Fullerton Museum pays tribute to Johnny Cash and formerly incarcerated artists
- Share via
In 1968, Johnny Cash famously performed at one of the nation’s first maximum-security prisons, playing music for the incarcerated individuals and recording one of his most successful live albums, “Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison.” The country singer/songwriter also known as “the Man in Black” often got requests from inmates themselves asking him to come play at their prison on account of his 1955 hit song “Folsom Prison Blues.”
The landmark event is celebrated in “1968: A Folsom Redemption” on view at the Fullerton Museum Center now through March 9. The photography exhibition features the work of freelance journalists, photographer Dan Poush and writer Gene Beley, who accompanied Cash to the January 1968 album recording. Images in the show also highlight a March 1, 1969, concert Cash and June Carter Cash played in Anaheim.
“Daniel Poush and Gene Beley, were invited to follow Johnny Cash through his Folsom prison tour, so they were firsthand witnesses to how the process works,” said Georgette Collard, museum curator at Fullerton Museum Center. “Some of the songs were actually recorded on Gene’s voice recorder, and that’s how they were able to get the audio for the live album.”
Beley flew down from Northern California for the exhibition’s opening on Jan. 25, a lively reception that included a Johnny Cash cover band.
“We are really grateful that Gene was able to join us. He shed a lot of great light on the show,” said Elvia Susana Rubalcava, museum director at Fullerton Museum Center.
Dedicated to late Fullerton Museum Center board member Cheryl Richard, the exhibit features ephemera and 32 powerful photographs by Poush and Beley that give viewers an intimate look at the journey Cash and Carter Cash made by bus to Folsom and their performances. The couple was joined by Cash’s father, Ray Cash and Reverend Floyd Gressett, who ministered to inmates and helped facilitate the performance. There are also images of Cash interacting with inmates, as members of the audience and also more directly, like the photos of Cash with Glen Sherley, the prisoner who wrote “Greystone Chapel.”
“Johnny Cash performed ‘Greystone Chapel’ live at Folsom for him and he continued to play the song and paid Glen royalties while he was still incarcerated,” said Collard. “After Glen was released he played with Johnny Cash, and for years he toured with him.”
As Collard was doing research for the exhibit, she considered the impact the historic performance has had on those in the prison system.
“At the time and even now, people don’t have much empathy towards people that are incarcerated, so it was a really a big deal for Johnny Cash to go into their space,” said Collard. “He wanted to humanize the incarcerated. It meant a lot to the prisoners.”
In conjunction with “1968: A Folsom Redemption,” Fullerton Museum Center is also showcasing “Beyond Confinement: The Untold Stories,” an exhibit that features the work of individual artists affected by the prison system, like Alberto Lule, Fulton Washington, Khadijah Silva and Nicholas Tirado.
“The idea behind the title is these artists were once incarceration or had close family that have been impacted by the incarceration system and they saw how that effected them,” said Collard. “Now that they are out, these are their success stories.”
Fulton Leroy Washington, also known as Mr. Wash, is a well-known artist convicted in 1997 for a nonviolent drug offense. In 2016, President Obama commuted his sentence, granting him clemency. Mr. Wash honed his craft while he was in prison, and his supremely detailed work is full of meaning and symbolism. A self-portrait titled “Deteriorating” depicts the texture of the gray hair in his beard, while the cracks in his face, resembling continents, reveal entire worlds.
A piece called “Horse Walker” by Khadijah Silva illustrates the cycle of the “prison industrial complex” and the inability to make progress once an individual is caught up in it.
“Also, in some of the old prisons they used to have horse walkers to tie prisoners to them, and that would be their yard time,” said Collard.
The reflectiveness of the ball and chains that hang from the slowly rotating horse walker allow the viewer to literally see themselves in the work.
“This piece is just so conceptual, there are so many meanings to it,” said Collard.
The work of Alberto Lule follows his journey serving a 13-year sentence in California prisons and his artistic and academic life afterwards, with readymades and other works, like three panels created using forensic fingerprint dusting powder. The pieces are inspired by a childhood moment when police used the fact that his parents were in the U.S. illegally to intimidate him into allowing them to search his home without a warrant.
“He remembers distinctly how this powder stuck on everything, they powdered the whole house, and it was so difficult to get rid of,” said Collard.
The exhibit ends with information about local reentry programs, like UCI Lifted, where Lule now teaches, and Cal State Fullerton’s Project Rebound, the Rising Scholars Program at Fullerton College and Inside Out Writers, where Rubalcava taught years ago.
“They work with that 18-to-21-year-old bracket, working with them before they can go into the adult prison system,” said Rubalcava. “That was a tremendous experience.”
In honor of the two exhibits, Fullerton Museum Center will host February Blues, a live country and blues concert series each Thursday of the month from 6 to 8:30 p.m. An “Artist in Focus” event will be held on the exhibits’ closing day, March 9, from 1 to 3 p.m., with artists from “Beyond Confinement” discussing their work and sharing their stories.
Collard hopes those who visit the museum will leave feeling inspired by Cash’s example.
“Johnny Cash went in and brought media attention, worldwide attention to these people that were incarcerated,” said Collard. “He treated everyone like a human.”
All the latest on Orange County from Orange County.
Get our free TimesOC newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot.
