You Dirty Rat
Deer Lodge, Montana
2024
Another odd display at the Old Montana State Prison, this one in a dark, dreary isolation cell.
You Dirty Rat
Deer Lodge, Montana
2024
Another odd display at the Old Montana State Prison, this one in a dark, dreary isolation cell.
Any idea of who the human face belongs to? I suspect a political statement implied but without recognizing the face, the comment loses its impact. Happy Fourth!
I don’t really know who, if anyone, it was meant to represent. But when I first saw it, I immediately thought of G. W. Bush, but the hairline doesn’t look right for him. There was a time when many people thought he should maybe be in jail. Now though, he seems like someone from the halcyon days of U.S. politics.
An addendum: The Fashion Queen did a little research on this and found out the face is that of Jerry Myles, an infamous perennial convict at the Montana State Prison who spent much time in solitary in the cell where the sculpture now resides. Myles received national attention when he helped lead a riot that controlled the prison for 36 hours before the Montanan National Guard stormed the prison to retake control. The sculpture is called the Rat Man, the nickname Myles acquired after spending so much time in the rat-infested, dark solitary cells in the basement of the north guard tower. The Rat Man artist is none other than Chris Ricardo, an alumni of the Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts in Helena, Montana and until recently the Executive Director of the Holter Museum of Art, also in Helena.