J.P. GRANILLO ONCE ROBBED A BANK.
He went to prison for a decade and spent 18 months in solitary confinement. He suffered through a veil of horror and somehow came out one of the most self-aware people I’ve ever interviewed. By the end of our conversation, I felt like a better person, and a more hopeful one.
A new book about J.P. has the unusual title The Art and Journey of John Paul Granillo, Inmate #26553051. We talked for a long time about his decade in prison, his life as a free man, and what makes him the artist he is today.
That’s what J.P. does.
You’re a local boy?
Born and raised in Santa Fe. I come from Hillside Avenue, but that’s not the neighborhood that it is today. It’s gentrified. When I was there, it was old-time families. Due to drugs, incarceration, old age, alcoholism, different things, that whole place got sold out and flooded out. When I came home from prison to walk through there, I was the stranger in my own neighborhood and everybody was looking at me. Are they going to call the police on me?
My grandfather was from Fabens, Texas. My grandmother came from Durango, Mexico. My grandfather spoke little English. I was considered a troubled youth. My father was absent. I knew other bank robbers, I knew other people that had committed serious crimes. But then on my mom’s side, my auntie was the secretary for the governor, actually at the same time the FBI picked me up.
I thought this was normalcy, and that’s why I poured myself into that chaos. I started off with the graffiti. It gave me a voice. It gave me a place to be able to say that was me, even if it was with anonymity. If I did graffiti, I was seen. At home, I would be overlooked at some of the spaces I was in. The one way you can do it is by putting your name on the walls or putting your message on the walls. That gave me my first voice.
People recognized your artistic talent early on, but when the opportunity came to have a way out, you chose otherwise.
I couldn’t focus clearly at the time. It wasn’t my time. And I think that water finds its way. I think I had to go through a lot of those chaotic instances to reflect back on and tell the story that I’m working through with my art.
Hurdles and obstacles, they look differently depending on where you are. If you’re standing at the bottom of the hill, it looks very high. But if you’re
standing on top of a nearby mountain, it doesn’t look so high. I think about some of the opportunities that I had at that age that I also passed up because I just could not imagine having the resources and the support to get them.
Tell me about how you ended up in prison.
At 22, I went to federal prison for nine years, 10 months, 16 days. I was sentenced to 135 months. My number’s 26553051. I started off in Florence, Colorado. I was part of a riot over there. I got beat from there to Ray Brook, New York. Every time that they (the guards) got a chance, they just demolished me more and more. When I arrived, I looked like the elephant man.
We’re talking Ray Brook, New York, it’s in the Adirondacks, 45 minutes from Canada. It’s 32 below zero. I’m in a snow globe. I’ve never seen it like that. I’m from New Mexico and I’m learning about whole new cultures. I’m watching all these cultures in community. I learned about the cultures of the world in federal prison because they were all getting deported. I’m watching and I’m like, oh shit, this is way different.
I did 18 months in solitary confinement.
Why?
A guard threw my pictures on the floor.
Everything I loved fit in a fucking Ziploc bag — my pictures and my letters — because I couldn’t touch somebody. I couldn’t hug somebody. Everything I loved fit in this little bag. He threw it on the floor and he walked on it and I was livid.
The warden comes and she says, hey, what the fuck? What are you doing? I said, I want an apology from that guy. She goes, he’s not apologizing.
Well, either he apologizes or we go to war.
She goes, you’re going away for a very long time. I said, I don’t give a fuck. Those are my pictures. How long do you think before the National Guard will come?
I felt like I was violated by one of the guards, and I had 174 people under me, friends of mine. I asked all 174 guys to go outside and do military burpees in regiment.
‘Exercising military force’ they called it.
18 months in solitary…
Well, it gave me time to slow down and think about who I was as a human. Most people run in circles because they can’t look in the mirror. That was my time to look in the mirror and really analyze who I was. It gave me time to perfect my skill.
My mom kept telling me, they’re gonna keep putting you in a smaller box and God’s gonna keep putting you in a smaller box. She was right, until they put me in a little cage. I used to look at my room and say, she’s fucking right. I’m looking at the physical thing that she manifested and she goes, it is to keep you safe and focus. I was kind of pissed.
How did you improve your artistic skills in prison?
This artist, Roland, he was from Roswell, he tells me, we’ll take this cup and I want you to draw it. I drew it. I was so eager to want some of the knowledge he had — I would see the beauty he’d create. He’d say, okay, now go home and you write five things you like about it, five things you don’t like, and five things you missed.
It was repetitive. Six months later I was on the same fucking cup. But it gave me that time to watch the cup, to pay attention to every detail, every scratch in it, every chip in it, the way the light hits it. I could draw photorealism at that point because I’d studied it so much. It trained my eye to not just watch the cup, but to watch the room. It was my survival skill. He taught me to watch a room, what’s happening in the place, which is very important in the work I’m doing now.
This focus made you a better artist.
A better human. Before, I don’t think I had time to slow down. I chose to live in a disruptive house; I chose to live in this chaotic speeding world and do these things and create these actions. I was the largest bank robber in New Mexico history. It was $327,000 at one time. I was 19 and I planned it out, all that bullshit. I chose those things. I also chose prison, which was super chaotic, super wild, super violent. Your mind’s always spinning. What’s next? What’s next? What’s next? It’s high pressure. I think the hole was the first time I was ever able to relax and think about, What do you believe in? Or who are you? Not just how do you survive?
It’s a kind of forced meditation?
Pretty much.
I remember looking at that mirror that was so scratched that I couldn’t see myself, it was blurry. There’s graffiti on it. I would look at it and I’d say, I don’t even know who the fuck you are. I didn’t recognize me. It was just anger.
We look at a square. We’re going to look at this canvas and we’re going to say, Oh, that’s a piece of art. It’s a beautiful piece of art. No, that’s a photo of a dance I had with the canvas, which was the art. This is just a projection of that. The stone was just me in a dance with the stone. Well, how come you’re not calling your relationship an art? How come we’re not calling loving yourself an art?
We measure, in the Western standards, value because of economic capitalism. We think that’s worth that much because it’s a Picasso, and that’s what it sells for. But this is the thing — We don’t put the same value on relationships. We’re measuring structural things, concepts, color, stroke, but we’re not measuring intent. How do you measure the intent of love that somebody poured in? They could be considered the worst artist in the world, but they could have loved what they poured into that painting. We don’t value the emotional attachment or connection to that theme.
I have a friend, her mother was very sick and close to death. She doesn’t pray. She asked me, Could you do a prayer for my mother? I said, I’ll paint for her. I look at my creations as prayer. If I want to pause, I wake up at 3:00 every day, and I pray for an hour. Every single day. It’s not that I pray to Jesus, Muhammad, Pachamama, Dionysus; every river leads to the ocean. It’s me, recentering myself to the pause, so that I can see clearly where I want to go and keep my vision, so that I don’t get distracted.
If I came in every day and I hurt you, a piece of that stays in your soul. Vice versa. And if I came in every day and I praised you, that also stays in your soul. I must focus my thoughts on those individuals, that instance or what was happening, and that’s what will come.
You must have experienced a certain level of trauma in prison.
I still have nightmares. I still have PTSD. If I hear keys, if I hear doors slam, if there’s a lot of fast movement. When I came home, I remember it was August and school was starting. I needed to go to the halfway house. Mind you, everywhere I was, I walked for ten years. Unless I was getting transferred, I walked.
Motion was slow to me, getting in a car and going 80, I was nauseous, sick. I went into Walmart, and you have all these kids, and I hadn’t been around kids in ten years. I’d been around grown men. These little ankle biters, they’re the size of my waist, are running left and right. It panicked me because anytime anybody ran in prison was when there was somebody getting hurt or something was happening. Nobody would run. I panicked. I had to go outside with this panic attack.
I had to walk into restaurants staring at my shoes. I wouldn’t look you in the face. It is not because I was ashamed, that had nothing to do with it. I was hypersensitive with my eyes. I’d look at my shoes and I’d talk to you. I could only do one thing at a time. I didn’t see all these outside distractions until I could slowly raise my head to look you in the face.
What was the worst thing about your years in prison?
People think it was the time away. I think it’s the time I missed.
My grandmother passed while I was in prison. It took me two years out into this world to shed a tear for her. She passed away three weeks before I was supposed to come home, on her birthday. I came home. I saw her gravestone,
but I was still so cold. I was like, fuck it. Next year, fuck it. Took me to that third year. I just bawled and it was like, I could see me transitioning, but I was so cold and angry still. When I came home, I didn’t understand how a 32-year-old man was supposed to act. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I’m in this awkward space of how do I hug my mom? How do I hug my people? How do I do these things and how do I readjust?
You were in a violent environment for ten years. How have you changed?
There’s two ways of violence. There’s physical, which was what it was when you’re young. I punched the wall. I was upset. As you get older, there’s your shadow, like Peter Pan, the bad side or the darker side of you. It’s not good or bad, it’s just the darker side. It becomes as smart as you. It’s passive-aggressive phrases or those little cuts. There’s a thousand ways to say fuck you without punching somebody.
I learned how to adjust slowly and surely. It was a struggle, I had to write a list, everything was on a list of like, what do I do today? How do I get through this day?
A teacher I had in prison told me I’ll give you an extra book if you can tell me the last good thing you did as a human. Something that was not for personal gain. It dawned on me, you’re a piece of shit. That’s the dark side of me.
I had to let go of everything and say sorry. Then you start to feel remorse. I didn’t feel remorse when I came home. I’d see a wreck, and my wife would be like, Hey babe, we got to help them. And I’d drive on. I’m not dealing with the police. And she goes, are you fucking retarded?
Everything I do, whether you consider it one of my art pieces or my life, I live it with intent. I think somewhere along the way in America, in Western thinking… how many times does somebody say they love you and they didn’t mean that shit, or how many times they say sorry, and then they do it again. You’re like, fuck that, it doesn’t mean anything because they’ve lost the value of intent in it.
When you talk about your sense of freedom, what’s keeping us as a nation from getting there?
We should consider art as a first responder. Every time you’re sad, what do you want to do? You wanna hear a song or something to cheer you up. Every time you’re happy, every time we celebrate, you want food, which is an art. Every time you give a gift, every holiday. What is it? A piece of art, a piece of something. Art is a first responder.
Art triggers you as a human to be able to either go up or down.
When we were young and you had a hole in your pants, your mom would say, go sew it. You’re still wearing the pants. They’re good. They have a hole in them, but we’re going to fix it.
At the first sign of a problem now, because we haven’t taught the individual to look in the mirror, it’s oh, no, they’re no good. I’m just going to get me a new one. Instead of let’s put a patch.
How do we fix this? It doesn’t mean that we have to agree. We can say, all right, we’ve agreed to disagree and this part’s done. It doesn’t even mean I need to stop loving you.
But look at this. When you’re 18, what’s your family do? Get the fuck out the house. Everything’s based on a merit system. When you go to your job, what do you do? Every three months, they’re gonna look at you and say, what the fuck did you do? Oh, you’re not doing good enough. Get out. Oh, she had a baby early. Get her out.
We’ve learned to teach each other that if you’re not productive, You need to go. The pause wasn’t important. You didn’t produce fast enough.
That’s where the violence comes from.
Do you think the sentence that you served was just?
Actually, hell yeah. I do. I was a kid who used the teller in the bank to get inside information to set up a bank robbery and take all the money. And then I lied about it, I thought it was funny. So, yeah.
I do because my first six years I fucked off, I went more violent, more angry. I didn’t give a fuck, which really meant I didn’t know how to deal with that pain and I don’t want to see it. I’m going to cut it off.
But you actually do give a fuck. You care about your social life, your standards, your comfort, all that shit matters. It wasn’t until after my seventh year in prison that I actually started analyzing.
If you get a seed, where do you put it? In the darkest place in the world, which is the ground. You cover it and you tend it, and you water it. And the most beautiful thing comes. In destruction, there’s an opportunity for change in that dark space. What did you wanna be when you were a kid? It gets covered up. Our dreams get covered up. That’s America, that’s the capitalism that kicks in.
It wears us away.
People use that phrase that’s the old me. That’s not true. It’s all in there. It just takes something to trigger it, but it’s in there. You’ve chosen to cover it and to do what you do, because we’re not doing the shadow work.
Some people will say they want to be a ballet dancer or a doctor, and they didn’t do it. They went to corporate America.
Then it’s like my mom used to say, oh, is he crying blood? Then he’ll be fine. It’s the violence they teach you, boys will be boys. What the fuck does that mean? Some parts are hidden and cold and broken inside of you, and some are still heated. If I talk about them and trigger it, pop! It pops. So we keep them silent.
In Christianity or Catholicism, it would be the evil snake. But the snake is also beautiful because it shows you the way of going. It’s not a straight line. It never is. Nothing’s ever that clear.
How many people have you told you love this month?
One. And I was drunk.
When do you stop, turn all this shit off, and say, I’m gonna take a personal day of health for me and love myself. No electronics, no nothing. Just prayer. And prayer doesn’t mean you have to get on your knees and pray. It means you can walk and concentrate, meditate, do however it is for you to get to where you need to be. What are the chains that hold you? What is broken? And then when do you fight for yourself?
What’s the best part of your life now?
I took 18 months sabbatical when my son was born, and my wife was making more money than me, so she went to work right after he was born. I stayed home, and I was that stay-at-home father, and I got to feed him, I got to change him, I got to do all these beautiful things. I’m the one that takes him to school every morning.
My wife goes to work at 4:00 in the morning, and she’s got five kids. I wake up, I do all the kids. Hey, are you dressed, did you shower, did you brush your teeth, let’s get you some medicine. All those things, every single one of them, before they leave that house.
I also do the tough love, and the responsibility, and the accountability. I’ll do the homework with them. My wife cooks, but that’s just not because she’s a female, she’s just better than me!
I’m trying to be the mirror, so that they see what a well-grounded male human should look like in our culture. I’ve dressed up as a minion, as a turkey, as Mario. We play hide-and-seek. I’ve put on a dress for him. I don’t give a fuck.
Being a man is making a memorable moment and a safe space for that child to be able to become whatever they need to become. I just want them to be happy and successful. I don’t want to be like everybody else and just tell them what they need to be. I want to give them the skills to survive. I want healthy humans to make good decisions, to be thoughtful and creative.
That’s all I can do. I can only work on the things that I can for my kids and leave them the mirror, and hope that they pick up those pieces. Then, when they do leave, because America’s taught them at eighteen they should go, when they do leave I want a relationship where they’re able to come back and say I need help. My kids are going to fail at something, and I want them to come back and I’m going be like, all right, let’s go.
A man is being able to be vulnerable and say, I need help.
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PHOTOS COURTESY J. P. GRANILLO
FROM THE ART AND JOURNEY OF JOHN PAUL GRANILLO,
INMATE #26553051 BY SCOTT EDWARD SMITH © 2024
More at Instagram.com/GranilloArt