Lawyer Johnson

10 years

In 1972, Lawyer Johnson was tried of allegedly shooting a Chelsea man, James Christian. He was convicted of first degree murder and given the death sentence. After this conviction was set aside, he was retried in 1974 and convicted of second degree murder and given a life sentence. The conviction rested largely on eyewitness testimony. Even though Johnson maintained he was not at the scene of the murder, he could not prove it at trial. Johnson was exonerated in 1982 by Boston Attorney Michael Avery, after spending more than 10 years in prison. Johnson learned to paint in prison, and has dreams of becoming an artist.

At right: “Atom” Acrylic on canvas

“If there’s no beauty, I have the ability to create beauty. Walpole prison is designed to be physically abusive. There’s no sun; it’s all concrete and steel. There is no kind of creative outlet in terms of environmental stimuli. It is designed to feed us with negative thoughts and negative forces; it creates oppression. We became a product of them saying we were animals. We became animals. Most of my paintings derived from my need to create beauty. This is what I did when I was in prison.

One time I was in the metal shop, which is this place where we make license plates for the Commonwealth. I’m in there working, pressing the levers on the plates of metal. They have rolls of this metal that comes in these cardboard boxes. There was this big piece of cardboard. I took the top of the cardboard box. I allowed myself to be open to it. As I allowed myself to be more open to it, my actions and deeds became one. This was my canvas.

There was this one guy in charge of the Prison Art Project. His name was Ray. He would distribute the paint supplies and tell us to go work on our own. I did the painting in my cell. I stayed in my room most of the time and painted. Not many others did this. Most others were into the prison lifestyle.

When I got out of prison I was like a lost atom. Wherever the wind went, I went. I had no support, no direction, no help. Before going to prison I was unified with other atoms. I was the one that got lost and was picked out.”

-Lawyer Johnson, August 2011