Reuben Beltran interviewed by Alvin McLean
Alvin McLean (00:22): My name is Alvin McLean. I'm here at Sullivan Correctional Facility. I'm interviewing-
Reuben Beltran (00:28): Reuben Beltran.
Alvin McLean (00:30): How are you doing today, Reuben?
Reuben Beltran (00:31): Hey. I'm, um, I'm happy, happy, happy.
Alvin McLean (00:33): Okay, um, let's get some of these questions out of the way. Um, why did you enroll in the art program?
Reuben Beltran (00:41): Well, for me it was being around overly creative people. I don't get much chance to do that. Usually, I'm the only one at a table or in the group doing something, sharing with others but nobody shares back because they just don't do. So, I figure that in here, I would be able to, you know, see other people that, even if it's just music or dancing or whatever it is, they will have something to share creative. And, feed my brain with some of that feedback.
Alvin McLean (01:10): Okay. Did, did any of the reasons that you came here, uh, change while you were here?
Reuben Beltran (01:15): No, well, not, not really, no. I can't say it really changed anything. It actually instead, that inspired me more when I got here and I saw guys that I usually see in the hallway, you know, or just walking around or there in the library and then I see them here and it's a whole different personality. And it's a side of them that I never thought they could have. And it's nice to see that they didn't even knew they had it, and then seeing it coming out of them. And seeing, getting acknowledged for what they did. You know, I like that environment.
Alvin McLean (01:49): Okay. Um, I've known you in the facility as an artist and I've seen, uh, a lot of your work and you draw very well.
Reuben Beltran (01:57): Thank you.
Alvin McLean (01:57): Um, but how would you describe yourself? As an artist?
Reuben Beltran (02:02): Well, I'm multi, eh, artistic wise. In other words, I specialize more in drawing per se. You know, like pencil and pen. But I have done also painting, oil painting, acrylic painting. I'm also a clothing designer, costume designer, special effects makeup. I've done sculpture. I've done set design for film or small theater. I've done, eh, I had my own internet TV show in 2007. You know, about a, horror show, or dark spider's web. So, I grew, I'm like across the place. Anything that's artistic, that's creative. I do macrame. I've done, you know, making flowers from paper, making flowers from trash.
Alvin McLean (02:51): Wow.
Reuben Beltran (02:52): Anything that's creative. Anything that involves something with your hands, something new, something that no one ever seen or done before. I do it. Right now I'm in the process of working on a board game. I've never done that before. But I set myself to do it and, you know, 50% of my way there and it's coming out good. Again, I just, whatever features at that moment, I just go for it.
Alvin McLean (03:15): Yeah. Does it––It doesn't sound like anyone can teach you a lot about being an artist. However––What, if anything, did you learn here?
Reuben Beltran (03:24): Well, that––You're right. I didn't need particularly to learn, as far as technique and, and, and things like that, but eh, I did found small, little ways that I could find inspiration in places I didn't thought I could before.
(03:42):
So, eh, this class helped me pay attention a little more to, to things I would ignore that would become inspiration. Maybe just look at someone they way they are eating or walking or talking, I can now take that and turn it into story, turn it into drawing. Something I wouldn't do that before.
(04:00):
Before, it had to be something big, you know, something political big to happen. Some, eh, eh, video, uh, uh, of a person by the police. That would inspire me immediately to do a drawing or write something about it. You know, some big disaster. Something that really touched me emotionally, really strong, I will usually then express what I was feeling into my drawings.
Alvin McLean (04:23): So, is, uh, are you, are you saying that your art is inspired by current events and, and political things that are going on right now?
Reuben Beltran (04:32): The, 90% of my drawings are political drawings. You know, eh, eh, eh, every, everything, eh, immigration, LGBTQ, eh, eh, yes, of course, blacks, eh, Hispanic, immigration, I draw and I do a lot of work on that subject, that particular subject. And, like I say, I've ignored, what we probably, we might call them mundane things of life, for the more bigger picture. So now this class kind of pulled me more towards those mundane, little things that we ignore of daily life. And I, I find expression in those little things now.
Alvin McLean (05:10): Right. Um, what did this space, this, this class offer you that differs from other spaces you've been a part of?
Reuben Beltran (05:20): Well, to tell you the truth, I've never been in an art class. All my art, eh, eh, has been from either books or just trial and error. I had never been in an art class per se. So, I never had a teacher and I can go back to in memory or nothing like that. I just draw and draw and draw all my life since I was six years old and I'm 63 now. So, it's been literally all my life. So, eh, eh, what drew me here particularly, is to, like I said, the ambience of being around creative people, you know? So, I wasn't, I already knew from the get go I wasn't going to learn any technical in here. How to make my drawings look better, shading or line, you know, anything like that. I have nothing to learn from that over here. I knew that from the get go. But again, I found inspiration now on things that I previously would ignore.
Alvin McLean (06:08): That's good, that's good. Is there anything you haven't shared in this class yet, that you would like the opportunity to share right now?
Reuben Beltran (06:17): Well, another thing that my art has helped me express is my condition being here as an innocent man in prison. I've done a lot of drawings expressing that because it's very hard to express it verbally. There is not a word you can say. I wrote an article that I call, eh, "It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken" because this, eh, when you tell somebody something tastes like chicken, they can easily remember or have the feeling for what that food tastes like.
Alvin McLean (06:50): Right.
Reuben Beltran (06:50): Even though they have never ate it but you're telling them it tastes like chicken, you know what I'm talking about. But, when somebody asks me how it feels to be in prison for a crime you didn't commit, there's no tastes like chicken answer to that.
Alvin McLean (07:01): Mm-hmm.
Reuben Beltran (07:01): There's nothing I can say that you will go, "Oh, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about." There is no way. But art, drawing allows you to put that out there in some visual manner that people can look at that and go, "Okay, I get a feeling of it."
(07:16):
Like, I have this drawing where I drew this cell and in the bunk bed instead of me laying there, I put a coffin with flowers on top. And then, I put a graphic on the wall that says, "The conviction of the innocent equals the taking of their life."
Alvin McLean (07:30): Wow.
Reuben Beltran (07:31): So anybody who sees that, immediately gets some reaction like that. Like, wow, okay.
Alvin McLean (07:36): Most definitely.
Reuben Beltran (07:37): They can see the taking of the life, you know? And they understand that it's not a taking physical life.
Alvin McLean (07:42): Right. It's––
Reuben Beltran (07:43): But you took the life of an innocent person you put in prison.
Alvin McLean (07:46): Yeah.
Reuben Beltran (07:46): That life is gone as far as, for all intents and purposes, that life is gone.
Alvin McLean (07:49): That's right.
Reuben Beltran (07:49): Drawing allows me to express that.
Alvin McLean (07:51): Uh huh. It's like a form of death.
Reuben Beltran (07:54): Yes, it is.
Alvin McLean (07:57): It's killing the person.
Reuben Beltran (07:57): Yeah, like I say, I'm not the person that I was before I got incarcerated here. I just, there's just no way. I, I try to keep as much as I can from myself and I promise my mom I will do that. But, it, the place is what it is and it changes you in some form another, it changes you.
Alvin McLean (08:12): Right.
Reuben Beltran (08:15): You know?
Alvin McLean (08:15): Most definitely.
Reuben Beltran (08:16): So, so I'm, I can't say I'm the same Reuben that was before. I actually wrote my, uh, uh, what you call it, death notice of myself. For that man that was lost now. That doesn't exist anymore.
Alvin McLean (08:29): Wow.
Reuben Beltran (08:29): You see me, you talk to me but if you remember the Reuben before 2007, you say, "Wow, yeah, he has changed. He's not the same person, he doesn't talk the same way."
(08:38):
I don't find funny that jokes I used to find funny anymore, you know, and take things more serious. I'm taking life more serious now. Eh, eh, I just don't joke like I used to. I was the class clown and I don't see myself like that anymore. Now, I, I've taken it for more serious. I listen more. And I express more seriously, my uh, feelings now are more serious, what I express now.
Alvin McLean (08:58): Yes. We're about to wrap up. Is there anything else you'd like to share?
Reuben Beltran (09:04): Um, no I think I've done pretty well with it. So, I could, anything else would probably be made way too personal and it will take more tape than you have in there. But I appreciate the questions.
Alvin McLean (09:14): All right. Thank you very much.
Reuben Beltran (09:15): You're welcome.