many Good arrest, shook up so much around the town
That many of the lieutenants in the department went to the Chief and recommended
Me, for the detective bureau
I had been drawing up a storm for years.
All my life I drew and painted and created
In the police academy I drew every one, making cartoons
And passing them out to my class mates
Poking fun at our teachers fellow students
Racist remarks, chumps who didn’t have the heart to be cops
And any one who came into my sights, both friend and foes
It was disruptive but fun; we raised hell in the old days of police academies
Cops were wild, I fit in here because I could drink and raise hell with the best of them
Anyway
I kept this up during my early years as a patrolman
Putting cartoons on the lockers of my fellow patrolmen
And even the Chiefs door.
These cartoons were a riot and they had a cop’s sense of humor and bad taste
You couldn’t do this kind of thing now….you get sued
Back then cops had more outlets to let off steam, my chances to be both human, flawed
And more chances for redemption
Now they just kick you off the force or sue
Anyway
These cartoons
I always touched on race, stupidity, screw-up and the bitching that went on in the locker rooms
And many of the un-politically correct things that we cant speak of now
Anyway after the brass all recommended me
The chief had to do some thing
He had some one else in mind for the detective bureau
Back then I thought it was because I was black in a white department
But upon reflection and with time
I realized it wasn’t just because I was black
But because I was black and wild and wild folks are hard to control
Anyway
The Chief instead send me to composite art school
He called me into the office and told me that I wasn’t going into the detective bureau
But he was going to send me to school to become a composite artist
I was shocked, my fellow patrolman, had kept the identity of the cartoonist secret
From the brass for years and years
Or so I thought
The Chief looked at me and smiled and said he had known for years that I was the cartoonist
But he thought that my cartoons were good for the department, because they brought issues to into the light. He commended me on my understanding of issues and my art talent.
Anyway off I was to composite art school
I have to back track.
When I told my mother that I was going to take the Police test, after the insistence of my father, Stephen Sampson, who had been recruiting blacks to enter police force.
My mother told me to take a ride to the post office; she walked me over to the wanted board
And showed me a composite. She said that if you have to be a cop, use your art and become one of these.
Years later after leaving my last class and getting my composite art certificate.
I remember pulling over on the New Jersey turnpike, breaking down in tears, as I thanked, my mother who was now deceased for pushing this. For obviously pulling for me from heaven to become this artist cop. I had long ago forgotten that day in the post office, until the day the Chief called me into his office.
Anyway this school of composite art, was in the early 1980’s
It was the first school of its kind in the country, taught By Retired State Police Sgt, George Homa.
Homa was the man responsible for making composite art what it is today. He took this tool and made it both legit and legal………..He is still my hero.
Anyway
It was a fast course, one that taught us how to complete a composite, But not how to draw.
So like every thing else, I taught my self
I returned to my police Car and drew every chance I got I would find a street light in the down time park under it and draw in between calls.
My sister Donna had brought me a book called the figure in motion.
My favorite art book that was really just a book full of nudes and faces, from all angles
I drew from that book until I could draw a figure back and forth and reverse the thing in my head.
I went on to complete hundreds of composites through out the state of New Jersey,
I think I went to every interview, integration school around. I became an expert interviewer, and could obtain thing both in doing a composite and in the process of police work.
This is a skill that has added incredible dimensions to my life and my art and teaching career.
Anyway a few years later, the Chief called I back into his office.
And assigned me to the detective bureau, even with all of my drawing I was still kicking
Ass, arrest wise.
I still might be the worst ticket writer in the world, but I could sniff out drugs, or guns or contraband any where
Having said that I remained a Detective for a few years.
I went to an art school the Newark School of Fine and Industrial art.
I wanted to take an airbrushing class so I could complete composite sketches
Anyway, I went to take the class, I had taken a class in paste up and mechanicals, which is the precursor of graphic design. So I had a really good friend on staff. After she found out that the airbrushing teacher had died. She recommended me, and I got the job because I was a composite artist. But mostly because I could airbrush so well and had airbrushed so much that I was in fact, probably better than the teacher that they had.
In any case teaching was interfering with my detective duties.
So I went to ask my fellow detective if he would change shifts with me so I could teach
He refused to change days with me, now I could go on about how this redneck
And he was a redneck was racist and tried to stop me from becoming a teacher.
And it might have been him or might have been from the top
In any case I made the biggest discussion of my life.
I went into the chief office and asked to be put back in patrol.
I stunned the Chief and my fellow patrolman when I walked away from the detective bureau
But it was the right discussion; soon I was a teacher or learning to teach.
Soon I had a gallery in New York and my life shifted from police work to the art world
After the loss of a son the then my wife to heart disease at a young age.
I took an early retirement after 19 years total. I took my two kids and moved to a broken down old factory in Newark. These were healing days, changing days. My kids grew up hanging with some of the brightest artist and curators in New York. They grew up at the Cathedral of st John the divine; with people like Dean Morton as their idols……..it was a good move in fact
From 2 acres of land in south Jersey to Newark rundown factory. It so happened that this factory contained other artist.. Most of who remain some of my best friends and very well known and respective artist.
I kept teaching at this junior college until its closing in the middle nineties
I obtained one of the best galleries in New York, Cavin-Morris gallery and through its friendship expanded my horizons and knowledge more than even I can even compute.
, Now I teach in some of the most neglected schools in the city of Newark
And I love it…………..I have given lectures with the Smithsonian traveling exhibition. Service in the southern portion of amerce including Montgomery and Memphis. I have had the pleasure of giving talks at Columbia University and other great institutions. My work is in five museum collections and I have made a strange but always and learning kind of life which I love.
I go back and forth between the New York elite and people who are elite, if they just survive.
I can talk just as freely with a gang member or the cop on the street which I often do, as with a curator or museum director.
And I wouldn’t change any of it for any thing; I need all of theses different kinds of people places and things. And I wouldn’t be me with out any one of them.
Today I am still just as much cop as a artist, some times I cant tell where one stops and the other begins…….
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