ESCAPE ARTIST

ESCAPE ARTIST is William A. Noguera's story of a difficult and violent childhood, the events that sent him to death row at San Quentin, and his evolution as an artist during his thirty+ years there. The book deals with some of today's most pressing social and political issues including the death penalty, racism, the jaw-dropping violence inside the prison system, abortion and its consequences, child abuse and bullying, and finally redemption through art. As a kid in southern California, where his home was often violent and school was a hotbed of racial discrimination, Bill found escape through martial arts and surfing. It wasn't long before he relented to the lure of gang life, stealing cars, and then drugs. He was sentenced to death in 1988 for murder.

Noguera has lived in a 4 x 9 foot concrete and steel cage for thirty-two years. His first artwork after his sentence was at the Orange County Jail where he was left for weeks in an in-take cell that he should only have been in for a few days. There he woke one day in a moment of calm and was overtaken by an urge to draw. With a few scavenged pencils he created a mural in photographic detail on the cell wall, and experienced his first catharsis through art. Once inside San Quentin, the largest and deadliest jail in the country, his life rests on a razor's edge.

One has to dig deep to maintain one's humanity in San Quentin, and finding enlightenment is a long shot. But a world opened up for Bill with his discovery of the prison library. He immersed himself in the French poets, philosophy, and the artwork of Caravaggio and Rubens, Motherwell and de Kooning, Cubists, Futurists, and more. Over the years Noguera has created a unique form of expression in neo-cubist hyper-realism and neo-constructivist wall sculpture. It's the thing that saves his life every day.