In this autobiographical piece published in Golf Digest you can read an amazing story of Valentino Dixon using his talent for art and his discovery of the serenity of golf course images as a way to help reconcile the time he is spending incarcerated in the Attica New York Correctional Facility.

Considering that he has never played a round of golf in his life, his understanding and interpretation of the peace we all find in the natural surroundings of the game we love is astounding.  An artist must find a subject to interpret and how, from the lonely trappings of a 6 x 10 foot cell, he has landed on golf landscapes as his inspiration is hard to fathom.

His explanation of what his artistic expression means to him in keeping a perspective and hope about righting his situation is moving.  If Bob Dylan played golf he would certainly have written a song about Valentino.  But that is to trivialize his situation and he deserves better than that.

Whether you believe his assertion of innocence or not, you can understand how art has been a vehicle to his survival and that is a testimony to human perseverance on it’s own.

(Click to read Valentino Dixon’s “Drawings From Prison”)

Valentino Dixon

with Max Adler

Golf Digest

July, 2012