For some incarcerated artists, art comes from a blood line. 

As a new resident to SQ, Daryl Harmon, have been going through prison culture shock. 

“When I first got here I wanted to watch this new cultural atmosphere and wait for the authenticity before I put myself out to this new movement,” Harmon said. 

The artist has been drawing since he was about 5 years old. 

According the Harmon, he recalled when his dad first saw the potential that he had as an artist. He remembered going home from elementary school, where he had to learn his ones, twos, threes, and his a,b,c’s and draw three bears. He reflected on his nightly curriculum. 

His father saw in him the same talent in his big brother who the artist, called Uncle Sunshine, was an autistic and brilliant painter using only his fingers to create his art. 

Throughout his 31 years of incarceration, he has been maintaining a relationship with his family through his drawings. He points out that his gift is through graphite-pencils; shape, form, and shadow is what gives him his creativities.  

We have a portrait of childhood friend Donald Redick with his two grandsons. Harmon credits his friend for having encouraged him to work on his reading, and writing skills throughout the 25 years they served together. Redick paroled to his mother’s house in 2020 after she passed away. He inherited the family home and brought his two grandsons to live with him.

The next portrait is one of his aunt. Her name is Delene Bobby. She was bound in a wheelchair since she was eight years old. When Harmon was a child, his aunt Delene taught him moral ethnics, which are values, as to how to be sensitive to what was import in life and be callous to experience that are not important. 

The next portrait is of his great, great granddaughter, Ember, who was born on Oct. 10, 2024 the same day that he arrived at San Quentin, “She is my passion and the reason why I keep believing in being release,”  Harmon said. 

To celebrate his 65 birthday, he composed a self-portrait in which he sketched out pictures of his family. The next picture is of  his wife’s, oldest daughter, grandson and granddaughter.

Besides being a birthday gift himself, the portrait reflects true love and family support throughout all the years of incarceration. 

Last but not least, there is a picture of the protector of the family. Domino a Pitbull. “His job is to rule and reign over the yard. He loves to kill raccoons and other rodents that comes into the yard,” concluded Harmon.

Harmon, is grateful to his wife Shiela for all her support and love. “I consider the man to be incomplete. What makes a man 360 degree is his wife.”