By Marino Eccher
Twin Cities
DAKOTA COUNTY — It’s a masterpiece in toothpaste and toilet paper: Jesus hanging from the cross, sculpted in sharp detail from his gaunt ribcage to the nails in his hands to the inscription proclaiming God’s love for the world.
The display case is a plastic evidence bag. The venue is the Dakota County Jail. The artist was an inmate, by now long gone.
Like almost everything prisoners craft surreptitiously in their cells, the footlong sculpture was taken away as contraband. But jail officials held onto it as a reminder of the creativity that can flourish even in the most restricted environments.
“It’s incredible,” said Loren Hanson, the jail’s programming director, “what they can do with this stuff.”
Full story: Dakota County Jail inmates create art - but it’s also contraband