"Another View'' (dye on carved and tooled leather), by WINFRED REMBERT, in his show at Adelson Galleries, Boston, through April 26.
The New Haven artist learned how to hand-tool leather in prison, where he had been sent for car theft. He grew up working in Georgia cotton fields.
He's quite a storyteller, with his mouth and by his pictures on leather.
“Another time, when I was living in Cuthbert, Ga., a sit-in got out of hand. The police came, and I ran. There was a car with the keys in it, and I took it. They got me for car theft, and I went to prison. I escaped after one year, but it wasn’t planned. I flooded the toilet [in the cell], and the deputy sheriff beat me and got out his gun. He was going to shoot me, so I took his gun and locked him in my cell. I went to a Civil Rights house for help, but they called the police. A hundred people came after me and hung me up by the feet. They castrated me, and I could have bled to death. They didn’t really castrate me though, because I have eight children now!''