David's journey to faith and painting
David Ashbrook’s life led him through an unsettled young adulthood, settling down with a family, living a lie which led to a life sentence in prison, deep despair over what he had done, and how he had hurt his own family as well, searching for forgiveness and finding faith. He had to rebuild his life while in prison and then after his release, building new relationships and a life outside. He discovered an extraordinary gift for painting while in prison, this and his faith and new relationships helped him through the sentence. He was probably at the best time of his life when it was tragically cut short by a car accident just as he was ready to go back into prisons to talk to other prisoners.
His journey to faith
Lies and deceits led David to kill someone, which not only ended another person’s life but destroyed his own life and that of his family. He could not come to terms with what he had done. No punishment was bad enough to pay for it and on occasions he thought of taking his own life saying there was no forgiveness for someone like him.
After sentencing David was transferred to Wakefield Prison in Yorkshire, a very dark and bleak place in 1986. He’d been sent a bible by someone, and once in Wakefield he read it but did not understand what he was reading.
Just before his first Christmas in Wakefield he committed an offence inside prison and was locked into solitary confinement over Christmas. He was allowed to take his bible with him. He felt sorry for himself and full of self-pity because he didn’t want to spend Christmas in prison especially not in solitary confinement. He missed his 8-year-old son Patrick.
No visitors are allowed while you are in solitary. However a Church Army Chaplain managed to see him escorted by two prison officers. The chaplain asked how he was, saw the bible and asked if he understood what he was reading. David said he did not understand it and the Chaplain asked if he wanted a ‘map’ to read it with. He went away and a little later got permission to visit for a second time, handing David a daily reading program called ‘Every day with Jesus’. David started to read on the day he was put in the Solitary Confinement Block.
The reading for that day was ‘Dear brothers, is your life full of difficulties then be happy - for when the way is rough your patience has a chance to grow - let it grow and do not try to squirm out of your problems…’ (first chapter of James in the New Testament) this blew David’s mind. He thought the writer was raving mad - how could you be happy in difficulties? However he was hooked and carried on reading.
After Christmas he was released from the ‘Block’ but could not cope with the noise and chaos on the prison wing where several hundred prisoners were milling about in post Christmas mood. He went to his cell and lay on his bed. At the bottom of his bed there was a palm cross from the previous Easter next to a picture of his son, Patrick. He always told us that it was like 'something hit him smack bang in between the eyes'. Suddenly he understood that God loved his own son as much as he, David, loved Patrick - but God sent his own son to be murdered on the cross so that he, David, could be forgiven for what he had done.
From that moment on he knew with absolute certainty that this was real and tried to tell everyone about it - which did not go down well inside a prison. David lived his faith and used the remaining years of his life sentence to take advantage of any help the prison could give him. There were a handful of people on the outside who visited and wrote over all these years inside.
Learning to Paint
At first he started to draw cartoons and stories to communicate with his young son and only later to paint some of his feelings. The first picture he painted in Wakefield Prison was one of a lonely tree in a dark and bleak landscape. This was soon followed up with ‘Unchained‘ where a hand is trying to claw its way up and out of despair.
A teacher on an arts foundation course taught him to paint freely and what he felt. His paintings are a journey to freedom from that first bleak landscape and painting of despair to a little hope with ‘Bridge of hope’ with lots of murky water underneath (in his own words). Some of the best are still hanging in Wymott Prison.
There are paintings that show choices between dark and light, or going to the light, other paintings talk about faith and standing on floating steps for which you have to have faith. Eventually the paintings become exuberant and celebratory especially 'Star dancer' - the first painting after he was released and then there are the ones who talk about parties in the light.
During his sentence some of his paintings were exhibited in the Brewers Art Gallery in Kendal, Derby Town Hall and entered into the millennium exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, later at Eon and Manchester Airport, with back drops for Christmas plays and the Methodist Easter People Conference. This was often done with the help of the prison chaplains and in the prison chapel.
In prison all your decision making process is taken from you and painting was a method of retaining some of that decision making by choosing materials, colours, sizes and themes.
David's story is a story of deep hurt done to the victim and his family, his own family but also a story of redemption. There was a clear acknowledgment that not a day went by when he did not regret what he had done. The redemptive power of the cross, forgiveness and the near miraculous putting together his life afterwards with the help of other people. Some of these people he never met till he came out of prison and he also met Ruth.
David was released in autumn 2001, found a job, worked and rebuilt relationships with his Patrick, his son and his father. He married Ruth who he had started writing to while he was still inside. In the years between release and his fatal accident in November 2008 he packed a lifetime's worth of living in. David touched many lives because of who he was. He was real and down to earth - a working man. His paintings still speak.
He had just started going back into prison to talk to life sentence prisoners about hope and faith when his life was tragically cut short. The accident happened probably at the best time of his life. His faith was unwavering right to the end and he was looking forward to visiting prisoners and bringing hope to them. He knew what he lived for and where he was going when he died. Several people remembered after the accident that he had talked about partying in heaven when he died and wanting a party instead of a funeral!
When some of the paintings where hanging at Manchester Airport he was asked to write a short resume to go with them and he wrote the following:
“I took a life and lost my own. I gave it freely to imprisonment for what I had done. Lost in an unforgiving world I searched inside for meaning, for understanding of what I had become, what I had done.
I submerged in a foreign culture, a foreign land but never left England. In bad places I found good people of faith who, wanting nothing in return, helped me hold onto sanity and search out the right paths to walk towards light and abandon darkness.
In another prison I met Bob who offered me a new direction and taught me painting standing up. I stood and painted; my floodgates opened pouring out emotion, fear, pain and anger. Joy came later.
I spent that year learning a new expressional language. I learned one colour or shape at a time, frustrated trying to speak. I was soul hungry, angry with myself, in pain and sorry for myself, frustrated at being in prison and oh, so relieved to being punished!
That was a long time ago. Now a free man my paintings are different but still founded in those soul-searching places”