Newry’s 137-year-old Artists Bridge has inspired yet another act of artistic creation – this one far from the banks of Sunday River.

In this case, the bridge is captured not in a visitor’s painting or photograph, but as a highly detailed sculpture, shaped from newspaper, toilet tissue, wax, coffee and coffee creamer – the sort of raw materials available to an incarcerated sculptor.

“After you’ve been in here a while you go through what we call ‘a lonely stage,’ and that teaches you to learn things about yourself,” said Darrin Carter, an inmate of North Carolina’s Wade Correctional Center.

One of the important things he learned, Carter said, is that “if you add a little bit of love, patience and time (which I have plenty of) then you can come up with all kinds of beautiful creations.”

“That’s what this covered bridge means to me,” he said. “It allowed me to do these things.”

There are no covered bridges in rural Robeson County, where Carter grew up, and never in his life has he seen one with his own eyes.

What he did see were two photographs, shown to him by his prison case manager, Kevin Chayer. The photographs were taken in the fall of 2007 by Chayer’s wife, Regina, a professional photographer. Kevin and Regina are natives of the Bethel area, and they return often to visit family and friends.

“We come back as often as we can to visit, hike, and to take photos of gorgeous Maine,” Kevin Chayer said.

In this case, the photos were a bit less than gorgeous – not lush fall color but 5- by 7-inch black and white prints run out on the prison’s laser printer.

But they were enough to inspire Carter.

“I saw the inside, the way the rafters and beams run, and that’s what intrigued me,” he said. “I love to build – that’s what I did when I was on the street.”

Re-creating that structural detail would be Carter’s most challenging project to date.

“I’ve built other things out of newspaper, like lighthouses and boats, but nothing with this kind of detail,” he said.

To the Chayers’ eyes, he got that detail right.

“We were amazed at how well Mr. Carter reproduced the covered bridge, having never been there, using only Regina’s photos as a guide,” Kevin Chayer said.

For his next project, Carter hopes to take that skill with detail, internal as well as external, to the next level.

“I’ve been looking at pictures of an old gristmill in Raleigh,” he said. “I’m trying to find me some pictures of the inside of a gristmill, so I can see how the millstone itself is pulled, by the sprockets, gears and pulleys,” he said. “I’m wanting to build me an old-timey one.”

“I just enjoy doing this, and if it puts a smile on someone’s face or puts a little joy in their heart, that’s what’s important.”

His rendering of the Artists Bridge certainly did that for the Chayers.

“To us the Artists Bridge is a symbol of home,” Kevin said. “We believe he truly captured the feeling it gives us of being back in Bethel.”