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Published on November 02, 2021

Michael Caron

Ice Cream Truck, Carved soap and string, 2005

“I read somewhere that when you start to carve, you start to see what you are carving, and the job is just to get rid of all the junk. I like that, getting rid of all the junk. It’s true too, the object you want to carve is already there. I’ve carved every cell I’ve ever lived in. It’s easy. It’s something I can totally control. How can I get it wrong? I’m locked in the cell, and it is all there, every detail. I’m in that cell every day.”

Drug addiction has led Michael Caron to prison again and again. “I guess I take drugs just as seriously on the outside as I do my carving on the inside.” He began carving cells out of state issued “Lisa” brand soap as a project for a CPA Prison Arts Program workshop at Cheshire CI in the 1990s, and, when he returned to prison around 2005, he had new cells to carve.