When I spoke with 51-year-old

Norwich-based sculptor Bob Garabedian, he was working with ceramics and looking forward to

doing bronze work. Ceramics and bronze represent a big step up

from the materials he used when

he started making art.

"While I was in jail, I started doing artwork with soap. They've got this

state soap that's real rough on your

skin. I think it's basically lye soap --

It's real hard material," Garabedian

said. "I dug my fingernail into it and          A sculpture made from foam food trays.

thought it's no good for washing with,      (Photo courtesy Bob Garabedian.)

but maybe I could use it to make art."                                                                   

Garabedian made art while he was a child, but didn't return to art until he was in his 40s, serving out an eight-year prison sentence at MacDougall Correctional Institution in Suffield for robbing gas stations. Using parts of a cap from a BIC pen, Garabedian scratched at the soap until it formed a turtle.

"Before I went to prison I had a big collection of frogs, lizards and turtles. I had them as pets. And the kids loved the little animals. When I went to prison, we had to give them all away," he said. He gave many of his sculptures to his kids, but also traded them to other prisoners for food and other goods sold at the prison commissary. But besides being able to trade his art, Garabedian was able to use it to sort of escape.

"Prison is stark. The walls are all painted the same color, and everybody"s wearing the same brown color clothes. It's like sensory deprivation. And I craved color. I craved beauty," Garabedian said.

His soap sculptures caught the eye of Phyllis Cornfield, an instructor for Connecticut's Prison Arts Program. Through the program, Garabedian's work was exhibited outside prison. However, because of prison regulations, sculpting materials were unavailable to him.

"There were limitations on what they could bring into the prison. They really weren't able to give me the materials I needed. I asked for a block of clay and they said 'that ain't happening,'" Garabedian said.

Before prison, Garabedian was a drug addict, and had lost an arm in a motorcycle accident while in his teens, he said.

"Because I have one hand, people ask, 'how do you sculpt with one hand?' I have a short stub that's maybe six inches," Garabedian said. "I'll hold the soap down on the table with my nub, but the problem is when it's that close to your face it's hard to focus."

While drugs and alcohol had been part of his life since age 12, Garabedian said it was crack that led him to commit the gas station robbery that landed him in jail.

"In the depth of my addiction, I did things I didn't imagine I would. And sure enough you can't be doing things like that," Garabedian said. "I hate to say that I'm glad I went to prison, but I do say that. I'm glad I went to prison because I wasn't willing to go get help."

Garabedian will help lead a gallery tour at the Institute of Community Research´s Annual Show of Connecticut's Prison Arts Program from 5 p.m to 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 25. The Institute of Community Research is located at Two Hartford Square West, Suite 100 in Hartford, (860) 278-2044.