American Prison Artist C-Note

Description October 20th - 23rd 2021, was the 13th Annual International Prisoner's Family Conference. This year's conference was virtual. Topics included civil rights don't end at the prison gates, prison reentry, children of incarcerated parents, prison wives, and other topics. It also included a Facebook art auction of Prison art. C-Note donated a work to the conference that was specifically created for the event.Man in the Mirror, 2021, 9 in. x 12 in., Acrylic on canvas, Donald "C-Note" Hooker, features a prisoner looking at himself with a handheld mirror. What the mirror reflects back, it's not his image, but an image of him, his wife and child.

Decarcerate Now Poster by C-Note

Decarcerate Now Poster by C-Note

Description C-Note on Haring is a work of Wax on canvas. It was created to pay homage to his fellow artivist working in the underground art scene. Haring who died of AIDS complication at 31 in 1990, established the Keith Haring Foundation. The foundation's mandate is to provide funding and imagery to AIDS organizations and children’s programs. It also is to expand the audience for Haring’s work through exhibitions, publications, and the licensing of his images. After his death, the Contemporary Art World had become interested in Graffiti, and his Work have been given several international retrospectives.

Description "Journey to Afrofuturism," is the title to a poem wrirren by American prisoner artist, Donald "C-Note" Hooker. He wrote the poem for the 30th Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry at the West Oakland Public Library in 2020. One of the themes to the event was the 400 years of African Americans in California. Upon research, C-Note had discovered that Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, and Governor of Mexico, named California after a Black woman, the Califia to the land of Black women. The poem brings back the Califia to our current times, as the nursemaid to the Afrofuturism movement. Afrofuturism, according to Jamie Broadnax of Black Girl Nerds, is the reimagining of a future filled with arts, science and technology seen through a black lens. The term was conceived a quarter-century ago by white author Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future,” which looks at speculative fiction within the African diaspora. C-Note, who is also a poet, playwright, and performing artist, wanted to tell his poem in paint.

Untitled #76 by Donald C-Note Hooker

Untitled #76 by Donald C-Note Hooker

Untitled #5 by Donald C-Note Hooker

Black Woman by Donald Cnote Hooker

Description . A picture out of a magazine. But I’m not confident as an artist so I don’t want people to compare my finished product to the model or image that I used. I called it “Colored Girl.” I think it fits. It’s clearly a coloration of something, of a woman. But the word “Colored,” though it is a pejorative today, was once known as the desired description that African Americans prefer to be described as. “Colored,” “Negro,” “Black,” these were all terms that African-Americans themselves demanded of the press and white audiences; this is what you call us. An example would be W. E. B. Dubois NAACP. It was originally called the National Negro Committee. Booker T. Washington and other famous black activist before him, demanded that whites call us “Negroes.” So three years after founding the National Negro Committee, W. E. B. Dubois change the name to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. That’s proof enough that blacks demanded that they be called “Colored.” So “Colored Girl,” what is that? Any black girl, and that’s pretty much the response that I have gotten from this piece.

Colored Girl highlighted by Donald C-Note Hooker

Description EXCERPTS FROM ARTIST INTERVIEW:DRPA: So what’s the next piece you have for us?C-Note: DianaDRPA: Very beautiful, now what is the story behind that?C-Note: This is “Colored Girl,” Part II, or the sequel. “Colored Girl,” was done in 2009, in 2016, I did “Diana.” The impetus is that I’m starting to be in galleries and museums. Probably patronized by white people, with 50% of the population being women, probably women, and older women. Who sees their beauty? I’ll never forget a conversation I saw on the CBS Morning Show with Charlie Rose, Norah O’Donnell, and Gayle King. Nora, was complaining about being dog whistled, or cat whistled at by men. Gail had a different take. She did not find that behavior offensive at all, in fact, wish guys would do that to her. So that set off an epiphany. I mean who’s cat whistling the grandmothers? Because that’s what Gayle King is. You read sex for people in their eighties is still wanted and desired. So we don’t stop being sexual and wanted because of our age. America is much criticized for being a youth culture; so I like to buck against the norms, root for underdogs. “Diana,” was created for the white, mature, woman, who may patronize the galleries and museums that my work may be in. It is my conversation with that audience, with that patronage, that “I” see you. That “I” see the beauty in you, and that I pay homage to that beauty. The piece was originally to be called “Diana A Roman Goddess,” but a friend of mine in here, who is dating a wiccan, she knew Diana to be a goddess. I had added the Roman Goddess part because I was fearful if I just use the name Diana it will be construed with “Princess Diana,” Lady Diana Spencer Princess of Wales (1961-1997), but since the Wiccans know Diana to be a goddess, simply Diana was the preferred titled.