My Brother, 2022
Oil and acrylic on canvas
49 x 50 inches
SOLD
Yardball, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
SOLD
Randy, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
SOLD
Laugh Now, 2023
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches
$3000
You Have a Collect Call, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
SOLD
Hope, 2023
Oil on canvas
65 x 48 inches
$6500
“I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved” -Viktor E. Frankl “Man’s Search for Meaning”
Mr. Dunson, 2008 - 2023
Oil on canvas
24 x 18 inches
$2200
I started painting Mr. Dunson in 2008 and completed the piece in 2023. Samuel Dunson was my art professor at Tennessee State University in 2008, and is a phenomenal artist, mentor, and friend. During the year after my arrest while I was out on bond I enrolled in Mr. Dunson’s art class at TSU. I painted this still life that you see in the painting during that year in 2008. When I decided that the series was not complete without the portrait of Mr. Dunson. I loosely added his portrait into that still life from 2008. The creation of this piece spans the full 15 years of my sentence.
Corrected, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
60 x 48 inches
SOLD
A Difference, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
30 x 40 inches
SOLD
Blessing, 2023
Oil on canvas
65 x 48 inches
$6500
Home, 2023
Oil, acrylic and graphite on canvas
30 x 40 inches
$2500
Damali and I were the first two of Granga’s nine grandchildren and, because we’re the first generation that was the product of her courageous move to the United States, we knew that we were particularly special and highly valued. Granga arrived in Cambridge, MA, a single mother with two children in the midst of all the hostility and turmoil of the late 1960’s. She came and devoted the rest of her life to ensuring we all ‘arrived’.
She witnessed the best and the worst happen to us all as her first grandchild and my older sister died; her daughter’s precious family fell apart, and her grandson institutionalized and incarcerated. She also saw the fulfillment of the desire that brought her to the US in the first place, higher education for both her daughters. But more than that, her love for and devotion to the next generation, my generation, was her greatest joy. She delighted in her grandchildren, especially me.
It seemed to me that Granga really smiled only when someone she loved ‘arrived’. She loved God who seemed ever present with her and so she always smiled when Rev. Sanders, our family pastor, arrived. I guess that was her life’s work, to make sure we ‘arrived’. She loved her kids but couldn’t seem to smile at them like she did Damali and me, and our cousins. I don’t think anyone saw Granga smile more than I did. I don’t think any ‘arrival’ gave her more joy than mine.
After watching and assuring that loved one after loved one arrived, she made sure I made it home before she said goodbye. On January 31, 2013, I was scheduled to be released from Charles Bass Correctional Complex. I had done 3.5 years of a 15 year prison sentence and I had made parole. In the early stages of my incarceration, Granga visited, but she wasn’t doing well by the time I was up for release, she was 91 by then. That morning I was so grateful that I would see her again. She had hung on and lived to see me released. As I was ‘arriving’, she was saying goodbye. Granga passed around 7 am while I was being processed, and the first words I heard when I got in the car were, “She didn’t make it.”
I couldn’t believe that I had missed Granga by a matter of minutes. It didn’t take us long to realize that I didn’t miss her at all. I had ‘arrived’. She made sure that one more loved one made it home and she let go. Granga spent her life making sure that we all made it, and we have.
Dmnitiluvu, 2023
Acrylic and letters from Charles Bass Correctional Complex on canvas
32 x 25 inches
$2200
S.W.A.K., 2023
Acrylic and letters from Charles Bass Correctional Complex on canvas
32 x 25 inches
$2200
This Black Bird, 2020
Oil on panel
96 x 96 inches
$15,000
This Black Bird by Omari Booker
This black bird lands on my window
The same bird every morning
I guess it’s the same
All I’ve seen is its shadow
But it says hello every day, every morning
I fly away with my little black friend
Every day, every morning
My mind on its back
Free on its wings
Though I only see it through bars
We meet at the screen
It visits me every morning, every day
It brings me hope
It feeds my dreams
They’re only bars, they’re only screens
It’s only tears, it’s only screams
And to be born, we need these things
So for now, I guess I’m free
My little black friend
It visits me
Every morning, every day
Written in Charles Bass Correctional Complex, 2012
Mail Call, 2022
Oil on canvas
10 x 8 inches
SOLD
Black Bird, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
10 x 8 inches
SOLD
I’ll Fly Away, 2023
Oil on canvas
10 x 8 inches
SOLD
Letter, 2023
Oil on canvas
10 x 8 inches
SOLD
Joy, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
10 x 8 inches
SOLD
Hope, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
10 x 8 inches
$375
Yardball 2, 2023
Oil on canvas
10.5 x 14.25 inches
SOLD
St. Croix 1983, 2023
Oil on canvas
12 x 9 inches
SOLD
Corrected (study), 2023
Oil on canvas
12 x 9 inches
SOLD
Duck Pond, 2022
Oil on canvas
12 x 9 inches
SOLD
Collect Call, 2023
Oil and acrylic on canvas
12 x 9 inches
SOLD
Safe, 2023
Oil on canvas
12 x 9 inches
SOLD
Kauai, 2022
Ink on travel permit
11 X 8.5 inches
$400
Visit (7 days, 2 embraces), 2012
Pencil on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
$500
Created at Charles Bass Correctional Complex
First LA Studio, 2023
Ink and coffee on travel permit
11.5 x 8 inches
SOLD
Own Your Ridges, 2022
Ink on travel permit
11.5 x 8 inches
SOLD
I’ll finish my time in 2078, 2021
Ink on parole reporting form
11 X 8.5 inches
$400
Kitchen Clerk 19 cents per hour, 2012
Pencil on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
SOLD
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
You Have a Collect Call, 2012
Ink on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
$650
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
Granga, 2012
Ink on notebook
11 X 8.5 inches
SOLD
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
This Black Bird, 2012
Ink on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
NFS
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
Shine, 2012
Ink on paper
11 X 8.5 inches
SOLD
Created in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
Signed copy of One Man Left, short story, included
One Man Left
I had an eye opening and difficult night tonight. Tonight our entire pod was searched. They walked us out to the gym; strip searched us completely naked, and tore through our rooms while we waited to be let back into our pod. My cellmate noticed that I was hesitant to hang up the phone when the swat team came in (I was talking to my mother). The
guard apparently looked a bit angry, and I told him, “I stood up and was getting off, but no one was going to make me hang up on my mother.” So I told my Mom I loved her and would call tomorrow.
We were searched by 30 swat team members. I returned and it looked like a house after being robbed. In our existence, it was our house, our apartment; the one place that was somewhat ours. This one place of ours can be violated any day at any time. That is a sobering reality. It is difficult to be reduced to four shelves, a sink, bed, and toilet, but even worse to realize that even that is completely out of your control. I have one true sanctuary; my mind. As private as I am, I’m in a position where I have to strip naked in front of four white men. I don’t even like to use public restrooms. This reality is not one I ever want to live.
One officer used an inmate’s restroom. The water was turned off (so no contraband could be flushed before we left) so the man returned to his toilet being used and not flushed. The herd of officers that ripped our rooms up, stepped on letters, pictures, sheets, and even the prayer rug of my cellmate who was Muslim, will walk in tomorrow and ask Shine to shine their boots; the same exact boots that trampled our homes 12 hours earlier. Shine (the compound shoe shine man) will do it with a smile.. a mixture of joy and perhaps rage that he is no longer in touch with. He is a man that has worked this plantation for over thirty years, and would possibly have nowhere to go if the doors were flung open and he was allowed to leave. He has the option to not shine their boots, but the consequence would be getting thrown in the hole for refusal to work. If I never knew what the author meant when he said, “Makes me Wanna Holler,” I do now.
...It is now nearly a year later and the previous experience is somewhere between fresh and slightly faded. There is reason for joy today, and the reason is that one man left. I’ve seen a number of inmates released over my years, and I generally feel the same things. I feel a lot of joy, a glimpse of hope, and a smidgen of envy. Today one man left. The entire prison knew him as Shine.
He lived in the first cell in my unit, right by the kitchen and the front door. The six square feet outside of his one man cell took on the feel of a front porch somewhere on the outskirts of some town, maybe somewhere in Alabama, or perhaps on the Mississippi delta, maybe even in a small town in Tennessee. There was plenty of joking, and a nightly argument that never seemed to end with blows thrown no matter how close they seemed. You could almost guarantee a good old southern cussing from Shine, and he spared neither inmate nor officer. He did seem to on some level love us all.
Old Shine: he spent the last 31 years in prison, and today he left. Today those gates were finally flung open. Today one man left. I knew I was witnessing something special when I saw him hug a captain, two officers, and two members of that same swat team that so violated us nearly a year before. One man definitely left.. It takes quite a man to leave this place with that kind of dignity, and beyond that show love to his oppressors.
At that time I didn’t see a badge or a stripe; I saw honest mutual respect. He did 31 years. He shined shoes for plenty of them, but today one man left. I’m hollering for a different reason today. There is no need for even a smidgen of envy. Today it’s all joy. Today it’s all hope.
I’ll go to bed in the same place that I did last night, but Shine made his mark here. The light hit me at least. For the first time in over 31 years Shine will go to bed without a five digit number attached to the end of his name. I had to pause and tell you about the day one man left.
Written in Charles Bass Correctional Complex
2012