WORKING FOR COPPER JOHN

   “I was told by someone that Freeman was crazy; but I never saw anything in him that made me suppose that he was insane. I took him on another tact. I considered him of being of very low, degraded intellect; hardly above a brute, and treated him accordingly. He was a man of very quick passions. He would fly in a moment at anything he thought an insult, or that crossed him in any way. I recollect one day he had a pair of shoes setting on a pile of wood, which he had been greasing; another man came by, took a stick of wood, and the pile slid and his shoes fell. He took a stick of wood, hit him a blow, and was flogged for it. Shoe’s, were nicely done too and by him, too.”- William P. Smith (foreman carpet shop- Auburn State Prison) -The Report of the Trial of William Freeman

     I’ve always been interested in prisons and prisoners. Just out of art school I was asked to curate The San Francisco Art Institute’s Annual. I proposed a prison art exchange; hoping to find a prison in California that would agree to show inmate art, and in return I promised to bring artists into prison. My first choice was San Quentin. I called their public relations office and set up an appointment. The warden met me at the gate. As I introduced myself and began to discuss my proposal, sirens started going off all around the facility. This was 1979, eight years after George Jackson was killed at San Quentin and the administration was still on high alert, and wary of strangers. The warden eyeballed me, then pulled out a pen and paper and quickly scribbled something down. “Here, try this. It’s Federal….and coed.” he said, pushing the paper into my hand, slammed the door in my face and took off on a dead run. Back in my car, guards running past, hands on guns, I read what he had written down— F.C.I. Pleasanton.

    The warden at Patty Hearst’s former home away from home agreed to do my show, and I went about finding talent. Instead of mounting a static art show I decided to take two punk “bands” inside the walls, and put on a concert for the inmates. The Undead were prototypical punks, dyed spike hair, piercings  and chains, while the other group, The Puds were more dangerously unpredictable art compositions. Both groups had problems getting through the metal detectors. But in the chaos of moving amps, guitars, costumes, and props, two random female hangers-on and a photographer, the large female guards just smiled, and let it all slide. We were in.

    First up were The Puds, artists Tony Labat, Bruce Pollack and Philip Huyser. Philip was the frontman; while Labat and Pollack were hidden in large rope and wicker costumes, covered with smoke detectors. The inmates, (both male and female) quietly filed into the small hall, that looked more like a high school cafeteria, than a prison. I can’t remember whether or not I introduced the act. All I remember is the squeals of delight, and screams of shock from the audience, as Huyser appeared dressed only in combat boots, a vinyl 45 rpm record taped around his waist, his penis sticking through the hole. Then, the smoke alarms started going off, as Bruce and Tony tossed Kathy Acker books to the crowd, that they had smuggled in under their costumes. Philip squawked and pogoed, shaking his dick. In all the chaos I caught sight of a small group of inmates leaving, as the rest of the prisoners whooped, jumped, danced, scrambling for Kathy’s books.

      Those exiting inmates, (who happened to comprise a christian prayer group) actually dropped a dime to the administration; ratting us out the warden. The nervous guards’ radios started lighting up. The bells began ringing, the inmates frowned, and the plug was pulled. The disappointed Undead never had a chance to perform. In the messy aftermath the guards led me and my photographer to the warden’s office. As she ripped the 35 mm. film from Phil Gagliano’s camera, the warden told me to gather up everyone and everything I had brought into her prison, leave and never come back. “You’re lucky I’m letting you leave.” she said without a hint of irony. That was the end of my Annual. Sadly, the inmates never had a chance to show their work on the outside. I’m still interested in prisons.    

    

     Copper John was, at the time of Hodges, Freeman and Reed’s incarcerations at Auburn, an anatomically correct, bulging crotch, carved wooden figure, standing erect, musket in hand, wearing the blue dress uniform of the Continental Army; metaphorically  guarding the gates of the prison. In his memoir, Reed romanticizes the figure: 

“The old fellow shouldered his musket and stood like a brave soldier upon his throne to meet the stormy battles and the midnight air that would come a hurling their stormy darts and their frosty nights at him.” 

    To every other inmate at Auburn, Copper John was the embodiment of the brutality they endured on a daily basis, a sculpture devoted to abusive tyranny at the hands of an unreasonably perverse institution. Auburn’s keepers and agents automatically saluted the old fellow every morning going in and every evening coming out of the facility. The prisoners detested the tin soldier. Today’s Copper John, (who is still standing guard) is constructed of painted enameled steel, with no obvious crotch bulge. The original pronounced cod piece had been removed in response to complaints in the more politically correct year of 2004. To this day upstate inmates refer to time served at Auburn as, “working for Copper John.”