SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
In the criminal justice system, the defendants, prosecutors and others are often drawn by a courtroom sketch artist. Jane Rosenberg has now told her story in her book, "Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades As A Courtroom Sketch Artist" - trials that include John Gotti, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, Martha Stewart, Steve Bannon, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, former President Donald Trump and also a botched execution that stays with her to this day. Jane Rosenberg joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
JANE ROSENBERG: You're welcome.
SIMON: As you note, you can't call out, hey, hold that pose, Mr. Gotti.
ROSENBERG: No. I wish I could.
SIMON: Well, how do you sketch an event that's moving?
ROSENBERG: I have to depend on memory a lot and my knowledge of anatomy and facial expression and the muscles that move in the face.
SIMON: You were an art student. How did you come to courtroom sketching?
ROSENBERG: When I was an art major in college, abstract art was big. Calder was in - De Kooning, Rothko. But I was a closet portrait artist, so I would be at home in my little kitchen drawing self-portraits. And I really loved drawing people. So after college, I found my way to the Art Students League, where I learned how to do figurative painting and portraiture. After years of doing whatever I could to make a buck - it was rough a lot of years after college - I went to a lecture at the Society of Illustrators that another courtroom artist did. Her name was Marilyn Church. And I was so intrigued by what she did. I thought, oh, this would be so exciting. If only I could do this.
So I had friends who were lawyers, and they took me to night court at 100 Centre Street, which is the same place Mr. Trump's trial just was. And I sketched and put together a portfolio, and then I kept asking the court officers, where do the courtroom artists sit when they come? What do they bring? I asked so many questions that they finally said, come next week. We'll let you sit with the media. That's how it started.
SIMON: You sketched a lot of mob trials. Have you developed any idea about why we find mob stories so fascinating?
ROSENBERG: I love drawing them. They are right out of central casting. They have great faces, great caricatures, exaggerated gestures. They're fun to draw. Why people are fascinated with them? They have their own family rules, and it's just an interesting world. People didn't know if it's real or not for a long time.
SIMON: You say, for an artist that wants to draw the range of human experience, being a courtroom sketch artist is a very good enterprise.
ROSENBERG: Absolutely. You see a full range of emotions going on in a courtroom - the search for the truth, the feelings of people when they're telling the truth or they're lying, a lot of body language to read, a lot of emotion. People get convicted. They get acquitted. Families show up. There's plenty to draw in a courtroom.
SIMON: You sketched an execution once, and it was difficult.
ROSENBERG: An electrocution, yes. I was sent down to Alabama. At that time, I don't think I had an opinion about the death penalty. But everything went wrong with that electrocution. I waited around the prison grounds for days to see if the governor would pardon the person, which didn't happen. So it took place sometime after midnight. And I looked around the room. You don't see who pulls the switch, but a lot of equipment malfunctioned. The knee pad caught on fire. The helmet caught on fire. Flames were coming out. They had to redo it several times.
And it was pretty horrific. And I felt like my hands were dirty. Like, I didn't do anything to stop it. I felt like it was a murder that maybe I committed by not jumping up and stopping it. Of course, I couldn't, but it felt that way. And when I drove back to my hotel room, there was a thunder and lightning torrential storm going on. I felt this is a message from the higher power. And then I felt like I don't want to commit murder, and I didn't feel two wrongs are going to make a right.
SIMON: We should note the man was John Evans. He was convicted of murdering a shopkeeper in front of his two young daughters.
ROSENBERG: Yes. It's a horrible crime.
SIMON: Is it intimidating to sketch Donald Trump in a courtroom, knowing the strong feelings people have about him?
ROSENBERG: I don't concern myself with the feelings people have about any of my subjects. I just draw what I see and whatever's going on. So I'm not worried if people like him or don't like him. I do the best I can to represent what's happening. I drew Trump smiling. I've drawn him looking grumpy, which is a lot. I've drawn him with his eyes closed, which is also a lot. And I've drawn him paying attention, looking up and leaning forward, leaning back. Whatever he would do is what I'm drawing.
SIMON: And may I ask - because I think a lot of people want to know - do you use orange?
ROSENBERG: Actually, green. It's a - I'm working on a brownish-gold paper, and it's a golden-greenish color. It's not really a stick of orange that I pick up.
SIMON: Is there something that a courtroom sketch can do that a camera can't?
ROSENBERG: I think some people really appreciate art and can find emotion within the lines of a sketch. And I think I can also combine elements and put in the important elements and leave out all the little pixels that I don't think are important to tell the story.
SIMON: Anybody ever asked you to touch up their courtroom sketch?
ROSENBERG: Yes, that does happen. Harvey Weinstein asked me to give him more hair as he walked by. John Gotti asked me to take away his double chin. A lot of people ask for weight - lose weight, take away the belly, certain number of pounds off, more hair, less hair. I do get requests to make me look a certain way. Which side is better? Draw me on this side, that side.
SIMON: They just being funny?
ROSENBERG: I hope so 'cause I'm not going to pay attention. I'm going to continue drawing what I'm drawing.
SIMON: Jane Rosenberg, her new memoir "Drawn Testimony." Thanks so much for being with us. And I mean this in the nicest way - I hope you never have to make a sketch about me.
ROSENBERG: Me too. I hope I don't also. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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