Gallery features figurines sculpted by prison inmate

SALEM, Ore. - Behind the walls of the Oregon State Penitentiary, James Garrick is carving out a new life.

The 50-year-old inmate has spent two years of his life sentence sculpting tiny figurines called "netsuke."

Netsuke is a 300-year-old Japanese art form. The small figurines, carved from ivory, were used to fasten silk purses to kimonos.

Now, his work is permanently featured with Michael Spindel Ltd., a touring New York gallery collection.

"I'm so elated that this marvelous human being, one of the leading netsuke dealers in the world, is representing my work," Garrick said. "I'm just astounded."

Spindel, who recently sold two of Garrick's pieces in the $1,500 range, said he heard about Garrick's work through a fossil ivory dealer in Alaska who sold to Garrick.

Upon request, Garrick sent Spindel a sampling of his art.

Spindel, who shows about 15 of Garrick's pieces, tells his clients Garrick sculpts from prison.

"He certainly has the technique of many of our top carvers. Artistically, he keeps improving," Spindel said.

Garrick said some of the money from the sales will go to support his family, and some will go to restitution.

Sitting in the prison visiting room, his giddiness about his work turned to lament when asked about his crime.

It was a fight between two men ending in murder, he said.

Garrick has been in for 13 years and will be eligible for parole in 2003.

"There isn't a day that goes by I don't think about it, he said. "If I could tell (the victim's mother) how sorry I am, there is no way I could even express it."

When asked if Garrick's ready for parole, a prison supervisor said "absolutely."

"He's not what you would consider a typical inmate because of the ways he conducts himself," said Lt. Sharon Duren, the disciplinary segregation supervisor. "He's very polite. He doesn't play games."

Garrick said, at 50, he's finally learning how to be an adult.

"But I still have Peter Pan stuck in me," he said.

That little bit of whimsy inspires him to sculpt.

"I am an observer - as I watch my hands transform a chunk of ivory. It puts you in touch with a higher power," he said.

Garrick, who spends 6 to 8 hours per day in the hobby shop working on his sculptures, has never taken an art class.

"I can barely draw a stick figure," he said.

But he has always had an interest in netsuke, he said. Prison gave him the time to quit drugs and try his hand at art.

The beginnings were rough. But using dentistry tools to carve, his sculptures began to look more and more like the real thing. "I've got scraps where I tried to carve a rose and it looks like a head of cabbage," he said.

Eventually, he began to work on the fine details, like carving the tonsils in a growling bear's head the size of a pinky finger.

For Garrick, netsuke is about more than making art, it's about healing.

"I hope that some day my learning process and my healing process may be able to help a young person believe there's a much better way of life."