VL Studio Visit JW Burke The Lonesome Crowded West by Dave Justus Some artists say they feel compelled to create, as if a voice inside is driving them in their craft. But for J.W. Burke, art was all about getting the voices to stop. In 1988, Burke was eighteen years old, living in Carmel, California and working maintenance for a wealthy businessman. “I spent my days off roaming the streets,” he recalls, “partly chasing girls, and partly admiring the many incredible galleries.” But his wideopen future would come crashing down at the hands of a group of his peers. “As a cruel prank, they poisoned me with a massive LSD overdose,” he says. The drugging caused him to suffer severe constant delusions, including both audio and visual hallucinations, and to harbor para<strong>no</strong>id thoughts. “These mimicked the symptoms of para<strong>no</strong>id schizophrenia. I was unable to maintain my sanity.” For years, Burke lived either on the streets, where he got in trouble with the law, or in mental health hospitals, where he struggled to regain his faculties. “I lived filthy and homeless,” he says, “begging for change and sleeping in a box. My delusions over the years had convinced me that I was somehow being controlled by, or tortured by, manmade voices.” The sounds emanating from public television or radio were a source of agonizing torment for him. “In September of 1997,” he recalls, “my delusions drove me to commit two acts of robbery, both without bloodshed. I remember clearly how, upon my arrest, as soon as I was handcuffed and placed in the police car, my delusions stopped—dead quiet. No voices, <strong>no</strong> hallucinations, <strong>no</strong> disorientation… just the sound of the car and the static of the police radio.” But the sudden silencing of a decade’s worth of <strong>no</strong>ise didn’t mean everything was fixed, or that Burke was whole and healthy again. “The task of rebuilding my sanity lay before me while I awoke to the fact that I faced spending the remainder of my life in prison,” he says. Fortunately, he had a tool for that rebuilding. “When I was eleven,” Burke remembers, “my mother bought me a sketchpad and charcoal pencils, saying, ‘Here, I think you are going to be an artist.’” He had balked, and had grown up believing that art was beyond his capabilities. But in prison, with time and determination on his side, he took up his materials and started to create. “I began drawing in my cell to help stabilize, exercise, and restructure my mind against relapse,” he says. “Soon I asked myself, ‘What can you do to save yourself What are your options’” Feeling that the prison system gave him few ways to succeed, he faced down his lengthy term and made his decision. “To become an artist or a writer would allow me two ways to strengthen my mind. One, to teach myself a career that could lead to financial independence, and two, to obtain possible assistance in regaining my freedom.” Frustrated by the lengthy waiting list and selection process for the prison’s “Craft Shop,” where inmates have the opportunity to earn an income for their families or themselves when they get out, Burke has found what solace he can in his situation. “In my drawing lessons over the years,” he says, “I slowly found that any moment I wasn’t drawing was time wasted. My work improved, and I learned that once I understood how to achieve accuracy in drawing, I could create anything, which meant all sorts of excitement and pride of achievement.” Now, Burke estimates, “I work at drawing ten to fourteen hours a day, seven days per week. While I create artwork on a variety of subject matter, I especially enjoy creating extremely detailed Westerns depicting ranch scenes, rodeo, or Old West themes.” Perhaps <strong>no</strong>t surprisingly for a man confined, Burke speaks eloquently on the evocative, escapist qualities of art. “I usually work in graphite or colored pencil,” he <strong>no</strong>tes. “The black and white of graphite has the ability to transcend time, as well as create realistic textures that work well together with the detail to make you almost smell the leather, feel the heat of the day, or hear the pounding of hooves.” Right Page: Bandit http://www.artbyjwburke.com/ 90 | VL <strong>Magazine</strong> - <strong>Visual</strong><strong>Language</strong><strong>Magazine</strong>.com
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